Chapter 18 — The First Morning

Chapter 18: Chapter 18 — The First Morning

Chapter 18 — The First Morning

"How many men are occupying the fortress?" Ivo asked.

Godfrey stood over the rough map Simon had drawn in the dirt. "We saw one, but there were several sets of boots and twelve bedrolls."

Ivo frowned at the blank passage on Simon’s map. "Then we plan for all twelve."

The inspection party had returned shortly before noon. Word of the crossbow bolt had already passed through the camp, despite Christopher telling the apprentices not to frighten the settlers, and people kept looking toward Dragonwatch while they worked. Even the children had stopped wandering beyond the wagons.

Simon marked the outer gate, the two courtyards and the barracks where they had found the bedrolls. Everything beyond the rear passage remained blank.

"There were twelve sleeping places," he said. "Some could be old."

"Assume they are not," Godfrey replied.

The plan was simple. Ivo would take four apprentices around the western wall and watch for anyone climbing down or leaving through a hidden opening. Simon and Adam would watch the eastern side. Walter would enter through the main gate with six apprentices, and Godfrey and Christopher would follow them.

"You could stay here," Godfrey told Christopher.

Godfrey’s tone left little room for argument.

"If we take the fortress, I should be there."

"Then you stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you run."

Christopher nodded.

Godfrey studied him for another moment. "Say it."

"I will stay behind you, and I will run if you tell me."

"Good. Remember it once we are inside."

Bennet was left in charge of the camp. Mabel remained with Peter and the other injured men, while Bram stayed near the wagons with a wood axe over one shoulder, watching the armed party prepare to leave.

"I can fight," Bram said.

"I know," Christopher told him. "But I need someone strong here."

Bram’s eyes moved to the fortress, then to the families gathered among the wagons. "Here."

"Here."

That appeared to satisfy him.

Walter’s group entered Dragonwatch first. Two apprentices carried bows with arrows ready, while the others held shields and spears. The dead warthogs remained where they had fallen; flies had not found them yet in the cold, but blood had spread darkly between the paving stones.

The ordinary animals shifted inside the blocked stall. One of the young squealed when the men passed.

The walls stayed quiet.

They crossed the first courtyard and stopped before the repaired barracks. Walter kicked the door fully open. The common room was empty. Someone had removed the sack of oats, but the bedrolls remained.

Godfrey pointed to the gallery where the lookout had appeared. Two apprentices climbed the stairs while Walter covered them. Christopher waited beneath the doorway with his hand on Edmund’s sword.

The first apprentice reached the top.

"The gallery is clear," the first apprentice called.

The second checked behind the pillars. "Clear."

They found a loaded crossbow resting beside an open window. The lookout had abandoned it rather than carry it through the fortress.

Godfrey studied the rear passage. "They know we returned with more men."

"Then they may already have escaped through another gate," Christopher said.

"If they had an easy way out, Ivo would see them."

They entered the passage in two lines. Walter led with a shield, followed by three apprentices. Christopher walked between Godfrey and the remaining men.

The air grew colder as they moved away from the courtyards. Several doors opened into empty storerooms. Broken shelves covered the floors, and damp had blackened the remains of old wooden chests, though the stone ceilings showed no sign of collapse.

At the first crossing, Godfrey stopped them.

Soft footsteps sounded ahead.

A stone struck the wall behind Christopher.

It shattered, releasing a cloud of gray powder.

"Back!" Godfrey pulled his cloak over his mouth.

Christopher’s eyes burned. Walter dragged one apprentice away from the thickest part of the cloud while the others retreated around the corner. Their attackers stayed hidden.

"Lime," Walter said after the dust began to settle. His voice was rough. "Maybe ash mixed with it."

"They’re buying time," Godfrey replied.

Christopher wiped his watering eyes. The fumes were ordinary smoke and still dangerous in a closed room.

Godfrey sent one apprentice back for wet cloths, and they waited rather than charging blind through the powder. By the time they continued, the footsteps were gone.

The passage ended in a narrow service yard between the barracks and the inner wall. A wooden shed occupied one side, its doors standing open to reveal bundles, three saddles and several travel packs piled near the entrance.

"They meant to take those," Simon called from the wall above.

Christopher looked up. The scout had moved from his eastern position along a surviving section of walkway.

"Movement behind you," Simon warned.

The bandits came from the shed and the doorway opposite it at the same time.

The first man carried a sword and wore mail beneath his coat. Knight Essence darkened the blade as he struck Walter’s shield. The Bronze Knight took the blow, turned it aside and drove forward.

Two more men rushed the apprentices, one with an axe, the other with a short spear who moved faster than an ordinary fighter.

"Three Black Iron!" Godfrey shouted.

He met the spearman before the man reached the line. Their weapons struck once, and Godfrey’s silver-lit blade cut through the spear shaft and entered the man’s chest.

The fight broke apart around Christopher.

An arrow passed over his shoulder and hit the shed. A bandit with a club charged from the doorway, saw Godfrey wrenching his sword free, and changed direction toward Christopher.

Christopher drew Edmund’s sword.

The man slowed when he saw it, perhaps expecting another ranked Knight, and that hesitation gave an apprentice time to strike him behind the knee with a spear. The bandit fell, and Christopher put the point of his sword against the man’s throat.

"Drop the club and keep your hands where I can see them."

The club hit the ground.

To Christopher’s left, Walter and the mail-clad fighter traded two more blows. The bandit was Black Iron, but his strength could not match a Bronze Knight; Walter struck his sword aside and slammed the rim of his shield into the man’s face. When the fighter staggered, Walter cut him across the thigh.

"Yield," Walter said.

The man tried to raise his sword again.

Walter knocked him down and kicked the weapon out of reach.

The third Black Iron fighter shoved one of his own men into an apprentice’s spear and ran through a low arch at the end of the yard. Two others followed him.

Simon jumped from the last few steps of the wall stair and chased them as far as the arch.

"Drain tunnel!" he shouted.

Godfrey reached him and looked into the opening. Water ran through a channel in the floor; the tunnel was wide enough for a man to crouch inside, but not to fight comfortably.

"Leave them. The tunnel favors whoever waits around the bend."

"I can still follow their tracks through the water."

"And they can wait around the first bend with a spear."

Simon spat into the drain but stepped away.

The rest of the fight ended quickly. Two bandits lay dead beside the shed, along with the Black Iron spearman Godfrey had killed. Six others had dropped their weapons. Walter’s opponent sat against the wall with his wounded leg bound by a strip torn from his own cloak.

One apprentice had a cut across his palm. Another had been struck in the ribs with a club and claimed he could still breathe, though not without swearing.

Godfrey counted the prisoners, the bodies and the tracks in the wet drain.

"There were twelve. Three escaped through the drain."

Christopher’s attention caught on the dead man who had been pushed into the spear. The Black Iron fighter had sacrificed him without even looking back.

"Tie the prisoners," Christopher said.

"We were only watching," one of them said. He was young, maybe no older than Edwin. "We didn’t raid your wagons."

Walter pulled the man’s arms behind him. "You fired a crossbow at our scout."

"That was Corby."

"Then you may tell us which one Corby is later."

Inside the shed they found bundles of dried food, spare bowstrings, lamp oil and a small chest containing mixed copper and silver, none of it enough to support twelve men for long. Beneath one saddle, Simon found folded scraps of parchment.

The drawings were crude, but Christopher recognized roads, villages and noble crests. Beside each mark were numbers of wagons, horses and armed men. House Drake’s winged serpent had been drawn near the old village where the convoy had camped.

They had been watched before reaching the valley.

"Who are you reporting to?" Christopher asked.

The prisoners stared at the ground.

Godfrey folded the parchments. "Not here."

The fortress had more rooms to search, the escaped men might circle back, and hundreds of people still waited outside. Christopher let Godfrey fold the parchments.

It took the rest of the afternoon to inspect the accessible surface buildings. They found no more bandits. Several inner doors had been barred from the other side and then abandoned. The deepest stairs ended beneath fallen stone, while the drain tunnel opened through the western slope beyond Ivo’s position. By the time he discovered it, the three fugitives had disappeared among the trees.

Godfrey declared the outer fortress secure enough to occupy, and Christopher ordered the convoy inside.

Near sunset, the first wagons passed through the open gate. Families stared at the walls as they entered. Some looked relieved. Others saw the broken roofs, dead weeds and blood in the courtyard and became very quiet.

The two Tier One warthogs were butchered before darkness fell. Magical-beast meat sold for good silver farther south, but the nearest buyer was days away, so they kept it for the settlement.

Christopher ordered a piece included in every person’s evening meal.

The portions were small. Mabel warned that children and people unused to magical-beast meat should not eat too much at once. Even so, the rich meat settled the hunger that had followed the convoy for days. Meg ate hers slowly beside her mother and Elsie. Bram finished his portion in two bites and watched the cooking fires until Martha gave him another piece.

The Knights and apprentices received more; their trained bodies could make better use of it.

Christopher ate beside the wall rather than at a separate table. The meat was tougher than pork and carried a strange warmth that remained in his stomach after he swallowed.

Two dead beasts had fed hundreds of people without emptying their remaining grain.

Hunting could help them once they found an experienced tracker. Walter and Ivo could lead short parties in turns while the other guarded Dragonwatch. Christopher added a hunter to the list of people they needed.

His eyes moved over the damaged buildings. Several houses needed roofs. The drains needed clearing. The well had to be tested, livestock separated from sleeping areas, firewood gathered and food stored somewhere dry. Every problem seemed to uncover three more.

One long wall faced south and still received the last weak light of the day. A greenhouse could be built against it. Christopher knew glass trapped warmth — or thought it did — but he did not know the right angle for the roof, how much glass they would need, or what could survive a northern winter inside it.

Gunpowder crossed his mind next. He remembered charcoal, sulfur and salt-something. His incomplete memory made any experiment beside damaged wooden roofs too dangerous, and he pushed the thought aside.

Tomorrow he would ask Bennet, the farmers and the carpenters which houses could be repaired first. After that, he would learn what they needed before winter.

His people ate inside the walls that night. Christopher slept in the small stone house with a bucket beneath the worst leak.