Chapter 76 — One Month Later

Chapter 76: Chapter 76 — One Month Later

Chapter 76 — One Month Later

A month changed both settlements.

At Dragonwatch, the six new farming families joined the harvest and the work around the walls. Three repaired houses stood ready before the first hard frost, their roofs patched and chimneys drawing smoke. Every family had a bed under a sound roof, though the western barracks remained crowded.

The forty soldiers assigned to the fortress trained every morning and worked every afternoon. A work gang finished the stone platform for the second wall arbalest near the western tower; others hauled stone from the quarry until their palms split, repaired the wall stairs, or dragged timber down from the southern woods. Regular meals were already bringing their strength back. The stagger that used to show by midday had gone out of their walk.

Inside the small plane, the thirty-five workers moved faster than anyone had planned for, helped by a stretch of mild weather that refused to break.

The first field below the Knight castle had been cleared and planted, the two repaired channels finally carrying water as far as the lower beds. The orchard no longer looked abandoned. Someone had hacked back the dead vines, carted off the rotted fruit underfoot, and dragged the old press clear of its corner, ready for repair whenever hands could be spared.

Four salt pans held shallow water under the sun now, their channels and terraces set to the flow Owen had puzzled out of the old service records. The first harvest yielded only a few coarse sacks once the sand and grit were sieved out, barely enough for the kitchens and the meat stores, so Christopher ordered the channels corrected before any more pans were opened.

Timber from fallen trees filled the yard beside the castle. Owen had forbidden cutting a healthy tree until every storm-fallen trunk and piece of deadwood was used up. The saws ran each afternoon, and the pile of planed boards grew: boards for rooms, for animal pens, for field gates.

The castle’s kitchen wing, lower dormitory, well, and two storage rooms had all been scrubbed out and repaired, and the permanent workers slept in proper beds now, under roofs that did not leak. Five selected soldiers guarded the main gate and trained under Walter whenever he crossed into the plane.

The armored warthogs came to the trough at the same hours every day, punctual as soldiers. Aldous fed them from long boards outside the enclosure and made each worker call out before opening the gate. The five young ones already associated people with fruit.

Thunder watched them from the wall, still arguing that a herd was only stored meat.

Twice each week Christopher walked the work himself. Owen reported what had been finished and what he needed next; Aldous reported on the animals. By now, workers greeted the Baron and returned to their tasks.

On the surface, Walter had split the training ground into four sections.

Forty purchased soldiers stood in three files on the eastern side, facing Dragonwatch’s ten Knight Apprentices across open ground. Twelve militia recruits waited behind a rope near the gate; the five foundation trainees had the narrow strip against the wall.

The old yard could not hold all of them anymore, so Walter had pushed the main formation work out into the harvested eastern field and kept only weapons practice inside the walls.

The recruits carried wooden poles cut to spear length. Four had real shields, old and dented; the rest made do with round boards, leather straps nailed across the back. Wat had already rejected two before sunrise, the wood split clean around the handle holes.

Adam set the six captured crossbows out on a table against the wall, beside a box of the remaining road bolts and another holding the newly made practice bolts, their heads blunted for safety.

No two practice shafts matched exactly: some ran thicker than others, and the duck feathers never sat quite like the chicken ones, so Adam rolled every bolt across the tabletop and pulled out any that wobbled badly.

"Those become kindling?" Simon asked.

"Those get straightened."

"And if they remain crooked?"

"Then they become kindling."

Walter called the militia to attention while Ivo marched the soldiers and apprentices out into the field.

The militia recruits reacted at different speeds: three straightened at once, two turned the wrong way toward Ivo, and one kept fussing with his shield strap until Walter crossed the rope and took it out of his hands.

"When the command comes, you stop what your hands are doing," Walter said.

The man’s neck went red, and he lowered his head. "Yes, Sir."

Walter returned the shield.

Their first lesson involved no striking at all. He lined them up in two rows and drilled them on holding distance while they walked: the front line with shields and poles, the second keeping spear points up above the shoulders ahead of them.

Within ten steps, the formation bent.

On the left, a field laborer pushed ahead too fast, and the young shepherd beside him started watching the man instead of the line. Near the rear, a woman from Avenholt’s surviving families held her distance perfectly — right up until the recruit behind her stepped on her heel.

Walter stopped them, and they began again.

Christopher stood beside Godfrey, watching farmers and laborers learn to hold a line while, across the field, the purchased soldiers were already shaping into Dragonwatch’s main infantry.

"They look worse than the alarm group," he said.

"The alarm group runs toward separate places," Godfrey replied. "These people must remain together while frightened men push from behind."

On the fourth attempt, the line crossed the yard without breaking.

Walter made them do it backward.

That failed at once. The rear rank stared down at its own feet, the front rank surged ahead too fast, and three recruits collided near the rope in a tangle that ended with one shield board flat on the ground.

Walter reset them without raising his voice.

"A retreat is not twelve people running in the same direction," he said. "You keep your faces toward what wants to kill you. You move when the line moves."

He put Thomas at one end of the line and Simon at the other, and with the apprentices calling the pace, the recruits tried again. This time they made it halfway across the yard before the line bent.

The third attempt reached the rope. Walter turned them around and began again.

In the eastern field, the purchased soldiers moved far better. When Alfred called the first advance, three files stepped off together, lowered wooden spears, and stopped dead on a single command. Months in collars had worn down their endurance, but it had not touched years of drilled repetition.

Ivo changed the formation without warning, making the left file the front rank. Alfred hesitated for one breath, then barked the command anyway, and the men turned and reformed.

"Again," Ivo said.

The second change came faster.

Walter placed Dragonwatch’s ten apprentices inside the files: Thomas and Simon in the first, Adam and Nicholas in the second, and the others across the third. At first, the two groups moved at different paces and held their spears at different heights. Ivo stopped the drill, set one pace, and made all forty run the advance again.

By the fifth attempt, the forty soldiers and ten apprentices kept one pace, held their spears at one height and advanced in a single formation.

During the recovery interval, Godfrey saw the purchased men settle their breathing sooner than they had on the road. The file held formation until Ivo dismissed them.

Daniel and the four younger trainees hauled weighted buckets through Walter’s marked course, where the turns, the sudden stops, and the changes of pace made it a harder exercise than it looked from the wall.

Meg finished her household work and joined her separate session near the wall; her weighted staff moved cleaner through its arcs than it had a month before. Walter kept her schedule unchanged: three mornings a week, short foundation work tucked in after her duties.

Bram carried stones around the yard at Walter’s pace, his warhammer still racked and waiting for later.

The forty soldiers at Dragonwatch gave the fortress enough trained men to hold its main wall positions. Five others remained assigned to the Knight castle.

After the midday meal, Walter began crossbow selection, running sixteen people through it one at a time. Each lifted an unloaded crossbow, held it on target, and followed the sequence Adam had shown them exactly once: brace, span, seat the string, set the bolt, raise, wait, fire on command.

Two recruits did not have the strength to span the captured weapons safely. One tried to hide it by jerking the lever, nearly caught his fingers in the mechanism, and Adam pulled him off the table.

"It is not punishment," Adam said. "Use a spear."

The man bowed and joined the other line.

One woman from the purchased farming households moved slowly, but every step came out right. A White-potential laborer held steady enough, until Walter shouted at his shoulder, and he lowered the weapon without firing. The young shepherd rushed the load, and the bolt sat crooked in the groove when he was done.

Walter chose eight.

The farming woman had White potential and no weapons training at all, but Walter picked her because she did exactly what she was told, every time. The young shepherd took one of the reserve spots after his second attempt came out cleaner; two original settlers and three Avenholt survivors filled the rest.

Adam chalked their names onto a board beside the range. Each trainee would answer for cleaning one crossbow after practice, even on days when two people shared it.

"If the string frays, you report it," he said. "If the stock cracks, you report it. If you hide damage because you fear blame, the weapon may break beside someone’s face."

The trainees answered together. "Yes, Sir."

Only six handled crossbows at once; the other two watched the loading sequence and collected bolts after each volley.

The first volley struck everywhere except the target. One bolt buried itself in the dirt halfway down the range, another cracked into the outer wall hard enough to snap off its blunt head, and the farming woman put hers into the straw mound — just outside the painted circle.

Adam inspected every crossbow before the second volley.

"Aim after the stock reaches your shoulder," he said. "Not while lifting it."

The second volley looked less likely to kill a passerby. By evening, two recruits could put repeated bolts into the straw at thirty paces, and Adam kept both names on the next training list.

After supper, Godfrey brought the recovered Black Iron prisoner out to the yard under guard. Weeks of labor had put back the weight his wound had cost him, and Walter handed him a staff and told him to show his stance.

He had learned spear work in a Bell garrison before striking an officer and running from the sentence; the barracks breathing method he carried had taken him as far as Black Iron, and he knew exactly one thrust skill and one body-hardening skill — no more.

"He can assist with the militia," Walter said. "He commands no one."

Christopher laid down the limits himself. The prisoner could hold a practice weapon only under Walter’s or Ivo’s eye. He would enter no armory, command no guard, and go back into chains after every session. Reliable work might eventually buy him paid service and freedom — Christopher promised no date for it.

The prisoner bowed. "Understood, my lord."

The next morning he stood before the militia with a wooden spear and a chain running between his ankles. Walter said nothing about his crimes. He only ordered him to show the difference between a thrust made with the arms and one driven up from the ground.

The prisoner moved once.

The wooden point struck a hanging grain sack, which snapped backward and split at the seam. Barley husks spilled across the dirt.

Martha shouted from the kitchen steps.

Walter looked at the ruined sack, barley dust still sifting down through the air. "Use the straw target."

"Yes, Sir."

The recruits watched more carefully after that. He walked the movement through slowly, Essence held tight against his skin — rear foot, hip, shoulder, hands — and they copied him with their wooden poles.

Most put too much arm into it, and several pitched forward and lost their balance entirely. The prisoner corrected no one until Walter gave the word.

When the farming woman ran through the movement, the prisoner stopped short of touching her shoulder and looked to Walter first. Walter nodded. Two fingers adjusted the angle of her rear arm, and he stepped back and dropped his eyes before she thrust again — the point caught dead center in the straw bundle.

Afterward, the recruits watched his feet as he demonstrated the thrust. He spoke to them respectfully and handed over the spear as soon as Walter ended the lesson.

At the crossbow table, Adam took delivery of the first bundle of new shafts from the carpenter. Wat had forged twenty-four blunt heads and twelve narrow combat heads; Adam rejected five of the shafts, kept the rest, and set to fitting feathers with two assistants. The new bolts meant regular practice without burning through the captured ammunition.

By the end of the week, the militia could cross the yard in two lines, wheel toward the gate, and knock together a rough shield front, though it still took too long, half the spear points wandered off true, and the crossbow recruits hit the straw more often than they hit the wall behind it.

Ivo tested them at the gate, coming on with a padded pole while the front line held its shields up. The first recruit flinched back before contact, opened a gap, and Ivo was through it in two breaths.

On the second attempt, the neighboring shields closed the gap before he reached it. Ivo’s pole cracked against the boards hard enough to stagger the line, but he did not get through.

"That is why the man beside you matters," Walter said.

The recruits reset with bruised arms and a clearer understanding.

Walter kept his attention on the work still ahead of them and posted a schedule on the board.

The forty soldiers at Dragonwatch drilled every morning unless they were posted to the wall or on patrol. The five assigned to the Knight castle kept their own watch there. The ten Knight Apprentices trained separately under the Knights. Twelve militia recruits trained on alternating mornings, eight of them with crossbows twice a week, while the rest stayed on the alarm roster and learned the muster points. Essential workers joined when roofs, firewood or grain allowed.

The five foundation trainees continued their daily strength, balance and endurance work.

Godfrey watched Bram finish his stone circuit and Meg work through Walter’s marked turns, and said nothing until both of them had left the yard.

"Bram is ready for more," Christopher said.

"His body is," Godfrey replied. "Meg’s is not."

Christopher watched the ten apprentices cleaning their practice weapons, cloths moving over wood and iron in the last light. They had trained for years, first at the Drake estate, then on the northern road. Martin had died before reaching the chance he wanted, and the survivors could die just as easily waiting for theirs.

"What about the ten apprentices?"

Godfrey followed his gaze. "Ready to be considered."

"You found methods in the castle records."

"I found claims written by dead men. I will read them before you place ten lives behind one."

Christopher did not push back. "Tomorrow."

"I will begin tomorrow morning," Godfrey agreed.

Later, going over the schedule with Godfrey, Christopher asked, "Is the schedule too light?"

"It is enough for the first month," Godfrey replied. "We increase it when their bodies recover."

"If Orcs come before winter?"

"Then the forty soldiers here hold the main line. Our apprentices reinforce it. The militia holds prepared sections, carries bolts and obeys signals. The five at the Knight castle keep their post. The ranked Knights go where the wall begins to fail."

It was a small army for a stronghold the size of Dragonwatch, but it belonged to him.

That evening, the bell called a practice alarm. Families moved toward the shelters while the militia scrambled into the yard, grabbed poles and shields, and formed up near the gate; the crossbow group climbed the western platform with their weapons empty, and Meg and the other runners carried messages between posts.

Confusion remained. Two recruits went to the wrong rack, one shield strap broke, and a purchased farmer returned toward the barracks when he heard his child crying.

After the all-clear, Walter called the drill unfinished and ran through every failure before he dismissed them: the broken shield to be repaired, the wrong racks marked with paint, the shelter route cleared before the next bell ever rang. Adam collected every practice bolt. The prisoner surrendered his wooden spear and held out his hands for the guard to fasten the work chain again.

The yard emptied slowly.

In one month, Dragonwatch had formed a working garrison. The next morning, Godfrey would begin teaching the approved military breathing method to the ten surviving apprentices.