Chapter 47: Ohhh, Until There’s Nothing Left :(

Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Ohhh, Until There’s Nothing Left :(

Korr stood on the primary post before the true dawn.

The binding on his ribs was dark and stiff.

The cut on his upper arm had been rebound during the short turn of rest after the climb back from the valley; it already showed fresh seepage.

Bor stood to his right, heavier axe in hand, weathered face unreadable.

Whatever had happened in the deep chamber during the night did not show on either man.

The stone required the same readiness it had required every day since the column turned.

Renn held the left approach without being told.

The young fighter’s forearm was wrapped, his eyes flat, his spear ready.

Tesh remained on the secondary ledge, breathing shallow, short spear across his knees.

Vek sat beside him, hands steady on a forearm that had been re-wrapped so many times the hide was stiff with old blood.

Neither man asked how long the secondary ledge would remain safe.

Bor’s voice was low.

"They spent three full days measuring and two days throwing weight.

Today they either break us or show us they can’t."

Korr’s answer was quieter.

"Then we make the third option cost them more than they have left."

The first assault came with the true light, as it had the day before.

The Hollow Kin hit all three approaches at once with the remainder of their fighting strength.

There was no probing wave this time.

They came to break the posts.

The sound of the fighting rolled across the northwestern stone in a continuous, ugly crash that did not ease for a long time.

Renn met the left approach with the same flat readiness he had carried since the night he stopped shaking.

His spear took the first painted fighter through the chest. He freed the blade, stepped back half a pace, and met the next.

When a third closed over the second body, Vek arrived from the secondary ledge and put his axe into the attacker’s neck.

~~~~

Renn did not look at him.

He simply reset his feet and held the edge. Blood from a new cut on his shoulder ran down his arm and made the spear haft slick.

He switched hands and kept killing.

On the center post the pressure was immediate and heavier than anything that had come before.

Korr killed the first man with a short, brutal stroke that opened the neck.

Blood sprayed across the fresh binding on his ribs.

A second fighter scored a deeper line across the same ribs before Bor’s axe took the man through the shoulder.

The two of them held the center by inches and refusal.

Bodies stacked on both sides of the stone.

The Hollow Kin kept coming.

A third painted fighter drove a leaf-shaped blade into the space between them and opened a cut along Korr’s hip.

Korr turned with the impact and put the axe into the man’s skull on the return.

Bor finished the next one without speaking.

The right post bent early and nearly opened.

A first-band fighter whose name Korr had only learned the day before went down with a blade under the arm and did not rise.

~~~~

The two men beside him were forced back six strides before reinforcement from the secondary positions slammed into the gap. The Hollow Kin tried to widen the break with raw numbers.

They nearly succeeded.

Only the arrival of every man who could still stand from the nearest secondary ledge drove them back off the edge, leaving eight of their own dead and three first-band bodies on the stone.

The assault lasted longer than any previous full-weight push.

When the Hollow Kin at last fell back into the draws, the primary approaches were slick and littered.

The first band still held the posts.

The line was thinner than it had been at any previous dawn.

Several positions were down to two or three men who could still grip a weapon and stand.

Korr sent the signal: full-weight contact at first light, line holding, cost severe, posts critically thinned.

Then he walked what remained of the line while the living dragged the dead farther back and bound what could still fight.

The cut on his ribs had reopened completely.

Blood ran freely until Bor jammed a fresh strip of hide against it and bound it tight enough to force the breath from Korr’s lungs.

The new cut on his hip was shallower but bled steadily until it too was bound.

Bor’s voice was rough.

"One more push like that and the center post is two men and a prayer."

Korr’s answer stayed flat.

"Then the two men hold."

Renn was still on the left approach.

His spear was red to the haft.

The new cut on his shoulder had been bound by Vek with quick, efficient wraps.

The young fighter’s eyes were the same flat readiness as before.

Whatever had been left of the boy who first stood on the line had been burned out of him by the previous days and the morning’s blood.

Tesh’s breathing had grown shallower.

Vek sat beside him in silence, hands steady, eyes on the draws.

Neither man asked to be moved farther from the line.

In the valley the signal reached the arena ledge while the light was still climbing.

Vara stood with her arms crossed, bone necklace resting between her huge breasts, silver-streaked hair bound tight.

~~~~

Her face showed nothing except the cold clarity that had carried every previous decision.

Gron stood slightly behind her, cracked face turned toward the northwestern ridges.

Elka was already present with Sura and Drak.

The bone beads and teeth in her long braids clicked once when she shifted her weight.

Sura’s expression remained unreadable.

Drak simply watched the first-band leads for orders.

Vara read the signal and spoke without raising her voice.

"Full-weight contact.

Line holds.

Cost is higher than any previous day.

Posts are critically thinned.

Every fighter who can still climb goes now.

Valley counts drop to the absolute minimum that still covers the eastern and southern approaches.

The northwestern stone takes everything else."

Gron’s voice was dry.

"The first band is nearly spent. If the high rock throws what remains of the camp without pause the posts will open.

There will not be enough men left to close them again."

Vara’s eyes stayed on the ridges.

"Then the posts do not open.

Every climber moves.

The valley gives what it can. The rest is on the stone."

Elka’s dark eyes moved from the ridges to Vara’s face. Her voice was quiet, measured, and carried only to those closest.

"The Matron has fed the best of the first band to the high rock for days.

When the feeding is finished the balance inside these caves will look different.

Some of us have already begun to prepare for that difference."

Sura did not speak.

Drak glanced at Elka once and then returned his attention to the watch rotations.

Vara gave no sign she had heard.

She simply turned back to the signals and the trails.

On the northwestern line the morning stretched into early afternoon without a second full assault of the same weight.

The Hollow Kin held the draws, binding their wounded, watching the posts.

Small groups tested the edges twice quick, vicious probes that cost them four more dead and the first band two more wounded but they did not commit the full remaining strength again.

~~~~

The main camp was fully closed up behind the lead fighters.

The next decision would be theirs.

Korr used the time.

He moved the strongest remaining men to the approaches that had taken the most pressure.

He pulled the worst of the wounded farther back.

He checked every water skin and every edge that remained.

Bor stayed with him. Renn remained on the left post without being told. The young fighter no longer needed orders to hold his ground.

~~~~

Tesh’s breathing had grown so shallow that Vek finally looked at Korr when the older man passed the secondary ledge.

Korr stopped.

Tesh’s eyes were still open.

He still gripped the short spear.

Korr left him there.

There was nowhere safer to put him that would not thin the line further.

The light began to soften toward evening. The Hollow Kin fires were already being built higher on the folds above the draws.

More of them than the previous night. Closer.

The smell of their smoke was constant.

Low voices carried on the wind short, clipped sounds that did not belong to the Tribunal tongue.

Korr stood on the primary post and watched the higher ground.

Bor stood beside him.

The living first-band men held their positions in silence.

The wounded who could still grip a weapon stayed on the secondary ledges.

The dead were stacked as far back as the fighting had allowed.

Renn’s voice came from the left approach, quiet and steady.

"They will come with the next light.

All of them that are left."

Korr did not look away from the draws. "Then we make them pay for the stone again."

Bor settled his grip on the axe.

"And if the payment is more than the first band has left to give?"

Korr’s answer was flat.

"Then the stone still holds until there is no one left to hold it."

The dark settled.

The Hollow Kin fires multiplied.

The first band settled into the night with the knowledge that the full weight had already begun and that the next light would bring the decision of the high rock in full.

In the valley the last climbers who could arrive before full night were still on the trails. Vara stood on the arena ledge under torchlight and watched the northwestern signal fires.

Gron stood beside her, silent.

Elka remained with her circle on the lower ground, bone beads catching the torchlight, eyes turned toward the same ridges.

For the moment the internal knives stayed sheathed.

~~~~

The arithmetic of the day’s dead and the night’s fires had made every other calculation secondary.

Sura stood at Elka’s shoulder, expression unchanged.

Drak kept the second-band numbers moving where the first-band leads required them.

None of the three spoke of the private calculations that waited on the other side of the larger blood.

The stone and the fires above it had taken the center of every mind.