The silence in Blackcliff's Great Hall was not peaceful; it was the taut, humming quiet of a drawn bowstring. William stood before the empty hearth, the cold stone at his back mirroring the chill hardening in his chest. He had given Brann his terrible, pragmatic orders. He had proposed selling his sister in a political marriage and unleashing the wolf-like mountain clans upon his own people. The arithmetic of kingship had been discarded. Now he practiced the darker geometry of the warlord: finding the angles of advantage in a collapsing world.
He needed to know if his desperate gambit had any chance. And for that, he needed to understand the enemy's mind better than his own. He sent for the only prisoner of note from the skirmish at the Black Tarn: a young Norse warrior, left wounded and forgotten in the chaos, now languishing in a cell below the keep.
The man was brought to the study, his arms bound, a crusted gash on his forehead. He held himself with a defiant pride that transcended his circumstances. His eyes, a startling grey, scanned the room with the assessment of a hunter, not a captive.
"Your name," William said, dispensing with preamble. He spoke in the common tongue of the coastal trade, which had Norse roots.
The warrior's eyes flickered with surprise, then narrowed. "I am Egil, son of Rurik, of the Drakenblod," he said, his voice rough.
"You serve Harald Blood-Raven."
"I serve the rightful king,"Egil corrected, his chin lifting.
"The rightful king sits before you," William said, his tone devoid of heat. It was a statement of fact, not a boast.
Egil spat on the stone floor. "You are a caretaker of stone. A king of ledgers. Harald is a king of blood and song. The land remembers his blood. The people will follow it."
"The 'people' in Riverton follow a madman who calls your Harald the 'Scourge of God,'" William countered. "Does your king of blood and song enjoy being called a divine flail? Does he kneel in the temples of the Purifiers?"
A flicker of distaste crossed Egil's face, so swift William almost missed it. "Alliances are tools. The tool is used, then set aside. Silas clears the path. Harald walks it. After the walk, the path is remade."
It was a revealing sliver. The Norse warrior, bred on sagas of honor and direct combat, was uncomfortable with the fanatical, unclean alliance. There was a fracture there, between the Norse conception of glorious conquest and the grubby reality of using religious lunatics. William stored the information.
"Harald seeks to marry the Lady Elyse," William stated, watching Egil closely. "To graft his claim onto the old tree. Does he think she will come willingly to the man who burns her brother's kingdom?"
Egil's confidence seemed to solidify on this point. "Women of high blood understand duty. She will come. Or she will be taken. The marriage will happen. It is the final seal. With her, the lords who waver will see the line is restored. The alliance with the river-fanatics will be… unnecessary."
So. The Purifiers were a temporary expedient, to be discarded once Harald achieved legitimacy through Elyse. It was a more sophisticated, more cynical plan than William had credited. Harald wasn't just a brute; he was a strategist playing a long game of thrones. This made him more dangerous, but also, perhaps, more predictable. His goal was not destruction, but consolidation. He needed Elyse. He needed the perception of continuity.
"You are a warrior, Egil," William said, shifting his tone. "You fought well at the Tarn. Your jarl died well. Do you wish to rot in a hole, or die in the sun with a sword in your hand?"
Egil stared, suspicion warring with a warrior's longing for a clean end. "What is your meaning, ledger-king?"
"I am giving you a message for Harald," William said. He walked to his desk, took a plain piece of parchment, and wrote a single line. He did not seal it. He handed it to Egil. The Norseman looked at it, his brow furrowed in concentration. The message was in the common tongue: The mountain remembers its own. The door you seek is watched by wolves.
It was cryptic, meant to sow doubt. It implied William knew of the tunnel plot (the door) and was prepared (wolves). It also hinted at a deeper knowledge of the land ('the mountain remembers'), a subtle counter to Harald's blood claim.
"Why would you let me go?" Egil asked, bewildered.
"Because a message delivered by a loyal warrior carries more weight than one sent by dove or herald. Because I want Harald to know I am not cowering behind my walls. And because your death here serves me nothing. Your return to him… may serve us both."
"How?"
"Tell him what you saw.Tell him of the defenses. Tell him of the man who killed your jarl in fair combat. Tell him the King in the Mountain is waiting. And tell him," William leaned forward, his ice-blue eyes locking with Egil's grey ones, "that the Lady Elyse is not a prize to be taken. She is a force of nature. And she chooses her own storms."
He had Brann untie Egil, give him a horse, water, and a clear path to the eastern passes. It was a risk. But William needed to communicate directly with his rival, to shift the game from passive defense to a tense, psychological duel. A freed prisoner carrying a taunting message was a move from an older, more personal playbook.
The days that followed were an agony of waiting. William drove the fortress through drills, inspected every arrow loop, every cache of stones for the catapults. He met with Jonas Hiller daily, their conversations now stripped of any pretense.
"The money from the merchants bought us time," Hiller said one evening, reviewing grim ledgers of their own. "But it cannot buy loyalty from starving men. If we cannot break the hold on the Riverlands by harvest, the murmurs against you will become roars. Daerlon's 'League of Ancient Blood' is already whispering that you let the south fall to preserve your own skin."
"Let them whisper," William said. "Have your agents found any tangible link between Daerlon and the Purifiers? Any gold trail, any messenger?"
Hiller shook his head. "Nothing. The Duke is careful. But silence can be a weapon, too. His very inaction condemns you. He presents himself as the dignified alternative, unsullied by failure or… mercenary deals."
It was the political front of the war, and William was losing. His legitimacy, always brittle, was cracking under the twin hammers of military disaster and aristocratic disdain.
Then, a week after Egil's release, the first response to his gambits arrived. Not from the south, but from the west.
A party of riders clattered into the lower bailey, men unlike any in William's service. They wore hides and wool, their armor a mismatched collection of boiled leather and scavenged mail. Their faces were weathered and fierce, their hair long and braided with feathers and bits of bone. At their head was a woman.
She was tall, her frame lean and muscular, her dark hair streaked with grey and woven into a complex plait. She wore a sword at her hip with the casual ease of long familiarity. Her eyes, as she dismounted and looked up at William on the steps of the keep, were the color of flint. This was Morwen, chieftain of the Red Hawk clan, the most powerful and feared of the mountain folk.
William descended to meet her, his guard tense behind him. The air crackled with mutual, hostile assessment.
"King of the Stone House," Morwen said, her voice a low rasp. "Your man Brann brought words. Interesting words. You offer us the right to raid the Riverlands. To take what we wish."
"I do," William said. "Harald and his fanatics hold it. They are your enemy as much as mine. Their grain fills bins while your high valleys starve. Their steel arms men who would see your people driven to the highest crags."
Morwen spat. "All lowlanders are our enemy. You. The Silver Vale fop. The river-plague. The Norse reavers. You squabble over fat lands and forget the mountains birthed you all." She took a step closer, her gaze boring into him. "Why should we be your hounds? Why not wait until you have gutted each other, and then pick the bones?"
"Because Harald will not gut me," William said, meeting her stare without flinch. "He will marry my sister and become the 'rightful' lowland king. He will unite the coast and the rivers. And then, with a stable kingdom at his back, he will turn his eyes up. To the mines you squat on. To the passes you control. He will come not as a raider, but as a king with an army, to 'pacify' the highlands once and for all. I offer you a feast and a fight. He will offer you only a yoke."
A slow, fierce smile touched Morwen's lips. It did not reach her flinty eyes. "You speak plainly. I like that. Brann said you were a numbers-man. But this is not numbers. This is blood-sense." She looked around the bailey, at the well-ordered stones, the disciplined guards. "Your walls are strong. Your men look fed. But you have no heart for the fight ahead. It is a clean fight. We can give you a dirty one."
"What is your price?" William asked. He knew the offer of plunder was not enough.
"The Vale," Morwen said simply. "When the fighting is done. Not the whole of it. But the high pastures, the Stony Cradle valley that your grandfather stole from us in treaty. It returns to the clans. And a charter. Signed by you, recognized by whatever is left of your kingdom. It says we are free people, subject to no lowland law, bound by no lowland tax. We fight as allies, not as subjects."
It was a massive concession. It meant permanently surrendering sovereign territory and acknowledging a rival power within the kingdom's bones. It was the final, irrevocable step away from being a king of a united realm. William did not hesitate.
"Agreed. The Stony Cradle is yours. A charter of free alliance will be written. Your warriors fight under their own leaders, beside mine, not under my command."
Morwen nodded, once. "Then we have an accord, Stone King. My wolves will gather at the Moon's Tears pass in ten days. Five hundred spears. They do not know siege. They know ambush, and raiding, and terror in the woods. We will make the Riverlands a hell for your Norse king and his praying friends."
As swiftly as they came, they departed, a whirlwind of hide and hoof. William felt a strange mixture of relief and profound shame. He had just invited wolves into his house to save it from burning. The cost would be borne by the people of the Riverlands, the very people he had sworn to protect.
Two days later, the second response arrived, this one by a single, exhausted rider from the east, bearing the personal seal of Duke Ferdinand of Silver Vale. The man was admitted to the study, where William broke the seal with grim anticipation.
Ferdinand's handwriting was elegant, controlled, and utterly ruthless.
"Your Majesty,
Your messenger was most… evocative. The image of a pagan 'Scourge' blessed by heretics holding our mutual southern border is, indeed, a vision from a nightmare. Your proposed remedy is equally startling.
While the notion of a union between our houses is appealing in the abstract, the timing is inauspicious. To march my forces west to join yours, and then south into a plague-ridden land held by a fortified enemy, would leave my own Vale exposed to… other influences from the east. Greyport's envoys grow more insistent.
However, your predicament moves me. As a loyal subject, I cannot ignore the threat to the realm. I will not send my son to war, nor can I, in good conscience, promise him to a lady whose current disposition and loyalties are, given recent events, somewhat opaque.
But I will offer this: a corps of my best archers, five hundred strong. They will deploy to the southern foothills of the Silverpeak Mountains, from where they can harass any force moving north from Riverton towards Blackcliff. They will operate under their own captain, taking no orders from your… new mountain allies. They will be a shield for your flank, not a sword for your hand.
In return, I require your formal, public recognition of my right to levy tolls on the Stonebridge for the next ten years, to fund the defense of the eastern approach. And your guarantee of non-interference in my dealings with Greyport, provided they remain within the bounds of trade.
Consider this a gesture of support, from one pragmatic ruler to another, in trying times.
Ferdinand of Silver Vale."
William read it twice. It was a masterpiece of selfishness disguised as aid. Ferdinand was committing no real strength, risking no blood tie, but positioning himself as a helpful neutral. He gained valuable concessions (tolls, a free hand with Greyport) while offering a defensive, limited force that would protect his own borders as much as William's. He was betting on a stalemate, from which he could emerge as the key power broker.
It was not the alliance William had hoped for. But five hundred veteran Vale archers in the southern foothills would be a significant deterrent to any Norse force trying to march on Blackcliff. It freed his own men for more offensive actions. It was, in its own way, a perfectly calculated piece of arithmetic from a fellow practitioner.
He sent his acceptance. The kingdom was now a patchwork of fragile, self-interested pacts: a mercenary agreement with mountain clans, a wary, paid neutrality from Silver Vale, a financial engine run by merchants, and a core of besieged royal troops. It was an army of convenience, bound by fear and greed, not loyalty or cause.
The final piece of news came from the south, not by beacon or rider, but through Hiller's mercantile network. A smuggler, fleeing Riverton with a load of purloined sacramental wine, brought word to a contact in a border town. The message was passed up the chain, arriving in William's hands as a terse, verified report.
"Harald has consolidated control of Riverton. The Purifier leader, Silas, has been given a grand title: 'Hand of the Divine Will.' His followers police the city. Norse troops hold the walls. There is tension. Several Purifiers were hanged by Norse soldiers for 'disorder.' The alliance is fracturing. Meanwhile, Harald has sent emissaries north and east. They carry offers of 'peaceful submission' to the lords of the Riverlands, backed by the threat of Silas's fanatics. Several lesser lords have already bent the knee. More are expected. Harald himself is preparing to move. Not with his main army, but with a small, fast retinue. His destination is rumored to be the eastern mountains. Objective unknown."
Eastern mountains. Where Elyse was. Harald was moving to secure his prize, to force the marriage that would cement his claim. The timeline had just accelerated dramatically.
William stood at his map. The pieces were all in motion. Morwen's clans gathering in the west. Ferdinand's archers moving to the southern foothills. Harald's force heading into the eastern peaks. And somewhere in those same peaks, Elyse, the unwitting linchpin of it all.
He could not defend a kingdom. He could not win a conventional war. But he could disrupt. He could intervene. He could turn Harald's careful plan into chaos.
He called for Brann. "The mountain clans will be at Moon's Tears in eight days. We will meet them there."
Brann blinked. "We, sire? You would leave Blackcliff?"
"Blackcliff is a stone. It will keep. The war is no longer here. It is out there," William gestured to the map. "Harald goes to find my sister. We will find him first. We will use Morwen's wolves not to raid the Riverlands, but to hunt a king in the high passes. We draw him into our terrain. The terrain of ambush and storm."
"And the Vale archers? The defense here?"
"Hiller and the garrison captains will hold Blackcliff.Daerlon and Maurice will remain… comfortable guests. If Ferdinand's archers are worth their salt, they will discourage any attack from the south. We are not fighting for territory anymore, Brann. We are fighting for the narrative. For the chance to kill the story of Harald's legitimacy before it is written."
It was a gamble of staggering proportions. To abandon his stronghold with a small, mobile force, to trust unstable allies, to seek a decisive clash in the wilderness. It was the antithesis of all his careful, defensive calculations.
But as he looked at the ledger, he saw the old arithmetic led only to a slow, inevitable sum of zero. The new equation was wild, dangerous, and laced with variables of violence and chance. It was the only math left.
He packed not scrolls, but weapons. He wore not a crown, but a dented helmet. The King of the Stone Throne was leaving his seat. The Forge King was riding to war, to meet fire with a sharper, more brutal flame. The next entry in the saga would be written not in ink, but in the snow of the high passes, with the blood of kings and the songs of wolves.