Chapter 40 — The First Warning

Chapter 40: Chapter 40 — The First Warning

Chapter 40 — The First Warning

The Harcourt rider arrived while Christopher was knee-deep in a drainage ditch.

Christopher climbed out, wiped mud from his boots and discovered that the mud had already reached his coat. The rider waited beside the gate in clean mail with two mounted guards behind him.

"Baron Drake?" the rider asked.

Christopher glanced down at his muddy coat. "You found him at an unfortunate moment."

The man’s eyes moved over Christopher’s clothes, then toward Godfrey approaching from the yard. Whatever judgment he made remained unspoken.

He presented a folded letter sealed with House Harcourt’s mark.

Roland Harcourt invited the northern claimants east of Northgate to a midsummer gathering at his settlement. The letter promised discussion of roads, markets, mutual warnings and assistance against bandits or orc raiders. Each lord might bring six armed attendants. A second page asked for current road conditions and named three settlements expected to attend.

Christopher read it twice.

"Does Lord Harcourt expect me to answer before you leave?"

"If possible, my lord. I was ordered to carry your reply back."

Godfrey watched him in silence. Christopher had learned that the knight wanted to hear his answer first.

"Give the men and their horses food," Christopher said. "I will answer in an hour."

Inside the temporary house, he spread the letter across the table. Bennet read the supply language. Godfrey read the military language.

"He wants followers," Christopher said.

"He wants people to agree that his settlement is where northern matters are discussed," Godfrey replied.

"If enough lords accept his leadership, the meetings will become an alliance whether the letters use the word or not."

Bennet tapped the proposed market paragraph. "He may also have goods."

"He may have goods."

Harcourt had offered an alliance at Northgate. Christopher had refused to bind Dragonwatch to it.

"Can we spare the trip?" Christopher asked.

Godfrey measured the distance on their rough map. "Several days each way if the road is sound. Longer if it is not. You would take me or Walter. Dragonwatch loses both its lord and part of its strength."

Bennet added, "The barley is heading. The turnips still need hands. If you go, people will assume you expect an agreement worth the trouble."

Christopher studied the names on the second page. Two belonged to landed knights he did not know. The third was a minor baron attached to House Wentworth’s river group.

He wanted information, but entering another lord’s gathering from a weak position carried its own price.

"I decline the meeting," he said. "Politely. We continue exchanging road and security reports."

Godfrey nodded once.

The reply took longer to write than the decision. Bennet removed a sentence that sounded insulting. Christopher removed one that sounded apologetic. The final letter blamed necessary work at Dragonwatch and thanked Roland for including him.

Godfrey read it last. He crossed out nothing, which Christopher took as approval.

"Harcourt may stop sending news," Christopher said.

"He may," Godfrey replied. "If his information is offered only to men who obey him, then we should learn that before depending on it."

Christopher sealed the letter. Declining carried a cost, but attending would carry one as well.

Before sealing it, Christopher added a short report: the eastern approach to Dragonwatch remained passable for carts, the ford south of the old Drake road was unreliable, and no organized orc force had been seen.

He asked the same in return.

The Harcourt rider accepted the letter without visible offense. While his men ate, he stood near the gate and watched apprentices move the timber barriers.

"New work," he said.

"It slows a charge," Christopher replied.

"Expecting one?"

"Not yet."

The rider waited.

Christopher did not fill the silence.

"Lord Harcourt has seen tracks north of his western farms," the man said eventually. "Small groups. Hunters, maybe."

"Human or orc?"

"Not clear."

"We have seen neither near our fields," Christopher said.

The rider left before noon.

His party took the southern road at an easy pace. Simon watched from the gate until the last horse passed the ridge. Bennet returned to the hall with the copy of Christopher’s reply.

"Will Harcourt read the refusal as an insult?" Christopher asked.

"He will read it as a refusal, my lord," Bennet said. "What he calls it afterward depends on what he wants from the other men at his table."

Godfrey examined the seal left on the invitation. "Roland wanted your name among his guests. He may invite you again when refusal costs more."

Christopher scanned the work board, the breach, fields and gate turn filling it. "Then he can wait."

The decision reached the yard before supper. Workers knew only that Christopher would not travel. Several appeared relieved. His absence would have taken Godfrey, horses and apprentices from the fortress for more than a week.

Walter used the afternoon to repeat the gate drill. The movable frames closed the passage while a wagon waited outside. The driver complained until Walter reminded him that an alarm did not stop because a cart had arrived at an inconvenient time.

When the frames reopened, the wagon entered without damage. Christopher watched from the stair. Refusing Harcourt had kept Dragonwatch’s people home, but it had also left the barony outside the strongest new network in the north. Christopher accepted the cost.

Before departing, the rider shared news of a damaged bridge, a claimant joining Wentworth and Fairfax hiring masons at Northgate. He also said the Crown would review occupied grants after their first winter but had promised no troops. Bennet recorded the useful details.

Godfrey sent Simon and Adam along the northern ridge that afternoon. Their ordinary patrol was due, and Harcourt’s report gave them another reason to look carefully. They returned after dark with no sign of an army, raiders or campfires. They had found old hoofprints on hard ground and a line of deer moving east.

The next morning brought another rider, this one alone and mounted on a tired farm horse. He carried no noble colors. His coat had been patched at both elbows, and one cheek was swollen from a recent blow.

He came from a settlement two days southwest, held by a landed knight named Sir Edric Avenholt. The place had once been a timber village serving sheep farms. Avenholt had arrived with eighteen families, six armed retainers and a patent covering the abandoned land.

The rider wanted nails, salt and a healer.

Dragonwatch could spare almost none of the first two. Mabel refused to leave without knowing the injury.

"A man fell from a roof," the rider said. "His leg bent badly."

"When did it happen?"

"Four days ago."

Mabel’s mouth tightened. "Does he have fever?"

"I don’t know."

She chose to stay rather than commit Dragonwatch to a four-day round journey based on that. She prepared clean cloth, a small packet of willow bark and written instructions the rider could take to anyone with basic sense. Christopher sold him a small measure of salt at the price Dragonwatch had paid and refused payment for the cloth.

The man studied the repaired gate while waiting.

"Avenholt has no wall?" Christopher asked.

"Timber fence around the lord’s house. Village spreads along the stream."

"Do they have a watchtower?"

"Old one burned."

Godfrey asked, "How far north do your patrols ride?"

The rider looked embarrassed. "Sir Edric needs the men for building."

After he left, Christopher stood over the rough map. Avenholt had fewer people than Dragonwatch and only a timber fence.

"He should build defenses," Christopher said.

"With what?" Bennet asked.

Christopher considered Dragonwatch’s unfinished roofs, marked arbalest position and overworked crews.

Christopher added Avenholt’s settlement to the alarm map and told the watch to report unusual smoke in the west.

Godfrey remained dissatisfied.

"Avenholt has six retainers and sends none of them to patrol?" Godfrey asked.

"He is using them to repair houses before the weather turns."

"A roof will not warn him when riders cross his northern field."

"Neither does an empty house after everyone freezes."

Godfrey studied the map. "Then he needed fewer houses spread along a stream and more families close to his hall."

"Would we have done better without this fortress?" Christopher asked.

"We would have made different mistakes."

For three days, nothing happened.

Then a thin column of smoke appeared beyond the southwestern ridge.

It rose too far away to identify and too dark to ignore.

Godfrey reached the wall before Christopher called for him. He watched the smoke against the wind.

"Not a field fire," he said.

Christopher turned toward the stable. "We ride?"

"We scout. We don’t empty Dragonwatch because we saw smoke."

Simon and Adam were already gathering their gear. Christopher ordered the gate kept ready and the alarm group warned without sounding a general call. Work continued, though more faces turned toward the southwestern ridge.

The smoke thickened before evening.

Simon and Adam returned well after nightfall. They had crossed the ridge but not approached the settlement. From high ground they saw several burned roofs and scattered livestock. Hoofprints led north, though darkness prevented a safe count.

Their horses were sweating despite the cold air. Walter took the reins while the two scouts drank and washed road dust from their faces. Godfrey made them begin with the route and repeat the same ground in order before asking about the tracks. Neither scout had seen survivors moving outside the village.

"Orcs?" Christopher asked.

Simon shook his head. "We didn’t see them. The tracks were broad horses, some carrying weight. Seven or eight, maybe."

Godfrey ordered them to eat before giving the report again in full. Christopher wanted to saddle every available fighter. He also knew that riding unfamiliar ground at night could lose men before they found an enemy.

They would leave at first light, unless someone from the damaged settlement reached them sooner.

Christopher remained on the wall after the others left. The distant glow had faded, but the smell of smoke arrived sometime before midnight.

Walter joined him while one of the apprentices checked the gate lane below. Mabel prepared bandages in the common hall, and Martha set bread aside for whoever rode at dawn. No alarm sounded, but lamps remained lit along the repaired street.

Near midnight, the watch challenged a lone rider approaching from the southwest. His horse stumbled twice on the final slope. Godfrey ordered the gate opened only wide enough to admit the animal, then closed it behind him.

The rider wore no colors. Soot covered his coat, and dried blood marked one sleeve. He carried Sir Edric Avenholt’s seal in a leather pouch.

"My lord," he said when Christopher reached the yard. "Avenholt is dead. Orcs burned the village and took the livestock. Seven rode north."

Godfrey caught the man when his legs failed. Mabel’s helpers carried him toward the hall while Walter woke the scouts again. Christopher looked at the closed gate, then at the black road beyond it.

They would ride at first light. Godfrey chose Walter, Simon and Adam before entering the hall. Ivo would remain at Dragonwatch. Mabel packed what she could spare, while Bennet opened the emergency store for road food. The preparations remained quiet, but nobody in the lower yard returned to sleep.

Sir Edric Avenholt had been promised time.

The royal officer at Northgate said the surviving orc clans had withdrawn deep into the Frozen Wastes. The nearest northern lord said no major raid could come before the frontier roads reopened. A merchant said the same thing while charging twice the southern price for nails.

Edric believed them because eighteen families were waiting for him to decide where they would sleep.

He repaired houses before the fence. He put men on roofs instead of patrols. The old watchtower was a burned shell on a hill half a mile from the village, and rebuilding it would have taken timber needed everywhere else.

Twelve old houses along the stream could still be repaired. Edric let the families use them while his retainers slept inside the unfinished fence around his hall. The choice scattered his people across the village. Every morning, he saw the danger and promised himself the watchtower would be next.

It was poor land compared with the estate his older brother would inherit.

It was his.

On the morning the orcs came, Edric was arguing about sheep.

Three had vanished from the northern pasture. His shepherd blamed wolves. One retainer blamed displaced villagers hiding in the woods. Edric ordered two men to follow the tracks after they finished raising a roof beam.

They never reached the pasture.

A boy ran into the village shouting that riders were crossing the northern field.

Edric stepped from the hall and saw eight shapes descending the low ridge. They rode shaggy horses and wore mismatched armor taken from several armies. Two carried bows. One had a human shield tied behind his saddle.

Orcs.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then Edric shouted for the bell.

The village had no bell.

They had discussed buying one after harvest.

His captain began hammering a sword against an iron cooking pot. The noise carried badly, but people understood. Women pulled children into houses. Men reached for axes, hunting bows and tools. Edric’s six retainers ran toward the unfinished fence around the hall.

The orcs did not charge immediately. They spread across the northern field, looking at the houses, livestock and people running between them.

There were only eight.

Edric was a Black Iron Knight. His captain had trained as a Knight Apprentice before an injury ended his advancement. If the villagers stood together, they could drive eight raiders away.

"To the hall!" Edric shouted. "Everyone inside the fence!"

The order came too late for the northern houses.

An orc arrow struck a farmer in the back as he ran. Another hit a roof and vanished into the thatch. The riders split, four sweeping toward the animal pens while the others approached the village at an angle.

Taking the hall was never their aim.

They wanted livestock and anything they could seize quickly.

Edric took three retainers and ran toward the pens. His captain shouted after him, but the frightened cattle were already breaking through their light fence.

The first orc met him beside the stream.

Edric’s Knight Essence moved through his body. He crossed the distance faster than an ordinary man and cut at the rider’s leg. The orc blocked with a round shield. Edric’s sword bit through hide and wood, throwing the rider sideways.

The shaggy horse slammed its shoulder into him.

He rolled through mud, rose and drove his sword beneath the orc’s ribs as the raider tried to regain the saddle.

One dead.

An arrow struck Edric’s mail and snapped. He felt the impact but not the point. His retainers loosed hunting arrows toward the ridge.

The remaining orcs turned away from him.

For one foolish instant, Edric believed they were fleeing.

Then smoke rose behind the hall.

Two raiders had circled through the southern gardens. They threw burning bundles into the unfinished houses and rode for the grain shed. Dry thatch caught before anyone reached it.

The village broke apart.

Families who had entered the fence ran back toward their homes. A woman screamed that her child was missing. Men abandoned the line to drag buckets from the stream. Edric’s captain could not hold them.

The orcs at the pens cut loose six cattle and drove them north. Others seized two horses from beside the smith’s lean-to. They killed anyone who came too close but did not stop to fight the retainers.

Edric ran toward the grain shed.

The largest orc waited for him there.

He wore iron plates over heavy leather and carried a broad axe. Not a common raider. Edric felt the answering movement of Knight Essence in the orc’s body a heartbeat before the axe came down.

Grom.

Edric was a veteran Black Iron Knight. He had fought bandits, guarded caravans and survived the northern war. None of that closed the difference between their ranks.

Their weapons met. The blow drove Edric to one knee and numbed his arm to the shoulder. He cut low as he rose. The orc stepped aside and struck with the axe haft, catching Edric across the mouth.

Blood filled his mouth.

He heard his captain calling for him to return to the hall. Behind the orc, fire climbed the grain shed wall.

Edric attacked again.

His sword opened the raider’s forearm, but the wound was shallow. The axe hooked his shield and tore it aside. Edric tried to retreat. The return stroke struck beneath his ribs, breaking mail rings and driving him backward into the mud.

A second orc rode between them, throwing a sack across his saddle.

The leader broke off the fight.

He whistled.

The raiders withdrew with the cattle, horses and whatever they had taken from the northern houses. One carried a wounded orc across his saddle. They left their dead companion in the stream.

Edric tried to follow them past the last house. His legs failed before he reached the road.

His captain caught him beneath the arms and lowered him to the ground.

"Let them go," his captain said. "You can’t follow them in this condition."

"They have our cattle and horses."

"And the village is burning behind us. Choose what can still be saved."

Edric looked back.

Three houses were on fire. So was the grain shed. Smoke rolled across the stream, hiding people running with buckets. The hall remained standing, but sparks landed across its roof.

His captain carried him back.

They saved the hall and one house. The grain shed collapsed, and much of its grain burned or mixed with ash. Villagers formed a bucket line while others pulled down burning thatch. They saved the missing child from beneath a bed and tore bedding into strips when the healer ran out of clean cloth.

Edric heard the work from inside the hall. Each call told him what his choices had cost. The houses had given families shelter. Their distance from one another had also scattered every bucket, fighter and child when the attack came.

His captain returned once the fires were controlled. Soot blackened his face.

"The raiders left one dead Orc and took six cattle, two horses and whatever they found in three houses," he said. "Tracks lead north."

"Can we follow?"

The captain’s eyes went to the blood soaking Edric’s bandage. "Not with the wounded, and not while the village still burns."

Edric closed his eyes. The answer was correct. That made hearing it no easier.

Four villagers were dead. One retainer had an arrow through his belly and died before sunset. Seven others were wounded. The missing child was found beneath a bed, alive and too frightened to speak.

Edric lay in the hall while the captain cut away his damaged mail. The axe had opened only a short wound, but the flesh beneath it had turned dark and swollen, and blood continued to seep between the healer’s folded cloths.

Edric understood before anyone told him.

But the northern fence had never been built, most livestock had been taken, and every family had seen how little protection Edric’s title provided.

That evening, three households said they would leave for Northgate as soon as the wounded could travel. Edric heard the argument through the open hall door. He lacked the breath to join it.

His captain asked everyone to wait until the remaining food was counted.

Two grain bins and a potato cellar survived, along with goats, three cattle and most of their chickens. Food would last for a time. Rebuilding while guarding the scattered village would be harder.

After dark, the captain walked the northern edge. Hoofprints crossed the unfinished fence line. The postholes ended twenty paces from the stream. Stacked rails waited beside them, untouched since Edric moved the workers to roofs.

Edric had made every choice for a reason.

The orcs had ridden through the space between those reasons.

The captain returned to the hall and asked whether they should send to Northgate.

"A rider will need days to reach Northgate and return."

"What about House Bell?" the captain asked.

"Farther than Dragonwatch, unless the old road has improved."

"Then we send to Drake first."

Edric coughed blood into the cloth. He had never met Christopher Drake. He knew only that House Drake had reclaimed an old fortress and travelled with a Silver Knight.

Asking another new lord for help would spread word of his weakness. Refusing might leave the surviving raiders free to return.

"Send one rider," he said. "Tell them eight orcs attacked. Seven left north with livestock. Ask them to carry the report to Northgate."

"And help?"

Edric looked at the burned grain shed.

"Tell them what happened. Let Drake decide what he calls it."

Edric died before midnight. He had no wife or child in the settlement, only an older brother’s family far to the south. His conditional northern grant died with him.

The captain sent two men to watch from the burned tower hill, though there was no shelter there. He ordered the remaining animals brought inside the fence and every sound rail raised before another roof was repaired.

The families raised the unfinished fence by firelight. Before dawn, the captain sent a rider toward Dragonwatch with Edric’s seal, the count of dead and wounded, and a strip cut from the fallen orc’s armor. When Dragonwatch’s wall appeared beyond the ridge, he urged his exhausted horse toward the gate.