The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 6 The Man Who Counted Others

Daren did not ask anyone to stay.

He stood beneath the damaged gatehouse and told them about the old goat path on Hearthfast’s western slope. Brida believed it was still passable. It led away from the white riders and, eventually, into cedar country.

“You can leave before daylight,” he said. “Take your share of the food.”

Harl rubbed his hands together.

“If we go, what happens to the boy?”

“I keep him here.”

“And if we stay?”

“We help one another.”

“Against the sect?”

Daren looked at the white banner across the ravine. “Against the men who came tonight.”

He could offer no larger promise.

For a while, nobody spoke. Then Sive, the grandmother carried through the tunnel, lowered herself onto a block of stone.

“I’m not climbing another hill.”

Her granddaughters sat beside her.

One by one, the others found places in the courtyard. Harl remained standing longest. Then he picked up Brida’s spare shovel and asked where they wanted the dirt.

Daren felt no triumph. He felt the weight of twenty six decisions he would have to deserve.

Selka waited beside the hall.

“Walk with me.”

He followed her beyond the children’s hearing.

“I knew the tithe sometimes took children,” she said. “I was told they became temple students.”

“You saw the scale.”

“Today I saw what it did.”

“Did you ever ask where the others went?”

Her face tightened.

“No.”

Daren stared at her until she looked away.

“I can’t make that smaller,” she said. “But I can tell you how Istren fights.”

She drew the ravine in the dirt. The eastern ledge was narrow but sheltered from missiles. The captain would send two men there while the others threatened the front.

“He likes frightened enemies to watch the loudest thing.”

“Then we’ll give him something loud.”

They hung cooking pots along the ruined gate and placed torches behind them. Brida and Tovin would strike them at intervals, making the garrison sound larger. Daren took the mallet to the eastern ledge.

Selka caught his sleeve.

“You cannot fight two trained cultivators.”

“Then I’ll fight the path.”

The copper scar warmed when he laid his hand on the cliff. He heard no promise in the natural stone. Whatever his gift was, it could not show him everything.

He used his eyes instead.

A fracture ran beneath a shelf of limestone. Water had widened it through years of winter frost. Daren set wedges, working slowly to keep their iron heads from ringing.

Below him, two pale shapes climbed toward the wall.

He waited until the first man passed the fracture.

The second stopped.

“Hold,” the climber whispered.

Daren struck the wedge.

The shelf dropped under the first man. His cry vanished into the ravine. The second caught a root, swung onto firmer ground, and sprang upward with a blade drawn.

Too fast.

Daren raised the mallet. Steel cut his forearm. He fell backward as the climber landed beside him.

A thin silver sheen covered the man’s skin. Ironhide realm. Daren’s ordinary strength would not break it.

The climber smiled.

“Your core is gone, old soldier.”

Daren kicked loose stones into his face and rolled toward the edge.

The man followed.

A blue flash struck his shoulder.

Selka’s broken sword failed to penetrate the silver sheen, but it turned him. Daren drove the mallet behind his knee, where the armor of spirit thinned as the joint bent.

The leg buckled.

Selka struck again, this time below the ear.

The man fell across Daren, warm blood spilling over them both.

For several breaths, neither moved.

Then Daren pushed the body away and looked down at his shaking hands.

He had killed men before. He had hoped that part of his life was finished.

Selka bound his arm with a strip of her sleeve.

“You found the weak point.”

“So did you.”

“I knew him.”

Daren looked at her.

“His name was Perren.”

They sat in silence until the pots began ringing at the gate.

Across the ravine, Istren had seen enough. He raised his hand, withdrawing the remaining riders to the trees.

Daren knew they would return with more than four men.

He searched Perren’s belt for medicine and found a waxed packet instead. Inside lay a strip of red silk embroidered with a map.

Bracken. Fenlow. Hearthfast.

Seven villages connected to the same mountain.

At each village, a date had been stitched beside a small golden bowl.

Selka touched Bracken’s mark.

“Yesterday.”

Daren followed the thread with his finger.

Fenlow’s date was today.

He thought of Harl’s daughter. Of the threat shouted across the ravine. Istren had not promised punishment for resistance. He had described something already planned.

From the courtyard, Orin called for him.

Daren folded the silk.

He would have to leave the fort again.

He showed the map to Brida before he made the decision. She studied the dates, then the broken gate.

“We can hide here,” she said. “But hungry people will eventually open a door for anyone carrying bread.”

“Fenlow has a granary.”

“And farmers. Hands that know soil instead of stone.”

Daren looked back toward the hall. He had wanted a place where danger could not find Orin. No such place existed. A fort needed people beyond its walls, and those people needed a reason to trust whoever held the gate.

He asked Brida to help him choose a route.

This time, he had less than a day to bring back a village.