On the road to Kaltbach.
“Then he tried to charge me for the sack,” Gerret said. “After weighing the sack with the flour inside it. I said he could have it back if he wanted, but he’d have to find somewhere to put all the flour.”
His traveling companion stepped around a puddle that occupied most of the road. She had sapphire-blue eyes and black hair braided tightly against her head. The sword at her waist swung clear of her boots without catching anything.
“Did he find somewhere?” she asked.
“He found a cheaper sack.” Gerret grinned and adjusted the strap across his chest. “You’d have liked him. Well, no, you wouldn’t. But you’d have liked watching him try to explain the price.”
She gave him a sideways look, then returned her attention to the trees. He took that as permission to continue. There had been another merchant at the same market, a woman with a scale so badly balanced that even her own assistant refused to use it. That story lasted until they reached the next bend.
The road grew worse as they approached Kaltbach.
“It's usually easier than this,” he said. “There hasn’t been much rain, either. Must have had some heavy wagons through.”
“At least we have had a quiet road.”
Gerret glanced at her, wondering whether that was a complaint. Her eyes were on the empty bush. They had seen no monsters since turning south, which was better luck than he remembered having on any previous journey home. He touched the knife at his belt and hoped it would last until the gate.
The trees thinned near the last rise. Gerret hurried ahead, already pointing out the slope where the first houses would appear, then stopped with one boot planted in a rut. Something tall stood above the wall. Several somethings.
“Wait. Wait, that’s new.”
Beyond the familiar line of timber, roof frames rose against the sky. One had three levels of scaffolding wrapped around it, with a small figure moving along the top. Farther east, soldiers walked between stakes driven into the roadside. Two more stood beside a cart while a third inspected its load.
His companion came up beside him. “This is Kaltbach?”
“Yes.” Gerret’s ears turned toward the distant hammering. “Those roofs weren’t there. And we don’t have this many soldiers. We hardly have any.”
They walked down the slope more slowly. Before they reached the gate, a soldier raised an open hand and directed them toward a table beneath a canvas awning. A ledger lay there beside a weighted stack of papers. Gerret tucked his tail closer beneath his coat.
“Names and business,” the soldier said.
“Gerret. I’m from here.” He pointed past the gate, then stopped pointing. “I’ve been trading in Wolkenmark. Coming home for a few days.”
The soldier at the table dipped his pen. “Company?”
“It’s small. Mostly I buy space on other people’s wagons.” Gerret shifted his bag forward, ready to produce the receipts. “I’ve got the border papers. And the toll marks, though the last man got mud over his—”
“Company name. If you use one.”
“Oh. Gerret’s Trading Company.” He waited for the laugh. The pen continued moving. “I haven’t painted it on anything yet.”
The standing soldier turned to Gerret's companion. She unfastened a leather document case beneath her cloak and handed over a folded sheet.
“Vera Sokolova, of Wolkenmark. I serve with the Order of Zarya. I am traveling to the Imperial capital.”
The soldier inspected the paper and the small silver badge at her collar. Gerret leaned a little to see what the clerk was writing. Names, origin, a brief description of each traveler. His ears received a mention, but so did Vera’s sword.
“Any business here?” the soldier asked her.
“A stop before continuing south. Nothing official.”
He returned her papers while the clerk sanded the entry. Then the clerk tapped a separate sheet and looked at Gerret. “If you’re going to be crossing regularly, report to the town hall. They’ll register your company and issue a reference for the gate.”
“Register it for what?”
“Freight movements. Regular traders.” The clerk glanced toward the cart waiting behind them. “You’ll get the details there.”
Gerret looked through the gate. A wagon loaded with long beams was coming out, its driver calling for room. “What’s happened? There weren’t roofs that high when I left. Who are all these soldiers?”
“We’re following gate orders,” the standing soldier said. He stepped aside to let the timber wagon pass. “Ask at the hall. They can tell you more than we can.”
Gerret collected his papers even though nobody had asked to see them. There had been no demand to empty his bag. No fingers hooked beneath his collar, no suggestion that the receipts belonged to somebody else. When the soldier waved him through, Gerret looked behind himself before realizing the gesture was meant for him.
Inside the gate, he nearly walked beneath the end of a beam.
“Head!” somebody shouted.
Vera caught his coat and drew him back. Four workers carried the timber across the lane, their boots sinking into churned mud. Beyond them, a hoist creaked above an open foundation. A woman with rolled sleeves stood on a stack of planks, arguing with a man who held a measuring cord.
Gerret turned toward one new building and found three more behind it, their unfinished floors crowded with workers.
There were dozens of them. Frames, foundations, walls still low enough to step over. Hammering came from every direction, interrupted by the scrape of saws and shouted warnings whenever a load moved overhead. Even the old houses had ladders against them.
Vera looked up at a plank walkway spanning the street. “This... is far from what you described.”
“It wasn't like this.” Gerret moved aside for a wheelbarrow and nearly backed into another. “I mean. This is the right town. That’s the brewery. But I don’t know what the rest of this is.”
A pair of dark wings appeared between two passing carts. Gerret recognized their owner before he saw her face. Lyra had a bundle of folded cloth under one arm and was trying to get around a man pushing an empty barrow.
“Lyra!”
She turned, stared, then shoved the bundle into the barrow. The man protested as she ran across the lane.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “When did you get back?”
“Just now. I brought Vera.” Gerret gestured between them, already speaking too quickly. “She’s with the Order of Zarya. We met on the south road, and she needed to get toward the capital, so I said she could stop here. I’ve been in Wolkenmark.”
Lyra glanced at Vera’s badge, then back at him. “For all this time?”
“Trading. There’s fighting up north almost every day now. Lots of wagons going there, but getting one back is almost impossible.”
He looked past her at a building whose roof was being assembled in the street. Men stood around it, discussing how to lift it.
“What happened while I was gone?”
Lyra’s wings settled close against her back. She took his sleeve and steered him out of the traffic. “Come over here. You’re going to get flattened.”
By the time Lyra finished, the workers had lifted the first section of roof.
Gerret stood beneath the brewery eaves, turning his folded border papers over in his hands.
“And Kaspar came here?” he asked.
“With Knights.” Lyra scratched at a spot of dried mud on her wrist. “Drove straight through them. You should’ve seen their faces.”
“Kaspar. We're talking about the same Kaspar? He became a baron?”
“He was already becoming one.” She flicked her fingers toward the town hall. “Ask Mom if you want the whole thing explained. That’s most of it.”
Gerret looked at the lane where they used to leave broken carts until someone needed the wheels. Two workers were carrying a window frame through it.
Vera waited until Lyra stopped watching the roof workers. “You mentioned wagons traveling to the capital. Is there someone I should speak to?”
“Oh. Yes.” Lyra pointed down the lane. “Loading yard behind the hall. There’s a group getting ready to leave. Tell them you’re going south. They’re back and forth all the time now, and the hall can send word ahead.”
“Thank you. That would save me several stops.” Vera turned to Gerret. “And thank you for the road.”
“You won’t get lost?” He glanced down the crowded lane. “Because I could—I used to know where everything was.”
“I can still see the hall.”
She raised a hand in farewell and walked on, the folded sheet already back in the case. Gerret watched until a load of roofing boards passed between them.
“All that,” he said, “while I was gone.”
Lyra nudged a loose stone away from the brewery door. “We didn’t know where to send word.”
He folded the papers along a crease that had begun to tear.
“At least you got back. What’s happening in Wolkenmark?”
“The orcs are getting worse. Every caravan coming off the northern roads has a story. Another landing, another village with everyone sleeping in the storehouse because it’s the only building left with a roof.”
“Are they getting through?”
“Not yet.” He glanced toward a cart rattling past, then waited until its wheels quieted. “But they keep coming. Some places hadn’t finished fixing the walls before they got hit again.”
Lyra stopped moving the stone with her boot.
“I saw the wagons coming south,” Gerret said. “People with burns. A man who’d tied his boots to his bag because he couldn’t wear them anymore. They’re still holding, but if it keeps going like this…”
He looked down the lane where Vera had gone. “Without the Order of Zarya, they’d have fallen already. They’re like Knights, only they’re up north, and they use more than swords.”
“And they’re stopping them?”
“For now.” Gerret rubbed his thumb over the torn crease. “But they can’t be at every landing.”
Lyra looked toward the town hall. For a while, she said nothing. Then she picked up the edge of his sleeve again.
“Come with me. There’s someone you should talk to.”
Augustin’s office had been a storeroom the last time Gerret saw it. The shelves remained, though most now held rolled plans and tied bundles of paper. A long table occupied the center, leaving barely enough room to pass behind the chairs. Someone had propped a short leg on three pieces of slate.
The man seated at it wore spectacles and a coat much better than anything else in the room. His hair had gone gray at the temples. He was comparing two lists when Lyra knocked on the open door.
“Augustin. This is Gerret.”
He set one sheet aside. “Do you require something signed?”
“No. He trades with Wolkenmark. He’s got a company.”
“It’s small,” Gerret added quickly. “Very small. I mostly arrange loads. Sometimes I buy things myself, if I know somebody who’ll want them.”
Augustin indicated the chairs opposite him. “What do you carry?”
“Cloth. Tools, when I can get them cheaply enough. Lamp oil on the last trip, though that took longer to sell than I thought.” Gerret moved his bag onto his lap and found the packet of receipts. “I’ve kept everything. Well, nearly everything. One got wet.”
Lyra remained standing beside the table. “He’s been up north. They’re fighting orcs all the time, and it’s getting worse.”
“The reports suggest the same.” Augustin glanced at the receipts without reaching for them. “Do your contacts supply the northern garrisons?”
“Some do. One of the men I buy wagon space from carries winter clothes for them. There’s a woman at the river market who sells tools to the repair crews.” Gerret’s ears lifted. “Why? Are you buying? Because I know which ones will actually send what they promised.”
Lyra stayed quiet, looking at the lists on the table.
“Could we sell them Kaspar’s pistols?”
Augustin rested his pen across the inkwell. For a moment, he studied her over his spectacles.
“Why the pistols?”
“I’ve heard you talking. More than once.” Lyra shifted her hands away from the papers. “We're short of materials. And people who know how to build things.”
“That is correct.”
“Well, they need weapons. Badly, from what he’s saying.” She nodded toward Gerret. “Wouldn’t this be a good time to sell? We send them pistols, they send us what we’re missing. Materials. Maybe people to help make more.”
Augustin smiled at her and drew a clean sheet from beneath the lists. “And they have considerably less time to wait than we do. A good time to negotiate, yes.”
He picked up his pen and turned to Gerret.
“How quickly can you return to Wolkenmark’s capital?”