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Chapter 4 - Smoke over Innisford

Sunrise smelled of boiled boar bones and fresh-cut ash wood. Even at dawn, the yard buzzed: Merra's smith apprentices stretched green hides across new shield frames while Rafe paced with a clipboard, counting nails and muttering about debts he had yet to invent numbers for. Edric strode through the bustle, cloak flicking behind his tall frame, greeting each worker by name. His left arm ached where the boar's tusk had kissed him, but the bandage stayed clean—Brynn's stitches were as tidy as her commands.

Near the forge, Fiona stood on a stool, hammering bronze rivets through rawhide and oak. Sparks danced over her braid. Each strike sent up a faint hint of copper and singed hair. Edric paused beside her.

"How many finished?"

"Seven!" she puffed. "Need fifty." She jabbed her thumb at a chalk mark on the anvil. A simple line with two hooks—her first intentional rune. "Edge rune for shield rims. Cuts vine or rope on contact."

"Your own design?"

"Borrowed from boar tusk curve." She grinned, freckles dark with soot.

"Keep carving," Edric said, warmth stirring in his chest. "Every hook reinforces the wall."

A sudden whoop rose near the gate. Will—now owner of Old Shieldy II, hide-wrapped and rune-rimmed—came sprinting, chased by two ragged urchins. They looked no older than ten, hair wild, clothes stitched from three different seasons. Will reached Edric, panting. "Found 'em sneaking grain sacks."

One urchin folded thin arms. "Didn't sneak. Borrowed. Would've paid after market."

"With what coin?" Will asked.

"Future coin." The boy's brown eyes glinted—equal parts hunger and bravado.

Edric knelt to eye level. "Names?"

"Cress," said the boy. He jerked a thumb at the smaller girl beside him. "That's Wren."

Rafe arrived, quill drawn as if it were a saber. "Grain stores are down a quarter sack!"

Edric raised a hand. "Cress, Wren—ever carried a message? Climbed walls?"

"Every day," Cress said.

"Then you've just enlisted." Edric pointed to the watchtower. "Food for work. Climb that ladder, spy the treeline, and whistle if you spot riders."

Cress's jaw dropped. Wren tugged his sleeve. "Told you borrowing was safer inside."

"Go," Edric said. The pair bolted, lighter already. Rafe gawped until Edric spoke again. "Pay them with last night's stew. Best security bargain in the realm."

Rafe grumbled but scribbled the names onto his ledger under a shaky new heading: Shadow Runners.

Brynn's boots crunched behind them. "Recruiting thieves, Highness?"

"Recruiting eyes. Walls can't watch everything."

She nodded, approving the logic more than the charity. "Good. Because walls may be tested sooner than hoped."

"Geldar scouts aren't the only ones sniffing around," she added. "A peddler swears Baron Tevrin hires plague-priests and pays them by the wagon load, smoke and sermons headed south."

She handed him a snapped arrow shaft—black-fletched, iron tip filed into a cruel hook. "Found it in slaughtergrass at dawn. Geldar colors."

Edric felt heat rise—anger, not magical. "Scouts."

"Checking range on our archers."

"We don't have archers."

"Exactly."

An image flashed through his mind: hooked arrows sinking into soft boar-hide shields, recruits breaking, walls folding. He inhaled slow. "We need archers by sundown."

Brynn's eyebrow rose.

"Fletcher tools?" he asked.

"Two drawknives, a half-broke feather jig."

"Find every goose quill in three miles. Fiona can fix the jig. We'll start with ten bows."

"String?"

"Horsehair and hope. Move."

Brynn's grin was fierce. She stalked off, barking orders.

They cobbled a fletching table from a door and two ale barrels. Fiona adjusted the jig while Edric shaved shafts with a hunting knife. Merra drilled holes for bowstaves in a plank and soaked them in boiling water to bend. Even Ashcoil lent a peculiar hand, curling around a bundle of reeds to hold them steady while Rafe tied crude strings.

By noon, ten short bows leaned against the forge wall, ugly as sin but willing to hurl a shaft thirty paces. Edric strung the first, drew, and loosed at a hay bale. The arrow wobbled, thudded low. He adjusted nock angle, tried again. Second shot struck the bale's heart.

A slow clap echoed. A stocky knight in sun-faded mail approached— Sir Garrick, Brynn's oldest friend, absent these last weeks on border patrol. His beard was grey streaked with red, and road dust coated his boots.

"Impressive, Highness," Garrick said, voice warm as anvil iron. "Miss once, learn twice."

"We'll need lessons if Geldar comes," Edric replied. He offered the bow. Garrick drew and split Edric's arrow down the shaft.

"Lessons start now." Garrick nodded at Will, whose mouth hung open. "String, boy."

Training resumed: Garrick adjusting stances, Brynn correcting grip, Edric demonstrating calm breathing. The yard filled with the twang of new strings and the rustle of feathers. Fiona fetched arrows, already planning stronger heads; Merra soothed burn blisters with tallow; Cress and Wren perched on the tower, whistling sight reports every quarter hour—nothing yet, but fog of distance stirred with heat.

Near dusk, Garrick walked Edric along the parapet. "Recruits show heart," he said. "But heart cracks when iron breaks flesh. Keep a reserve."

"Reserve?"

"Archers hidden till first breach. Surprise buys time." He tapped the hooked arrow lashed to the crenel. "And pray they don't bring fire."

As if summoned, smoke smudged the southern horizon. A thin smear at first, then a rising column. Wren's whistle sliced the quiet.

Edric narrowed his eyes. "Signal fire?"

Brynn jogged up, spyglass in hand. One look and her lips flattened. "Barn blaze. Geldar scouts torching farms to test response."

Garrick rested knuckles on stone. "They want us to chase."

Edric's mind turned like cogs: if they rushed, the keep would empty; if they stayed, farmers burned. Cost vs. coin of lives.

"Brynn, Garrick—dragons or dogs?"

"Dogs," Garrick said. "Herd us out."

Edric inhaled blood-scent memories of the dire boar, felt the bracer warm. "Then we stay on the wall. But we answer."

He plucked an arrow from the quiver, dipped the tip into forge-tallow, and held it to Brynn's torch. Flame bloomed. He nocked, drew, sighted on the sky over the burning farm, and loosed. The fiery shaft arced high, a red star streaking dusk.

A moment later, five more arrows joined—Ronan, Will, Merra, Garrick, Brynn. Six burning streaks marked the sky, six promises.

Edric spoke loud enough for rampart and courtyard alike: "Let them know we see, we remember, and we're ready."

Murals of orange danced on every face. The wind shifted; the smoke column thinned. Perhaps the scouts had what they came for; perhaps they understood the message. Either way, tomorrow's sun would rise on scorched fields—but also on new bows, new shields, and eyes that had learned to stare back.

Night bells rang. Edric leaned on the battlement. His bruises sang; his mind calculated. Fifty-seven souls had become sixty-one with Cress, Wren, Garrick, and one goat that refused to die. Not an army, but a shape—a thing that could grow.

Ashcoil slithered onto the stone, scales pulsing bright. Hungry again.

"We'll find food," Edric promised. "But first, walls to thicken, ropes to wax, and hope to keep."

The serpent coiled, content with words for now.

Below, the banner flapped—blood prints, crossed tusks, and now six soot smears where arrows had burned bright before falling. The story kept writing itself, stroke by hopeful stroke.

Tomorrow they would read it aloud—preferably to an enemy who understood every line.

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