The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 92 Taking Down a Home

Brida stood beneath the shelter beam and refused to move.

The corporal at the path pointed his spear toward her feet.

“You were told to clear this place.”

“We are clearing it.”

“You're dismantling property under notice.”

Keela dropped a rolled blanket into a basket.

“My property. You can watch us save it.”

Behind her, six adults carried bedding, pots, and dry tools toward the crossing. A Cinderbank roofer named Della knelt above them, removing wooden pegs with a short hooked bar. She had built half the roof herself and knew which pieces would fall if she hurried.

Brida kept the corporal's attention while Della worked.

“If you make her climb down now, the panel over your head stays loose.”

The man looked up.

A bundle of thatch shifted. Dust settled on his helmet.

He stepped back.

That gave them the space they needed.

The fifty seventh morning brought no rain, only a wind that made every lifted panel awkward. Two soldiers watched from the path. Neither helped. Neither attacked while the roof remained above their heads.

Della lowered the first panel on ropes. Ress and a Hearthfast carrier caught it, laid it flat, and lashed it for carrying. The second followed more slowly. The central span would have to stay until they had more hands and safer footing.

Under the third panel, Della found a little wooden bird pushed into the thatch. A traveler had carved it during a winter stoppage, years before. One wing was black with soot; the other still showed the knife marks.

She handed it down to Keela.

“Worth carrying?”

Keela almost said no. They were saving tools, blankets, anything that would keep people alive. The bird had never kept rain from a bed or helped lift a load.

Then she remembered the man who had carved it, sitting beside a sick wife and giving his hands something to do while they waited for the fever to break.

She put it in her coat.

Across the path, the corporal watched the little exchange with growing impatience. He wanted abandoned property, something easy to destroy without imagining who might return. Every rescued pot and familiar object made the place harder to reduce to a mark on his order.

He turned away before the next panel came down.

Keela counted what could be saved without pretending the count measured everything.

At Hearthfast, Daren received their progress in short messages. Bedding safe. Four panels removed. Patrol waiting. No injuries.

He wanted a message saying the shelter had become unimportant.

None came.

Instead he worked with Berrit on a different problem: the frame of a traveling shield, ordinary timber covered with soaked hide, intended to shelter a bucket carrier from sparks. No ward, no promise that it could stop a spear. Just something Della had asked for after seeing the fire cart's drawing.

They built two from loose material. The work consumed hide patches that would otherwise have repaired shoes.

Iven marked the loss and said nothing theatrical about sacrifice. Tomorrow, someone would walk with a damp foot because they had made this choice today.

By afternoon, Keela had established a temporary resting place behind the dry ridge. The evacuated shelter's blankets lay beneath a stretched cloth. People complained about the wind, which meant they were alive and comfortable enough to complain.

Teren stayed there under care. His loose tooth had come out. He spoke carefully through the gap and insisted on sorting rope ends because he could do it sitting down.

Della remained at the old shelter with Brida.

They cut two release pegs beneath the central roof span and replaced them with removable pins. If the burning cart reached the structure, they could drop that span inward, away from the path and water pools. It would sacrifice timber to keep flame from carrying into the surrounding brush.

Keela approved it herself.

“Not while anyone is underneath.”

“Not for a better chance at saving the roof,” Brida added.

The pins received bright cord so no one would mistake them in smoke.

Back at the fort, Daren tested his circulation seated, with Pella watching the swelling in his leg. Warmth passed through his good forearm and returned. He repeated the movement only after resting. The shallow branch no longer prickled for long afterward.

Selka asked him to extend the return across his chest, stopping before it reached the strained shoulder.

He managed half the distance.

Then he stopped.

It was the first time stopping felt like part of the technique rather than failure.

Near dusk, a family came to the registration bench. A father, his sister, and two small children. They had read Krail's reply and decided to stay another day.

Daren asked what had changed their minds.

“The separation line,” the father said. “I don't want food I have to eat without knowing where they are.”

Daren could offer no certainty that staying was safer. He told them where the shelter supplies had been moved and which room at Hearthfast had the best protection from sparks.

The man thanked him for something practical.

Thirty six and a half pounds remained after supper.

Then the western messenger returned with a torn strip of hide. It had fallen from the fire cart while soldiers tested its chute near the station. One edge had burned hard and glassy.

Daren turned it with tongs.

The pitch carried a pale spirit residue, meant to cling even when ordinary flame weakened.

Water would cool the roof.

It might not put the weapon out.