Chapter 172: Rounds of the Gates

The sixth day began with a question no one wanted to ask out loud.

Where was the strike team?

The sun had been up for an hour. The single tusk was still rising and falling on the horizon, closer than it had been at dusk. And the treeline was empty.

No one had come out of the forest.

Encrid stood at the map table on the Fifth Bastion and forced himself to think about something else.

It was not easy.

But thinking about the strike team would not bring them back any faster. And there was something else he needed to think about.

The Elder was still walking, even though it had slowed down considerably.

It had lost a tusk. It had been hurt badly enough to scream. But it was still coming toward the Wall, and if it kept its pace, it would reach the edge of the forest some time tomorrow.

And if it reached the Wall, it would not hit the Wall at random

Encrid looked down at the map.

Four black squares marked the four great gates of the northern face. The Western Gate. The Eastern Gate. The Main Gate, where the largest road through the Wall began. And the Center.

Last night, the Ironbacks had walked straight toward the gates.

They had not been looking for the lowest part of the Wall or the weakest section. They had gone to the places where the stone was already broken by doors. The places where a hole already existed, only waiting to be opened wider.

If the Ironbacks had known that, the Elder would know it too.

Encrid picked up his coat.

"Corr. I’m going to walk the gates."

Corr looked up from the tally board.

"All four, my lord? That will take you most of the morning."

"I know."

"May I ask why?"

"Because if the Elder reaches us," Encrid said, "it will reach us at a gate. And I want to know what every gate on this Wall will do when it does."

✧ ✧ ✧

He went to the Western Gate first.

It had been Garrick Dane’s gate for twenty-six years. Now it belonged to a stocky, square-jawed captain named Dael, who met Encrid at the foot of the gate tower with his helmet under his arm.

"Watcher." Dael’s voice was clipped. "Any word from the Commander?"

"Not yet."

Dael nodded once, as if he had expected that answer.

Encrid walked the gate with him. The great doors were closed, barred with three beams of iron-bound oak. Behind them, the portcullis stood lowered, its points buried in the stone of the passage floor.

"If something very large pushes on these doors," Encrid said, "how long will they hold?"

Dael thought about it.

"Against a Gorehorn? All day. Against an Ironback? An hour. Against that?"

He looked north, toward the single tusk.

"I don’t know."

"Then brace them," Encrid said. "Timber from the Works. Stone behind the timber. Fill the passage between the doors and the portcullis if you have to."

"That will close the gate for good. We won’t be able to open it again for a few weeks or months."

"Don’t worry, we are not going to be opening it anytime soon."

Dael considered that. Then he nodded.

"I’ll have it done by noon."

✧ ✧ ✧

The Eastern Gate was next.

Halvic Ostrand was sitting on an upturned crate at the top of the gate tower, eating a heel of bread. Pell sat beside him with his counting board on his knees. When Encrid came up the stairs, Ostrand did not stand. He only nodded toward a second crate.

"Your order came through yesterday," he said. "The one with my name on the bottom."

"I hope you don’t mind."

"I mind that it took the Council two hundred years to notice that tired men die faster." Ostrand took another bite of bread. "I don’t mind my name on it."

Encrid told him about the gates.

Ostrand listened, chewing. When Encrid finished, he wiped his hands on his coat and stood up.

"I’ve been bracing mine since last night," he said. "I watched those Ironbacks walk. They weren’t going anywhere by accident."

He looked at Encrid for a moment.

"You thought the same thing."

"I did."

"Good." Ostrand sat back down. "Then I’m not getting old."

✧ ✧ ✧

At the Main Gate, Serapha Lund was arguing with the Vice-Commander.

They were standing at the foot of the gate tower, and they stopped when they saw Encrid coming. Coris Danel looked tired. Serapha Lund looked politely annoyed.

"The Vice-Commander does not wish to brace the Main Gate," Lund said.

"The Main Gate is how the Wall is supplied with roamer cores," Danel said. "If we fill the passage with stone, nothing comes into the Wall."

"Nothing needs to come in from the North," Encrid said. "There’s nothing north of us but the horde. Attempting to gather the cores in middle of the horde would be a suicide."

Danel opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.

"You’re right," he said finally. He sounded almost surprised. "I’ve been looking at the gate as a road. I forgot it was a door."

"Then brace it," Lund said.

"Brace it," Danel agreed.

✧ ✧ ✧

The Center Gate was the last.

It stood about a mile east of the Fifth Bastion. It was smaller than the Main Gate but older, with two squat towers on either side of a deep passage. Behind it, on the inner side, a wide cobbled courtyard opened onto the streets of the Shambles.

Wilm Trask met Encrid at the courtyard with a wide smile and flour on his coat.

"Watcher! Come to see how the other half lives?"

"I came to see your gate."

"Well, you’re welcome to it. Mind the mess. Sorry about that." Trask waved a big hand at the courtyard, where sacks of bread from the kitchens were stacked beside the tower door. "Your bread comes up twice a day now, and my boys have decided they like it. I can’t get them to leave it alone."

"That’s the idea."

"I know it is. And I’m grateful. I’d been telling the Council for years that my lads fight better fed." Trask laughed. "Nobody listened to me, of course. It took Ostrand’s name on the bottom of the page. Who’s going to argue with Ostrand?"

He walked Encrid through the gate passage. It was clean and well kept. The portcullis was lowered. The great doors were barred with four oak beams, each as thick as a man’s waist. In the winch room above the passage, the chains that raised the portcullis were oiled and neatly coiled.

"My men put six bolts into that Ironback last night," Trask said proudly. "Six! Didn’t even let it reach the stone. Nine days those machines sat there doing nothing, and then six bolts in a row!"

"You’ll need to brace the doors," Encrid said. "In case the Elder comes."

Trask’s smile faded a little.

"Is that likely, Watcher?"

"It’s possible."

Trask looked north, toward the forest. His big face grew serious.

"Any word from the Lord Commander?"

"Not yet."

Trask was quiet for a moment.

"He’ll come back," he said. "He always does. I’ve been on this Wall twenty-three years, and he’s always come back." He shook his head. "Sorry. That’s not the kind of thing you want to hear from a grown man, is it? Like a boy waiting for his father."

"It’s all right."

"I’ll brace the gate," Trask said. "Timber and stone. I’ll have it done by the evening bread."

He slapped Encrid on the shoulder. It was a friendly slap, heavy and warm.

"You go and get some sleep, Watcher. You look worse than I do, and that’s saying something."

✧ ✧ ✧

Encrid walked back along the inner road toward the Fifth Bastion.

It was a little before the eighth hour of the morning.

Three of the four gates would be braced by noon. The fourth by evening.

It was not enough to stop an Elder. Encrid knew that. Nothing on the Wall was enough to stop an Elder.

But it might slow it down.

And slowing it down might be enough to matter.

On the road ahead of him, a line of kitchen porters was coming up from the Shambles with sacks over their shoulders, heading for the parapets.

The morning bread.

Right on time.

✦ ✦ ✦