Chương 55: Chapter 54 - Four More Oaths

Kalsar found them in the training yard, where Ant was trying and failing to get a rhythm out of the swinging-beam gauntlet while Mahkir supervised from a fence post with the particular smugness of a creature who didn't have to try.

"They're here," Kalsar said. No preamble, same as always. Ant let the beam swing itself still.

"Who's here."

"The four I wrote to. Called them the same night we settled on the name — figured there wasn't much point waiting on paperwork when I already knew who I wanted." He said it like it should have been obvious, which, in fairness, it probably had been to him the whole time.

"Told them where to find us the morning we left the hall. They'd have started walking the moment they hung up — my place isn't far from here as the crow flies, and none of the four ever needed much convincing." Maren appeared in the yard doorway, wiping dust from her hands onto her trousers.

"You didn't think to mention this."

"Mentioning things before they're settled just gives people more time to worry about them." Kalsar was already turning back toward the castle.

"Come on. Manners, and all that." They were waiting in the great hall, four of them standing in a loose cluster near the cold hearth, their Kithren spread out around them. Kalsar didn't so much announce them as wade straight in, already grinning before he'd crossed half the room.

"Look at the state of you lot," he said.

"Standing about like you're waiting to be sentenced. Nobody's dying today, relax." He clapped a hand on the shoulder of the biggest man in the room, who took the impact without so much as swaying — built like a doorframe, thick through the chest, standing beside a bear Kithren easily his own height at the shoulder.

"This reprobate is Thomas. Never once thrown a punch in his life, far as I know, and somehow still the most useful pair of hands I've ever met."

"Somebody has to be the reasonable one," Thomas said, low and unhurried. Beside him, the bear had already lost interest in the introductions entirely, sniffing once at the dust in the air and settling onto its haunches with an air of mild, patient boredom.

"Bramble agrees with me. He's better at agreeing than fighting, same as I am."

"Should've seen the look on the recruiter's face the year he turned down three separate clans in a single afternoon," Kalsar said, moving on before Thomas could look properly embarrassed about it. He tipped his head toward the woman beside him — lean, watchful, a bird perched on a leather guard at her shoulder, feathers dark and pale in sharp contrast.

"And this one only agreed to come because I promised her the tree line here hasn't been properly surveyed in years. Raven. Found her wandering the Ashcombe woods a couple of years back, tracking something I'd have walked straight past."

"You were lost," Raven said, dry, before anyone else could get a word in.

"I was surveying."

"You were lost, and I found you a way out before dark, and you've been telling that story wrong ever since." She said it like a line worn smooth from being said a dozen times before, and something in it made even Thomas huff out a quiet laugh. Kalsar reached the third with less noise, an arm not quite landing on the shoulder of a younger man standing a little apart, hands tucked into his sleeves, no Kithren beside him at all. Ant caught himself looking for one out of habit before he registered the absence properly.

"Rowan," Kalsar said, gentler now, the volume coming down without him seeming to decide it consciously.

"Doesn't talk much, so I'll do it for him until he trusts you enough to do it himself. Best hands for treating an injury — human or Kithren — you'll find in this territory. I've watched him work. You'll understand what I mean the first time you need him." Rowan gave a small nod, not quite meeting anyone's eyes directly.

"I do what I can."

"He does considerably more than that," Kalsar said, "but he'll never say so himself, so I'll keep saying it until it sinks in." The last was older than the rest by a couple of decades at least, solid through the shoulders, hair pulled back tight and streaked with grey. Her Kithren had already claimed the spot nearest the cold hearth, a lizard-like creature the length of Ant's arm, its mottled red-black skin shifting faintly when it moved, heat radiating off it even from a distance.

"And this terrifying woman," Kalsar said, with something close to real affection breaking through the usual flatness, "kept half the fighters in my old circuit armed and breathing. Hazel. We go back further than anyone else standing here."

"Kept you patched up more than once too," Hazel said, arms folding, though there was warmth threaded right through the dryness.

"Man never did learn to duck."

"I learned plenty. Just chose not to use it."

"That's not better."

"And Vulcan," Kalsar added, nodding at the salamander, "who I'm fairly sure has burned down more of my furniture than every fight I've ever lost combined." Ant found himself smiling despite the general strangeness of the last minute — four strangers, a bear, an osprey, something that looked like it had crawled fully formed out of a forge, and a fifth who very deliberately had nothing standing beside him at all.

He stepped forward, because someone had to, and because leader was apparently his job now whether he felt like one or not.

"Ant," he said, and then, because it felt wrong not to, nodded toward the fence post where Mahkir had settled, already far more interested in Bramble than in anything being said.

"And that's Mahkir, ignoring all of us." He glanced sideways, catching Maren's eye before she could vanish into the background of her own introduction.

"And this is Maren — Liaison, researcher, the reason any of this makes sense on paper." He looked between the four of them properly, feeling the weight of the moment more than he expected to.

"I don't have much to offer yet beyond a leaking roof and a wall that isn't there. So — thank you. Genuinely. None of you had to say yes."

"Kalsar vouched for you," Thomas said, simply.

"That's enough for me. He doesn't vouch for people lightly." This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"He's right," Raven said.

"He's insufferable about most things. Not that." Hazel just looked Ant over once, head to foot, the frank assessing look of someone used to sizing up what a person needed before they'd finished asking for it.

"You'll do," she said, which from her tone seemed to be a genuine compliment. It was Thomas who moved first once the greetings had settled, drifting toward the nearest wall and running a broad hand along the stonework with the particular attention of someone who saw structure the way other people saw faces.

"This is good bone," he said, mostly to himself.

"Old work, but sound under the damage. That sagging wing's a roof problem, not a wall problem — I could have that watertight again inside a fortnight, given hands to help and the right timber." He turned, taking in the hall properly now, settling into the same focus Kalsar brought to reading tracks.

"Outer wall's the real concern, though. Kalsar mentioned it on the walk in. Knee-high stone doesn't stop anything, and there's nothing at all along the north stretch."

"How many hands would it take to do it properly."

"Eight, ten, if you want it done before the first hard frost," Thomas said, without complaint, just fact.

"Timber, too — more than what's already on the grounds."

"We don't have coin for hired labour," Ant said, "or much for timber, past what we can scavenge or fell ourselves." No point pretending otherwise this early.

"Not yet." Thomas took that the way he seemed to take everything, without any visible reaction at all.

"Then five of us and whatever we can cut and haul ourselves. Slower. Still standing by the time it matters, if we're not unlucky." Raven had already drifted toward the nearest window, looking out over the open ground beyond it.

"I'll walk the tree line properly tomorrow, first light. Kalsar's right that there's nothing to slow anyone coming from the north, but I want to see it with my own eyes before I start telling you what it means. Maps and warnings only tell you so much. The ground tells you the rest."

"Want company?" Kalsar asked.

"I could spare a morning."

"I could find my way around a marked tree line blindfolded before you'd finished lacing your boots," Raven said.

"I go quicker alone. Always have." A faint, dry edge crept into it.

"Besides — someone needs to stay behind and make sure nobody gets lost between here and the training yard."

"That was one time."

"It was several times. I've simply only had to come find you once that anybody witnessed." Rowan had drifted toward one of the smaller side rooms off the hall, peering in at the dust and debris with a professional's eye.

"This'll do, once it's cleared," he said.

"Good light, once the shutters are fixed. I'll need clean water, and somewhere dry to store what I bring with me. The rest I can manage as I go."

"You brought supplies," Maren said.

"Some. Not enough for what's coming, eventually, but enough to start." He said it plainly, no more explanation offered, and Ant let it sit rather than push. It was Hazel who'd wandered furthest afield, out through the side door toward the collapsed roof of the old armoury, Vulcan padding along beside her leaving faint scorched prints in the frost-damp grass.

She was crouched by the old anvil when Ant caught up with her, running a thumb along its edge the same way Kalsar had, though her attention was clearly on something further beyond it — the cold forge itself, bellows rusted stiff, the stone around the hearth blackened with decades of old heat.

"This could sing again," she said, half to herself.

"Give it time, and Vulcan sitting the coals proper, and I'll have you all outfitted better than anything you're carrying now." Her eyes caught on the Soul Render at Ant's hip and stopped there entirely, the rest of the sentence apparently forgotten. She didn't reach for it — didn't so much as lean closer — but her posture sharpened all the same, the way Maren's did when a piece of data didn't fit the pattern around it.

"Where in the world did you come by that."

"It came with the bond," Ant said.

"Found it in the wasteland, the same day I found him." He glanced down at Mahkir.

"May I." She still hadn't moved to touch it, hand hovering somewhere short of the hilt, waiting on his answer.

"You can look. I'd rather nobody but me handled it, if that's alright."

"Wasn't going to ask to handle it." Her voice had gone quieter, more careful, though she caught herself before it went any further.

"I don't need to touch a piece to know what it is, not one like this. That's not smithing you're wearing, Ant — not the kind done in a forge like the one out there, or any forge belonging to a clan our size. That's work I've seen maybe twice in my life, and both times it belonged to something a great deal older and a great deal richer than us." She leaned in, close enough to study the flat of the blade without touching it, and went very quiet.

"There's scoring along the fuller. Thin. Deliberate." She tilted her head, tracing the line with her eyes rather than her hand.

"Those aren't decorative, Ant. Those are runes." Ant looked down at his own sword properly for what felt like the first time in weeks, and found the marks exactly where she was pointing — faint, almost lost in the steel's grain, the kind of thing he'd have sworn wasn't there if she hadn't just shown him otherwise.

"I didn't know that was there."

"Most people wouldn't, unless they knew to look." Hazel straightened, something unreadable working behind her expression now — not quite excitement, not quite unease, some careful mixture of both.

"Has it ever done anything. Beyond cutting, I mean. Warmed in your hand at the wrong moment, thrown light, anything that felt like more than a very good blade doing what a very good blade does." Ant thought about the mismatch in Mahkir's name against the chip. He thought about a sword that had never once needed sharpening despite months of use.

"I don't know. I've never really tried."

"Might be worth trying, when there's time for it properly." She said it carefully, like she didn't want to push harder than the moment could hold.

"Whoever made this didn't waste runes on a blade that couldn't use them. If there's more in there than you're currently pulling out, I'd want to know before it decides to show itself somewhere inconvenient." She paused there, and when she spoke again her voice had warmed, the weight of the last few lines easing off it.

"For now — I can't forge you anything new worth the name, not from what I've got. But I can build a scabbard. Something that actually fits it, keeps the edge protected, does the thing properly instead of you carrying it half-exposed like you have been. That much I can manage today."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Weeks, mind, for anything more ambitious. Forge needs rebuilding before it needs using." She straightened, wiping her hands on her trousers.

"I didn't come empty-handed regardless. Brought what I could carry — a few pieces I'd already half-finished before Kalsar's letter found me, nothing tailored to any of you specifically, but serviceable. Better than nothing, if something comes calling before I've had the chance to do this properly."

"Something might," Kalsar said, from the doorway behind them.

"Sooner than you'd like." He was holding the relay when Ant turned, and it took a half-second too long to register that it was humming — that same low, insistent note it had carried the last time, except this time Maren had it in her hand instead, having apparently gone for it the moment the tone started.

"It's a job," she said, scanning the scrolled text with the quick, focused attention she brought to everything worth reading properly.

"Vortex flare. Low threat, it says — sector marked, not far from here, by the look of the coordinates." She looked up, something bright and urgent replacing the calm she'd carried through the last hour.

"Our first one." Hazel was already moving back toward the forge, calling over her shoulder without slowing.

"Give me an hour on that scabbard regardless. I'll pull the rest of what I've got besides and see what fits close enough to matter. It won't be fine work, but it'll be something better than walking in there with just what you're standing in." Ant looked at the relay in Maren's hand, then out through the doorway at the open ground stretching toward the tree line, the wall that didn't exist yet, the fight that was apparently already on its way toward them whether the castle was ready for it or not.

Well, Mahkir said, settling back onto his shoulder with the easy confidence of something that had been waiting for exactly this. That didn't take long.