Chapter 31 (Patreon)

Heads up, I'm pausing any charges today for a month. I leave tomorrow for Lousiana for a month for some training and wont be posting. I'm planning on coming back and dropping a fat stack of chapters as I'll have some time to write but wont be posting them. Hope y'all are enjoying it and we are getting to the parts where the story will start speeding up.

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Harold found Jack Churchill already working out in the morning light.

Dawn had only just broken over the palisade, the long light cutting between the halls and turning the dust of the square gold. The morning fires were still low, cooks only beginning to stir them back to life, and the first work crews were dragging tools into the open when Harold stepped into the training ground in full kit.

Jack didn’t look up.

“You’re late,” he said, and took off at a dead run.

“Sh-”, Harold swore under his breath and went after him.

Full gear turned the world into an effort. His leather armour shifted against his body while his new mail bounced with each step. The shield on his back shifted with every stride. His sword slapped against his thigh until he locked it down with a hand and forced his breathing into the cycle Jack had drilled into him.

They ran the perimeter of the Landing at a pace that would have been a sprint for anyone else. Jack didn’t believe in warming up as combat could begin at any time.

Past the half-finished mill where masons were already hauling stone. Past the smithy where the fires were beginning to be stoked. Past the training fields where a century was forming in the mist, then past the farmers' fields and tatanka pens.

Jack never slowed and never looked tired.

“Stride’s too long,” he called over his shoulder. “You’re wasting mana. Shorten it and drive through the ground, don’t reach for it.”

Harold adjusted his stride; he would be going back to the smiths to figure out a better way to secure all this gear to himself.

“Bette, now breathe! You’re doing that weird thing where your mana continuously flows through you, but it's not even. Legs, Lord. Legs!”

They came back into the square at the same pace they had left it, Jack skidding to a stop in a spray of dust while Harold pushed through the last ten steps on stubbornness alone.

“Again tomorrow,” Jack said cheerfully. “You’ll get better eventually..”

The weights waited where the stonemasons had set them.

Stone blocks with iron handles driven through their cores, carved to balance just enough to be useful. They were crude, brutal, and perfect.

Harold bent, lifted.

The strain came immediately. His shoulders screamed from the run, his grip still slick with sweat, but he drove the weight up and locked it out.

Jack walked the line like an executioner.

“Back straight. You’re not hauling a corpse, you’re building your frame. Again!”

Reps burned. Stone thudded back to the sand beneath them, and breath turned harsh.

Then the weapons came out.

Sparring had already started by the time Harold finished. One of Harold’s knights stepped into the ring with a double-bladed axe, rolling his shoulders loose while Jack reached for one of his own.

The clash rang across the square.

Blunted steel hit with the force of real intent. The knight drove in hard, both hands on the haft, using reach and momentum.

Jack flowed.

He didn’t block so much as redirect, the head of his axe turning the heavier weapon aside by inches, stepping inside the arc and clipping the knight’s knee with the butt of the haft.

“Too committed,” he called as the man stumbled. “You swing like the enemy’s going to let you hit him.”

He twisted fast while hooking the knight's ankle, throwing him to the ground.

The knight hit the ground in a cloud of dust, and behind him, Harold heard Carter shout.

“Get in line, Elroy! I see you hiding!”

Jack offered a hand to the downed knight and hauled him up. He pointed the haft at Harold, his smile devious. 

“Your turn, Lord.”

Harold stepped in and chose the single-headed axe, strapping his shield to his arm as he rolled his neck loose.

Jack’s grin widened, and Harold’s thoughts raced as he tried to think of a plan. The man was more monster than human.

They circled, Harold, trying to find the extent of the man's reach, and Harold moved first.

He stepped forward quickly, his shield up, ready to deflect a strike and counterattack when it came.

“Shields allow you to easily block, but they make you predictable,” Jack snapped. “You’re working to exceed your limits! ”

Harold shifted, bringing the shield across as he stepped in, axe cutting for Jack’s thigh.

Jack’s weapon met it halfway, haft sliding down to bind and shove the strike wide.

“Telegraphe! Your shoulders told me. You must conceal your intent!”

A flick of Jack’s foot caught Harold’s ankle. He wrenched it free and drove forward, shield slamming out.

The bash landed.

Jack rocked back a step, laughing.

“There you go!”

Harold didn’t let up.

He chained the motion into an overhead cut, pivoted into a hook toward the ribs, shield punching forward again to keep Jack from resetting.

He tried constant pressure as he moved through the forms drilled into him. Mana surged into his limbs, the weight of the axe turning light, the world narrowing to the rhythm of strike and step.

Jack matched him.

Every blow met steel or empty air by the smallest margin. Jack’s boots never stopped moving, turning, sliding, giving ground without losing balance.

“Better!” Jack barked. “Stop chasing me and hit me!”

Harold shifted his line, feinted high, and drove low for the knee.

Jack’s haft dropped, caught it, twisted—

—and Harold felt the opening.

He shoved forward with the shield again, harder this time, putting his full weight behind it and stepping through the impact.

Jack’s heel dug a trench in the dirt.

“Flow, Harold, flow!”

Harold did.

Axe came around in a tight arc, then reversed, then drove forward in a thrust that would have broken a jaw if it had been edged.

For three heartbeats, he had him. Jack gave ground, laughing now, and mana flared around him in answer.

He slipped one strike by turning his shoulders instead of his weapon, let the next crash into his haft and roll off, stepped inside Harold’s guard—

—and the world cracked.

The flat of Jack’s axe tapped the side of Harold’s helm with perfect, brutal precision.

Light burst across Harold’s vision. His balance vanished.

A hook behind the shield and a shove.

He hit the ground hard enough to drive the breath out of his lungs.

Jack’s shadow fell across him.

“When you bash other parts of you are exposed because you are committed to the action,” Jack said mildly. “You got excited there, the fight's not over till it’s over.”

He offered a hand down, still grinning.

“But that,” he added, hauling Harold back to his feet, “was the first time you made me work for it. Better, my Lord.”

Around them, the training ground had gone quiet, knights and legionaries watching with open interest as Harold shook the ringing out of his head and reset his stance.

Jack lifted his axe again.

“Same pace,” he said. “Let’s go again.”____________________________________________________________________________

He stepped out of the bathhouse with heat still riding his skin, steam trailing off his shoulders and breaking apart in the morning air. The air outside was cooler than inside the bathhouse, and it settled across his arms and the back of his neck where damp hair touched linen, each drop of water running down between his shoulder blades before the cloth drank it away. His muscles carried that loose, heavy feeling that came after Jack worked him to the edge and then sent him under hot water to stand there and breathe until his hands stopped shaking. The summer heat was approaching, and soon people would be bathing in the creek's cool water rather than the bathhouse's heated water.

His guard formed up behind him in their normal places, and no one spoke. They were all ready for breakfast after their normal morning exercise. The Landing had already hit its stride around them.

People saw him and adjusted without breaking what they were doing. A woman with flour on her forearms lifted her chin in greeting before turning back to shout at a boy who had dropped a basket. A runner cut across his path, slate tucked against his ribs, then checked himself and veered wide with a quick apology that never slowed his feet.

Bread, iron, wet stone, smoke. The smells layered over each other and settled in his lungs.

He flexed his hand and felt the echo of the axe in the tendons of his forearm. The side of his helm still carried the pale scrape from where Jack’s haft had clipped him, and the memory of the impact ran through his jaw when he rolled it.

The keep rose ahead, stone taking the early light along its edges while the lower yard churned with movement. Scribes carried stacked slates against their hips. Two quartermaster boys wrestled a crate up the steps between them, one cursing under his breath while the other laughed at him for it. Margaret’s runner came through the outer door at speed, nearly collided with a legion messenger, and twisted sideways without spilling a single tablet.

The doors opened as he reached them.

Cool air met him inside. The noise from the square flattened into a steady pressure against the walls while the interior sounds took over—quill tips scratching across slate, a chair leg dragging, someone muttering numbers as they counted. The main hall had been turned into a workspace in place of the normal offices until they could be built. And Harold had no need for a large hall like this for now.

He took the stair at a pace that made his thighs burn again, the training still sitting in his legs. His guard dropped away one by one as they reached their posts without needing a word from him. Carter would ensure they would all be fed and watered. 

The office door stood open.

Food sat on the table where the light from the slit window reached it.

Bread cut thick, steam still lifting from the torn face. Porridge in a clay bowl with honey bleeding through the surface in slow gold threads. Smoked meat lay in a rough stack. A portion of the cheese they had been making was next to it, while a cup of water and milk was next to that. 

Anil had been right that the Landing had needed a period to consolidate their gains, and they had advanced in every aspect of industry here. The fields were about ready to harvest, and the large fields of grain would be ready to harvest after that.

He unbuckled his sword belt and hung it over the back of the chair, then dropped into the seat and leaned forward with his forearms on his knees.

For several breaths, he left the food where it sat and watched the Landing through the slit, tracking the movement he already knew by habit—the line of carts on the road to Haven and Veridia, the training formations wheeling on the far field, smoke lifting in narrow columns before the breeze bent it toward the river.

The door hit the inside wall with enough force to make the cup jump.

Margaret came in without slowing, a stack of tablets pinned to her side and a runner at her shoulder who peeled away the moment she lifted two fingers. She crossed straight to the table, already sorting the slates into a working order.

“You’re in,” she said, breath still high from the stairs. “I need decisions.”

Harold pulled the chair out with his foot and stayed standing, tearing bread as she began.

“Lukas completed the extraction,” she said, setting the first slate down in front of him and turning it so the notes faced his side of the table. “Diplomat and staff are out of the town. He left a letter on Arjun’s bed before departure. He hasn’t responded yet, but I’m expecting one today.”

Harold nodded once, chewing as he scanned the marks. Margaret did not wait for a comment.

“The southern column moving to establish the village at the southern pass met organized centaur resistance,” she continued, sliding the next tablet into place. “They’re armoured and disciplined. The camp took a coordinated strike two mornings ago. Casualties are recorded here. They have pulled into a fortified marching camp and are holding position while they recover. Their last message requests direction before attempting another push.”

He leaned over the map carved into the tabletop, thumb braced against the edge of the mountains as he found where they were. They hadn’t made nearly enough progress.

“Have them maintain position,” he said. “Have them begin extensive scouting for a better area to defend them have them move there. We’ll send another century to reinforce them, send one of the senior Tribunes to command the manipule.”

Margaret marked the instruction and moved to the next.

“Phase one is within a day of completion,” she said. “We are prepared to begin phase two. The original plan tied that start to the southern group’s arrival. With their delay, we either shift the start line or hold and lose the pacing we built.”

He traced two nearer points with a knuckle.

“We’ll delay the start,” he replied. “We need the adventures from the southern group to actually initiate it, and we’ll need to reform the whole cohort before we move.”

Her stylus moved again.

“Sarah’s team is assembled below,” she said, voice even, already setting down another slate. “They are equipped and waiting on your release order.”

His hand paused on the table for a moment before he reached for the porridge.

“I’ll see them after this. I need to give them their supplies,” he said, then motioned for her to continue.

“Construction output has increased,” she went on. “Stone is replacing timber across most projects. The miners have begun to hit their stride, but material flow is the limiting factor. We can cut and shape faster than we can move. Josh has started trials with cement. Lira located a significant limestone deposit, which will help once we establish a hauling rhythm. At present we do not have enough wagons or draft teams to keep the work fed.”

“Hand out quests from all of our settlements. Let's find more Tatanka or any other animal we can use to haul material,” Harold said between bites. “If we could build ships it would help.”

Margaret noted, “We still haven’t recruited any shipbuilders, but we have set aside wood to dry for any future ship projects,” and shifted to the next report.

“Thornwalkers cleared the mountain pass and are descending into the Silverfin region,” she said. “Transit took longer than projected. They sent coordinates for the ruin you wanted to confirm was there, and they didnt delve it.”

He glanced at the marks and nodded.

“Keep me updated on their progress,” he answered. The final slate came down with a different weight.

“The group from the northern swamp is en route,” she said. “Approximately eight hundred people. Half are adventurers. Hale’s contact is leading them. The public proof of dungeon yields and the Landing’s perks drew initial interest. The system Mark and Evan implemented, along with the contribution exchange for weapons and potions, secured their commitment. I expect a significant amount of adventures to make their way here, healing potions are too attractive, and with you revealing a potion that can boost their physicality 15%, the forums are clamouring.”

The room settled around the number while Harold drank from the cup and looked down at the road that would soon carry them in.

Harold stood with the map, the food, and the steady movement of the Landing below the window, then reached for his belt and headed for the stairs.“It only works if we follow through,” Harold replied, dragging his belt toward him and threading the buckle through with practiced hands.

“Noted.”

She gathered the tablets against her hip and turned for the door, then stopped just long enough to tap the edge of the table with two fingers.

“Sarah has her team in the lower hall,” she said. “They’ve been ready for a while.”

He slid the wedge of cheese toward her across the wood. It bumped against her forearm.

“Eat that,” he said. “You haven’t stopped moving since you walked in.”

“I’ll eat when you stop adding columns to my ledger,” she answered, but she broke the cheese in half with her thumb and took a bite as she stepped into the corridor, still reading.

A runner nearly collided with her outside. She shifted sideways without slowing, caught the boy by the back of his collar, spun him toward the right staircase, and sent him off with a rapid string of instructions that faded as she moved away.

The door rocked once on its hinges and settled.

He wiped his fingers on a cloth, lifted his sword belt from the chair, and stepped out into the stairwell, the sound of the Landing rising to meet him as he started down toward Sarah.