Chapter 80 — Tracks from the Waste

Chapter 80: Chapter 80 — Tracks from the Waste

Chapter 80 — Tracks from the Waste

Adam found the campsite beneath a shelf of black stone.

Snow had filled the fire pit, but not completely. Charcoal remained beneath the white crust, and three strips of hide hung from a branch where the wind had frozen them stiff.

Simon dismounted farther down the slope and led his horse forward.

"Orcs?"

Adam pointed to a print beside the stones. The foot was broad, bare at the heel and wrapped across the front; human travellers did not cross the northern hills dressed that way in winter.

"How many?" Simon asked.

"More than six. Fewer than twenty."

They searched the edges without entering the center. Tracks crossed one another where the group had slept. Two smaller prints suggested young Gruks or adolescents, one walker dragged a spear butt, and another wore boots taken from a human.

The trail approached from the north and left toward the west. It did not turn south toward Dragonwatch.

Simon uncovered part of the fire pit with his knife. Ice had formed through the ash.

"Three days?"

"Four. The wind stopped yesterday."

Neither apprentice could judge Orc strength from prints alone. They marked the site, followed the western trail for half a mile and returned to Dragonwatch before dark.

Godfrey listened inside the gatehouse while Christopher stood beside the map table and Adam traced the route.

"They crossed the old northern patrol line here, camped under the ridge and continued west," Adam said. "No track turned toward the fortress."

"Did they hide the fire?" Godfrey asked.

"The stone concealed it from the south. They used little wood."

"Scouts or travellers?"

"We could not tell, Sir Godfrey."

Godfrey turned to Simon.

"The trail was orderly," Simon said. "No scattered hunting tracks. They knew where they were going."

Christopher studied the map. West of the campsite lay broken hills, old pasture and eventually lands claimed by northern houses. The trail could belong to survivors joining another clan, or just as easily to a new raiding party avoiding Dragonwatch.

"We inspect it," Godfrey said.

"How many?" Christopher asked.

"Myself, Bram, Simon and Adam. Four horses. One day out, one day back if the trail remains clear."

"Bram is still an apprentice."

"That is why he stays beside me and follows my orders."

Christopher agreed.

Bram received the order after supper and listened while Godfrey explained the route, then checked his warhammer and winter gear without asking whether the patrol was dangerous.

Godfrey stopped him before he entered the stable.

"Your place is where I put you. You do not chase. You do not leave the horses unless ordered. You do not test your strength against an Orc simply because you carry a large hammer."

"Stay where told."

"Yes."

"Do not chase."

"Yes."

"What do you do if Simon disappears over a ridge?"

Bram thought carefully. "Tell you."

"Good."

They left before dawn.

The storm had buried parts of Adam and Simon’s earlier route. The hounds could have followed the scent, but Christopher kept them at Dragonwatch, so the patrol relied on the apprentices’ markers and knowledge of the land.

Bram rode poorly compared with the others. His horse was strong enough to carry him, but he gripped with his knees whenever the path narrowed and made the animal nervous.

"Loosen," Godfrey said.

Bram loosened everything at once and nearly slid from the saddle.

"Not that much."

Adam hid a smile behind his scarf.

They reached the black-stone shelf before midday. No new tracks had entered the camp.

Godfrey dismounted and examined the ground, Bram following with his hammer across one shoulder.

"What do you see?" Godfrey asked.

Bram studied the prints. "Orcs."

"Simon already told you that."

Bram looked longer. "One limps."

Godfrey followed his gaze to a right footprint that sank more deeply at the heel and shortened every second stride.

"Good. What else?"

"Small ones."

"How many?"

Bram counted visible tracks and lost them where the snow hardened.

"Two. Maybe three."

Godfrey nodded. "This is not a war party."

Adam crouched near a discarded bone. "They carried little food."

The patrol followed the western trail.

At the first fork, Godfrey stopped.

"Choose," he told Simon.

Simon dismounted. The northern branch held deeper prints, but their edges had softened beneath fresh snow, while the western branch looked nearly empty until he found a broken stalk beside a stone.

"West, Sir Godfrey."

"Why?"

"The northern prints are older. Someone used that path before the latest snowfall. The stalk on the west broke afterward."

Godfrey glanced at Adam.

"West," Adam agreed. "There is hide fiber on the rock."

Bram stared at both paths.

"What do you see?" Godfrey asked him.

"Tracks north."

"Those are easier to see. That does not make them ours."

They took the western path, and a quarter mile later fresh Orc prints appeared where snow lay deeper. Simon had chosen correctly.

Godfrey gave no praise beyond a nod, but the apprentice sat straighter for the next mile.

Godfrey kept Bram behind Simon and ahead of Adam, forcing him to match another rider’s pace rather than choosing his own. Whenever the trail widened, Bram tried to move beside Godfrey, and the Knight sent him back with one gesture.

The route climbed through sparse forest. Several trees carried old cuts where northern patrols had marked direction, and the Orcs had noticed them: one mark had been scraped away, though the trail did not approach Dragonwatch afterward.

They found the remains of a northern watch hut near the ridge. Its roof had collapsed years earlier, and one wall leaned outward. The hearth contained old ash beneath newer animal droppings, and a rusted bell hung from a beam, cracked along one side.

Simon searched the floor and found a clay jar sealed with wax. The grain inside had spoiled, but the seal bore a crest Godfrey recognized as belonging to a minor northern house destroyed during the war.

"Do we take it?" Adam asked.

"The jar proves nothing Northgate does not know," Godfrey said. "Leave it."

They sheltered the horses behind the wall while eating. Bram examined the broken bell.

"Dragonwatch needs bells."

"Dragonwatch has bells," Simon said.

"More roads."

Godfrey understood: Bram meant warning posts along the northern approaches.

"A bell without men to guard it becomes Orc metal," he said. "First we need patrols able to reach the posts."

Bram released the bell.

The warning posts could wait until Dragonwatch had enough patrols to support them.

Near sunset, Simon found a second camp. No fire had been lit; the Orcs had sheltered between fallen trees and eaten frozen meat. A scrap of cured hide bore a rough symbol cut with a knife: three hooked lines around a broken circle.

Godfrey recognized no clan mark.

Adam found something else beneath the snow — a strip of wood with two lines carved in Orc script.

"Can you read it?" Christopher had asked Godfrey before departure.

Godfrey knew only battlefield commands and common symbols. He recognized the mark for death and one for stone or wall; the remaining cuts meant nothing to him.

"Take it," he said.

They camped without fire a mile farther west.

Bram ate quietly and watched the trees, his hands tightening around the hammer whenever a branch moved beyond the camp.

"Stop reaching for it," Godfrey said.

"I am not."

"You are."

Bram lowered his hands.

Godfrey sat across from him. "Fear makes you grip the weapon too early. If you answer every sound like an attack, you will be exhausted before a fight begins."

"How stop?"

"Notice it and loosen your hands. Save your strength until I give the order."

Bram breathed once and the tension eased.

Simon took first watch. Adam took second. Godfrey did not assign Bram alone.

Fresh deer tracks circled the camp after midnight. Something with four broad paws had followed the herd along the lower slope. Adam woke Godfrey and showed him the nearest print.

"Magical beast?" Adam whispered.

Godfrey crouched without touching it. The print was larger than a wolf’s and pressed deeply enough to show claws.

"Possibly. It did not approach us."

They moved camp before dawn rather than waiting to learn whether it returned.

The Orc trail descended into a sheltered valley on the second day. Here the snow thinned beneath trees, brown grass showing through along a stream, and several hoofed animals had dug for roots.

Adam stopped his horse.

"This should be frozen."

"The water moves quickly," Simon said.

"So does the northern stream near Dragonwatch. It carries ice."

Godfrey examined the ground. The air remained bitter, but the valley held less snow than the surrounding hills; it could be sunlight, shelter or a warm spring beneath the rocks.

"Mark it," he said. "We are following Orcs, not weather."

They found the final camp before noon. The group had joined a broader trail used by several Orc parties. Prints went west and northwest, and none turned south.

More carved scraps lay beside a cold fire. Godfrey recognized the same death mark and a rough shape resembling a tower with two figures above it.

Simon faced east. "Dragonwatch?"

"Perhaps."

Adam pointed to a line cut across the tower. "Avoid?"

"Or destroy. We do not know."

They searched until Godfrey found a human arrowhead near the edge of camp, matching neither Dragonwatch’s fletcher nor the Orc weapons recovered from the raid.

Another northern patrol had passed through recently.

"We turn back," he said.

Simon eyed the westward trail. "We could follow another day."

"And enter another lord’s land without knowing whose patrol left that arrow. We have learned what we came to learn."

The Orcs had moved away from Dragonwatch, and following them farther would add risk without protecting the fortress.

Bram watched the tracks disappear west. "No fight."

"Disappointed?" Godfrey asked.

"No."

The answer came slowly enough to be honest.

On the return journey, they heard movement behind them. Three shapes crossed the ridge between trees. Orcs.

Simon reached for his bow. Godfrey raised one hand.

The figures remained beyond reliable range. One carried a spear, another wore a fur cloak, and the third was smaller. They watched the mounted patrol for several breaths.

Bram tightened his grip on the warhammer.

"Hold," Godfrey said.

Bram held.

The Orcs withdrew west.

Godfrey waited before moving again. "That is why the trail turned."

"They know us?" Adam asked.

"They know mounted humans came from the east. Perhaps more."

The wooden scrap might indeed have warned of Dragonwatch, since survivors from the destroyed camp had carried news somewhere.

The patrol returned late on the third day rather than the second. Christopher met them inside the gate.

Before reporting, Godfrey ordered the horses rubbed down and examined. One had split a shoe on the return road, and Bram tried to leave with the others until Godfrey pointed toward the stable.

"Your horse carried you for three days."

Bram looked at the animal.

"Brush first. Report after."

He obeyed. Simon and Adam remained to help, though their own horses were already tended, and Christopher waited in the gatehouse rather than pulling Godfrey away from the work.

When the four finally entered, snow had melted across Bram’s shoulders. Godfrey placed a foreign arrowhead on the table.

"A small travelling group," he said. "Some tracks were lighter. One Orc was injured. They continued west and did not approach us."

"Could they be scouts?" Christopher asked.

"They could. They could also be survivors moving between clans. We do not know enough yet."

Christopher considered the map. The tracks had not turned toward Dragonwatch, but Orcs had crossed the northern patrol line.

"Continue the northern scouts," he said. "No pursuit west. If the tracks turn south again, I want warning before they reach the old patrol line."

"Yes, my lord," Godfrey said.

Bram remained near the door.

Christopher looked at him. "How was your first patrol?"

"Cold."

Godfrey almost smiled. "He obeyed."

That mattered more.

The next morning, Bram resumed training. He had followed every order and returned safely from his first northern patrol, and that appeared to satisfy him.

Christopher carried the report to the northern wall. Beyond it stretched the white road, dark woods and distant hills. Somewhere west, Orc travellers carried warnings about Dragonwatch; somewhere north, sheltered ground showed through snow earlier than Adam expected.

Christopher ordered additional markers placed along the scout routes and returned to the yard.

Thunder pressed restlessness through the bond. She wanted open ground and another hunt. Christopher promised her one after the next clear morning.

The tracks in the snow led away from his walls.

Godfrey came to stand beside him. "The scouts will follow them as far as the next ridge. They will return before dark."

"If the trail keeps going north, let it go," Christopher said. "Find out whether the orcs are moving as a group. Keep the riders within scouting range of the walls."

Godfrey nodded toward the wall. "The men have seen the prints. They will keep watch."

"Tell them to check the southern approaches too. If the herd brought something behind it, I want the alarm raised before it reaches the pens."

Godfrey passed the order to the nearest scout. Christopher stayed by the gate until the rider reached the ridge and disappeared beyond it.