Chapter 29 — The Northern Scouts

Three days after the latest raider cleanup, FireStorm was busy enough to hide its scars from a distance.

Thirty-seven refugees had been registered since the surrounding roads became marginally safer; Morton had placed sixteen able-bodied newcomers on repairs, field work, and hauling stone. Children carried water to masons, and older villagers sorted the grain purchased through Harlan's foreign contacts. The kiln and distillery worked under separate guards after dark.

The burned storehouse remained black on the hill behind them.

The replacement grain had been divided instead of placed under one roof, a change made after the arson; one portion remained near the stone hall, another in a dry cellar, and the rest in smaller locked sheds watched on separate rotations. The arrangement was slower for Morton to count, but a single torch could no longer erase months of food in one night.

Arlan had not yet answered the Storm's End summons with a departure date, and he had sent acknowledgement instead and continued preparing to travel, because ignoring Renly outright would turn Elton's accusations into a political gift. The problem was choosing a moment when the holding did not look deliberately exposed.

Arlan stood on the wall with Wayne and watched the northern road.

"Three scout teams," Wayne reported. "Northwest, northeast, and straight north. Three men each. All ordered home before sunset."

"And Nightsong?"

"Elton has been calling minor lords to meetings. Fifty of his men were seen moving toward the northern border." Arlan ran his fingertips across the rough coping.

A summons from Storm's End waited inside his room; Bloodhand men were receiving Caron attention somewhere in the Red Mountains. The timing did not need clever interpretation.

"Double the watch tonight. Separate guards for the glass kiln and the spirit cellar. Nobody works the outer fields alone."

Wayne nodded. "We can put more bows on the wall."

"Do it. And give the men on the northern tower a fresh horn. The old one cracked last week."

Below them, a pair of newcomers struggled to move a roof beam into place; FireStorm had grown from forty-seven people into a settlement of more than two hundred in a remarkably short time. That growth created labor and soldiers, but it also created mouths, unfamiliar faces, incomplete routines, and more ground to protect.

Elton only needed to make that expansion collapse under its own needs.

"Lord." Wayne's tone changed; a whistle sounded from the forest. Three men came down the northern track at a run.

The first had blood from shoulder to belt and carried half a broken short spear, and another limped so badly the third man had to drag him by the arm. They did not slow until they reached the gate; Arlan was off the wall before the first man finished shouting. "Raiders at North Mountain Pass."

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"How many?"

The scout bent over with both hands on his knees, fighting for breath. "Two hundred at least. More than one group; we saw iron axes, steel-tipped spears, proper blades. Someone placed men in the trees before we reached the pass."

Wayne cursed, and iron changed the problem. Most mountain raiders carried whatever they could steal or make: stone heads, old knives, crude bows, an occasional captured sword; two hundred men equipped deliberately with iron meant a patron expected them to fight organized opposition rather than merely frighten peasants. "Any banners?"

"None. Bloodhand marks on some faces. Others I didn't know."

"Did they pursue?"

"Far enough to make sure we ran south. Then they turned toward the pass." They wanted FireStorm warned, and that mattered.

A hidden raid would aim for surprise; a force that allowed scouts to escape wanted the defenders to react, perhaps to draw Arlan away from the holding before something else moved. "How long before they reach open ground south of the pass?"

"A few hours. Less if they push hard."

Wayne looked toward the barracks. "How many do you want?" Arlan counted what could move immediately without emptying the walls, and twelve trained guards could ride or march with him at once. Sixteen able-bodied men among the newer arrivals and work parties could use bows, spears, or shields well enough to support them.

Twenty-nine including Arlan; that was not FireStorm's entire fighting strength. It was the force he could put at the pass before two hundred armed men reached the holding.

"Twenty-nine can stop them from walking straight through if the ground is right," Arlan said. "Whether we can do more depends on the pass."

Wayne's jaw tightened. "I'll assemble them." Morton arrived from the grain sheds when the alarm spread through the settlement.

"You are not taking every guard."

"No."

"Good." The old man looked north. "Then what do I do if you don't come back?" Arlan answered the question instead of pretending it had not been asked.

"Keep the walls closed. If the northern force defeats us and reaches FireStorm in strength, move the children and elderly through the back-mountain passage. Grain only if it can be carried without slowing them."

Morton's face went pale. "My lord—"

"If we lose."

The steward held his gaze for several breaths, then bowed. "You will not." Men began gathering in the yard, and some wore proper leather armor. Others had quilted coats and captured shields; bowstrings were checked. Spears were redistributed so the strongest shafts went to men likely to stand in the front rank.

Wayne paired the least experienced men with guards who had survived the earlier bandit clearances, then rejected two volunteers whose old wounds made them liabilities on a forced march; the decision angered both men until Morton ordered them onto the wall instead. FireStorm could not afford the comforting fiction that every willing hand was equally useful in every place.

Water skins were filled, and each man carried food that could be eaten without a fire. The archers counted arrows in bundles rather than by quivers so Wayne would know exactly how many volleys he could spend before the line became a spear fight.

Arlan inspected the captured chestnut horse he would ride and strapped the hand-and-a-half sword where it would clear the saddle without catching his cloak; no speech was needed. The men could count.

They knew the scouts had seen two hundred, and some looked toward the women carrying children into the stone hall; others looked at the black storehouse on the hill. The choice in front of them was not between danger and safety; it was between meeting danger where the ground might help them or waiting for it among their homes.

They formed anyway; Wayne took the names before they left, not because anyone expected a formal roll after the battle, but because FireStorm had grown too large to rely on memory alone. Morton kept the list, and if a man failed to return, his household would know that the holding had counted him before he went. He also set aside strips of clean linen, boiled water, and the few herbs FireStorm possessed for the wounded they all expected to see before night; nobody called the preparations pessimistic. They had survived too many alarms to neglect the work.

Before the riders left, the available bows and hardened weapons were divided among them according to use rather than rank, and FireStorm could not afford equipment sitting on the wrong man's back.