The hemp cords of the hammock creaked softly against the ceiling beams as Kaelen shifted in his sleep.
Outside the shed, gray morning fog rolled across the rooftops.
The clatter of iron-shod hooves echoed through the distant cobblestones of Ashford.
Magistrate Vane-Locke had wasted no time.
Before noon, the forty disguised Blood-Wolf riders who had entered the outer district overnight rode through the inner market gates.
They still wore the blue-and-gray wool tabards of town militia over the curved sabres of border cutthroats.
Their eyes were hungry, and their cloaks reeked of dry road dust and sour wine.
Spreading from the night taverns into the daytime trading quarters in packs of five, they blocked firewood carts and threatened anyone bringing dried roots toward the south lane.
“The magistrate has declared an audit on uninspected medicines,” a scarred thug sneered in the eastern square.
The honest merchants packed their crates and pulled their carts back into their yards.
Within a few hours, the south street was empty.
Inside the Third Herb Shed, the silence was total.
Kaelen woke up when the sun reached its midday peak.
He stretched his arms, listened to the quiet, and rolled out of the hammock.
A pot of dried beef stew simmered over low charcoal in the hearth.
Mina stood beside the table, slicing pickled mustard greens with neat, tiny motions.
Her skin looked clear and bright.
The frost-poison in her marrow had retreated deep beneath her fifth pulse gate.
“The street is blocked, brother,” Mina said without looking up.
“I heard the horses earlier,” Kaelen said, dipping a wooden spoon into the broth.
“All forty of those wolves are out in daylight now,” Barnaby grunted from the corner workbench.
Restored after a night of deep sleep, the old man was oiling the bronze gears of a heavy repeating arbalest.
“Vane-Locke even issued them stamped audit badges this morning,” Barnaby spat onto the floor. “They are threatening to burn the wagons of any merchant who walks down our lane.”
“Good,” Kaelen said, taking a sip of stew.
Barnaby paused his rag and stared. “Good?”
“Fewer visitors means fewer knocks on the front gate,” Kaelen said. “I was getting tired of clerks asking for stomach pills.”
Let Vane-Locke starve the street if he wants.
Every hour he wastes intimidating turnip farmers is another hour added to my tally.
A siege is just an enforced holiday with fewer interruptions.
Kaelen finished his bowl, rinsed it in a basin of well water, and dried it with a towel.
Dusk settled over the quiet courtyard, and the slate burned with cool silver light.
[The Fallow Slate]
[120 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 121x READY]
Kaelen slept through the night and spent the next morning on the porch bench with The Bandit King’s Secret Bride Book 3.
By early afternoon, the boycott had stretched across a full twenty-four hours without a single customer.
[The Fallow Slate]
[132 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 133x READY]
Kaelen yawned and closed his book.
He placed his straw hat over his chest and settled back into the hammock.
“Call me if the roof catches fire,” he muttered.
“I will,” Mina whispered, draping a thin wool blanket over his legs.
Ten minutes later, the peace shattered.
Heavy hooves hammered against the flagstones right outside the main alley gate.
Then came the heavy thud of an iron mace slamming against the reinforced timber.
“Open up, herb sweepers!” a harsh voice boomed through the wooden planks.
The wood shook in its frame.
Mina set her tea cup down with a sharp click.
Barnaby reached for the loaded arbalest resting against the door jamb.
In the hammock, Kaelen did not open his eyes.
He merely pulled the straw hat over his nose.
Bandits never knock like civilized men.
They always use blunt weapons and scream about taxes.
If this brute breaks my latch, I will make him pay double for the pine planks.
Outside, the man shouted again.
“I am Captain Torv of the Ashford Town Watch!” the voice roared with coarse arrogance. “By order of Magistrate Vane-Locke, this shop owes one hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones in protection tribute! Send out Master Ash’s errand boy to pay up, or we tear down this gate!”
A chorus of crude laughter erupted from the alleyway.
At least twenty men were gathered on the road outside.
Sera Thorne walked out of the side kitchen.
She wore her dark leather traveling tunic, her hair tied back in a tight warrior knot.
Her hands held an eight-foot ash-wood spear shaft tipped with polished steel.
“He is disturbing Kaelen’s rest,” Sera said.
Her voice was entirely calm.
“That is Captain Torv,” Barnaby whispered, squinting through a peephole in the gate. “He is one of the Blood-Wolf gang’s chief enforcers. He broke into Mortal Pulse Rank 8 two years ago.”
“I can tell,” Sera said. “His breathing is heavy. His lungs are full of cheap pill ash.”
“Do not go out there alone, girl,” Barnaby warned, cocking the arbalest lever. “I have thirty steel bolts loaded. We can shoot them through the arrow slits.”
“Bolts cost silver,” Sera replied, pulling a small wooden pencil and a folded ledger from her belt.
She handed the ledger to Mina.
“Record twenty stones under public disturbance,” Sera told the girl. “I will collect the fine myself.”
Sera lifted the crossbar of the side wicket door.
The small iron-hinged panel swung open, and Sera stepped through into the narrow alley.
Captain Torv sat high upon a shaggy northern warhorse.
He was a thick, broad-shouldered man with greasy black braids.
Across his neck, purple veins pulsed like knotted ropes.
It was the unmistakable mark of Crack-Grade Pills, rushed into the body to force open pulse gates.
In his right hand, Torv held a five-foot iron mace studded with triangular teeth.
When he saw a slender woman step out alone, his thick brows furrowed.
“Where is the boy?” Torv spat. “I demanded the boy who buys herbs for Master Ash. Send him out, or I will ride my horse through your front porch.”
“He is taking a nap,” Sera said.
She rested the butt of her spear lightly on the cobblestones.
Torv stared at her, then threw his head back and laughed loudly.
The twenty mounted cutthroats behind him joined in, banging their scabbards against their stirrups.
“Taking a nap!” Torv barked. “The magistrate’s law stands at the threshold, and the dog is sleeping! Little girl, I have crushed thirty men with this mace.”
“You have sluggish blood,” Sera said calmly. “Your heart pounds three beats too fast because of pill-rot. You should be in bed, not on a horse.”
Torv’s laughter choked off instantly.
His face darkened into a deep, ugly crimson.
“Filthy little maid,” he snarled, swinging his heavy legs down from the saddle.
His boots struck the stone street with a loud crunch.
He gripped his iron mace with both hands and stepped forward.
His Mortal Pulse Rank 8 aura flared outward.
A murky, gray-brown wave of Qi rolled off his shoulders, carrying the sour stench of scorched roots and burned sulfur.
“I will shatter your arms first,” Torv growled. “Then I will drag that sleeping errand boy out by his ankles!”
He lunged forward.
The first exchange began with brutal speed.
Torv swung the heavy iron mace in a wide arc aimed at Sera’s waist.
Sera pivoted on her left heel, turning her body sideways by three inches.
The mace screamed past her stomach, missing her tunic cleanly.
Before Torv could recover, Sera’s spear blurred.
The steel point slammed directly into the meat of Torv’s right bicep.
The strike failed to pierce his leather armor.
Still, the pure Qi behind it punched deep into his muscle fibers.
Torv grunted in pain, his grip loosening.
In the second exchange, Torv brought the mace down like a falling boulder.
Sera shifted her weight, using the fluid steps of Ash-Wind Footwork.
The ash-wood shaft met the iron handle at an angle, sliding the mace safely into the dirt.
Torv’s third swing was wild with fury, slashing upward toward her jaw.
Sera leaned back, letting the cold air brush her neck.
In the fourth exchange, she drove the butt of her spear into his kneecap.
The leather greave cracked, and Torv stumbled as his left knee buckled outward.
By the fifth exchange, the bandit captain was drenched in sweat.
His breath came in ragged wheezes.
The Pill-Poison in his meridians was resisting the heavy strain, sending sharp spasms through his chest.
“Why can’t I hit you?” Torv gasped, his eyes wild with rage.
Sera circled him with light, effortless steps.
Her meridians were clean, purged by Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills and tempered diamond-solid at Rank 8.
Her Qi flowed like mountain water over smooth river rocks.
In the sixth exchange, she deflected a horizontal lunge.
In the seventh, she struck his wrist, numbing two of his fingers.
In the eighth exchange, she slapped the flat of her spearhead across his cheek, leaving a bright red welt.
The bandits behind him stopped cheering.
Their captain was being dismantled like an apprentice at a village training yard.
“Kill her!” Torv screamed at his men over his shoulder. “Cut her down!”
None of the bandits moved.
Above the gate wall, twenty heavy repeating arbalests glinted in the afternoon sunlight, held steady by Sera’s mercenaries.
Barnaby stood upon the wooden walkway beside them, his one hand resting on his own loaded arbalest.
“Anyone who touches a stirrup gets four steel bolts through his gullet,” the old man shouted down.
Torv turned back to Sera, baring his teeth in desperation.
He threw all his remaining Qi into his arms for the ninth exchange.
His mace glowed with a sickly brown flame as he charged forward, intending to crush her with raw bulk.
Sera did not blink.
In the tenth exchange, she stepped straight into his reach, slipping beneath his raised arms.
In the eleventh exchange, the ash shaft swept around his ankles, tripping his injured knee.
Torv lost his footing, his heavy frame tilting forward like an uprooted tree.
The twelfth exchange was the finish.
Sera planted her feet, twisted her waist, and drove the butt of the spear upward with the full weight of her diamond-solid Rank 8 pulse.
The heavy wooden butt smashed directly into Torv’s left collarbone.
The bone snapped with a wet crunch that echoed down the stone alleyway.
Torv screamed.
The iron mace dropped from his fingers, clattering against the cobblestones.
The captain crashed onto his back, his body shuddering in the cold dirt.
His left shoulder hung limp and crooked, completely caved in.
He curled in the mud, crying out in shrill agony as his Qi collapsed into chaotic spasms.
The defeat was total, stripping away every ounce of his swagger.
Up on the walkway, Barnaby spat a wad of bitter herb juice into the street and chuckled.
Behind the gate peephole, Mina smiled and drew a neat tally mark on Sera’s ledger.
The twenty mounted bandits sat paralyzed, staring down at their fallen captain.
Sera walked over to Torv’s warhorse.
With a quick flick of her knife, she cut the leather saddlebag free from the pommel.
She turned the pouch upside down.
A shower of dull gray rocks spilled out into her open palm.
Exactly twenty Low-Grade Spirit Stones tumbled onto the leather flap.
“Twenty stones,” Sera said, her voice dry and steady. “Ten for disturbing the peace. Ten for the noise.”
She scooped the spirit stones into her pouch and looked at the twenty mounted thugs.
“Take your captain and leave,” Sera said. “If I see another blue tabard on this street before sundown, I will charge fifty stones for the next broken bone.”
Two men leaped from their saddles, grabbed Torv by his boots, and hauled him backward through the dirt.
The horses wheeled around in panicked haste as the entire vanguard fled toward the northern market.
Sera picked up the fallen iron mace, unlatched the side door, and stepped inside.
Barnaby climbed down the wooden ladder, shaking his head.
“Twelve exchanges,” the old man chuckled. “You broke a Rank 8 enforcer in twelve strikes without taking a scratch.”
“His meridians were rotten,” Sera said, leaning her spear against the wall. “He moved like an ox stuck in frozen mud.”
She walked over to the hearth.
Under the loose hearthstone, the iron-banded chest sat in its shallow pit.
Sera opened the lid and dropped the twenty spirit stones inside.
They clinked against the gleaming hoard, joining the five hundred and fifty stones already stacked in rows.
The chest now held five hundred and seventy Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
Over in the corner hammock, Kaelen let out a slow snore.
He turned onto his side, hugging his small feather pillow.
Above his head, the slate flickered with a quiet golden flash.
[The Fallow Slate]
[136 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 137x READY]
He opened one eye beneath the brim of his straw hat.
He saw Sera wiping dust from her sleeve and Mina closing her ledger with a satisfied nod.
Twenty stones for five minutes of noise.
Sera really knows how to manage collection fees.
At this rate, I can sleep all the way to two hundred hours without buying a single grain of rice.
Kaelen pulled the hat back down over his nose and drifted back into quiet slumber.
Two miles away, inside the grand hall of the Ashford Yamen, the mood was far from peaceful.
Magistrate Vane-Locke sat behind his polished rosewood desk, reviewing tax rolls.
The heavy oak doors burst open.
Two trembling militiamen staggered into the room, carrying Captain Torv between them.
The captain was pale as tallow, his left shoulder crushed and his leather armor stained with dried vomit and street mud.
“What happened?” Vane-Locke snapped, rising from his chair.
“The Third Herb Shed, Excellency,” one guard stuttered. “A girl came out with a spear. She broke Captain Torv’s shoulder in twelve strikes and stole his pouch.”
Vane-Locke’s face darkened until it turned the color of bruised plums.
“A girl?” the magistrate hissed, his voice trembling with venom. “Forty elite fighters, and you let a teenage girl break your vanguard in broad daylight?”
He stepped around the desk.
His Iron Bone Early aura exploded through the chamber.
A suffocating, bone-chilling pressure slammed into the stone walls, spider-webbing the flagstones beneath his heavy leather boots.
The guards flattened themselves against the floor, gasping for air under the crushing weight.
Vane-Locke glared toward the central market district, where the Barony Pill Pavilion stood.
“Send word to the Blood-Wolf camp in the northern hills,” Vane-Locke snarled, crushing a brass seal in his bare palm. “Assemble all three hundred men along the barony road.”
He kicked Torv’s limp leg aside and strode to the yamen threshold, glaring toward the central market as his Iron Bone Early aura blazed around him.
“In two days, I will close that storefront by force and tear every bone from Master Ash’s body.”