The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 107 The Stoneback at the Gate

The boar hit the cart hard enough to lift one wheel from the road.

Its shoulders carried ridges of gray mineral plate, and pale grit spilled from the folds of its neck when it shook its head. A stoneback, driven down from the burned ridge scrub, hungry and furious at the smell of spilled grain.

Daren saw the driver fall beneath the shaft.

“Clear the side passage!”

The seventieth evening broke into movement. Traders pulled their animals away from the gate. Iven took the children behind the inner wall. Brida reached for a long forked pole while Osric climbed to a position where he could see beyond the cart.

Daren went only as far as the gatepost, where stone could bear what his knee could not.

The stoneback turned toward the fallen driver.

A woman beside the cart struck its flank with a basket. The basket shattered. The animal wheeled on her, tusks cutting the space where her leg had been a heartbeat earlier.

“Inside!” Daren shouted.

She ran for the side passage.

Brida set the forked pole across the opening before the boar could follow. Its head struck the wood, driving her back. Daren caught the nearer end against the gatepost and sent a short Ironhide pulse through his good forearm.

The pressure became something he could carry for a breath.

Only a breath.

“Drop the bar!”

Berrit hauled the ordinary gate bar down behind them while the woman scrambled clear. The fork's prongs slid along the stoneback's mineral neck rather than piercing it. Daren turned the pole, using the post as a fulcrum, and forced its head toward the open road.

His shoulder flared with pain.

He released the pulse before it collapsed.

The boar tore free, snapping one prong, and charged the cart again. The driver was still trapped beneath the shaft, one boot caught in the harness.

Osric could not shoot without risking him.

Daren looked at the lower gate gap, then at Brida.

“Can you reach the strap?”

“If it turns.”

He picked up the broken basket and hurled it toward the grain scattered beside the ditch.

The sound drew the animal's head. Not enough.

Enn stepped into the hearth doorway behind the yard. The guardian did not leave his bound place. He struck one hoof against the stone, and the hearth's steady glow flared around his chest.

The stoneback stopped.

For a moment, a creature of hungry mineral stared toward a creature of embers.

Brida crawled under the shaft and cut the trapped strap.

“Now!”

Two adults dragged the driver into the side passage. The boar heard them and swung back toward the movement, exposing the soft seam behind its eye.

Osric loosed once.

The arrow struck deep. The animal stumbled, drove its tusk into the cart rail, and fell against the wheel. Its hind legs kicked twice before going still.

Nobody approached until Osric and the experienced hunters judged it safe.

Daren sat down where he stood. His forearm trembled. The knee had held because the post had taken most of his weight, but his shoulder would resent the evening for days.

The driver had a badly bruised leg and a cut above one eyebrow. Pella began with the bleeding while Brida checked whether the cart could collapse further.

The woman who had struck the boar knelt beside Daren.

“Those are our sacks,” she said. “We weren't bringing trouble.”

“I know.”

It was important to say it before frightened people began treating every arriving cart as a threat.

The grain belonged to the travelers. What remained clean went back into their sacks. The scattered grain near the boar's mineral grit was kept apart and not served because hunger made waste painful.

The hunters examined the carcass. Hard deposits ran deeper than the skin, and none would declare unfamiliar flesh fit for the pot on appearance alone. They moved it to a marked place outside the sleeping and water areas for later examination.

The store remained as lean as it had been before the charge.

Osric's arrow could not be recovered soundly. Three usable arrows remained, with the older bent one still awaiting repair.

Corven arrived with the broken fork prong in one hand. He had helped drag the driver clear, and blood from the man's brow stained his cuff.

“Could we have used the ward?”

“For a moment,” Daren said. “With someone holding it. It wouldn't have freed his boot.”

Corven looked toward the shaft, where the cut strap still hung.

Brida took the prong from him and tested the grain of the snapped wood. The fork had failed along an old knot. She marked the surviving handle for inspection before anybody put it back among the sound tools.

Daren watched her, ashamed of the relief with which he had almost treated the weapon as finished business.

The driver's wife came back for a dropped mitten. Her hands shook so badly that Corven picked it up for her.

“Will it come back?” she asked, looking toward the carcass.

“That one won't,” he said.

She heard what he had not promised. Beyond the last carts, the ridge scrub lay black against the fading sky, with room enough for other hungry bodies to move unseen.

After the injured travelers were settled under the guest awning with their own supplies, Daren went to Enn.

“Thank you.”

The guardian's glow had already steadied.

“Hungry things come where food moves,” he said.

Daren looked toward the open road.

They had planned how to welcome people.

Now they would have to learn what else peace brought down from the hills.