The silence in the stone study was absolute, broken only by the thin, grey light of dawn bleeding through the narrow window. The news of Harald's southward turn hung in the air, a specter more chilling than the north wind. William stood over the map, his knuckles white where they pressed against the scarred oak. The neat, defensive calculations for Blackcliff—the reinforced walls, the stockpiled grain, the guarded water source—now felt like a child's scribbles on the margins of a burning manuscript. He had fortified a stronghold the enemy had no intention of attacking. He had become a spectator to the gutting of his own kingdom.
Glenshaw hovered by the door, the coastal dispatch dangling from his fingers like a dead thing. "The commander at Eagle's Beak adds that the fleet was moving with purpose, sire. Not raiding. It flies Harald's personal banner—the black raven on blood-red."
"A conquest banner," William murmured. He traced the line from the coast down to the mouth of the Whitefall River, which led like a watery road straight into the heart of the Riverlands. To Riverton. "He's not coming for me. He's going to join the sickness already eating us from within."
The arithmetic was devastatingly clear. Harald would find Riverton fractured, its defenses shattered by plague and fanaticism. The Purifiers, who saw William as an unholy king, might see a pagan warlord as a divine instrument. At best, they would not resist him. At worst, they would open the gates. Harald would secure a deep-water port, a fertile hinterland, and a population ripe for manipulation. Blackcliff, for all its strength, would become an isolated mountain redoubt, cut off from the kingdom's breadbasket, surrounded by a hostile coast and a rebellious interior.
"Recall the council," William said, his voice stripped of all inflection. "Hiller. Brann. The captains of the garrisons. And… fetch Duke Daerlon."
Glenshaw's eyes widened. "Your Majesty? The Duke is—"
"A political prisoner and a potential traitor. And right now, he is also a man who knows the Riverlands lords, their temperaments, their loyalties, and their prices. Fetch him."
The council that gathered an hour later was a study in fraught tension. The stone room was crowded. Jonas Hiller stood with a merchant's poised alertness, already calculating the implications for trade routes and investments. Captain Brann, still in blood-spattered armor from the night's fight at the Tarn, glowered with the impotent fury of a soldier whose enemy has refused to meet his blade. The garrison captains looked tired and confused. And in their midst, Duke Daerlon sat in a high-backed chair brought for him, looking for all the world like a patient tutor among unruly students.
William wasted no time. He relayed the news of Harald's fleet and the situation in Riverton. "The siege is not here," he concluded. "It is there. We have been outmaneuvered. The question is not how to hold these walls, but how to prevent the Riverlands from becoming a Norse province and a rebel stronghold."
Hiller spoke first, his mind on logistics. "If Riverton falls, the entire Whitefall River basin is compromised. Our grain reserves, even at six months, become finite. No spring planting will happen in the Riverlands under occupation or chaos. By next winter, starvation becomes a weapon he can use against us, or any lords who remain loyal."
Brann slammed a fist on the table. "Then we march! We take every man who can carry a spear and we break that siege before it's fully formed! We crush this 'Purifier' rabble and meet Harald on the beaches!"
One of the garrison captains, a grizzled man from the eastern marches, shook his head. "March? It's a fortnight's hard march to Riverton. Harald's fleet will be there in three days. We'd arrive exhausted to find the city either fallen or defended by Norsemen dug in behind its walls. And if we strip Blackcliff, what's to stop some other Norse force, or," his eyes flicked to Daerlon, "other troubles, from rising here?"
All eyes turned to Daerlon. The Duke steepled his fingers. "A pretty dilemma," he said softly. "The King's new allies," he nodded to Hiller, "provide gold but not soldiers. His soldiers are tied to stone, defending against a threat that sailed away. And the people he rules are, in their hour of terror, calling for his head and welcoming his foe." He looked at William. "You asked for my counsel? Here it is: you cannot save Riverton."
A cold anger rose in William's throat. "So I should let it fall? Let Harald establish a kingdom within my kingdom?"
"It has already fallen," Daerlon said, his voice pitiless. "It fell to fever and fear before the first Norse sail appeared. Your Prefect Corwin is dead or hiding. This Silas holds the streets. Harald is merely arriving to collect the prize. Sending your army south is suicide. It would be destroyed in detail—on the march, or against the walls. Your only rational move is to consolidate here. Make Blackcliff impregnable. Let Harald and the Purishers have the Riverlands. They will not find it easy going. Plague does not distinguish between believer and pagan. The Riverlands lords, those still alive, will chafe under a Norse yoke or a fanatic's rule. Given time, they will remember the legitimacy of blood." He let the word hang in the air. Blood. The old currency, which William had devalued with his merchant deals.
Hiller, interestingly, did not disagree with the cold strategy. He looked at William. "The Duke's analysis, while harsh, is not incorrect from a purely strategic standpoint. However, there is a reputational cost. Abandoning the Riverlands would be seen by every other province as the Crown's ultimate failure. It would shatter the fragile notion of a unified kingdom. Silver Vale's Ferdinand would defect to Greyport within the week. The mountain clans would declare independence. You would be King of Blackcliff and not much else."
"So I am counseled to either suicide by army or suicide by legitimacy," William said, his voice flat. "A choice between a quick death and a slow, crumbling one."
"There is a third variable," Daerlon said, his eyes sharp. "The traitor. The one who guided the Norse to your water. The one who, presumably, knows of this 'forgotten door' your men have been digging for. That person is here, in this fortress. While you look south, your true enemy is at your elbow. Find him. Root him out. Secure your base. That is the first, irreducible calculation. A king cannot campaign with a dagger at his back."
For once, William and the Duke were in alignment. The traitor was a cancer in the body of his defense. But finding them required time and subtlety, resources he couldn't spare.
The council dissolved with no clear resolution, only a deepening sense of paralysis. William ordered increased patrols in the mountains and the placement of signal beacons on the southern peaks to watch for smoke from Riverton. He could do little else but wait and hunt.
The hunt began that afternoon. William, with Brann and two of his most trusted guards, started with the masons' guild. The master mason, a man named Tobin with forearms like knotted rope, was brought to the lower bailey shrine, now a shrouded excavation site.
"The tunnel," William said, pointing to the pit. "Who knew of it?"
Tobin wiped his hands on his leather apron, looking uneasy. "Sire, it's an old tale, a mason's story. My grandfather mentioned it. Said it was sealed after the war. The records… you've seen the record. But knowing it's there in a tale and knowing exactly where to find it… that's different."
"Who has access to the oldest archives? The foundation scrolls?"
"The castle archivist.Old Peytr. But he's half-blind and hasn't left his tower in years. And… well, Scribe Glenshaw, he's been copying and cataloging many of the older documents for your summaries, hasn't he?"
William's blood went cold. Glenshaw. The silent, dutiful, ever-present recorder of every crisis, every secret order. The man who heard everything, wrote everything down, and had unfettered access to the kingdom's deepest secrets, from treasury reports to ancient architectural plans.
He left Tobin and strode back to the keep, Brann struggling to keep pace. "Find Glenshaw. Bring him to my study. Quietly."
But Glenshaw was not at his desk in the scribe's annex. His quills were neat, his ink pots sealed. A half-finished copy of a grain inventory lay abandoned. One of the under-scribes, a boy of fifteen, stammered that Glenshaw had received a message after the council and left, saying he needed air on the walls.
William and Brann took the steps to the battlements two at a time. They found him on the northern curtain wall, the side that faced the steep, uninhabited cliffs. He was not looking out, but standing very still, his hands clasped behind his back, as if awaiting them.
"Glenshaw," William said, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
The old scribe turned. His face, usually a mask of placid duty, was etched with a profound, weary sadness. "Your Majesty. I surmised the investigation would lead here eventually. The masonry archives were the logical thread."
"You guided the Norse to the Tarn. You know of the tunnel."
"I know of many things,"Glenshaw said softly. "I have spent a lifetime recording the sins, follies, and tragedies of kings. My father did the same before me. We are a family of rememberers. And what I have remembered, sire, is a long line of waste. Waste of men, of treasure, of hope. Your father was a brute. His wars bled the kingdom white for pride. You… you are a calculator. You see people as numbers in a ledger. You hanged a man for trying to save his child. You sold the kingdom's future to merchants. Is that so much better?"
"So you betray the kingdom to a Norse raider?" Brann snarled, stepping forward.
"Harald is not just a raider!" Glenshaw's voice cracked with sudden passion. "He is Oskar Haraldson. His grandmother was Elara, sister to King Redwald III. He has a blood claim older than your father's line, Majesty. A claim he means to legitimize by marriage, not just by axe. He has offered terms. The Riverlands as his foothold, yes. But also a union. He will wed Lady Elyse, securing the legitimate lineage through her, and rule a united kingdom. He promises an end to the petty squabbling of the lords, a reign of strength and traditional order. No more rule of coin."
The words struck William like physical blows. Harald. Elyse. Marriage. A blood claim. It was a political masterstroke, far beyond the ambition of a mere pirate. It explained everything—the targeted strike at the kingdom's legitimacy, the focus on the symbolic heartland. Harald wanted to be a king, not a destroyer. And he was using William's own isolation, his cold methods, and the kingdom's sickness to make his case.
"Elyse would never agree," William said, but the statement felt hollow.
"Would she not?" Glenshaw asked. "To save the kingdom from a slow death by arithmetic? To bind a violent man to law through marriage, as women of her line have done for centuries? She is a realist, sire, as are you. Just of a different kind."
"You sent her the information about the tunnel," William realized. "You used her to warn me, to maintain your cover, even as you plotted with Harald."
"A necessary complication. I have… a fondness for this fortress. I did not wish to see it sacked. I hoped you would see the futility, that you would treat with Harald. But you only see problems to be solved, not tides to be joined." Glenshaw's shoulders slumped. "The man at the Tarn was to be captured. He carried an offer of parley. You killed him. You see? Even when presented with an alternative, you choose the bloody sum."
William drew his sword. The steel whispered in the cold air. "Where is the tunnel entrance? The real one."
Glenshaw smiled, a thin, tragic thing. "You are digging in the wrong place. The old shrine was rebuilt after the war. The true entrance is in the crypt beneath the Great Hall. Behind the tomb of Queen Marla. It is… my final entry in your ledger, Majesty."
Before Brann could move, Glenshaw turned and, with a calm deliberation that was horrifying to behold, climbed onto the crenellated wall. He looked back at William, not with defiance, but with the exhausted relief of a man closing a long and burdensome account book.
"The numbers never lie, sire," he said. "But sometimes they tell a story you do not wish to hear."
He stepped out into the empty air.
They found the crypt entrance exactly where he said it would be. Behind the worn stone effigy of Queen Marla, a section of wall swung inwards on silent, well-oiled pivots, revealing a descending stairway carved from the living rock, smelling of damp and ancient dust. It was not collapsed. It was clean, and recently used. Footprints marred the dust on the steps.
William stood at the mouth of the tunnel, a lamp in his hand. It was a vulnerability more terrifying than any army at the gates. Harald's elite force could have been inside Blackcliff weeks ago, could be inside now, hiding in the bowels of the mountain. Glenshaw's suicide was not an end, but a confirmation that the plot was in its final stages.
He ordered the tunnel blocked from the inside with the hardest stone available, and a permanent guard posted in the crypt. But the damage was done. Trust was shattered. If Glenshaw, the silent fixture of his rule, could be a traitor, then anyone could.
That night, as he tried to wrestle with the new, horrifying arithmetic—a blood claimant, a proposed marriage to Elyse, a traitor in his inner circle, and a kingdom splitting apart—the signal beacons on the southern peaks lit up. One after another, points of fierce orange light glared in the darkness, a chain of fiery eyes weeping against the night sky.
Riverton was burning.
The expected rider arrived at dawn, his face blackened with soot and despair. He fell to his knees in the courtyard, his message a gasped litany of disaster.
"The fleet… they came at sunset. Up the river. The Purifiers… they didn't fight. They opened the river gates. They stood on the walls with their torches and their white hand banners, cheering as the longships docked. Harald came ashore. He stood with their leader, this Silas… on the steps of the prefect's hall. Silas called him… 'the Scourge of God, sent to cleanse the land of the Unworthy King.' Harald took the city without shedding a drop of Norse blood. Our men… the loyal garrison… they were trapped in the citadel. The Norse and the Purifiers stormed it at midnight. I escaped over the wall as it fell."
The Riverlands were lost. The prediction had come to pass with a speed and efficiency that spoke of deep coordination. Silas and Harald were not opposing forces; they were partners in a devastating, symbiotic rebellion.
William walked away from the weeping messenger, back to his study, to his ledger. The entries now seemed to bleed into one another.
Harald: Landed at Riverton. Alliance with Purifiers (Silas). Controls Riverlands. Blood claim asserted. Intent: Legitimacy through marriage (Elyse?). Traitor (Glenshaw) eliminated. Tunnel secured (?).
Internal: Utter collapse of authority in south. Moral/political catastrophe. Legitimacy shattered.
Strategic Position: Blackcliff isolated. Food supply finite. No allies. Enemy holds food-producing region. Enemy has narrative (Scourge of God, legitimate claimant).
He set down his quill. The arithmetic of survival had reached an equation with no positive solution. He could not outlast a siege that would come from within his own starving lands. He could not defeat an enemy who had captured the narrative as well as the territory. The cold numbers offered only one path: total loss.
But as he stared at the map, his eyes were drawn not to the south, but to the east. To Silver Vale. To Ferdinand. And to the west, to the lands of the mountain clans, who owed no love to any lowland king.
A desperate, ugly, non-linear calculation began to form in his mind. If the kingdom could not be saved as it was, perhaps it could be shattered and remade along different, more brutal lines. If Harald sought legitimacy through marriage and tradition, then William would have to become something else entirely—not a king of law, but a king of necessity; not a ruler of a united realm, but a warlord of the pieces that remained.
He called for Brann. "Ready two companies of our best riders. Light, fast, and utterly loyal."
"Where are we riding,sire?" Brann asked, hope flickering in his eyes.
"Not'we,' Captain. You. You are riding to Silver Vale. You will get a message to Duke Ferdinand, by arrow over his wall if you must."
"What message?"
William's lips were a grim line."Tell him Harald holds Riverton. Tell him the Purifiers have blessed a pagan as the Scourge of God. Then tell him this: I will not ask for his son as a hostage. I will offer him my sister, Elyse, as a bride for his son, if he marches with me now. A union of the mountain kingdom and the Vale against the invaders and the fanatics. A new alliance, forged in fire."
Brann blinked, stunned. It was a complete reversal, a betrayal of William's own earlier stance, a move of pure, cynical realpolitik.
"And if he refuses?"
"Then tell him Harald will come for the Vale next,and he will bring the Purifiers with him to call his people to heresy. Then," William's ice-blue eyes were utterly devoid of warmth, "you will ride west, into the high clans. Offer them the same thing Harald offered the Purifiers: plunder and freedom. The right to raid the Riverlands, to take back what was stolen from them for a century, if they fight under my banner. Tell them I am not their king. I am the man who will open the gate to their vengeance."
It was the arithmetic of the abyss. He was proposing to fight fire with a darker, more chaotic fire. To sacrifice the future of the kingdom's unity, to promise his sister in a political marriage, to unleash the wild mountain clans, all to create a force unpredictable and violent enough to counter Harald's grim alliance. He would become the very thing Daerlon accused him of being: a king of chaos and calculation, with no law but survival.
As Brann left to carry these terrible orders, William looked at the empty chair where Glenshaw used to sit. The scribe was wrong. The numbers did lie. They lied by omission. They could not quantify the wild card of human rage, the explosive power of promised vengeance, the shifting sands of loyalty bought with blood and opportunity. His new ledger would be written not in ink, but in blood and ash. The reign of the Stone Throne was over. The era of the Forge King had begun.