Chương 18: Chapter 19: Leather on the Wall

The eastern camp smelled increasingly of blood. Not battlefield blood exactly. The sharper smell of opened carcasses, stretched hide, boiled tendon, wet fur, and smoke drifting through the unfinished palisades until the entire perimeter carried the scent of a butcher yard trying desperately to become a fortress.

By the sixth day beyond Dunmere's walls, beast carcasses lay stacked beneath stretched tarps beside the trench lines while labourers hacked strips of usable hide from bodies before rot or scavengers claimed them first. The walls were still rising. The supplies were not. I noticed the strain long before anyone said it aloud.

Leather bindings snapped constantly now beneath the weight of the Ironbark supports, shield straps split under repeated rain exposure, and rope frayed faster than replacement wagons could arrive from town. Every repair consumed three more materials already in short supply. Nothing failed dramatically. That made it worse. The camp was slowly wearing itself apart. Wade Corbett crouched beside a collapsed brace shortly after dawn, staring at the torn fastening straps with open disgust.

"There. Again." One side of the support beam had shifted overnight where swollen leather finally split beneath the timber strain. The Ironbark post now leaned dangerously outward above the trench. Jory Pike peered over Wade's shoulder.

"Can't we just use more rope?" Wade looked at him with exhausted hatred.

"Rope stretches." Jory considered that.

"Use thicker rope?"

"Thicker rope stretches thicker." Jory frowned.

"That feels unnecessarily educational." Wade shoved the ruined leather strap aside.

"It's necessary because you survive entirely through other people knowing things." Jory considered that briefly.

"Fair." I crouched beside the damaged brace while rain drifted lightly across the perimeter. The torn leather showed deep stress lines where repeated tension had weakened the hide almost to powder. I touched the split edge and felt how badly it had failed, not from one clean snap, but from a hundred smaller surrenders. Water had swollen the fibres. Cold had stiffened them. Weight had done the rest patiently.

"Too wet," I said. Wade grunted.

"Too old. We're reusing half these straps already." Bren Maddock stood nearby scanning the Greywash tree line beyond the trenches.

"Supply wagon?"

"Delayed." Bren's gaze remained on the trees.

"Again?" Wade's jaw tightened.

"River crossing backed up." He shoved the ruined leather strap aside irritably.

"At this point the walls'll collapse before the beasts knock them down." Silence followed that because nobody considered it impossible anymore. I looked toward the stacked beast carcasses beneath the tarps near the southern trench line. Marsh scavengers. Iron stalkers. Smaller river predators hauled in after patrol fights. Most had already been partially butchered for meat or discarded parts, though thick hide still clung to several bodies untouched.

"We could process the beasts," I said. Wade frowned immediately.

"For what?" I kept looking at the hides.

"Leather." Jory blinked.

"That sounds deeply unpleasant." I nodded toward the collapsed brace.

"We need bindings." Wade studied the carcasses thoughtfully now.

"Most of those hides are thick enough."

"Would need proper curing." Wade shook his head.

"Don't have time for proper." Bren finally looked away from the forest.

"Can it work?" I nodded slowly.

"Probably." The older guard grunted once.

"Then probably's good enough." The work changed after that. Construction slowed while the camp reorganised around necessity. Instead of purely cutting and hauling timber, labour crews now divided between wall reinforcement and beast processing stations near the fire trenches. Carcasses were dragged from patrol kills directly toward the southern yard where hides could be stripped, cleaned, boiled, stretched, scraped, pierced, wrapped, and repurposed before decay ruined them.

The entire camp became uglier almost immediately. Steam rose constantly from boiling hide vats beside the perimeter fires. Blood froze darkly into trench mud overnight before being trampled beneath boots by morning. Long strips of tendon and wet leather hung drying beneath stretched canvas roofs while workers hammered crude rivets through reinforced shield straps assembled from beast hide and scrap Ironbark bracing.

Men who had yesterday called themselves labourers now stood elbow-deep in carcasses, learning with grim speed which parts of a beast became meat, which became waste, and which became the difference between a wall holding or opening at the wrong moment. Dunmere was beginning to survive off the things trying to kill it. Wade seemed deeply pleased by this.

"Finally," the carpenter muttered while examining a newly reinforced hauling harness, "something around here's built to last longer than six bloody hours." Jory looked openly horrified at the stretched hide beside him.

"It still smells alive." Wade did not look sympathetic.

"That's because it was yesterday." Jory swallowed.

"I preferred trees."

"You complain about trees too." Jory pointed accusingly toward a dead Iron stalker near the skinning frames.

"Yes, but trees don't stare at me while I cut them apart." The ferryman narrowed his eyes at the carcass.

"That one definitely still looks judgmental." I ignored them while working near the southern fire trench. Skinning did not come naturally to me yet the way Timbercraft had begun to. The process still felt crude and unpleasant beneath my hands, more tearing than understanding, and the hides punished haste immediately. Cut too shallow and the blade dragged uselessly through wet fur, but cut too deep and value spilled away in ragged gouges. Toolsmith, however, settled easier.

The camp needed practical things: bindings, harness wraps, grip leather, shield straps, reinforced hauling loops. Functional survival mattered more than elegance now. I spent most of the morning reshaping wet beast hide around support braces and tool grips while Wade inspected structural joins nearby. The work demanded constant adaptation because beast leather behaved differently from normal cured hides. Thicker. Uneven. Tough in strange places while weak in others.

Some strips pulled beautifully under tension, then split without warning near old claw scars. Others looked useless until boiled, stretched, and wrapped over Ironbark where their ugly thickness suddenly became an advantage.

"Too tight," Wade muttered beside me. I adjusted the binding wrap slightly. He leaned closer.

"There." The carpenter nodded once.

"Better." Jory crouched nearby attempting to scrape fat from a hide while clearly regretting every life decision that had led him here.

"How did my profession become this?"

"You work near rivers," Wade replied.

"Everything near rivers eventually rots or gets eaten." Jory paused with the scraper halfway through a greasy line.

"That's profoundly bleak." Wade checked the binding I had just finished.

"That's because it's true." If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The first attack came shortly after midday. Not large. Not organised. Just fast. Three marsh scavengers burst through the outer mist while workers hauled fresh Ironbark stakes toward the trench line. Guards reacted instantly now after nearly a week under constant pressure. Bren intercepted the lead scavenger with spear and shield.

Wade shoved two workers backward while drawing his hatchet, and I reached for the sword automatically. Guarded Blade moved cleaner now than before. The advancement toward Iron (mid) had settled the skill deeper into my body over the previous days until the blade no longer felt borrowed. Still unfamiliar perhaps. Still disciplined in ways my instincts resisted. Yet usable now without conscious correction accompanying every strike. The scavenger lunged. I stepped sideways instead of backward.

The blade turned downward in a short precise cut that opened the creature's foreleg cleanly enough to collapse its momentum entirely. The beast crashed sideways through the mud while Bren's spear finished it almost immediately afterward. The second scavenger broke toward the leather racks. Jory screamed something incoherent and swung wildly with a shovel. Somehow it worked. Wade buried the hatchet in the beast's skull before it fully recovered. The final scavenger fled almost instantly once the others fell.

Nobody chased it. That had become another bad sign.

"They don't commit anymore," Bren muttered while cleaning blood from the spearhead.

"They're learning," Wade replied quietly. The older guard did not disagree. Rain thickened through the afternoon while the camp resumed work around the fresh carcasses. I spent hours reinforcing hauling rigs and support braces beside the southern wall section while smoke drifted low through the muddy perimeter. The repetitive shaping and binding slowly settled into rhythm beneath my hands. Measure tension. Trim excess. Wrap. Secure. Test strain. Repeat. Toolsmith deepened gradually beneath the repetition.

Not through inspiration. Necessity. Every failure mattered now because broken equipment meant delayed walls, weakened patrols, dead workers. The pressure sharpened the work. It also made Appraisal behave differently. I began seeing weakness before touching it: a strap too thin near the rivet hole, a shield grip set half an inch too far inward, a support brace pulling against its own fastening instead of sharing strain across the frame.

Each flaw appeared small until I imagined it failing under claws, weight, rain, and fear. Then small things became fatal. Near dusk, Bren approached carrying a damaged shield stripped nearly bare where old leather bindings had finally torn loose from the backing frame.

"Can you fix it?" I took the shield automatically. The damage looked severe at first glance, yet beneath the torn bindings the Ironbark structure remained solid. Beast tendon could replace the inner wraps. Thick stalker hide would reinforce the grip. A scavenger rib, split and shaved clean, could brace the lower join without adding too much weight. The thought arrived complete enough that I paused, surprised by it.

"Yeah," I said eventually. Bren handed over a fresh strip of cleaned hide.

"Do it fast." I settled beside the fire trench while rain hissed softly against the coals around me. Workers moved through the perimeter carrying tools and sharpened stakes while distant hammering echoed beyond the mist. Somewhere near the northern wall, Jory argued loudly with Wade about whether beasts understood architecture.

"They keep testing weak points," Jory insisted. Wade's answer came back at once.

"So do drunk men leaning on fences."

"Drunk men don't circle from downwind." Wade paused.

"Some do." Jory sounded offended by the possibility.

"That is not comforting."

"It was not meant to be." I tuned them out. The work narrowed my attention completely. The shield rested across my knees while wet leather strips tightened beneath my hands one layer at a time. Timbercraft guided the balance points instinctively now. Toolsmith followed behind it, understanding how tension should settle through grip and frame without compromising movement. The first wrap failed immediately, bunching too heavily near the inside curve.

I cut it away without irritation, which surprised me more than the failure itself. A week ago I would have cursed the wasted strip. Now the mistake simply taught the next angle. I reset the grip, loosened the shoulder tension, threaded tendon through the inner holes, and pulled the stalker hide across the frame, not as a covering, but as a living line of force between weak points. Something clicked. Not mentally. Physically. The bindings aligned suddenly into cleaner rhythm beneath my hands.

Weak points became obvious before strain even reached them. The shield no longer looked repaired. It looked functional. Reliable. Built from death, mud, and ugly need, but built properly all the same. The system settled heavily through me. The advancement rolled quieter than combat progression yet deeper than before. ABILITY ADVANCED Toolsmith has advanced from Iron (mid) to Iron (late).

You now better understand grip shaping, weight distribution, material stress, improvised construction paths, reinforced bindings, and the difference between temporary repair and durable field function. Your field-made repairs and practical tools can now reach stronger Iron-quality reliability when built from suitable materials under sufficient care. Knowledge spread through my hands and wrists in subtle practical ways. Grip shaping. Weight distribution. Material stress. Improvised construction paths.

The understanding did not feel academic. It felt earned. I exhaled slowly while staring down at the finished shield. Bren noticed immediately.

"You advanced." I nodded once.

"Useful one?"

"Think so." The older guard took the shield back and tested the new grip straps briefly. His expression shifted slightly after the second movement.

"Hm."

"That good?" Wade called from nearby before Bren could answer.

"That's a dangerous face from Bren. Usually means something's finally working." Bren ignored him while rotating the shield once more.

"Better than the old bindings."

"That was the idea." Bren's eyes remained on the shield another moment.

"Not everyone reaches it." The comment was quiet enough that I almost missed it. I looked up, but Bren was no longer watching the shield. The older guard's gaze had shifted past the fires, past the trench line, and toward the darkening forest beyond the southern wall. Movement flickered there. Not an attack. Not close enough for that. A shape stood partially concealed between the Greywash trees beyond the trench line, low and lean beneath the drifting rain. Smaller than the Greywash predators from earlier attacks.

Longer through the limbs. Its pale eyes reflected faint firelight while its head tilted slightly toward the southern wall section. Toward my workbench. The creature watched silently while rain moved through its grey fur. Then it disappeared. Wade had noticed it too.

"What was that?" Bren's expression darkened slightly.

"Scout." Jory looked immediately alarmed.

"Beasts have scouts now?" Bren kept staring into the trees.

"Always did."

"That feels like information we should've discussed earlier." Bren's attention stayed fixed on the place where the creature had vanished.

"It wasn't interested in the walls." I looked up slowly. The older guard nodded toward the leather bindings and tools spread around the fire trench.

"It was interested in what you were making." Nobody liked that explanation. Night settled heavily afterward. The perimeter fires burned brighter while workers reinforced trench sections beneath steady rain. Patrol rotations doubled near the southern wall where the scout had appeared, though nobody saw it again. That made the trees worse. Each patch of darkness beyond the trench seemed to contain patience now, not hunger. Hunger rushed. Hunger snapped. Hunger wasted itself against walls.

Whatever had looked from the trees had waited. I remained beside the fire trench longer than intended while reshaping fresh bindings beneath the low orange glow of the coals. The new Iron (late) understanding inside Toolsmith changed the work noticeably now. Less wasted movement. Cleaner joins. Faster adaptation. Useful. Dangerously useful. I fixed two more shield straps before midnight, then reinforced a hauling loop with boiled tendon and split Ironbark pins.

Wade checked the first without complaint, the second with a grunt, and the third by carrying it away silently, which seemed to be his highest form of praise. Jory eventually drifted over with a cup of thin broth and placed it beside my knee.

"You should eat." I did not look away from the binding in my hands.

"I will."

"You said that two hours ago." I tightened the tendon wrap.

"I meant it then too." Jory pointed at the untouched cup.

"That's not eating." I looked up at him. Jory pointed toward the trees with his chin, voice quieter than usual.

"If something out there is watching what you make, maybe make sure you're alive to be annoyed by it tomorrow." Then he walked away before I could answer. For a while, only the fires spoke. Leather tightened as it dried near the coals. Tendon creaked softly under tension. Rain ticked across canvas, shields, hides, and mud. Beyond the walls, beasts moved through the Greywash forests searching for something, or perhaps someone was searching through them.

And now, for the first time, something in those woods had stopped to watch me work.