Chương 51: Chapter 52: No Copper on The Shelf

We dragged the first two ironwood lengths toward the western palisades. Wade had wanted one for The Cataract's lower brace and another for the storehouse. He had been right when he said it, which made the change worse. Then a guard runner came from the west road with ash on his face and blood dried down one sleeve, and Lysa listened for three breaths before looking toward the broken edge of town. Roofs mattered. Stores mattered. The hole under The Cataract mattered.

But none of them mattered if the next Beastkin pack, blood-maddened beast, or Crimson Elf remnant walked through the western gap before sunset. By the time we brought the last ironwood back, the broken western palisades that separated the town from the forest and part of the lower southern swamp stood; kind of. Halden Strath found us there while Wade was arguing with a gatepost.

The palisade ran along the west edge of Dunmere in a dark, uneven line of split posts, torn rope lashings, old stakes, broken rails, and gaps where last night's attack had turned defence into kindling. Beyond it, the town fell away into churned mud, trampled grass, and the desolate west road, where smoke lay low over the fields and scavenger birds had already learned the shape of opportunity.

The ironwood lay across two trestles, dark and wet at the cut, and Wade sat on his stool with one wrapped leg raised on a broken crate, glaring at the broken gate as if hatred could make hinges honest. Lysa stood beside him with Pell's slate in one hand and no intention of returning it, while three tired workers waited for instructions they were too afraid to misunderstand. The ironwood I had brought back looked strong enough to hold anything.

Wade's face said strength was only useful when fastened to the right thing.

"You cut it too short for a gate spine," Halden said, crouching beside the nearest length and tapping it twice with a small hammer. The sound was dull, deep, and clean. Wade's head turned slowly, and he said good morning to him too. Halden answered that it was not good and morning had done nothing to earn politeness, then tapped the beam again.

"Useful. Not enough." Lysa's hand tightened around the slate.

"Nothing is enough this morning."

"No," Halden said.

"But some insufficiencies kill slower than others." Talia leaned against a broken fence post, watching him with the same measuring attention she had given Lysa.

"You always this cheerful?" Halden glanced at her sword, her stance, and the way every nearby worker pretended not to stare at her.

"Only when walls lie to me." Wade snorted despite himself.

"They lie because fools build them."

"Fools repair them worse." Halden stood and pointed toward the broken west gate.

"The ironwood helps there, there, and across that split lower run if you notch it properly. It will not solve the fastening problem." Lysa looked from the beam to the palisade.

"Fastening?"

"Pins. Clamps. Brackets. Spikes. Straps. Gate bands if you want this thing to be more than upright timber waiting for the next body to lean on it." Halden kicked one broken lash with the side of his boot.

"You have good wood now and no steel worth trusting to hold it under impact." Wade's scowl deepened, which meant agreement.

"We have nails."

"You have house nails, bent gate spikes, two barrels of mixed scrap, and whatever hinge iron people can strip without leaving their own doors as decoration. That is not palisade work. That is asking Beastkin to be courteous." The workers shifted. One of them looked toward Lysa, not Talvek, not Pell, not Wade, and she saw it. She did not enjoy it. She used it anyway.

"What do we need?" Halden unrolled one plan against a broken crate and weighted the corners with stones. The drawing was not of one building but of Dunmere's western edge: palisade line, gateposts, ditch, watch steps, drainage runnels, dead ground, approach lanes, old cart tracks, and marks that had probably been theory yesterday and accusation now.

"Steel pins for the ironwood. Strapwork for the gate and the broken brace lines. Proper post shoes for the western supports if you intend them to survive wet ground and ranked impact. Tool steel, because every axe and saw you own will die cutting more of this. Nails are not enough. Iron is barely enough. Bad iron is insult dressed as metal." Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Wade muttered that he hated being alive when Halden was right.

Halden ignored him, which suggested practice. I looked at the broken half-haft still tied to the cart with the salvaged axe head beside it. My hands ached where blisters had split under the cloth. The ironwood had cost the axe, and the axe had only been Iron. Used Iron, stressed Iron, good enough for a poor woodsman trying to survive Iron problems. I was Copper now. It felt like a coat stolen from someone taller. Lysa followed my gaze. Halden did too.

"That yours?" Halden asked.

"It was."

"Good Iron once," he said.

"Not for what you asked of it."

"I needed the wood."

"Yes. Need breaks poor tools faster than stupidity. Though the two often cooperate." Halden looked at me properly then, and I felt the attention settle like a measuring weight.

"You are Copper?"

"Copper (early)."

"With Iron tools."

"Mostly."

"With no proper armour." I said nothing.

"With no Copper axe, no Copper pack frame, no ranked boots for roadwork, no bracing gear, no spare tool steel, and, from the way you are standing, no sense." He turned back to Lysa before I could answer.

"The town's problem and his are the same problem." Lysa's eyes narrowed.

"Steel."

"Supply," Halden said.

"Steel is the cleanest word for it." The jagged western palisades had gone quieter around us. Even the exhausted workers understood that something larger than one gate was being named. Dunmere had ironwood lying across trestles now, proof that something could still be cut from the world by force, but without steel it was only a strong bone tied with rotten string. A candle may enable light, but in the wind it flickers to darkness.

I thought of the broken palisade, the swamp and forest beyond it, the dead guards under sheets, the nearest town three days away and probably counting its own losses. My coin sat in Merris' pack, heavy, real, and trapped inside a pile of rubble Lysa called a town.

"Where do we get it?" Lysa asked. Halden paused. Not because he did not know. Because he knew too well and was deciding how much of the answer to expose.

"Eisenfeld." Wade swore softly. Lysa looked at him, then back to Halden.

"Your home town."

"One week north if the roads still remember being roads. Longer if bridges are out, beasts have moved, or Crimson elven attacks persist. But Eisenfeld has foundries, tool steel, proper smiths, dwarf-line gatework, ranked fittings, and people who understand that timber without fastening is only hope standing upright."

"And they will sell to us?" Lysa asked.

"They will sell to coin, debt, threat, need, pride, and old obligations if arranged in the correct order."

"That does not sound like yes."

"It is better than asking our own ruins for steel." Wade rubbed both hands over his face.

"Strath." Halden did not look at him.

"You were going to say it by nightfall. I am saving you the trouble."

"I was going to say we need steel. Not send the boy north."

"I did not say boy." Everyone looked at me then. I disliked how quickly the word had vanished from the air and left only my rank standing in its place. Lysa's expression changed first, not into permission, but into fear controlled before it could become argument. Talia's face remained light, almost bored, which meant she had already understood where the road led. Wade looked furious, but not surprised. Halden looked as if he had found a load-bearing point. I said, "Dunmere needs steel."

"Yes," Halden said.

"I need gear."

"Yes."

"Eisenfeld has both."

"Yes."

"And you can get there."

"I can get there, speak to the right people, insult the wrong people only where useful, and tell you which bridges are lying before you put weight on them." Talia pushed away from the fence post.

"A week north through broken roads after a beast surge. Charming." Halden looked at her.

"You are welcome not to come."

"I did not say I disliked charming." Lysa stepped closer to me, lowering her voice without softening it.

"You do not decide this because you broke an axe and feel useless."

"I know."

"You do not." She was right, which made me want to disagree more. Instead I looked at the ironwood, at the workers waiting to be told how to turn timber into a wall before another attack tested the town, at Wade's leg bound on a crate, at Halden's plan showing the western gaps like open mouths. Dunmere had raised me poor, armed me poorly, and survived me becoming Copper. But it could not follow me there.

Not with shelves of Iron tools, nails counted like medicine, one cart left, and coin trapped in a powdered market.