Delayed, Not Forgotten

The elves started returning the following morning. With Harrowford secured and the Imperial Order moving away from it, there was no longer much reason to keep most of our people hiding in the forest when we could use the extra hands.

Aponi arrived with the first group and went straight to the church. Nimiwa saw her coming and made the mistake of trying to stand. Aponi caught her by the shoulder, pushed her back onto the bench without slowing and said something over her shoulder as she continued toward the wounded. Whatever it was, Nimiwa stayed seated.

Keme met the returning warriors outside. They struck arms, touched foreheads and inspected one another for wounds before anyone began asking the more important question of who had not come back. Those answers took longer.

One northern warrior had died along the wall during the final attack. Another had survived being lowered down the cliff only to die before reaching the forest. Nimiwa had warned that moving him might kill him, but he had chosen to go rather than remain in Harrowford and force others to stay with him. Being allowed to choose had not made the result any kinder.

Six elves had died taking Harrowford and another two holding it afterward. Their bodies were wrapped in cloth, with southern feathers and northern beads placed over them. Nimiwa explained that they would be carried back to the settlement and cremated there. The ashes would return to the earth while the spirit remained free to travel.

The human prisoners who had died inside the church presented a different problem. The bodies had no one to claim them and the elves had no clue what humans did with the dead. I asked that we bury them. The elves stood quietly while the graves were filled. Nobody objected when I failed to provide a prayer.

Ceara remained at the edge of the group. Her people had their own dead and, when we finished, she went to them without anyone calling her over. The wolf she had ridden into Harrowford limped behind. Ceara ran one hand down the animal's side before joining the resistance soldiers gathered around several more wrapped bodies.

Victory involved far more digging than songs liked to suggest.

By the time we found Ceara again, she had occupied the priest's office. The Church records had been separated into piles, maps covered most of the desk and Tovan stood beside the door holding a casualty list while runners came and went with reports.

Waki entered behind me with Aponi and Keme. Nimiwa came last despite having been ordered to rest. She carried neither her staff nor healer's supplies, only the little book she always had.

The meeting was never officially called. Everyone had simply reached the independent conclusion that Ceara owed us one. She finished reading a supply report before looking up. “Sixty stay in Harrowford tonight. More infantry come tomorrow, along with a proper surgeon.”

“From Dozorhold?” I asked.

“From Dozorhold.”

“You took it?” Waki asked.

“The same day you took Harrowford. The outer defenses fell that afternoon. We had the inner gate before dark.”

I looked down at the map. Harrowford sat near the bottom while Dozorhold guarded the road farther north. Aponi followed my attention and her face tightened. “That was while we were here.”

“While you were holding Harrowford,” Ceara corrected.

Waki slowly removed the pipe from her mouth. “Then Uriel was right. Harrowford was meant to pull soldiers away from Dozorhold.”

Ceara placed both hands on the desk. “Harrowford gave us an opening. That was what I needed.”

Keme answered immediately. Waki listened and translated. “He wants to know why you did not tell us.”

“Because when you walked into my camp, I didn't trust any of you.”

Waki's eyes narrowed. “You trusted us enough to take Harrowford.”

“I trusted you enough to attempt it. I wasn't handing three strangers the rest of our largest operation.” Ceara pulled the map closer and moved several wooden markers away from the mountain. “The Order spent months reinforcing Dozorhold because we kept hitting their roads. Eventually they put enough soldiers behind those walls that attacking became suicidal.”

“And the general didn't have a better plan?” I asked.

“He was satisfied with the situation.” Ceara tapped a point deeper in the mountains. “We already have a dwarven fortress inside the mountain. Food, water, workshops, walls thick enough that the Order can waste years trying to reach us. The general wanted to stay there and let them come.”

“You didn't?”

“I've spent enough of my life waiting for the Church to decide what happens to me.” Ceara's fingers remained pressed against Dozorhold. “I was Church property before I ever joined the resistance. Sitting behind another wall, waiting for them to choose when the next fight happens doesn't appeal to me. The general decides what the resistance needs to hold. Once my company leaves the mountain, I decide where we go and how we fight. We operate outside the fortress because someone has to. If I choose badly, the bodies belong to me.”

Waki tapped Harrowford with the end of her pipe. “Not all of them.”

“No,” Ceara agreed. There was no attempt to argue. “The general wasn't willing to lose half the resistance taking Dozorhold,” she continued. “Neither was I. Harrowford supplied it. Once Harrowford fell, the garrison could either let us keep an important supply point or send enough people south to take it back.”

“And you knew what the Order would choose.”

Ceara glanced at me. “You apparently did too.”

“I guessed what they would do. I didn't know someone was depending on it.”

Near the wall, Nimiwa had stopped pretending to follow the military discussion. Charcoal moved across the little book on her lap while her eyes repeatedly traveled from the page to Ceara.

The captain eventually noticed. “What are you doing?”

Nimiwa held up the book. She had drawn Ceara's head. Surprisingly well, mostly. The horns had received substantially more attention than the face. “Studying.”

I put a hand against my forehead. “Now?”

Nimiwa looked genuinely confused. “Stonehorn.”

Ceara stared at her.

Nimiwa held two fingers beside the drawing, compared the distance with Ceara's horns and made another mark before looking the captain up and down. “You are small Stonehorn.”

Ceara's expression did not change. “Thank you.”

“Measurement.” Nimiwa looked at the horns again. “Horns long.”

Tovan's casualty list suddenly became the most fascinating document in Harrowford. Ceara looked at him and he made certain that he kept reading.

Nimiwa pointed at one horn. “Broken?”

Ceara bit the inside of her cheek. “More than once.”

“How many?”

“Confidential.”

Nimiwa seemed dissatisfied but wrote something beside the sketch. I was mostly relieved she was only drawing the horns. Given her usual research methods, Ceara should probably have been grateful Nimiwa hadn't tried putting one in her mouth. She seemed attached to those horns.

Ceara returned to the map. “Your red cloth told us Harrowford had fallen. The Church flares had already told Dozorhold it was under attack. The garrison started south soon afterward, leaving enough behind to make taking the fortress unpleasant instead of suicidal.”

Aponi spoke without raising her voice. “So you watched them march toward us and attacked after they left.”

“I saw the opening I'd been waiting months for and used it.”

Keme spoke again. Waki translated again. “He says we were bait.”

“Harrowford was bait.”

Keme took a step closer to the table and said something much slower. Waki's expression became unpleasant. “He says Harrowford is stone. Stone did not die. Warriors did.”

Ceara's eyes shifted toward the window, beyond which the wrapped bodies waited for the journey home. “Then yes. You were bait.”

There was no apology attached and no claim that taking Dozorhold justified the dead outside. Ceara pointed toward herself. “The decision was mine. My people agreed to follow me knowing what I wanted. You didn't. When you came to my camp, I didn't know whether you were spies, fools or exactly what you claimed, and I wasn't telling strangers the rest of the operation. Once you took Harrowford, that stopped being enough of a reason.”

Waki stopped tapping her foot.

“I sent a messenger but he never reached you. We found him beside the road on the way south. A second left after we took the outer defenses at Dozorhold. He ran into the patrols surrounding Harrowford, turned back and met us while we were already coming south.”

I looked at the map again and thought about the series of events. The empty mountain camp. The white banners approaching Harrowford. The roads we had watched through the night while waiting for people who had apparently been moving in the opposite direction. “We thought you'd left.”

“We had. The Order already had scouts searching for that camp. Once the attack began, there was no reason to leave powder, food and maps where they might eventually find them. I expected the messenger to reach you.”

Waki began pacing. “He didn't. You made it very easy to believe you used us and disappeared.”

Ceara watched her for several moments. “I did use you. You came north because you wanted resistance soldiers protecting your forest. I told you we already had our own war. Taking Harrowford helped you and created the opening I wanted. I used what you did. But I did not abandon you.”

That distinction would have been much easier to hate if it had been false. Aponi folded her arms. “How soon did you leave Dozorhold?”

“As soon as the gate was secure.”

Tovan shifted and Ceara shot him a look. He became interested in his list again.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Ceara said.

That meant something. “Tovan?”

He sighed. “The inner gate wasn't secure.”

Ceara's eyes narrowed. “The gatehouse was.”

“The inner yard still had Imperial soldiers in it.”

“They were losing.”

“The general wanted you to wait for the second company.”

Ceara pointed at him. “The general does not command my unit in the field.”

“No. He only suggested that riding through the night after fighting all day might be a bad idea.”

That changed the direction of the anger in the room by a bit. Not enough to make Keme instantly forgive her. Enough for me to understand why she had arrived with blood covering her coat. “You left while fighting was still happening?”

“The mounted units left first. Infantry followed once the road was secure. We brought the thunderers as far as the river crossing and regrouped there.”

Waki stared at her. “They slowed you down.”

“Twenty riders reaching Harrowford first would have given you twenty more bodies to bury.” Ceara moved several markers around the town. “There were more than two hundred Order soldiers around Harrowford. I needed enough force to make them leave, not enough to die impressively beside you.”

I had spent the better part of a day deciding Captain Ceara had sacrificed us for her own escape. She had apparently spent the same day trying to reach Harrowford quickly enough for us to remain alive and angry when she arrived.

Keme spoke. Nimiwa finally looked up from her book long enough to listen. “Ke says warriors are not stones to move when they cannot see board.”

Ceara faced him. “Then next time they see it.”

Keme said something else. “He says there is no next time if you forget.” He watched her for several moments before striking one fist against his chest.

Nimiwa continued her drawing until she noticed a dark patch spreading through the cloth around Ceara's arm. She pointed. “You open again.”

Ceara glanced down. “Later.”

Nimiwa closed the book, walked over and held out her hand. Ceara sighed and gave her the injured arm before the oracle had to ask a second time. Blue light gathered beneath Nimiwa's fingers while Waki finally returned the pipe to her mouth.

I looked at the map again. “You hold both towns now.”

“For the moment, yes.”

“And the soldiers who retreated?”

“South until our riders forced them back onto the old Imperial road.”

“Not toward the forest?”

Ceara shook her head and traced their route across the map. “They know Harrowford belongs to us, Dozorhold is gone and elves are waiting in the forest. They have easier directions available.”

Aponi stepped closer. “They can return.”

“They will.”

“With more?” I asked.

“Almost certainly.” Ceara tapped Dozorhold. “But this is why I wanted the fortress. Before yesterday, every operation started in the mountains. Food came from there. Powder came from there. Wounded went back there. Every time we gained ground, we eventually had to retreat across the same distance.” Her finger moved south along the road. “Now Dozorhold becomes the forward base. Harrowford controls the road beneath it. Anything coming toward this side of your forest has to cross territory we hold first.”

Waki exhaled smoke over the map. “Your territory.”

“For as long as we can hold it.”

“You expect us to help?”

“I expect nothing after the conversation we just had.” Ceara looked first at Aponi and then Waki. “What I want is scouts who know the region, information if Imperial soldiers enter your territory, safe passage where you're willing to provide it and food when we operate near you. We pay for what we use.”

Waki moved closer to the map. “And when you decide Harrowford is no longer worth holding?”

“You know before we leave.”

“Put whatever you intend to ask for in writing,” I said.

Ceara pulled a clean sheet from beneath the Church records. “Fine.”

Aponi changed the discussion to a more immediate issue. “Our people taken by the Church.”

Ceara glanced toward Tovan. He checked the casualty list and another sheet beneath it. “We found prisoners.”

“Elves?” Nimiwa asked. “Alive?”

Tovan hesitated. “Some.”

Ceara cut in. “We haven't identified everyone. Anyone who survived comes home. Anyone the Order had chained stays free.”

Keme asked another question. Nimiwa listened and translated. “He asks who keeps Harrowford.”

“The resistance.”

Keme shook his head and spoke again. “He means who leads here.”

“Not me. The general will appoint someone after things have settled.”

Nimiwa immediately looked up. “The general.” She reached for her book. “General is Redborn?”

Ceara looked at me. “You came north to find out?”

The exhaustion in Nimiwa's face disappeared so quickly that Hanwi should have taken notes. “When meet?”

Ceara tapped the map. “The general thought pushing farther south was unnecessary just days ago.” Ceara leaned back in the priest's chair. “Today the resistance holds Dozorhold.” A smile crawled along her face. “I think he'll make time.”

Nimiwa smiled too but I was considerably more cautious. “When?”

“He has a newly captured fortress to inspect.” Ceara pulled another report toward herself. “Tovan can manage Harrowford for a day.”

Tovan looked up. “Thank you for informing me.”

She continued as though he hadn't spoken. “If I'm going to put soldiers between the Order and your people, I want to see who I'm protecting.”

Her attention moved between the elves, then finally to me.

“Take me to the settlement.”