Chapter 181: The Vice-Commander

The Council chamber had never felt so empty.

It was the same long table of black oak. The same lamps. The same high windows looking north and the same sixteen chairs around the table, and one more pushed against the wall.

But the chair at the head of the table was empty.

And so were two others.

The chair of the First Watch, where Garrick Dane had sat for twenty-six years.

The chair of the Sixth Watch.

Nobody had moved Wilm Trask’s chair. Nobody wanted to touch it.

Dael sat in the First Watch’s place. He sat very straight and very stiff, like a man who knew the chair was not his.

A young captain of the Sixth Watch sat behind the Sixth Watch’s chair. He did not sit in it - even he had found it repulsive.

Kass’s seat was empty too. The healers had said he would live, but that he would not wake for at least two days.

Coris Danel sat at the head of the table.

He sat in his own chair, the Vice-Commander’s chair, which had been moved from its usual place on Ulrich’s right. He had not sat in the Lord Commander’s seat.

Encrid respected him for that.

"The Lord Commander is dead," Danel said.

His voice was steady. He had clearly practiced saying it.

"Under the Charter of the Wall, command passes to the Vice-Commander until the Council elects a successor. There is no time for an election. So I will command."

No one objected.

"Commander Dane is dead. Captain Kass is wounded and will not wake for days. Commander Trask," he paused, "is dead, by his own hand, after opening the Center Gate to the horde."

He looked around the table.

"I will not pretend that did not happen. I will not pretend we are not all thinking the same thing."

Every commander at the table was very still.

"Who else," Danel said. "That is what we are all thinking. I am thinking it too."

✧ ✧ ✧

While Danel spoke, Encrid watched.

He watched every face at the table. And one by one, as each commander spoke, he opened Appraisal.

It was not difficult. He had done it thousands of times. He had become very good at doing it without anyone noticing.

Halvic Ostrand spoke first. He said that the Third Watch had enough men to hold the eastern gate for two more days, perhaps three.

[ Condition: Exhaustion. Grief. ]

Tolm Bree spoke next. He gave the arrow counts, and the count of the dead, and the count of the men still able to stand.

[ Condition: Exhaustion. Fear. ]

Serapha Lund said that the Main Gate was braced and holding. That the ballista on its tower had killed two Talljacks during the night.

[ Condition: Grief. ]

Neriah Fold said that her Watch had lost another sixty men during the night, and that she had prayed for every one of them.

[ Condition: Exhaustion. Grief. Fear. ]

Bastian Ryn said that the Ninth Watch was the least damaged section on the Wall and could send men to the Eighth if they were needed.

[ Condition: Fear. ]

Erol Vask said nothing at all.

Encrid waited.

When Danel finally asked the Seventh Watch for its report, Vask looked up from the table.

"Seventh holds," he said.

That was all.

[ Condition: Exhaustion. ]

Encrid closed the window.

No one had lied.

Not one of them.

He did not know whether that made him feel better or worse.

Trask had not needed to lie either. For twenty-three years, he had only needed to wait. If someone else on the Wall was doing the same, they would not need to lie in a meeting about arrow counts.

Appraisal could catch their condition and feelings.

It could not catch silence.

✧ ✧ ✧

"The Elder," Danel said. "That is what matters now."

He looked at Encrid.

"Strategist. The Lord Commander bought us a day. How do we use it?"

Encrid had been waiting for the question.

He did not answer it immediately.

He thought about the last thing Ulrich had said to him in the dark of the Far-Watch passage. The stone is only stone. Don’t let them die for it if it can’t keep them alive.

He thought about saying it now.

He looked around the table. At Dael, sitting in a dead man’s chair. At Fold, with her lips still moving in prayer. At Ysolde, sitting with her arms folded, staring at the empty seat at the head of the table.

They had just lost the Lord Commander. They had lost Dane. They had lost Trask twice, once to the horde and once to their trust.

If Encrid stood up now and said the word abandon, they would not hear anything else he said.

Not today.

"We use it to prepare for both," Encrid said.

"Both?"

"For holding the Wall," Encrid said. "And for leaving it."

The table went silent.

"I’m not asking the Council to decide anything today," he continued before anyone could interrupt. "I’m asking the Council to let the Quartermastery and the Healers’ Hall do their work. Count the wagons. Count the wounded who can be moved. Clear the southern road. If the Wall holds, none of it will matter. If it doesn’t, we will not have time to do it later."

Danel looked at him for a long time.

"The Lord Commander would not have abandoned the Wall," he said.

"The Lord Commander walked out of it to buy you a day," Encrid said quietly. "He didn’t say what to use it for."

Danel’s jaw tightened.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

"Prepare," he said. "Quietly. The Council will decide nothing until-"

He stopped.

Everyone at the table stopped.

Encrid felt it a heartbeat before anyone else did. It came through Attunement first. Not movement. Not weight.

Something else.

It was like a shadow passing over the sun. Except that there was no shadow, and the lamps in the chamber did not flicker.

It was the feeling of being seen.

By something very large.

And very, very angry.

✦ ✦ ✦