Chapter 346: Where the Roads Met

The road we needed to hold did not look important on the map.

A thin line crossed a river, climbed between two ridges, and divided beside a village called Slateford.

One branch led toward Orselle.

The other carried grain and people between two of the provinces that had returned to Greykeep.

If Surtr’s column took the crossing, our new defenses would be divided before they had properly formed.

Thor stood over the map with the provincial messengers.

“How many people are still in the village?”

“About three hundred,” one answered. “More arrived from the farms yesterday.”

“And the bridge?”

“Stone piers. Timber deck. It will take loaded wagons.”

“Then it will take their engines,” Ordel said.

Nobody liked that answer.

We could not send everyone.

Baldr was already in Orselle. The two enemy dragons seen near the coast had not disappeared merely because we had another problem inland.

Lexander would remain available between Concordia and Greykeep. Rauth would hold a reserve with Eliza. The troops wounded at Cinder Vale were still recovering.

Thor looked at me.

“This one needs winter.”

I nodded.

She tapped the river above the crossing.

“Only after the engineers and villagers are clear. We need ground the siege wagons cannot cross. Not a flood sent into someone’s fields.”

“I will inspect it before I touch it.”

Ordel leaned closer.

“And leave me the bridge until I tell you otherwise.”

“Everyone is very particular about where I may put ice.”

“We have become experienced,” Thor said.

Istren smiled without looking up from the scouts’ notes.

There was no gate to Slateford.

We would go through Orselle and take the inland road, meeting the provincial troops on the way.

Merova had already sent riders to begin the village evacuation. We took engineers, healers, a mixed force of Greykeep and Concordian soldiers, and Varda’s volunteers.

Bruni would follow the wider cart road with the heavier equipment.

Sareth had confirmed the enemy’s position before turning back toward the coast. Aurethar would watch both routes from the air as far as distance allowed.

We had useful allies now.

We did not have enough of them to be everywhere.

Before we left, I found my wives in the receiving hall.

Evelyn was checking the medical supplies. Adriana stood beside Mary with the lists of people expected from Slateford.

Both stopped when I approached.

“You know the plan?” Evelyn asked.

“I helped make it.”

“That was not my question.”

I kissed her.

“Yes.”

Adriana took my hand and pressed her lips to my wedding ring.

Then she looked up at me.

“Come back with it.”

I closed my fingers around hers.

“I intend to.”

We reached Slateford late on May nineteenth.

The village square was full of carts.

A woman was arguing with a soldier about two goats. A baker carried trays of unfinished dough out of his shop and handed them to anyone with room. Children sat beneath a wagon while their grandmother tied bedding to its side.

The provincial captain met Thor beside the well.

He introduced himself as Rennick.

There was dried blood on his sleeve and exhaustion in the way he held his shoulders.

“We have seventy-three fit to stand,” he said. “Some have been awake since yesterday.”

Thor looked past him at the men by the barricade.

“Our first watch will relieve yours. Show Merova which road the last families are taking.”

He blinked.

“You want us off the wall?”

“I want you awake when we need you.”

He stared at her for another moment.

Then he called for his lieutenant.

I walked the riverbank with Ordel and two local mill workers.

The current ran fast beneath the bridge. Spring water had left dark marks high on the piers, but the level was lower now.

Beyond the eastern approach lay a broad patch of soft ground where an old channel had been filled in.

One of the mill workers pointed to it.

“Looks dry on top. Isn’t.”

Ordel stepped down, drove a probe into the earth, and watched water gather around it.

Then he looked at me.

“There. If we break the surface, their wheels will sink. Can you hold the edges so they cannot simply widen the road around it?”

“Yes.”

“Save the bridge for our withdrawal. If we have to give up this bank, we remove the deck behind us.”

I looked toward the carts crossing overhead.

A little boy leaned over a wagon side to watch us.

I waved.

He waved back before his mother pulled him safely into his seat.

That night, the soldiers of two provinces ate beside ours.

There was not much conversation at first.

Then Varda asked where the local troops had obtained their boots, and three men began complaining at once.

I thought of Orven.

Apparently there were matters capable of uniting an army before its commanders managed it.

Rennick sat beside me with a bowl he had forgotten to eat from.

“We expected a few officers,” he said.

“You asked for protection.”

“People have promised it before.”

I watched the last carts leave the square.

“I cannot tell you we will save every house.”

He followed my gaze.

“My wife is in that wagon.”

He pointed to one near the back.

“My daughters too.”

Then he picked up his spoon.

The enemy arrived after sunrise.

First came scouts.

Then infantry beneath Surtr’s banners, followed by four siege wagons and a body of soldiers wearing the insignia of Othellos’s court.

Through Istren’s glass, I could see people carrying bundles of brushwood between the formations.

Some wore metal at their wrists.

Thor lowered the glass after her own inspection.

“They mean to fill anything we dig.”

“With people in front,” I said.

“Yes.”

She handed the glass back.

“Istren. Look for officers giving commands. Merova, keep the escape lane clear.”

Our plan had allowed for forced laborers.

Seeing them did not make it easier.

The first engine stopped beyond bow range.

Ordel watched its crew unfold the arms.

“Different pattern from the quarry machines,” he said. “Same principle.”

A wheel turned.

I felt the charge before I saw it.

Heat gathered around a cage of iron near the front of the wagon.

“Down!”

The shot struck the empty house nearest the eastern road.

Its roof disappeared in a shower of burning timber.

I threw up a wall of ice between the wreckage and our forward position.

Steam rolled over us.

Someone shouted behind me.

When the smoke thinned, I saw Rennick pulling a soldier away from a broken beam.

The man was moving.

I looked back toward the engine.

“Thor.”

“I see it.”

She went with the first squad moving along the drainage ditch.

I held the road.

Enemy infantry advanced behind shields while the laborers dragged brushwood toward the soft ground.

I drove frost down through the edges of the old channel.

The earth cracked.

Water welled into the wheel tracks Ordel’s engineers had opened during the night.

The first wagon horse balked.

An overseer raised a baton.

The laborers kept coming.

One fell to his knees and tried to crawl with the bundle still caught beneath him.

Istren’s arrow struck the overseer in the shoulder.

He dropped behind his guards.

The laborers did not stop.

I had known they might not.

Knowing did nothing for the anger gathering beneath my ribs.

“Left side!” Merova shouted.

Her soldiers moved from behind the low wall, shields turned toward the enemy archers.

I raised another ridge of ice across the attackers’ line of sight.

Arrows struck it while Merova’s people reached the nearest laborers.

One man swung a bundle at the soldier trying to help him.

Another kept staring at the road as though he could no longer see anything else.

They were carried, guided, or held as gently as a battlefield permitted.

Not all could be reached.

Farther back, the court soldiers began pulling the remaining laborers behind their shields.

I saw one turn a man’s bound wrists until he cried out.

Lightning crawled along my arm.

“Uriah!”

Merova’s voice cut through it.

“The crossing!”

I turned.

Enemy soldiers were entering the shallow water upstream.

I went where I was needed.

The river bit cold around my boots.

I let that cold rise.

Ice climbed from the exposed stones in broken ridges, forcing the first soldiers apart. I left the deeper current running between them.

A spear struck my armor and skidded away.

I caught its shaft, pulled its owner off balance, and drove him back with the flat of my hammer.

Rennick’s troops reached the bank behind me.

Shields met.

For several minutes, the world narrowed to water, steel, and the effort of keeping my power where it belonged.

Then thunder broke across the road.

Thor had reached the engines.

The first wagon lurched sideways with its front axle shattered.

The second discharged into the ground when Thor’s hammer struck its frame.

Fire rose behind the enemy line.

Their infantry hesitated.

Ordel’s people moved on the bridge, cutting the prepared fastenings while Bruni took hold of the timber section nearest the eastern pier.

Merova’s horn sounded.

Two short notes.

Withdraw to the western bank.

We had held long enough for the village to empty. Thor’s attack had broken the engines’ rhythm. Now we needed everyone behind the river before the enemy recovered.

I backed through the shallows with Rennick beside me.

An arrow struck his shield.

Another caught the man on his left above the knee.

We carried him between us.

Behind us, Bruni lifted.

The bridge deck tore free with a sound like trees splitting in a storm.

Thor’s squad came back along the ditch as the last section fell.

Istren covered them from the western rise.

I built a narrow crossing of ice below the broken bridge, held it until the last of them reached us, and broke it into the current when Thor raised her hand.

She was breathing hard.

There was blood along one sleeve.

“Yours?” I asked.

“Some.”

“Thor.”

“It will wait long enough for a bandage.”

I looked past her.

Two engines were crippled. A third burned. The fourth remained intact beyond the old channel, unable to reach the bridge that was no longer there.

The enemy commander rode forward, looked at the river, and began shouting.

For once, I was content to let him.

We had not destroyed the column.

It still held the eastern approach. Its soldiers occupied the empty houses nearest the river, and before midday we could hear axes cutting timber for another crossing.

But they could not bring their siege wagons through that morning.

Our provincial troops held the western ridge with fresh reinforcements arriving behind them.

Merova’s people had recovered eighteen forced laborers.

Seven still wore restraints.

Five of our soldiers were dead. Seventeen needed treatment, among them two of Varda’s volunteers.

Rennick stood beside the covered bodies until his lieutenant came to relieve him.

I did not tell him we had won.

I helped carry the wounded to the wagons.

Aurethar landed beyond the western camp in the afternoon.

He brought news from Orselle.

One of the enemy dragons had approached the harbor defenses while infantry tested the inland watch posts.

Dorevan and Sareth had risen to meet it.

Baldr had held his soldiers behind cover while they passed overhead.

“There was a collar,” Aurethar said.

Thor looked up from the healer wrapping her arm.

“You saw it?”

“Clearly. Metal beneath the throat. Light along the inner edge when it turned.”

“Did it fight?” I asked.

“It breathed fire toward the outer fields. Sareth drew it away from the houses. Dorevan blocked its approach to the harbor.”

“And then?”

“It withdrew east.”

Aurethar’s expression darkened.

“Sareth called to it. Twice.”

“Did it answer?”

“It told her to stay away.”

None of us spoke for a moment.

That was not enough to tell us everything the collar did.

It was enough to make the workshop ledger matter more than ever.

We stayed at Slateford until the new defensive line had a commander, supplies, and messengers who knew the routes.

Ordel remained to strengthen the western bank. Istren took a smaller force upstream to watch for another crossing.

Thor and I returned through Orselle after nightfall on May twentieth.

The harbor still stood.

I could smell smoke from the fields beyond its walls.

Maren met us at the gate house with a casualty list and a request for more healers.

We took both back to Greykeep.

Evelyn saw the state of my armor and stopped walking.

“Mostly mud,” I said.

She looked at me.

“Some river.”

“Uriah.”

“A bruise. Nothing deep.”

She checked anyway.

Adriana stood beside her until the last piece of ice had melted from my sleeve.

Then she took my hand.

My ring was still there.

She touched it once before embracing me.

Julian found us later, after I had washed and eaten.

Garrick Valewood came with him.

“Did you stop them?” Julian asked.

I set down my cup.

“At the river. They are still on the other bank.”

He thought about that.

“Are the people safe?”

“The families who left Slateford reached the receiving stations. We brought wounded people back with us.”

“Will you have to go again?”

“Probably.”

Garrick rested a hand on his shoulder.

Julian looked toward the window, where the darkness hid everything beyond the courtyard lamps.

Then he came closer.

“I finished the wedding page.”

“May I see?”

He opened the book across my knees.

There were flowers in the margin and four uneven marks where the children had insisted on helping.

Near the bottom, he had written about Mirelle singing afterward.

I read every line.

Evelyn sat beside me. Adriana leaned over my shoulder.

Outside the room, a messenger hurried toward the council chamber.

The report would reach me soon enough.

For those few minutes, I let Julian show us what he had chosen to remember.