Chương 15: The Greenhouse

The castle was under lockdown. By dawn, the Great Hall was packed. Every woman, child, and elderly person from the village had been brought behind the stone walls of the Frost-Grip estate. Outside in the freezing courtyard, Giles and forty able-bodied men stood clutching wood-axes, sharpened pitchforks, and a few old hunting bows. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. The villagers knew the Outlaws by reputation. They were brutal, desperate men who left no survivors.

Jack stepped out into the crisp morning air, leaning on his cane. He had already unlinked the skeletons of the night shift as well as the other three, returning them to their dormant state in the deep crypts. With only his three core retainers active, the toll on his magic was incredibly light. Combined with the Frost-Cap elixir, his chest felt perfectly clear, giving him the physical stability he desperately needed for the coming days. Behind him were his three 'mages.'

Bones, Rusty, and Dusty were completely covered in the chainmail and dark wool tabards Barnaby had forged, their heads encased in iron bucket-helms. To the terrified villagers, they looked like three towering, silent executioners ready for war.

"Lord Jack," Giles said, stepping forward.

"The scouts report no movement from the southern woods yet. But they are out there."

"They will not attack in the daylight if they can help it," Jack replied calmly.

"They are starving and freezing. They will wait for the sun to drop to mask their approach." Giles looked around at the terrified faces of his men.

"Waiting is the hardest part, My Lord. The men are freezing out here." Jack looked at the men. Panic and idle hands were a dangerous combination during a siege. They needed a distraction, and more importantly, they needed a reason to believe they were going to survive this winter.

"We do not wait idly," Jack said, raising his voice so the courtyard could hear.

"We have a fief to run. The greenhouse frame was finished yesterday. It is time to bring the spring." Jack led the way across the snow-covered courtyard toward the newly built glass structure. The large panes of glass were set firmly into the wooden frames, sealing the building tight. At the front of the structure was a large, open fire-pit made of thick stone bricks, which connected directly to the underground trenches Jack's night shift had dug.

"Bring more coal," Jack commanded his Head Retainer. Bones stepped forward in his heavy armor. He picked up an iron shovel and began scooping coal into the stone fire-pit, which was already glowing with fierce, white-hot heat.

"I had my mages light the furnace hours before dawn to test the design," Jack explained to the gathered crowd, pointing at the firebox.

"The mechanism is very simple. The fire burns here. Because the iron lid is shut tight, the hot air cannot escape up into the winter sky. Instead, the fire is forced to push its hot exhaust directly through the stone-lined tunnels we buried beneath the greenhouse. Those stones soak up the heat and warm the soil from the bottom up." The villagers gathered around, listening in awe as they watched the smoke vent safely away from the glass. Jack stepped up to the wooden door of the greenhouse and pushed it open.

He motioned for Giles and the men to step inside. As Giles crossed the threshold, his eyes widened. Because the furnace had been running for hours, it was not freezing inside the glass building. The air was noticeably warmer than the courtyard, and it was getting hotter by the minute. The heat radiating upward from the underground stone tunnels had melted the frost. The rock-hard ice had turned into dark, damp soil.

"By the gods," Old Miller whispered, dropping to his knees. He pressed his bare hands against the dirt.

"It's warm. The earth is actually warm!" Karen hurried into the greenhouse, carrying a small leather pouch filled with the last surviving seeds from the kitchen cellars—hardy winter cabbage, turnips, and fast-growing peas. Her face was glowing with hope as she knelt beside Old Miller. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. She carefully opened the pouch, revealing the small, shriveled seeds that represented their only chance against the winter.

Using a short wooden trowel, Karen scored shallow, straight lines across the damp soil. The thawed soil was loose and rich, yielding easily to the wood and releasing a deep, fresh scent of wet dirt that hadn't been smelled in the valley for months. She carefully dropped the tiny turnip seeds one by one into the furrows, spacing them out just enough so their roots wouldn't choke each other as they grew. Old Miller didn't just watch. His old farming instincts immediately took over.

He set his heavy wood-axe aside and crawled over next to her, his scarred, calloused hands moving with practiced care. He gently pinched the warm soil back over the seeds, packing it down with light, rhythmic pats to ensure they were nestled safely against the heated dirt. He then took the larger pea seeds from Karen, burying them slightly deeper near the wooden wall frames where their vines could eventually climb toward the glass ceiling.

The men who had been gripping their axes in terror just moments before suddenly found themselves smiling. The sight of warm, workable earth in the middle of a deadly winter was nothing short of a miracle. It was a promise of life.

"The mages' design is flawless, Lord Jack," Giles said, looking back out the glass door toward the towering, armored figure of Bones, who was still shoveling coal into the furnace.

"We won't starve. Even if we are trapped here for months, we can grow our own food." Outside the greenhouse, near the castle armory, Barnaby the Blacksmith was helping distribute iron nails to reinforce the wooden gates. But his dark eyes were fixed firmly on the towering armored figure of Jack's Head Retainer. Barnaby had forged that armor himself. He knew the chainmail hauberk weighed fifty pounds. The bucket-helm weighed at least fifteen.

With the wool tabard and the leather boots, the man inside was carrying nearly eighty pounds of dead weight. Barnaby watched as Bones effortlessly drove the iron shovel into the coal pile, lifted sixty pounds of black rock, and tossed it into the furnace. Scoop. Toss. Scoop. Toss. The armored giant moved with terrifying, mechanical efficiency. Barnaby frowned, taking a slow step closer. He was a master of physical labor.

He knew that shoveling coal while wearing eighty pounds of sealed iron gear should have a grown man sweating profusely within minutes. The man should be gasping for air, his chest heaving, his posture sagging from the sheer physical exhaustion. But the Head Retainer's chest did not rise or fall. He did not grunt with exertion. No plumes of white steam escaped the narrow eye-slit of his bucket-helm to indicate heavy breathing. It was as if the armor was empty. Barnaby stopped a few feet away from the furnace.

"That is heavy work, Master Mage," the blacksmith said, his deep voice probing.

"You should lift the helm. Give yourself some air before you pass out from the heat of the fire." Bones stopped shoveling. The towering figure slowly turned its massive, iron-encased head toward the blacksmith. Barnaby swallowed hard. He looked into the narrow, horizontal slit of the bucket-helm. He expected to see a pair of human eyes glinting in the firelight. Instead, he saw absolutely nothing. It was just pitch-black emptiness, devoid of any life or light.

A profound, unnatural chill ran down Barnaby's spine that had nothing to do with the winter wind. The silence stretching between them felt heavy and dead. Through the mental link, Jack felt the interaction. He smoothly stepped out of the greenhouse, placing himself between the blacksmith and the skeleton.

"My retainers take their vows of silence and privacy very seriously," Jack said, his voice polite but carrying a subtle edge of warning.

"They do not feel the heat or the cold as we do. It is best to let them work in peace." Barnaby looked from the imposing, unmoving giant to the pale, calm young lord. He was a practical man, and he knew when to back away from a mystery that was too deep for him.

"As you say, Lord Jack," Barnaby murmured, giving a stiff bow before retreating toward the armory. He didn't know what was inside that armor, but he was absolutely certain it wasn't a normal human being. The day dragged on, the tension slowly mounting as the sun began its descent behind the jagged mountain peaks. Inside the greenhouse, the seeds were planted, and the soil was thoroughly warmed. Inside the Great Hall, the women and children were fed another round of thick porridge.

But as the sky turned the color of bruised orange, the true test began. Jack stood on the stone balcony overlooking the main courtyard, wrapped in his heavy cloak. Bones, Rusty, and Dusty stood rigidly behind him. Down below, Giles and the village militia had taken their positions behind the barred wooden gates, their bows knocked and their axes ready.

"Lord Jack!" A shout echoed from the high watchtower on the western wall. The village spotter was leaning over the stone parapet, pointing frantically toward the tree line of the southern woods. Jack gripped the stone railing. Emerging from the dark shadows of the pine trees were figures. At first, it was just a handful, moving slowly through the deep snow. Then, dozens more spilled out from the timberline. They were a terrifying sight. There were easily sixty of them.

They wore tattered, stolen furs and leather armor patched together with crude iron rivets. They carried swords, heavy spiked clubs, and scavenged imperial crossbows. They looked half-starved, their faces gaunt and wild, driven by the absolute madness of the freezing winter. When the bandits saw the thick plume of black smoke rising from the castle's hearth, a collective, animalistic roar went up from their ranks.

It was the roar of desperate men who had found salvation and were willing to butcher anyone in their way to claim it.

"Archers on the walls!" Jack shouted, his voice ringing with absolute authority.

"Do not let them touch the gates!"