Chapter 64 — The Price of the Road

Chapter 64: Chapter 64 — The Price of the Road

Chapter 64 — The Price of the Road

The capital road widened south of Northgate.

Two wagons could pass without leaving the packed earth. Old watch posts stood on the higher ridges, though only one in three held soldiers. Farms appeared more often as the party travelled south, most of them already rebuilt, though a few fields still showed black scars from the war.

Godfrey kept the same order each morning. Simon rode ahead when the ground allowed it. Adam watched the rear. Thomas kept the apprentices together. Ivo remained near Bram, whose draft horse could not match the riding horses for an entire day. They did not hurry enough to exhaust the animals.

On the third morning after Northgate, Simon returned from a low hill.

"Broken cart ahead," he said. "No horse. One man beside it."

Godfrey studied the bend in the road, where trees crowded both sides, bare branches reaching over a shallow ditch.

"Tracks?"

"Too far to see clearly."

"How did the man react to you?"

"Waved once. Did not approach."

Godfrey turned to Adam. "Rear ridge."

Adam rode back without asking why.

"Thomas, close the line. Martin, shield side. Nicholas, lead the packhorses. Bram stays with Ivo."

Bram shifted the warhammer across his saddle.

Robin eyed the trees. "It’s one broken cart."

Godfrey’s eyes settled on him.

Robin lowered his head. "Yes, sir."

They continued at a walk.

The cart stood sideways across half the road, one wheel come off. A grey-haired man knelt beside the axle with a hammer in his hand. He wore clean boots.

Godfrey drew his sword.

"Down!"

The first crossbow bolt came from the left trees. It struck Godfrey’s chest and snapped against the magical plate beneath his coat.

Three more bolts crossed the road. One passed over Thomas. Another buried itself in a packhorse, and the animal screamed and reared, tearing the lead rope from Nicholas’s hand. The third bolt struck Martin Pike below the collarbone.

Martin fell from his saddle.

Men rushed from both sides of the road. They wore no badges, though some had mail beneath plain coats. The first four carried heavy shields meant to close around mounted travellers, and more moved behind them with spears and crossbows. This was not a group of starving road bandits.

Ivo’s pale armor flashed beneath his cloak as Bronze Essence entered its formation.

"Bram, off the horse. Guard Nicholas."

Bram dropped to the road, his boots striking hard enough to throw dust around his ankles. He raised the warhammer but did not charge.

Nicholas dragged Martin toward the ditch.

Thomas met the first shieldman. His sword glanced from the shield rim, and a spear thrust toward his stomach, but Ivo crossed the distance and cut through the shaft. His second blow opened the attacker’s mail from shoulder to chest.

Godfrey disappeared from his saddle. The road cracked beneath his first step. He struck the left side before the attackers could close, the magical sword passing through shield, mail and the man behind both. Godfrey turned the blade, caught a spearhead and sent the weapon spinning into the trees.

Men who had prepared to fight a Silver Knight saw what magical equipment did in his hands. Their line broke almost immediately.

"Hold!" someone shouted from the trees. "The cargo is on the packhorses!"

That was the mistake.

Godfrey heard it. So did Ivo.

The wounded packhorse ran south with blankets and feed spilling from its torn load. Nothing valuable fell onto the road.

At Dragonwatch, Christopher stood upon the western wall while Giles and Ellis pulled a length of rope through an old iron ring.

The ring tore free from the mortar. Ellis stumbled backward and swore.

Walter caught the rope before it slid over the wall.

"That one is useless," he said.

Christopher considered the rusted metal. "How many are good?"

"Two. We need six for the frame Owen drew."

"Then Barlow makes four."

"He needs better charcoal before he works iron that thick."

Another problem joined the list.

Christopher crouched beside Owen’s board. The proposed wall arbalest would sit behind a low stone lip. Its frame could turn enough to cover the gate road but not the entire wall, and a wooden shield would protect the crew from arrows.

"Can we raise the base?" Christopher asked.

Walter studied the line toward the road. "Half a foot. More than that and every archer sees the crew."

Christopher marked the change in charcoal.

A wave of annoyance entered the bond. Thunder was awake again, and this time she was not hungry: she wanted space beyond the nursery.

Christopher sent back the image of the enclosed courtyard beside the nursery, then the command to wait. Her displeasure sharpened.

"My lord?" Owen asked.

"Continue measuring. I will be back before midday."

Walter handed the rope to Giles. "I am coming."

Christopher shook his head. "Stay. Simon and Adam guard the chamber. Nobody else crosses."

The decision still felt wrong when Godfrey was absent. That was exactly why Christopher had to learn to make it.

He climbed down from the wall.

On the capital road, Adam’s first arrow struck a crossbowman in the thigh. The man fell from the rear ridge, and Adam rode past him, turned and fired again toward the trees. He could not match a Knight’s speed, but he forced the hidden shooters to lower their heads.

Thomas and Simon held the road beside Ivo. Bram remained where he had been placed.

One attacker came around the packhorse and saw Nicholas kneeling over Martin. He lifted an axe.

Bram stepped between them.

The attacker hesitated at the sight of him. Then he saw mismatched armor and a battered ordinary hammer, and he attacked.

Bram caught the axe haft against the hammer’s handle. Wood cracked. He turned his wrists just as Godfrey had drilled into him, and struck once.

The square hammerhead hit the man’s shield. The shield folded against the man’s chest, and he left the ground and landed several feet away.

Bram started after him.

"Hold!" Ivo shouted.

Bram stopped.

A spear grazed his upper arm before Thomas killed the wielder. Blood darkened the leather panel beneath Bram’s shoulder guard.

Confusion crossed Bram’s face, then anger.

"Hold," Ivo said again.

Bram planted his feet beside Nicholas.

The attackers lasted less than a minute after Godfrey entered their line. Some dropped their weapons. Others ran into the trees. Godfrey killed the man who had shouted about the cargo and caught another before he reached the ditch. Ivo cut down two who tried to circle toward the horses.

Thomas shouted for the apprentices to remain together.

Robin was not with them.

Godfrey found him crouched behind the overturned cart. No attacker stood near him. His sword was still in its sheath.

"Up," Godfrey said.

Robin stared at the bodies on the road. "I couldn’t see. They came from both sides."

"Up."

Robin rose.

Godfrey returned to Martin.

Nicholas had cut away the mail around the bolt. Blood soaked the padding beneath it. Martin’s eyes were open, but they did not move.

Nicholas pressed both hands against the wound.

"He needs a healer."

Ivo knelt and touched Martin’s neck, then removed Nicholas’s hands.

"He’s gone."

Nicholas stared at the blood covering his fingers.

Nobody spoke for several breaths.

Godfrey stood. "Count the living."

Thomas had a cut across his cheek. Bram’s arm bled but moved. Adam returned with a bolt scratch along one leg. Simon had taken a spear point through the outer part of his forearm.

Four injuries. None appeared immediately fatal.

Martin was dead.

One attacker had surrendered after taking a cut through the thigh. Seven bodies lay beside the road. The rest had escaped into the trees.

Godfrey took in the broken cart, the clean boots on the grey-haired man and the scattered weapons.

"Search them."

Thomas swallowed and began.

Christopher entered the nursery courtyard carrying a strip of red cloth.

Thunder waited behind the inner gate. The moment it opened, she pushed past his leg and spread her wings beneath the open sky.

The courtyard was surrounded by high stone walls. Ancient lines beneath the paving stones remained dim but intact. Godfrey had tested the gates before the hatching, and nothing larger than a bird could enter or leave without passing the nursery doors.

Thunder ran. Her wings beat twice, and she rose no higher than Christopher’s shoulder before landing badly and sliding across the stone.

Embarrassment struck through the bond, followed by anger at the ground.

Christopher bit back a laugh.

He tied the red cloth to a short post on the other side of the yard.

"There."

He sent the same direction through the bond.

Thunder lowered her body. Blue light moved between the small horns along her head.

"No lightning."

Her eyes cut to him.

"Run."

The dragon crossed the yard and struck the post with both foreclaws. It broke at the base.

Christopher stared at the fallen wood.

Thunder stood over the red cloth with satisfaction filling the bond.

"That was not the exercise."

She bit the cloth and carried it back.

The pride entering Christopher’s thoughts was difficult to separate from his own amusement. He took the cloth, set another post into a deeper socket and tried again. This time she stopped before hitting it, only because she wanted the piece of meat in his hand. It was still progress.

On the road, Simon found the first purse.

The dead leader carried twelve gold coins and a sealed note with no name. The message contained a road, a date and the size of Godfrey’s party, and it claimed Godfrey carried valuables recovered from an old Drake treasury.

Godfrey read it once and passed it to Ivo.

"They knew before we left Northgate," Ivo said.

Thomas turned to the prisoners. "One of them may talk."

"They will."

Robin made a sound behind them.

Godfrey turned.

The apprentice’s face had lost all color. His right hand covered his left glove.

"Show me," Godfrey said.

Robin stepped backward.

Ivo moved behind him.

"Show him," Ivo said.

Robin pulled off the glove. A silver coin lay against his palm, held there by sweat.

Thomas stared at it. "Where did you get that?"

"It isn’t—" Robin closed his fingers. "It wasn’t meant to happen like this."

Godfrey walked toward him.

Robin’s words came faster.

"They only wanted to stop us. Search the bags. Take what we were selling. The merchant said nobody would die."

Nicholas stood beside Martin’s body.

"Nobody?" he said.

Robin looked at him and began shaking.

"I didn’t tell them about Dragonwatch. I don’t know anything. I only told him when we would leave and that we were going to sell something. He said they would frighten us. That’s all."

"Why?" Thomas asked.

Robin’s eyes moved from one face to another.

"I wanted money." His voice cracked. "I wanted enough to leave. I don’t want to spend my life freezing at the edge of the waste. It wasn’t my fault they brought crossbows. He said—"

Godfrey struck him once.

Robin fell beside the cart. He remained conscious. Blood ran from his lip.

Godfrey removed Robin’s sword and knife. "Who spoke to you?"

Robin described the man in the brown travelling coat, the stable well and the merchant who had first approached him. He had been promised more gold in the capital after the cargo was taken. He knew no noble’s name and had never met the men on the road.

"That’s everything," Robin said. "Sir Godfrey, please."

Godfrey drew his sword.

"You sold your companions to armed men. Martin Pike is dead."

Robin tried to rise. Ivo held him on his knees.

Godfrey executed him with one stroke.

The surviving attacker watched from beside the cart. His defiance lasted until Godfrey knelt in front of him.

The man admitted that their leader had accepted half the payment outside Northgate. Their orders were to take the military cargo and kill anyone who resisted. The same brown-coated intermediary had given them the route and number of riders, though none of them had been told who ultimately wanted the equipment.

Godfrey questioned him until the answers began repeating. Then he killed him as well.

"We continue," Godfrey said. "We bury Martin here. The wounded ride."

Thomas’s eyes found Martin.

"His family should have him."

"His family is weeks away," Godfrey said. "We can’t carry his body to the capital and back."

Thomas lowered his head.

They dug the grave beyond the ditch, beneath an ash tree. Bram moved most of the earth. Nicholas cleaned Martin’s spear and wrapped it in cloth to return to his family. Godfrey placed no weapon in the grave; Dragonwatch needed every blade, and Martin’s family deserved what had been his.

The attackers’ equipment was gathered before they left. Six usable crossbows, four cases of bolts, five swords, three mail shirts, coins and two horses hidden among the trees were worth taking. Broken shields, poor spears and damaged armor remained beside the road. The captured horses and surviving packhorse carried the salvage without forcing the party to drag the broken cart south.

Before they left, Godfrey stood over the fresh earth. He said nothing.

The party rode south with one empty saddle.

At Dragonwatch, Christopher returned to the western wall near sunset.

Walter had finished marking the new iron fittings. Owen had moved the proposed firing line two feet left to avoid a cracked section of stone. Work on the first frame would begin once Barlow prepared enough usable iron.

"How was your time below?" Walter asked quietly.

Christopher’s attention drifted to the inner castle. Thunder’s satisfaction still warmed the edge of his thoughts. She had eaten, run, broken one post and accepted two requests after arguing through the bond.

"Her body is growing stronger," he said.

He looked south from the wall. The road was empty.

Christopher wondered whether Godfrey had reached the safer country beyond Northgate. He imagined crowded roads, warm inns and the ordinary trouble of keeping Bram from frightening strangers.

In Christopher’s mind, the hardest part of the journey would begin at the capital. Godfrey’s empty saddle was still days from returning with the truth.

He looked north toward Dragonwatch. Below him, Barlow carried the first old iron fitting toward the forge.

Christopher turned from the southern road and followed.