Chapter 72 — The Land Around the Castle

Chapter 72: Chapter 72 — The Land Around the Castle

Chapter 72 — The Land Around the Castle

Thunder left the road before Christopher finished warning her, crossing the first meadow in three long bounds, opening her wings and clearing the stream without touching the water. Christopher followed on horseback with Walter beside him. The young dragon remained visible between the pale trees, so Walter kept pace instead of urging Christopher to close the distance.

Godfrey was still on the road from Griffin City, and Christopher used the quiet days to inspect more of the land around the Knight castle. Thunder had pushed the same demand through their bond every morning: hunt.

The small plane remained mild. Wind moved across green-brown grass, carrying the scent of damp earth and distant water. Winter existed beyond the hidden gate, but no frost marked the road leading west from the Knight Castle.

They passed the wild orchard before midmorning, where old vines covered the broken press and fallen fruit lay beneath the trees.

Walter slowed his horse. Thunder had already stopped beyond the trees, staring back at them.

"She appears impatient."

"She has been patient for almost a minute."

Thunder snapped her wings open.

Walter continued down the road. "That may be a record."

Beyond the orchard, the old paving descended through open grass. Christopher had seen this road from the broken wall weeks earlier, and from above it had appeared short; riding it revealed long bends cut into the slope and places where roots had lifted the stones.

The sea flashed between the hills.

Thunder slowed when unfamiliar scents reached her, lowering her head and moving along the road rather than leaving it. Through the bond Christopher felt curiosity sharpen into hunger.

Tracks crossed a patch of wet ground ahead: split hooves, several animals, moving toward the coast.

Walter dismounted to examine them. "Deer. This morning."

Thunder already knew, and she moved into the grass with her body low.

Christopher tied his horse beside the road. "We follow on foot."

"She will outrun us."

"She always outruns us."

They heard the deer before seeing them, hooves striking stone somewhere below. Thunder burst from the grass, driving three animals away from the open beach and back toward the low ridge, choosing the smallest adult rather than the fawn following it.

The deer turned sharply. Thunder tried to follow with her wings half open, lost footing in loose sand and rolled once across the slope.

Christopher felt outrage before pain. She regained her feet, sand covering one side of her scales, and lunged again. The deer reached a narrow channel filled with shallow water. Thunder jumped, landed across its back and ended the chase with one bite.

Walter reached the channel first. "She still needs to learn where the ground changes."

Thunder raised her head, sand clinging to her muzzle.

"You fell," Christopher said.

The ground moved.

"It was sand."

Bad ground.

Walter crouched beside the deer. "Clean kill."

Thunder accepted that judgment and began eating.

Christopher walked past the channel while she fed.

The sheltered bay curved between two rocky arms. Pale sand covered the upper shore, but the ground nearer the water flattened into broad terraces divided by low stone walls. Several walls had collapsed; others still formed shallow rectangular basins, connected to the sea by narrow channels.

The structures were too regular to be natural.

Christopher stepped onto the nearest wall. White crust filled cracks sheltered from the previous tide. He touched it, rubbed the grains between his fingers and tasted one.

Salt.

Walter joined him after checking Thunder’s kill. "You knew what it was before tasting it."

"I suspected."

"You also suspected the grapes were edible."

"They were."

"After you ate one without Mabel."

Christopher scraped more crystals from the stone. "This one is definitely salt."

Walter tasted a grain and looked across the terraces. "They may be old salt pans."

"You have seen them?"

"I saw smaller ones on the western coast during the war. Armed guild men kept soldiers away from the channels. I know seawater enters shallow basins and the sun does the rest. I never saw how they cleaned the salt."

Christopher ran a hand along the broken channels, a grudging respect for whoever had built them settling in slow. He understood the broad idea well enough, but producing clean salt would take more than filling a basin and waiting it out.

"Varenne buys most of its salt," Christopher said.

"From coastal kingdoms, northern mines and merchants who become offended whenever anyone asks about their price."

"Dragonwatch might be able to produce its own."

Christopher descended into the first basin, the mud reaching his ankles. A thin white line marked the stones where water had recently stood.

"We use it ourselves first. Meat, fish, hides, winter stores."

"That alone would be worthwhile."

"First we inspect the sheds and the castle records. Then we test one pan."

They followed the main channel to the water, where a wooden gate had once controlled the flow; only blackened posts remained. Walter tested the stone with his heel. Parts of the channel floor were sound, while other sections had cracked where roots entered from the bank.

Thunder finished half the deer and dragged the remainder toward them. Christopher stopped her before she pulled it through the salt channel.

"Not there."

She changed direction and took it onto the beach. Waves reached toward her foreclaws and withdrew. Thunder watched the movement, then struck the next wave with one foot.

Water splashed across her chest.

She jumped backward.

Christopher laughed.

Thunder’s indignation flooded the bond. She bit at the water when it returned and received a mouthful of brine, her head snapping up. She spat, shook herself and glared at the sea.

Bad water.

"Very salty."

Bad.

Walter turned away, but his shoulders moved.

Thunder charged the next wave, apparently convinced that beating it would improve its taste, and sent spray over both men with one stroke of her wings.

Christopher wiped water from his face. "You are carrying the deer home yourself."

Thunder did not care.

They kept to the sheltered bay alone; Christopher refused to push past the southern rocks without supplies and scouts behind him. They found the remains of two storage sheds above the tide line, both roofless. Broken clay tiles lay beneath one; the other contained a stone hearth and a drainage trench.

Someone had worked salt here long before the small plane was sealed.

Above the shore stood a line of stone posts stained where iron hooks had once been fixed, and a broken road branched north and south around the bay. Christopher climbed the nearest rise but stopped at its crest. The coast continued beyond sight. Dark shapes moved in the northern shallows, too distant for his Dragon Eyes to examine safely, while white birds circled rocks to the south.

"Another expedition," Walter said.

Christopher agreed. They had brought supplies for a hunt rather than a long coastal survey, so they marked the junction with stacked stones and returned to the pans.

Christopher counted six pans worth repairing, by his eye — four of those small enough to risk on an early trial. Restoring every terrace on the hillside, though, would eat more hands than he had to spare from everything else already underway.

"The workers will begin with the castle, fields and orchard," Walter said.

"Send four workers first. Increase them to six when the channels are ready. The others remain at the castle and orchard."

"They will need shelter if they stay more than a day."

"Repair one shed for tools and shelter. The workers return to the castle each night."

Walter nodded, and they returned to the pans.

They filled two small cloth bags with the crust gathered from dry walls. It was dirty and mixed with sand, useful as proof rather than food. Christopher also corked a bottle of seawater for Mabel and the cooks to pick apart.

Thunder stood over the uneaten portion of the deer when Christopher called her back to the road.

"Bring it or leave it."

Mine.

"Then you carry it."

She seized the carcass across the shoulders and followed them away from the beach.

The climb back took longer because of the rising road. The horses carried the salt samples while Thunder carried the deer without slowing, occasionally moving ahead of them, dropping the carcass long enough to investigate a scent, then picking it up again before Christopher and Walter caught her.

When the orchard came into view, Thunder sent Christopher a firm impression of the remaining meat divided between herself and Dragonwatch.

"You already ate half."

Our food, she replied, placing herself first in that arrangement.

They stopped at the orchard long enough to fill two small baskets. Some vines carried dark grapes despite years without care, and Christopher tasted one and felt the fatigue in his legs ease.

Walter eyed him. "Magical?"

"There is Essence in it. We take samples to Mabel before anyone eats more."

They marked the press, the road to the coast, and the first four salt pans on Christopher’s rough map. The workers coming from Griffin City would have more than enough to do, but the land could support them.

Back at the Knight castle, Thunder dropped the deer in the yard and claimed most of it. Christopher cut a smaller portion for Dragonwatch and packed the fruit and crude salt into separate bags.

That evening, Bennet examined the salt beneath a lamp.

"Can the old pans still work?" he asked.

"The channels need clearing and several gates need replacing. The stone beds are still there."

"Search the service records first," Bennet said. "If the old workers left instructions, Owen can follow them when the new hands arrive. We buy too much salt from the south to waste the chance."

Mabel tested a grape but refused to judge it after one taste. She kept the fruit for later examination and warned Christopher not to let the workers strip the orchard.

Christopher added the coast and orchard to the work waiting beyond the hidden gate. The Knight castle had fields, timber, fruit, salt and herds of magical beasts. People had become the limiting resource.

Godfrey was already bringing those people north.