Sir Cael Ardent pushed away from the shadowed wall beside the rear door. His steel boots clattered with sharp, metallic finality against the flagstones as he strode to the center of the hollow square. He stood before the peat brazier, the orange embers glinting off the polished edges of his breastplate, his long greatsword resting in its scabbard across his shoulder like a lead weight.
“You are throwing away your only chance of life,” the hero said, his voice raw, pitched to the desperate cadence of a man who had watched the same gate fall across nine prior cycles. “You talk of charters, of legal jurisdiction, of fifty shares in a timber floor. But paper does not turn a crossbow quarrel, and a seal does not stop an iron ram. Marshal Ors is not bringing an imperial garrison to collect taxes; he is bringing four thousand Ash Host irregulars, two heavy ballista batteries, and thirty sapper teams trained to tunnel beneath stone.”
He turned slowly, looking directly into the faces of the four guild heads seated around the tables.
“Load the twenty-four wagons now,” Cael urged, his hand reaching out in an open, pleading gesture that showed the blistered skin of his right palm. “Load the children, the flour, and the bedding. Take the north road through the willow cuts before the sun reaches noon. The road is muddy, yes, but it is open. If you move in one body, with Captain Dain’s thirty guardsmen riding the flanks, you can…
