A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (the reading list .txt) 📕

obvious signs of battle. I expected to see soldiers, dead or alive, but I saw nothing. Had the Golmere already breached the city? If they did, they must have scaled the walls as the gate looked to be still intact. As I neared the gate, I heard the shouting. It was not the panicked call for arms that accompanies an attack; it was disciplined, orderly. They called for water.

“Rider approaching!” The sentry called down from the parapet. “Identify yourself!” He didn’t pull on the bowstring that already held a thin-tipped arrow, but he aimed his bow towards me in the most non-threatening, threatening way possible.

“Faerin of…” I started before cutting myself off, “Lordson Faerin Monroe, son of…”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine, get in, get in!” the man shouted. The tall wooden gate creaked open, and the man stepped out. He took Steven’s reins without a word and led us both inside.

“There is a Golmere horde approaching,” I said breathlessly. “Where is your commander?”

“Another one? For quin’s sake, it isn’t enough we got a fire to put out?” the man asked. “Where you coming in from, boy?”

“Southwest, out near Alerhold,” I replied.

He nodded and put a hand to his scruffy chin. “Bout where did you see them?”

“It was hours ago, right around high moon. Maybe thirty or so miles from here. They were passing through Duncan’s wood. Hundreds of them, maybe more.”

“Great nethers, what were you doing out there?” he asked.

“I was baking a cake,” I said, flipping my collar. “What does it matter what I was doing? Did you hear what I said? Where’s your commander?”

“Sorry, sir,” the bowman replied. “Been a lot of folks asking questions up here since the battle is all, not sure who you can trust. The commander has a tent set up outside the House; he’s organizing what’s left of the militia. You should be able to find him there.

I nodded. “So the battle at the river was won then? How did we—”

The sound of a horn blasting cut me short. As it rang, the man bowed his head and touched two fingers to his forehead; when it rang a second time, I did the same. It was not a call to arms, not some rally to walls or alert of some approaching force; it was a tribute to the fallen.

It sounded forty and seven times, once for every man that had fallen. I didn’t know the number that had marched out, but I knew there weren’t many more spear hands left in Forhd.

When the last horn sounded, I lifted my head and locked eyes with the bowman. “The Golmere took the ground then?”

“No, sir,” he said, then paused as he looked around nervously. “We scattered them to the north two days ago. About two hundred strong if you believe the boys. Quin knows where they are now.”

“If we lost that many, how did we…?”

The man shook his head. “The horns weren’t for the militia. It was for them.”

“Them?”

He nodded. “The garrison up from Gent. It was ambushed last night on its way up the river.”

“The Circle?” I asked incredulously. “They couldn’t have been so bold as—”

The man shook his head. “It was the Seveli, purple uniforms and all. They rained down on ‘em with arrows and then when the company set to shore, they snuck in and set the barge ablaze. At least that’s how the captain tells it. A handful made it here, including the captain, the rest are rallying back in Gent. Lost the supply barge too.” He whistled. “Lots of iron on the bottom of the Woad as I hear it. Too bad I’m stuck here on this gate, or I might be taking a swim.”

“That makes no sense. Belen is a thousand miles away from Sevel. Why would they march all the way through the mountains just to come here?”

“How should I know? I’m just telling you what the captain said; he’s probably with the commander, assuming they got the fire under control. Go ask him.”

“Was the fire part of the attack as well?”

The man shrugged. “Don’t really know how it started, only that it started in Southquarter with all them refugees. Poor souls, not sure how many of ‘em were still in there when the flames got out of hand.”

I clenched my jaw. I had a few ideas on how the fire might have started.

“Commander says two full legions are on their way up, pulling them off the Westwatch. They will be crossing the Burh any day now just in case the Seveli are actually touched enough to start a war,” he explained.

“Six hells,” I cursed, “The Seveli...”

I trailed off as I considered the information. The Seveli would have little to gain in attacking the Empire, let alone Belen. They were an old and powerful nation, one that had resisted the Cyllian Empire for many years, but their strength was defensive in nature. The Westmarches, full of thousands of Golmere, were as good a deterrent against Imperial aggression as an army of their own. If a force did manage to clear that obstacle, they would then face a string of stout fortresses, supplied with men and materials by the Seveli fleet that patrolled the Ihl Sea.

The Empire would be hard-pressed to invade and come away with anything but dead and wounded. The Seveli knew this, and they knew it was the only reason Sevel still stood as a sovereign nation, despite any pretense of an alliance with Cyllia. It didn’t make sense for them to abandon a defensive position to try and invade some inconsequential stretch of rough lands a thousand miles or more away from their homeland.

I thought of the Seveli caravan then. Were they somehow involved? I could hardly consider them a simple salt caravan and traveling troupe now, not with what I had seen the night of the party. Could they have been spies for a larger force? I needed answers, but the one that had them was ten miles away in Windshear. Answers would have to