The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 7 A Road Wide Enough for One

Orin listened without interrupting while Daren explained where he was going.

That was worse than crying.

The boy sat beside the hearth with his wooden horse in his lap. Enn’s fire warmed the stones behind him. Beneath his sleeve, the brand had begun to glow again.

“Will you be back before it hurts?” he asked.

Daren knelt.

“I’ll try. Brida will stay with you. Selka has shown her how to cool your wrist.”

“You said you’d tell me.”

“I’m telling you.”

Orin considered that, then pushed the wooden horse into Daren’s hand.

“Bring him back too.”

Daren put it inside his coat.

He left by the western goat path with Selka and Harl. Brida stayed to strengthen the gate, and Tovin watched the ridge. They could not afford to send anyone else.

Selka had taken Perren’s sword. She carried it without looking at the hilt.

Fenlow lay below the southern orchards, close enough for smoke from Bracken to stain its morning sky. Harl led them through irrigation ditches to a low house beside the communal granary.

His daughter opened the door with a bread knife in her hand.

“Father?”

He caught her before she could ask more.

Her name was Iven. She had flour on her cheek and a baby tied against her back. When Selka showed her the silk map, she read the date twice.

“The collectors said this evening.”

“How many guards?” Daren asked.

“Eight. They’re sleeping in the shrine.”

“Wake the village quietly.”

Iven looked at his mallet and torn coat.

“You brought three people?”

“I brought a road out.”

Behind her, the baby stirred. Iven reached back to settle its blanket without looking. Daren saw her make the same calculation he had made in Bracken: what she could carry, whom she could trust, how quickly a home could become a trap.

She studied him for another moment, then put away the knife.

“Then we’d better use it.”

They gathered in the granary. Forty three villagers came, carrying what they could lift. Six refused to believe the warning. Two were too frightened to leave their homes.

Daren wanted to argue. Selka touched his shoulder and pointed toward the shrine.

A bell rope moved in an open window.

Someone had woken the guards.

Iven handed Daren a sack of grain.

“Take this.”

“We can’t carry enough.”

“The lower doors open onto the watercourse. We float the sacks in washing tubs.”

He looked at the channels cut through the granary floor and grinned despite himself.

“Show me.”

By the time the guards reached the square, the grain was moving downstream in six wooden tubs. The villagers followed along the banks, pulling ropes.

Daren stayed behind with Selka.

Eight men entered the granary.

He struck the peg holding the upper grain chute.

Barley poured across the floor, burying their boots. Selka cut the hanging lamps before the men could raise their weapons. Darkness and falling grain filled the chamber.

Daren caught her hand and ran.

A spear tore through his coat.

They reached the watercourse with the guards shouting behind them.

The evacuation moved slowly. Too slowly. Children stumbled on wet stones. Harl’s breath came in painful whistles. Farther downstream, the channel crossed a gorge on an old stone aqueduct.

One narrow walkway.

No rail.

Daren had inspected the route from the hillside. From below, with frightened people crowding it, the crossing looked much worse.

He tied a rope around his waist and crossed first.

Halfway over, he heard the stone hum beneath his feet.

May what we carry reach the thirsty.

The copper scar warmed.

He saw an old fracture packed with weeds and silt. Water had washed the mortar away. He could feel the weakness, but feeling did not mend it.

“Single file,” he called. “No running.”

Selka held the far end of the rope while the first children crossed. Iven guided the tubs through the channel, saving the grain with one hand and steadying an old man with the other.

A shout rose behind them.

The guards had reached the gorge.

Selka turned to face them.

Daren counted the people still waiting. Seven. Then six.

One guard drew a bow.

Daren raised the mallet as though it could stop an arrow.

The shot struck Harl in the back.

The cooper fell against the aqueduct’s edge. Iven caught his collar and nearly went over with him.

Daren ran back.

Stone shifted beneath his feet.

He seized Harl’s belt and dragged him across the fracture. The old man was conscious, teeth clenched around a sound he refused to release.

“Leave the tubs,” Daren shouted.

Iven cut their ropes.

The final villagers scrambled clear. Selka backed onto the aqueduct, turning aside a spear thrust. Blood ran from her temple.

Daren drove the mallet into the fracture.

The stone held.

He struck again.

The copper mark burned. For an instant, he felt the old promise reaching through him, begging him to preserve the crossing.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The third blow broke it.

Water and stone fell into the gorge. Selka leaped across the opening as the pursuing guards vanished beneath the collapse.

Daren caught her wrist.

His injured arm nearly tore from its socket, but he held until she found the ledge.

Below them, grain scattered through the white water.

Harl lay very still.

Iven pressed both hands around the arrow wound and looked at Daren.

“Your road,” she said. “Where does it go now?”

He could see Hearthfast on the northern ridge.

Between them and its walls, Captain Istren’s white banner rose above the trees.