Chương 32: Chapter 33: Beneath The Floodline

The ration stew at the Cataract had become thinner again. I noticed before the first spoonful reached my mouth. Less grain. Less fat floating near the surface. More water stretched through root vegetables boiled long enough to soften without adding much substance. Nobody complained openly anymore. Complaints belonged to the first weeks of hardship, when people still believed discomfort was temporary and someone important somewhere remained capable of fixing it. Now the common room simply ate in silence.

Merris did not say much. Rain tapped steadily against the patched shutters while militia rotated through the lower tables collecting wrapped supplies for the eastern barricades. The Cataract smelled of wet wool, damp ash, and overworked kitchens. Half the common room still remained closed where the ceiling damage had worsened after the fire, leaving only a crowded narrow space near the hearth for refugees and guards to share. Lysa moved through it all with quiet efficiency.

The restless spark she once carried had not disappeared entirely, but grief had forced it inward and sharpened it into something harder. She no longer darted between tables talking over customers or teasing travellers. Instead she worked steadily beside the kitchen, carrying bowls, collecting linens, and helping organise ration counts beside the surviving inn staff. Garron's old keys hung now from her belt beside the little heartwood horse tied carefully against the leather cord.

Merris knew which cellar shelves had belonged to the original inn stores before Garron's grandfather bought the place. He knew which dry wall hid the older grain hooks, which founder marks meant private stock, and which storage doors had been rebuilt after floods no one had written into the public ledgers. It sounded impossible until Lysa said his family had always known where other families hid practical things.

Merris gave her a look sharp enough to close the subject, then marked three sacks of old barley for the kitchen as if nothing personal had been said. I noticed the carving every time she passed me. Not because it was beautiful anymore. Because she carried it openly, as though the promise mattered more after becoming impossible.

"Eat faster," Lysa said. I looked up from the stew. Bren stood beside the table tightening the straps across one forearm while rainwater dripped steadily from the edge of his cloak onto the floorboards below. Behind him Jory Pike already hovered near the doorway with enough restless movement for three men while Wade Corbett leaned against the wall chewing through a strip of dried river fish with visible resentment toward both the fish and existence generally.

"We leaving now?" I asked.

"We were leaving five minutes ago," Wade muttered. Jory brightened slightly.

"That's not true. Five minutes ago Bren was still threatening to throw me into the river."

"You suggested using scavenger carcasses as bait again."

"It was strategic thinking."

"It was stupid."

"Most strategy looks stupid before success." Wade swallowed with visible effort.

"Your strategy looks stupid afterward too." Bren ignored them both and jerked his head toward the door.

"Move." The rain had eased into cold drifting mist by the time we crossed the eastern gate. Dunmere looked exhausted in daylight. Smoke still rose from sections of the river quarter while workers dismantled collapsed buildings for salvageable timber and iron braces. Every wagon moving through the streets now carried something necessary: barricade lumber, preserved food, wounded militia, corpse shrouds. Nothing entered or left the town without purpose anymore.

A sixth figure waited beyond the gate road beside two heavily loaded handcarts. I recognised him vaguely from the lower mill districts though we had never spoken directly before. The man stood broader through the chest and shoulders than most humans, with dense muscle packed heavily across his frame beneath a long weather-stained coat reinforced at the elbows with old leather patches. Yet he remained too tall to pass fully as dwarf.

His limbs carried more reach than dwarven proportions allowed, and though his beard remained thick, it had been trimmed close along the jawline as though practicality mattered more than pride. The smell reached us before the introduction fully did: wet stone, lamp oil, and river mud. Halden Strath looked up from adjusting a chain hook on the cart and nodded once toward Bren.

"You're late."

"You're not command," Bren replied.

"No, but the tunnel supports don't care about rank structure."

"That sentence sounds exactly like you." Halden grunted softly and returned attention to the cart. Several bundled brace poles rested across the top beside coils of rope, stone wedges, and iron anchoring spikes blackened from reuse. Jory leaned toward me quietly.

"Bridge lunatic."

"I heard that," Halden said without looking up.

"You always do."

"That's because you speak like a man trying to escape silence before it catches him." Wade snorted once through his nose while Bren rubbed one hand slowly down his face.

"Halden's joining us," the older guard said.

"Tunnel inspection."

"Those tunnels should've been sealed ten years ago," Wade muttered.

"And flood half the lower quarter every thaw season?" Halden finally looked up properly then, dark eyes sharpening beneath the mist.

"Brilliant solution. We'll drown before the beasts arrive."

"We already nearly drowned."

"Because the drainage system was never finished."

"Because the Greywash eats foundations." Stolen story; please report.

"No," Halden replied evenly.

"Because Dunmere builds like winter ends eventually." The exchange clearly belonged to an older argument neither intended to surrender. Bren stepped between it before the discussion could harden further.

"We're not rebuilding the town today. Patrol first." Halden lifted one of the handcart handles without complaint after that and began moving eastward along the lower marsh road beside the others. The task itself sounded simple enough when Bren explained it fully. Three militia patrols sent toward the southern drainage channels had failed to return during the previous two nights.

One body had eventually been recovered near the river culverts with signs of scavenger attack, but no indication existed where the remaining guards disappeared. Worse still, supply runners reported movement beneath the flooded lower tunnels connecting the eastern drainage systems toward the Greywash. Something used the tunnels now. Whether beasts, raiders, smugglers, or something else remained unclear. The marshlands beyond Dunmere carried a different silence than ordinary forest.

Woods held layered sound even during winter: branches shifting, birds moving, hidden animals disturbing undergrowth. The Greywash simply absorbed noise. Mist drifted low across black water and dead reeds while narrow channels cut silently through flooded earth toward the distant river beyond sight. I felt Hunter's Eye settle quietly awake as we walked. Not active exactly. Attentive. The road itself revealed strain everywhere now.

Old wagon tracks disappeared beneath waterlogged mud while crude reinforcement planks had been hammered hastily across sections sinking into marsh rot. Twice we passed broken barricades abandoned after earlier attacks. Both carried signs of scavenger feeding. Jory avoided looking directly at the bodies.

"That one's fresher," I said eventually. Bren glanced toward the remains half-submerged beside the reeds.

"How can you tell?"

"Eyes." The others looked. The corpse still had them. Jory grimaced immediately.

"That's horrible."

"It's useful."

"That makes it more horrible." Halden studied me briefly after that before returning attention toward the drainage channels ahead. The lower tunnel entrance emerged near midday beneath a collapsed stone spillway overgrown with marsh grass and river vines. Half the original structure had sunk sideways decades earlier where floodwater undermined the foundations, leaving the drainage entrance twisted sharply beneath leaning stone supports blackened by damp and age. Halden stopped immediately.

"That brace shifted." Wade followed his gaze upward.

"Looks fine."

"It's not bearing weight correctly."

"It's still standing."

"Barely." The half-dwarf moved closer toward the entrance while inspecting the stonework with surprising intensity. His fingers traced cracks most men would never notice while his eyes moved constantly between support angles and pressure lines hidden beneath moss and water stains.

"You can actually tell all that by looking?" I asked. Halden glanced toward me once.

"You can tell when marsh predators are waiting in reeds before they move."

"That's different."

"Not really." The engineer tapped one of the stone braces lightly.

"Everything carries pressure somewhere. Most collapses announce themselves before they happen." He straightened slowly afterward.

"This tunnel's been used heavily recently." Bren's expression hardened.

"How heavily?"

"Enough to stress old supports." Halden pointed deeper into the entrance.

"Weight moving through consistently."

"Beasts?"

"Maybe." The engineer shrugged.

"Maybe carts. Maybe dragged loads. Maybe men carrying equipment." His eyes shifted briefly toward the darkness below.

"Something organised." That word lingered unpleasantly. We entered single-file afterward beneath low torchlight. The drainage tunnel smelled of river water, mould, rotting reeds, and old stone soaked permanently by flood seasons. Narrow runoff channels cut along both walls while black water pooled ankle-deep across uneven sections of the floor. The ceiling lowered steadily the deeper we moved inward until even Bren occasionally needed to duck beneath exposed support beams. I disliked Ember Blade here immediately.

The tunnels restricted movement too tightly. Wide swings risked striking stone or allies before reaching targets. The evolved skill still pulsed warmly beneath the axe head, but underground the weapon felt almost oversized. Hunter's Eye settled over the darkness instead. Torchlight shifted strangely through the tunnels. Shadows lengthened wrong around the runoff channels while old scrape marks covered sections of stone near the lower walls. Some came from flood debris. Others did not. I slowed near one bend.

"What?" Bren asked quietly.

"Smell." The others stopped. Wet fur lingered faintly ahead beneath the mould and river water. Scavengers had passed through earlier, though not recently enough for the scent to feel immediate.

"Passed through before us," I said.

"Not waiting." Jory exhaled softly.

"You saying that confidently is becoming upsetting." The tunnel widened farther ahead into an older maintenance chamber reinforced with thick stone pillars half-submerged beneath black water. Several rusted chain pulleys still hung from the ceiling where workers once controlled floodgates during thaw seasons. And someone had been living there recently. The evidence spread quietly across the chamber floor once the torchlight reached it. Burned cookfires. Torn blankets.

Crude butcher hooks hammered into support beams. Animal bones stripped clean beside old ration tins and broken lantern parts. Not scavengers. People. Wade crouched beside one of the fire pits.

"Smugglers?"

"Too organised," Bren replied. Halden moved toward the far wall slowly.

"And too permanent." The engineer pointed toward a series of grooves carved carefully into the stone support beside the chamber entrance. Measurement marks. Repeated over time. Someone had been tracking water height.

"Who does this?" Jory whispered.

"People planning to stay," Halden answered quietly. I moved deeper into the chamber while Hunter's Eye gathered details faster than conscious thought fully processed them. Rope fibres caught beneath stone cracks. Grease marks near the pulley chains. Small piles of scavenger meat stacked deliberately near the lower runoff tunnel. Feed stations. The realisation settled coldly through me. Something had been guiding the beasts. Not controlling exactly. Managing.

A faint pulse of warmth spread suddenly through the pack against my shoulder. The heartwood core. Underground, the reaction strengthened enough that I felt it clearly through cloth and leather. Heat spread lightly along my side before fading again beneath the movement of the patrol. Wrong. The tunnel felt wrong now. Halden looked toward me briefly.

"You alright?"

"Fine." The engineer's eyes lingered a second longer than comfortable before moving away again. One of the militia scouts called softly from the far end of the chamber.

"Found something." The others crossed toward him immediately. A narrow side tunnel disappeared deeper beneath the flooded foundations beyond the chamber wall. Unlike the older drainage systems, this passage looked cleaner and more stable, reinforced recently with newer timber braces scavenged from surface buildings. And scratched across the stone beside the entrance sat a crude map of Dunmere. Not artistic. Functional. Simple lines marked walls, roads, drainage routes, and river approaches.

Several sections had been crossed out while others carried repeated scoring marks near the eastern and southern districts. Jory stared openly.

"That's our town."

"No," Bren said quietly. The older guard stepped closer toward the wall.

"That's our town being studied." Silence settled heavily through the chamber after that. I watched the scratched markings while Hunter's Eye pulled quietly at the details around them. Not random. Not desperate. Whoever used this chamber had mapped pressure points, supply lines, and entry routes with deliberate care. Searching. Again that feeling returned. Searching for something. Bren seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts before he spoke.

"Could still be raiders." I looked toward him.

"Could be smugglers using the attacks as cover," the older guard continued steadily.

"Could be river gangs planning extortion. Could be beast handlers looking for weak routes into storage districts." He tapped the stone beside the map once.

"Organised doesn't mean supernatural."

"No," I admitted quietly. But Hunter's Eye kept pulling toward the scoring marks near the eastern district. Near the Cataract. Near where the heartwood core now rested hidden in my pack beneath layers of cloth. The warmth pulsed once more. Then stopped.