Chapter 267: Temporary Alliance

Chapter 267: Chapter 267: Temporary Alliance

The visitor came out of the marsh at the gray hour before dawn, alone, carrying a white cloth on a spear.

Barney saw her first. He was standing watch on the western rampart with his hammer across his shoulders and his little fire elemental curled on the stone beside him, and he straightened so quickly that the elemental woke with a startled puff of sparks. A single figure was crossing the mile of open ground between the hill and the marsh, moving slowly, deliberately, with her free hand held high and open. The pale cloth hung limp on its shaft in the windless cold.

"Boss," said Barney, over his shoulder, in a low voice. "We’ve got company."

Rowan was already climbing the rampart. He had not slept. None of them had. All night, the hundred had worked by lantern light, packing clay into the wall, planting rows of living thorn, digging a trench along the southern approach, and the half-finished fortress that had risen on the hilltop looked, in the thin gray light, like the skeleton of something enormous. Dust coated his coat. His hands were raw. The Enchanted Straw Hat sat crooked on his head.

He stopped beside Barney and looked.

"One person," said Mirei, from the wall beside him. She had dropped out of the dark and was crouched on the stone with her bow loose in her hand and Zephyr whirling a small, wary eddy around her shoulders. "No weapon I can see. Maybe a knife at the belt." Her eyes narrowed. "She’s from the Homestead. That’s their colors."

"A truce?"

"Looks like it."

"Or a trick."

"Could be both," said Mirei.

Rowan watched the figure approach. She walked with a long, steady, patient gait, the stride of someone who had spent her life crossing difficult ground, and she did not hurry. When she reached the foot of the hill, she stopped, planted the spear in the earth, and waited, with her hand still raised.

"I will go down," said Rowan.

"Boss..." said Barney.

"If she wanted to kill me, she’d have sent more than one." He tipped his hat, took the hoe from his shoulder, and started down the slope. "Keep the wall."

She was younger than he expected.

Perhaps twenty-eight, small and lean, with the hard, spare look of someone who had never had enough of anything. Her coat was patched leather, sewn from many different hides, and lined with some coarse gray fur. Her boots were thick-soled and worn to the shape of her feet. A short, curved knife hung at her belt. Her skin was pale and windburned, her hair a cropped, dirty brown, and her eyes were the color of frost on a winter window: pale, clear, and very tired.

She looked at him for a long moment without speaking.

"You are the one in the hat," she said, at last, in careful, accented Common.

"I am."

"The farmer."

"Gardener." He smiled slightly. "Rowan Vance."

"Odalys Fenn." She did not offer her hand. "Reeve of the Last Homestead. Speaker for our delegation." She paused. "I have come to talk."

"I gathered."

"I will be brief. I have an hour, perhaps less." Her gaze flicked past him, up the slope, to the half-built walls and the thin, dark figures moving along them. "You have been busy."

"We try."

"It is good work. Stone, clay, and thorn. A defender’s fortress." Something flickered across her weathered face. "Better than anything we have built. We do not build, on the Homestead. There is nothing to build with. We dig, and we hide."

Rowan said nothing. He waited.

Odalys Fenn drew a long breath, and her shoulders squared, as if she were about to step off a cliff.

"The Crystal Court marches on my Beacon," she said. "They will arrive at dawn. They are many, and they are strong, and they do not mean to stop." Her voice did not waver. "The Deepwatch moves on yours. Together. We watched them meet at the river. We heard what they planned."

"You heard it?"

"We are quiet people." A faint, dry smile touched her mouth. "It is the only skill we have."

Rowan considered her. In the east, the first thin line of light was creeping over the peaks, and the gray was turning to pearl.

"So you know," he said.

"I know that two worlds have decided to end this Round by breaking the two weakest. I know that I stand on one side of that bargain, and you on the other." She tilted her head. "And I know that neither of us, alone, will last the morning."

In the sky above the valley, the Strength Registry still hung, dim and silent, five columns of numbers burning in the dawn.

PROXIMA CENTAURI B (LAST HOMESTEAD) — Aggregate Combat Rating: 3,127

EARTH 1078 — Aggregate Combat Rating: 1,946

Odalys glanced up at it, and her mouth twisted.

"Three thousand," she said. "And nineteen hundred. Five thousand together." She shook her head. "The Court alone has six and a half. The Deepwatch five. Alone, either could crush us. Together..." She stopped.

"I’ve done the arithmetic," said Rowan.

"Then you understand why I am here."

"You want an alliance."

"A temporary one." She said the word as if testing the weight of a coin. "Until the Round ends. I do not expect friendship. I do not expect trust. I expect only this: that the two weakest worlds in the arena, who are about to be slaughtered by the strongest, stand together, and see whether together is more than alone."

Rowan was silent for a while.

He looked past her, across the marsh, at the long, thin line of mist drifting over the reeds. He looked at the hill behind him, at the wall, at Voss and the Baltic brothers, and the hundred gray-coated figures working in the half-light. He looked, last of all, at the small, hard, exhausted woman in front of him, and something in his chest, quiet and clear, settled into place.

"What do you have?" he said.

She blinked. "What?"

"Your delegation. What can they do?" He tipped his hat back. "I’ll tell you what I have, and you tell me what you have, and we’ll see if there’s a fit. I’m not interested in a gesture, Reeve. If we do this, we do it properly."

For a heartbeat, she stared at him. Then something eased in her face, a small, tight loosening, like a fist unclenching.

"A hundred," she said. "Hunters, mostly. Trappers. Miners from the deep tunnels. We are used to cold, and dark, and very little air. We are not strong, but we are patient." She hesitated. "We are very good at traps."

"Traps."

"Snares. Pits. Deadfalls. Hidden blades. Tripwires of ice and bone." The faint smile returned. "The Homestead is a hard place. Everything that lives on it is either a hunter or a hunted. We learn early to be both."

Rowan’s eyebrows rose. "How good?"

"Good enough that no one in the Cycle has ever crossed our territory without losing a third of their number."

"Hm."

"We also have healers. Few. And archers." She spread her hands. "We do not have walls. We do not have earth-shapers. We do not have anything like this." Her eyes lifted to the half-finished fortress on the hill. "That is why I came to you."

Rowan looked at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he began to grin.

"Reeve Fenn," he said, "I think you may be the best thing that’s happened to me all week."

They talked for ten minutes, crouched in the dust at the foot of the hill, with a sheet of Clara’s paper spread between them and a stub of pencil passing from hand to hand.

It was an odd, quick, careful negotiation. Odalys spoke in short, flat sentences, with the clipped economy of a woman who had never wasted a word. Rowan answered in kind. Clara, hunched at his elbow, sketched the arrangement of the two territories, the marsh, the hill, the river, the long, empty basin between. Over their heads, the sky brightened by degrees from gray to pearl to pale gold.

"The Crystal Court strikes the Homestead from the north," said Odalys, tapping the paper. "Here. Through the reed-beds. The ground is soft. They will not bring their heavy units. Light infantry, and mages."

"And the Deepwatch comes up the river from the south," said Rowan. "To the foot of my hill."

"The river is wide. The banks are low. They will land in force, and they will push upward."

"So both worlds are attacked at once, from opposite directions."

"Yes."

"And neither can reinforce the other."

"Not in the first hour." Odalys’s finger moved along the line of the marsh. "But there is the river. And there is the reed-bed. And the ground between our Beacons is only three miles."

Rowan stared at the sketch. Something was forming in the back of his mind, slow and quiet, like a seed pushing through dark earth.

"They’ve split their forces," he said, softly. "Two prongs. Each one aimed at a single target. Each one needing to break a single Beacon." He glanced up. "If we can hold both for long enough..."

"The Old Throne comes."

"The Old Throne comes." He nodded slowly. "They’re already moving on the Court. If the Court is tied up against you, and the Deepwatch is tied up against me, neither can turn around and defend."

Odalys Fenn drew a sharp breath. Her frost-pale eyes widened.

"You mean to let them fight," she said.

"I mean to let them hit a wall," said Rowan. "And then let someone else hit them."

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

Then Odalys Fenn let out a single, short, astonished laugh. It was dry and cracked and almost startled, as though it had been a very long time since she had made the sound.

"You are mad," she said.

"A little."

"You are also, I think, right."

"That’s the plan."

She studied him with new, sharpened attention, like a hunter eyeing a stranger’s trap. Then, very slowly, she extended her hand.

"Terms," she said. "I will say them plainly, so that no one is deceived."

"Please."

"The alliance lasts until the Round resolves. The Tower does not recognize it. If a Beacon falls, it falls. There will be no shared points, no shared survival." Her voice was flat. "If it comes down to the last slot, to a choice between your world and mine, I will not pretend I will not choose my own."

Rowan met her eyes. He did not look away.

"I understand," he said. "And I’d rather you said it now."

"So you would do the same."

"I’d hope not." He smiled slightly. "But I’d rather not promise what I’m not sure I can keep."

She nodded. It was a short, hard, respectful nod, the nod of a woman who had just heard something she approved of.

"Then we have a bargain," she said.

He took her hand. It was small, calloused, and cold as iron.

"Temporary alliance," said Rowan.

"Temporary alliance," said Odalys Fenn.

They parted without ceremony.

She turned and walked back into the marsh, and the mist swallowed her in a dozen steps. Rowan stood at the foot of the hill, watching the place where she had been, until Barney’s voice drifted down from the rampart.

"Boss?"

"Yes."

"Did you just team up with a world we don’t know?"

"I did."

"Is that a good idea?"

"I don’t know," said Rowan, honestly. "But I think it’s the only one we have."

He climbed the hill. Behind him, the sun cleared the eastern peaks, and the whole basin ignited in gold. Far to the south, small and bright against the shimmering river, a line of dark specks was moving steadily upstream, and a thin, glittering haze of mist rose around them.

"They’re early," said Mirei, from the rampart.

"They always are."

"How long?"

"Half an hour." He reached the top, and stood for a moment with his hand on the stone, feeling the long, deep, patient pulse of the ground under his palm. Around him, the hundred had stopped working. They stood along the wall, watching him, their faces pale and set, their weapons held loose in their hands.

"Everyone," said Rowan. "Listen."

The silence deepened.

"We have a friend," he said. "A small one. A quiet one. But a friend." He lifted his eyes to the south, where the first dark shapes were rising out of the water. "She’s going to hold the north. We’re going to hold the south. And in a few hours, someone very strong is going to arrive, and I’d like them to find two walls instead of two corpses."

A thin, ragged sound ran through the ranks, almost a laugh.

"Roots," said Rowan, softly. "Rain. Fence. Sun."

He planted the hoe’s blade in the soil of the rampart.

"Let’s work."