Chapter 339: The Road Between

Mary read Melody’s letter twice before handing it to me.

The first reading was quick.

The second took longer, especially the part near the bottom.

“Is she all right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Mary passed me the pages.

Melody had reached another of the beastfolk settlements. An elven delegation had agreed to meet her there, while a dwarven messenger had brought an invitation to a defended mining town farther inland.

Nobody had offered an army yet.

Two representatives from the earlier meetings were coming to Greykeep with her returning escort. They would travel to Westmere by road and use the established gate from there.

Near the bottom, the handwriting became less formal.

Tell Mary I am eating properly. Tell Thor I have not started a war without her. Tell them separately or they will decide I am avoiding the question.

I looked up.

Mary held out her hand.

“That page is mine.”

I returned it.

“She knows you quite well.”

“She has had considerable practice.”

Mary folded the letter carefully before turning to the next item on her desk.

It bore the seal of Westmere Hold.

“Steward Edric has another matter for us.”

The map showed a road south of the routes we had recently secured.

A teamster had seen a small column moving captives toward a larger enemy camp. Local scouts had confirmed the report overnight.

Some captives walked in chains.

Others carried weapons.

“Forced auxiliaries,” Eliza said. “At least some of them. Our scouts saw restraints on the spear carriers.”

Thor stood with both hands on the table.

“How many guards?”

“Fourteen positively identified. Possibly more among the wagons.”

“And prisoners?”

“Thirty or more. Difficult to count under the covers.”

King Edric’s jaw tightened.

He had come from breakfast with his children. There was still a small smear of jam near his cuff.

He noticed me looking and rubbed it away without comment.

“The road enters woodland here,” he said, pointing. “If they reach the larger camp, we lose the chance.”

Thor nodded.

Then she looked toward Caldris.

“Can we interfere with the restraints?”

“Not safely enough to promise it.”

He placed the drawing of the broken wristband beside the map.

“We still do not know whether every band follows the same design. Nor do we know how far a command can travel.”

“Then we plan around that,” Thor said.

The force would leave through Westmere and ride from there. Istren and Merova would accompany Thor, with Rauth and a selected detachment of Orenshal soldiers. King Edric would lead his own men under Thor’s command.

Baldr would remain available for a second emergency.

Lexander stayed in Concordia.

I stayed at Greykeep.

That last decision sat badly with me for several breaths.

Then I looked at the other markers on the map.

The gates.

The receiving yards.

The roads along which people were still approaching us.

Thor noticed anyway.

“You can have the next unpleasant job,” she told me.

“Mary has already given me three.”

“Then you are ahead.”

Before the strike force departed, I found Julian in the courtyard with the four children.

He had drawn a broad circle around a stack of wooden blocks.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A town.”

Carol placed a block outside the circle.

Julian moved his hand toward it, then stopped.

“Why is that one there?”

“Horse house.”

He considered the answer.

“All right. But it needs a road.”

Garrick immediately dragged the chalk across his brother’s carefully drawn wall.

Seraphina applauded.

Ignatius moved the wooden horse onto the new road and knocked over a tower.

Julian closed his eyes briefly.

I sat beside Garrick Valewood on the bench.

“He is doing well.”

“He is learning that a plan becomes more interesting when other people are allowed near it.”

Across the courtyard, Julian began rebuilding the tower farther from the road.

“I have been learning that too,” I admitted.

Garrick smiled.

When the nursery attendants came to take the little ones inside, Julian started gathering every block himself.

Garrick called him over.

“They can carry some.”

“They will take a long time.”

“Yes.”

Julian watched Carol deliver a single block with immense concentration.

Then he handed another to Ignatius.

The work took longer.

It also involved considerably more cheering.

The delegates arrived shortly after midday.

One was an older foxfolk woman named Tessa, who spoke for the elected council of three river villages. The other, an elkfolk man named Harun, represented the families sheltering at a hill fort after losing their homes.

Neither claimed to speak for anyone beyond the people who had sent them.

Mary introduced them in a receiving room overlooking the gardens.

Adriana joined Evelyn and me at the table. She had managed breakfast and wanted work that did not involve someone asking whether she needed another cushion.

I had already asked once.

I was improving.

Tessa declined wine and accepted water.

Harun remained standing until Mary sat down.

His gaze lingered on her ears, then on the papers waiting at her place.

“Melody said you manage the city.”

“Much of its daily business,” Mary replied.

“And you can make agreements?”

“Within the authority assigned to my office. The same limits apply to our other officials.”

He nodded slowly and took his seat.

Tessa wasted little time.

“If our people come here, can they leave?”

“Yes,” I said.

“With their children?”

“Yes.”

“With wages they earn?”

Mary turned a page toward her.

“Yes. We can give you the terms in writing. We can also arrange for you to speak privately with families who have moved to Westmere or Concordia.”

Tessa looked at the paper without touching it.

“A lord offered us shelter once. After the harvest, he informed us we owed more than we had earned.”

Adriana leaned forward.

“Food and emergency shelter here do not become a debt you must work off.”

“And soldiers?” Harun asked.

“Volunteers,” I said. “We will need to agree how allied companies cooperate, but accepting bread does not enlist someone.”

His shoulders lowered slightly.

The rest took longer.

Land could not be promised without knowing what was available. Winter stores had limits. Wagons needed escorts, and every escort came from somewhere.

Mary answered what she could and wrote down what required checking.

By the time we stopped for a meal, there was still no alliance.

There was a list of things we had agreed to show them.

That seemed a useful beginning.

The first report from the strike force reached us in the afternoon.

The column had been stopped.

The wounded were coming back.

Mary was already issuing instructions when I finished reading.

Tessa watched the room change around us.

“Our people?”

“Some,” I said. “We don’t have names yet.”

She rose.

“Then I will wait where you receive them.”

Evelyn stood too.

“You can help us speak to anyone who wants you there.”

They left together.

Adriana looked toward the corridor, then at Mary.

“Give me the family lists.”

Mary passed them across the table.

Thor returned with mud on her boots and a shallow cut along her cheek.

King Edric came behind her carrying the end of a stretcher.

Thirty-seven captives had been recovered.

Nine wore restraints.

Two of those nine had attacked the rescuers after the guards were down.

One had kept trying to stand after Merova knocked the spear from his hands.

“He was crying,” Edric told me quietly. “Apologizing every time he reached for it.”

The king looked toward the treatment room.

“My men held him. They wanted to cut the band off.”

“But they didn’t.”

“No.”

He rubbed both hands over his face.

“I am grateful someone warned us.”

Thor gave the account while healers worked around us.

Istren had disabled the lead wagon. Merova blocked the rear and opened a route away from the fighting. Rauth and Edric’s soldiers closed on the guards before they could use the prisoners as a barrier.

One guard had carried a marked metal baton.

When he raised it, the armed captives moved.

Istren shot his hand.

The baton fell.

The captives kept moving.

“Whatever he told them stayed in force,” Thor said. “Taking him down didn’t end it.”

Four of our soldiers had been wounded. One badly enough that Evelyn had gone straight to him.

Six enemy guards were dead, five captured. Three had escaped into the woods.

Thor had refused pursuit.

“We had people who couldn’t walk and nine bands we couldn’t understand.”

I nodded.

The captured baton had traveled separately, wrapped and guarded, with orders that nobody attempt to use it.

Caldris met the escort outside the infirmary.

He did not look pleased to see it.

He looked intent.

I went no farther into the treatment area than Evelyn requested.

There was enough fear without winter gathering around a doorway because I was angry.

Instead, I helped carry water.

In the second room, Tessa sat beside a young badgerfolk woman whose hands would not stop shaking.

They spoke in a language I did not know.

Tessa held the cup while the woman drank.

Across the passage, a dwarf with a splinted leg refused to be separated from an elven boy.

“He stays,” the dwarf said.

Ilyen pulled another chair closer to the bed.

“Then he stays.”

The dwarf stared at her for a moment, apparently prepared for a longer argument.

Then he sat down.

The nine people wearing restraints were placed where healers could watch them closely. Those still driven to reach for weapons needed careful help to keep from hurting themselves or anyone nearby.

Nobody called that recovery complete.

But they had beds.

They had water.

And the hands holding them were trying to keep them alive.

By evening, Caldris and Thesra had learned one useful thing from the baton.

It contained several distinct command patterns.

They had not activated any of them.

“Some appear to address particular groups,” Caldris said. “There are differences between the marks.”

“Can you stop what was already ordered?” I asked.

“We are closer to knowing where to begin.”

I disliked that answer.

I trusted him more for giving it.

Thesra rested her fingertips beside the drawing.

“The people who escaped before may help us understand what changed when they got away. If they wish to speak.”

“And the prisoners who carried it?”

“Eliza is questioning them separately.”

I looked through the workshop window toward the infirmary lights.

For a moment, I wanted a battlefield problem.

Something I could strike.

Then a healer crossed the courtyard carrying clean linen, and I remembered how much work came after a victory.

We found one piece of good news in the lists before supper.

The missing brother Melody had asked about was alive.

Westmere’s records matched his name, former home, and the details his sister had given. Steward Edric had spoken to him himself.

He was helping repair a mill roof.

Mary read the confirmation aloud to Tessa and Harun.

“We will send word with the next courier,” she said. “His sister can decide whether she wants to travel. He has already asked if she needs a room prepared.”

Tessa covered her eyes.

I waited until she lowered her hand.

“You know her?”

“I told her not to expect an answer.”

Mary slid a clean sheet toward her.

“Would you like to write this one?”

Tessa took the pen.

That night, I returned to our rooms later than I intended.

Evelyn was already there, exhausted, washing her hands for what must have been the twentieth time.

“The Orenshal soldier?” I asked.

“Stable. He needs watching.”

“And the others?”

“Some are sleeping.”

She dried her hands slowly.

I crossed the room and held her until she leaned her weight against me.

Adriana joined us a moment later.

For a while, none of us spoke.

Then Evelyn looked past my shoulder.

“Why are there three pieces of cloth on the bed?”

“Cassia,” Adriana said.

“That explains the number?”

“She insists we choose tonight.”

I looked at the cloth.

“For what?”

Both women stared at me.

“The wedding,” I said quickly.

“A promising start,” Evelyn murmured.

Adriana took my hand and led us toward the bed.

Beyond the window, people were still carrying supplies into the infirmary.

Tomorrow, we would need answers for the captives, wagons for the villages, and soldiers rested enough to leave again.

Tonight, Adriana held two lengths of ribbon against Evelyn’s sleeve while my wife considered them with the seriousness she gave most things.

I touched the third.

“This one.”

Adriana smiled.

“Why?”

“I like it.”

Evelyn leaned against my shoulder.

“That will do.”