Chapter 172: Distrust
Chapter 172: Distrust
"You speak like someone from no hold I know."
"That’s because I’m from no hold you know."
"Convenient answer."
"Conveniently true."
The standoff lasted several seconds.
Then Liora groaned.
"Captain, argue at the gate. The skarn nest is awake."
That ended the matter more effectively than anything Rohan could have said.
Maerin’s eyes flicked toward the ridge, then back to Rohan.
"Keep the spear lowered. If you raise it toward any of mine, you die."
"Very fair."
"Walk where I can see you."
"Also fair."
The patrol formed around the injured with quick efficiency. Bryan was placed onto a collapsible stretcher made from two poles and a sheet of reinforced fabric one of the watchers carried across their back. Liora refused to be carried until she tried to stand again and nearly fell, at which point the shield-bearer silently lifted her with one arm and set her on his back like a sack of grain.
She looked furious about it.
Rohan wisely said nothing.
They moved toward Veyrhold.
This close to the settlement, the marked path became more obvious. The small stone pairs were joined by metal stakes driven into cracks, each topped with a narrow strip of pale material that fluttered in the wind. Some stakes had charms hanging from them: rings of bone or ceramic, tiny plates etched with symbols, and pieces of dark glass that clicked softly whenever the wind shifted.
Rohan watched where the others stepped and copied them exactly.
Nobody mocked him for it.
That alone told him the caution was justified.
As they walked, the settlement grew from a distant shape into a place with weight and detail. The walls were taller than he had first thought, perhaps eight or nine metres high in most sections, though their uneven construction made them look lower from afar. The base was built from the same black slabs that littered the Marches, but they had been cut, stacked, and fused with a dark mortar that shimmered faintly. Above that, metal plates overlapped like scales, many scarred by claw marks and heat.
The poles along the wall were not simple watch posts. Each held a silver lens or mirror set within a circular frame, angled toward the surrounding ash fields. Rohan saw one rotate slightly as they approached, following movement with unsettling precision.
’So that’s what fired the beam.’
He looked at the ash near the path, then at the lenses.
The people of Veyrhold had learned to weaponise the silver flashes somehow. Or they had built devices that mimicked them. Either option was impressive.
And dangerous.
Beyond the wall, he could see roofs made from dark tile and curved metal sheets. Most buildings were low and reinforced, with narrow windows covered by shutters. Smoke rose from chimneys in thin, controlled streams. Near the centre of the settlement stood a taller structure like a squat tower or furnace, its upper vents glowing faintly orange.
Human voices drifted across the wind.
Rohan heard shouts from the wall, the creak of mechanisms, the bark of orders. The language continued to make sense in his mind despite remaining unfamiliar to his ears. It was deeply strange, like reading subtitles directly inside his skull.
As they neared the gate, more people appeared along the battlements. Some wore masks. Others had scarves wrapped tightly around their faces. Nearly all carried weapons, and almost every weapon looked practical rather than decorative. Bows, spears, hooked blades, crossbows, heavy cleavers, long knives.
No one waved.
No one cheered.
They watched Rohan with the kind of attention usually reserved for approaching storms and suspicious corpses.
He couldn’t blame them.
He probably looked awful.
His clothes were scorched and dusted with ash. Blood ran from the bite wound on his forearm despite his attempt to keep pressure on it. The skin across both hands remained dark grey-black, cracked in places where red showed through. Hestia’s spear was stained with skarn residue, which looked like clumped soot mixed with dull orange glass.
The gate itself was a heavy construction of black metal and fused stone. It did not swing open. Instead, as the patrol approached, chains groaned from within the wall and the central section rose slowly upward, shedding ash from its lower edge.
A warm, smoky smell rolled out from inside.
Not pleasant, exactly.
But human.
Cooked food. Oil. Metal. Sweat. Fire controlled rather than wild.
Rohan’s throat tightened with a relief he refused to show on his face.
Captain Maerin stopped just outside the gate and turned to him.
"Inside, you will be taken to the ash-house. Your wounds will be cleaned. You will answer questions."
"Expected."
"You will not wander."
"Also expected."
"You will not use whatever ash-working that was inside the walls without permission."
Rohan hesitated.
Ash-working.
That was either a known ability or close enough to one that they had a name for it.
"I’ll try not to accidentally do anything alarming."
"That is not reassuring."
"It wasn’t meant to be. It was honest."
Again, that strange almost-amused sound came from the shield-bearer. Maerin shot him a look, and he went silent.
Liora lifted her head from the man’s back and looked at Rohan. Her face was pale beneath the ash and blood, but her eyes were steady.
"Thank you," she said.
The words were simple.
They made the exhaustion hit harder than the fight had.
Rohan looked away first.
"Thank me after nobody decides I’m a threat and shoots me from the wall."
Liora’s mouth twitched despite the pain.
"Then I’ll thank you twice if you survive the questions."
"That sounds ominous."
"It is."
The gate finished rising.
Captain Maerin gestured forward.
Rohan stepped into Veyrhold with Hestia’s spear lowered at his side, ash still crawling faintly across his skin, and the weight of every watcher’s gaze pressing down on him. Behind him lay the broken field, the fog valley, the skarn ridge, and the long trail of impossible events that had begun the moment Hestia dropped him into this universe.
Ahead lay walls, people, answers, and probably a whole new category of problems.
For now, that was enough.
Rohan crossed the threshold.
The gate began to descend behind him.
And for the first time since entering the Ashen Marches, the wind could no longer reach his back.