The first useful message from Desmond’s new informants arrived hidden beneath a scoop inside a salt wagon.
The merchant who delivered it waited at the southern market while Callum’s guards inspected his cargo. He complained loudly about the delay, argued over the entry fee and gave no sign that he had carried anything more dangerous than salt through Kestrel territory. Only after his wagon had been cleared did one of Desmond’s assistants remove the wooden scoop and find the waxed paper beneath its false bottom.
Grain prices in Hollowmark had risen by almost a third in less than a week. The surrounding farms had not reported a failed harvest, and no royal army had entered the region. Several private brokers had simply begun purchasing whatever small merchants brought into town. They were storing the grain in rented warehouses rather than selling it onward.
Master Dorran’s name appeared in two separate conversations.
Desmond took the message to Weston’s workshop, where the rebuilt Skybreaker chamber occupied most of the main table. Tobin was fitting the final heat plates around its six pressure cells while Elara checked the separate cooling channels.
Weston read the report and handed it back.
“How long before the higher price reaches us?”
“It already has,” Desmond said. “The grain trader who arrived yesterday increased his winter offer before leaving the gate.”
Duskwatch’s planted fields looked healthy, but Ossa had warned them against relying on the first harvest. The settlement had planted late, and much of the reclaimed soil had spent years beneath marsh water. A fungal outbreak, early frost or one badly managed flood could cut the crop before winter.
Weston glanced toward the courtyard, where merchants crowded the new market stalls.
“Can Dorran buy enough grain to isolate us?”
“He can make every western purchase expensive. That may be enough if our harvest disappoints us.”
Desmond’s second informant had identified another source.
The northern road continued beyond the wyvern’s former ridge toward Calder Hollow, a free market town surrounded by barley farms. Its harvest had been strong. Most of its grain travelled west through three toll bridges because merchants still considered the shorter eastern road unsafe.
The wyvern had been dead for less than two weeks. No established trading company wanted to send a loaded convoy across the abandoned route merely because Duskwatch claimed it was clear.
“We can go first,” Weston said.
“The road has not carried grain wagons in years.”
“Then we repair it.”
Callum joined them after the gate inspection. He studied Nella’s latest map of the northern route and asked how much Desmond intended to buy.
“A trial shipment large enough to matter,” Desmond said. “Eight wagonloads, if Calder will agree. Four on our own wagons and four hired there.”
“That will not feed the ward through all of winter.”
“It will give us several weeks of reserve and prove the road works. A regular agreement matters more than one purchase.”
Callum marked the bridge near the ridge, the spring stop and two sections where Nella had reported landslides. He was willing to escort the convoy, though he refused to empty Duskwatch’s walls for it.
The ward still possessed only eleven reliable fighters from the earlier militia, six trainees nearing readiness and several new volunteers who could hold a spear but had never faced organised attackers. Sending twenty soldiers north would leave the market, stores and residents exposed to the same people who had already tried to sabotage the canal.
Callum selected eight trained militia members and three scouts under Nella. He also chose four of Weston’s experimental repeating crossbows for the journey.
The weapons had been tested on the range during the previous three days. Each used a short four-bolt magazine and a lever mechanism that reset the string faster than an ordinary crossbow. Their range and striking force remained lower than the wall bows, and one prototype had jammed after dust entered the feeding track.
Callum assigned them to soldiers who had practised clearing the mechanism. He also made each man carry a sword and an ordinary crossbow bolt that could be loaded manually if the magazine failed.
“They are field trials,” he told the selected soldiers. “Do not trust them because they are new. If the mechanism stops, drop the magazine and keep fighting.”
Maevra offered four Solenne riders, including two fire mages. Eight of her retainers would remain outside Duskwatch with Lieutenant Orlan Pike, the senior guard Callum left in command.
Orlan would hold the ward with seven armed defenders, the six militia trainees, Maevra’s remaining escort and every resident assigned to the alarm plan. Ossa, Mara and Tobin would manage food, medicine and essential works. One of Desmond’s clerks would control the market accounts.
It was not the force Callum wanted to leave behind. It was enough to discourage raiders and hold the walls until a messenger reached the convoy.
Desmond insisted on travelling.
Weston objected while the wagons were being prepared. “Your contacts, the market and Merrik’s hearing all need you here.”
“The Calder agreement needs someone with authority over the treasury.”
“I can carry written terms.”
“You will rebuild half their road and forget to ask who pays for it.”
Weston looked toward Callum.
Callum continued inspecting the crossbow magazines without becoming involved.
Desmond placed his assistant in charge of routine intelligence messages and prepared sealed instructions for emergencies. Merrik Rusk would remain detained under Orlan’s authority until Merrow’s regional office answered the hearing request.
The convoy departed with four empty grain wagons and two smaller supply carts. Weston, Desmond, Callum, Elara, Garen, Nella and Maevra rode with the escort. The four Solenne riders brought their own horses and gear.
Duskwatch’s residents watched from the inner road as the column passed through the gate. Several children followed the wagons until Brinna ordered them back toward their lessons.
The first stretch beside the canal was firm and recently repaired. Beyond the northern ridge, the road narrowed, roots broke through old paving and rainwater stood inside deep wheel tracks.
The first bridge failed beneath the lead wagon.
One surviving plank split under the front wheel, dropping the axle several inches before the driver stopped the horses. The bridge crossed only a narrow stream, though the banks were soft enough that pulling the wagon around would have taken most of the day.
Garen entered the water and pressed his hands against the streambed. Three stone supports rose beneath the broken span. Weston reshaped the remaining timber and nearby rock into a firm crossing wide enough for loaded wagons.
Elara cleared dead leaves from the upper flow so water would not build behind the new foundations during the next storm.
Desmond watched them finish the wheel path. “Calder will expect us to maintain this once we offer regular trade.”
“We need it for the return journey,” Weston said.
“And the next one.”
Desmond entered the bridge into the agreement notes before the convoy moved again.
The second obstruction appeared near midday. An old landslide had buried the lower road beside a ravine. Garen could have pushed the loose stone over the edge, but the debris would have blocked the stream below and possibly flooded the route during heavy rain.
Nella found the remains of an upper path along solid rock.
The climb was steeper. Its foundation had survived.
Garen raised a retaining wall along the ravine while Weston widened the old path and reinforced the roadbed. Callum’s soldiers cut back branches, added marker posts and tested the surface with the heaviest supply cart.
Maevra stood near the new wall as the final wagon passed.
“A marching column could cross here now.”
“So could one travelling toward Duskwatch,” Callum said.
He marked a narrow rise overlooking both routes. A future watch post there could guard the crossing and send warning toward the ward.
The convoy camped near the spring Nella had found during the cave expedition.
Elara checked the water before the barrels were filled. The spring itself remained clean, though leaves and animal waste had collected in the stagnant pool below it. She cleared the outlet with a controlled stream. Garen raised a trough for the horses, and Weston shaped a covered drinking channel farther uphill.
Callum arranged three watches around the camp.
Nothing attacked during the night.
Nella found fresh boot marks on the wooded slope before dawn. Three people had watched the convoy from above and withdrawn when the sentries changed. Their trail ended where horses had waited beyond the trees.
“They could belong to Calder Hollow,” Maevra said.
“They could,” Callum replied. “They still counted our wagons.”
He sent the scouts farther ahead and doubled the rear watch.
Calder Hollow appeared near noon, built around a shallow river crossing in a broad valley of barley fields. Low walls enclosed the market town, while large timber warehouses stood near the eastern gate.
Reeve Halric Venn met them with several farmers, warehouse owners and guards. He was a thickset man in his early sixties whose coat carried grain dust along one sleeve and ink stains across two fingers.
The carcass fragments and rumours had reached him before Weston’s convoy. Seeing the Duskwatch banner emerge from the abandoned road convinced him that the route had genuinely reopened.
Desmond requested eight wagonloads as a first purchase.
Halric listened, then brought the group into the grain hall. Local farmers and warehouse owners argued for most of the afternoon over price, road protection, weights and future access to Duskwatch’s market.
They had spent years paying western tolls. That did not mean they intended to sell cheaply to the first eastern buyer.
Desmond offered half payment in silver and half through reduced market fees for Calder grain, tools and seed during the coming year. Duskwatch would maintain the repaired ridge bridge and spring stop. Calder Hollow would repair the road between its eastern gate and the valley boundary.
Callum agreed to escort the first shipment and one return convoy. A permanent patrol was impossible with Duskwatch’s present numbers.
Halric wanted an immediate monthly contract.
Desmond refused to promise one before the first wagons completed the round trip. They settled on eight loads now, followed by negotiations for regular shipments once Calder’s wagons returned safely.
Four loads went onto Duskwatch’s empty wagons. Calder supplied four more wagons, drivers and six town guards for the journey east.
The purchase would not carry Duskwatch through winter by itself. Ossa’s estimate said it could cover the current population for several weeks if the first harvest failed completely. More importantly, it reduced the settlement’s dependence on Hollowmark prices.
Before the convoy left, Halric warned Desmond that western grain factors had visited Calder several days earlier.
They had offered more silver than Duskwatch but demanded exclusive resale rights and required every sack to travel through Kestrel territory. Halric rejected the offer because the toll terms would have placed Calder’s eastern farms under permanent dependence on western warehouses.
One factor used the name Dorran.
Halric described a heavy man with a damaged left ear.
Desmond asked whether the man wore a black iron ring.
“He kept his gloves on,” Halric said. “One of his clerks carried a chain-shaped seal on a document case.”
The information strengthened the connection to the Black Chain Factors without proving who had paid them.
The eight grain wagons departed the next morning with the two supply carts and Calder’s guards.
Callum placed the loaded wagons in the centre. Nella’s scouts travelled farther ahead than before, while Maevra’s riders divided between the front and rear. The four repeating-crossbow soldiers moved in pairs instead of gathering in one section of the column.
The northern farms remained quiet.
Near the first wooded rise, Nella’s lead scout returned at speed.
A freshly cut tree blocked the upper road near the ravine. Loose stone had also been piled along the slope above the lower route.
Callum stopped the convoy in open ground before the path narrowed.
The obstruction ahead looked obvious enough to hold their attention. He sent two scouts uphill and moved four militia members forward with Weston and Garen.
The first crossbow bolt came from behind them.
It struck a Calder guard through the upper arm. A second killed one of the rear horses before anyone saw the shooter.
Callum turned and realised the cut tree was meant to pull the escort forward while the main attack reached the grain from the rear.
“Close the wagons! Shields west and south!”
The drivers pulled their teams inward. Militia formed around the rear loads while Nella’s archers searched the slope for movement.
More bolts entered the road from low screens hidden among the rocks. The attackers aimed at horses and drivers, trying to stop the wagons before the escort could reach them.
Farlan Vey, a former charcoal burner who had joined Duskwatch’s militia after the mirehorn attack, climbed onto the final grain wagon to drag its wounded driver down.
A bolt entered beneath his jaw.
He fell across the driver before the shield line reached them.
Elara moved toward him, took one look at the wound and continued to the living man beside him. There was nothing she could do for Farlan.
The rear attack forced Callum to pull two soldiers away from the front obstruction. The attackers above the ravine used the movement to release the loose stone.
Garen struck both hands against the road.
A thick ridge rose along the convoy’s western side. Most of the falling rock struck it and broke apart. Several stones passed over the top, smashing a supply-cart wheel and knocking one militia member unconscious.
The convoy had been split between threats ahead, behind and above.
Callum ordered the forward group to abandon the tree and return toward the wagons.
The attackers had expected that.
Two burning barrels rolled from the upper slope toward the packed grain carts.
Maevra’s fire mages raised their casting staves, but the dry woodland prevented them from answering with broad flame. Maevra sent narrow heat lines into the damp leaves behind the nearest crossbow screens. Smoke rose around the attackers without setting the slope alight.
Nella’s archers fired whenever anyone left cover.
The first burning barrel struck Garen’s raised ridge and broke on the far side. The second found a gap near the rear wagon.
Farlan’s frightened horses pulled sideways. The wagon’s outer wheels slipped beyond the road edge, and the entire load tipped onto the slope. Burning oil spread across its canvas as the wagon rolled against a tree below.
Callum sent no soldiers after it.
Saving the remaining seven loads mattered more than charging downhill into fire and crossbow range.
The third barrel came toward the central wagons.
Garen raised a stone ramp beneath it. The barrel launched over the road and burst against the empty lower slope.
Elara drew water from the convoy barrels and sent it across the burning grass near the fallen wagon. She could stop the fire from spreading uphill, though the canvas and several grain sacks were already burning.
The attackers began moving down both ends of the road.
They lacked the numbers to defeat the escort in a direct fight. Their plan depended on panic, fire and dead horses trapping the grain wagons together.
Callum pulled the Calder guards into the central shield line and sent Maevra with three Solenne riders toward the rear slope. Nella took two scouts and three archers through the trees on the eastern side.
Weston moved toward the cut tree with Garen covering the wagons.
The trunk had been tied to ropes held by attackers above the road. If the convoy tried to clear it normally, they could drag it downhill into the lead horses.
Weston placed his hand against the exposed wood and reshaped the middle of the trunk into two long beams fixed against the road edge. The obstruction disappeared, and the men holding the ropes stumbled backward when the tension vanished.
The two repeating-crossbow soldiers at the front moved up behind shields.
Their first volley forced the attackers away from the road. One magazine fed cleanly. The second weapon jammed after a bent bolt caught beneath the lever.
The soldier followed Callum’s instruction. He dropped the magazine, loaded one bolt manually and fired before drawing his sword.
The weapons did not sweep the slope. They allowed the militia to move while the attackers were still expecting the slower reload of ordinary crossbows.
At the rear, Maevra reached the hidden screens. Her fire stayed close to the stone, cutting off the easiest route downhill and forcing the crossbowmen into Nella’s line of sight.
Several fled deeper into the trees.
Nella’s scouts had not completed the full circle. One group escaped north before she could close the path.
The remaining attackers tried to reach the fallen grain wagon. They carried small fire-pots intended to spread the flames among the sacks that had survived the roll.
Maevra struck the ground in front of them with a concentrated burst of heat. One dropped his pot, which broke against wet soil without igniting. The others retreated toward the rocks.
Garen felt the movement through the road and raised a wall across the lower exit.
The trapped men began surrendering.
The fighting lasted less than twenty minutes.
Farlan Vey was dead. One Calder driver had a bolt lodged near his shoulder blade, while another suffered a crushed hand when his wagon shifted. Three Duskwatch militia members were wounded, and the soldier struck by falling rock remained unconscious for several minutes.
The rear grain wagon could not be recovered. Its frame had split against the tree, one horse was dead and the fire had ruined nearly half the load. Soldiers and Calder guards carried the unburned sacks back up the slope once the fighting ended.
Fourteen sacks were lost completely.
The remaining grain had to be redistributed among the other wagons, increasing the weight on their axles.
Five attackers lay dead. Six wounded men surrendered. Several others escaped north and west.
Elara moved between both sides of the road. She treated the Calder driver before attempting to remove the bolt and ordered Maevra’s healer to stabilise two captured attackers. Callum made it clear that medical treatment did not erase what they had done.
Farlan’s body was wrapped in one of the supply-cart covers.
The captured men carried ordinary Crown silver and weapons without heraldry. Two wore small hawk-and-chain marks burned into the inner leather of their belts.
One prisoner possessed an oiled scrap with eight short vertical cuts beside a rough wagon symbol. A second mark showed two lines branching around a triangle, likely representing the upper and lower roads near the ravine.
There were no warehouse names, written orders or noble seals.
Their injured leader gave only limited information.
The Black Chain Factors had paid them through Dorran to destroy the grain. They had been told that eight loaded wagons would travel with a modest escort and several red-coated riders. No one explained who wanted the road closed.
The instructions concerning Maevra’s riders could have come from a merchant camp, Calder Hollow or someone watching the convoy leave Duskwatch.
Callum asked who had provided the route map.
The leader claimed he did not know. A Black Chain courier delivered it with half the payment.
They had been told Duskwatch’s militia consisted mostly of hunters and labourers. Garen’s old injury was mentioned, though the attackers had not known whether he would join the convoy.
The information was accurate enough to prove observation. It was too scattered to identify the source.
Callum kept the convoy at the ambush site for most of the afternoon.
Weston repaired the broken supply cart and strengthened the overloaded grain-wagon axles. Garen widened part of the road near the ravine so the remaining wagons could pass without forming a single narrow line.
The repeating crossbow that jammed went into a tool chest rather than back into service. Dust had entered through the magazine catch, and the bent bolt had made the failure worse.
Elara removed the bolt from the Calder driver. He would keep his arm, though several fingers might never recover full strength. The driver with the crushed hand could no longer control a team for the return journey.
Two militia members and one of Desmond’s clerks took their places beside experienced Calder drivers.
The convoy reached the spring stop after dark.
Callum expected another attack and doubled the watch, despite having fewer healthy soldiers available. The prisoners were tied separately beneath guard. Farlan’s body remained inside a covered supply cart.
No second attack came.
The repaired bridge groaned beneath the overloaded wagons the following morning. One of the new stone supports shifted slightly in the softened streambed.
Garen stabilised it long enough for the convoy to cross. Weston marked the entire foundation for reconstruction before any monthly trade began.
The delay cost them most of the day.
Duskwatch’s walls appeared the following afternoon.
Nella had sent a scout ahead with warning, so Orlan Pike had the southern gate cleared before the wagons arrived. Residents gathered along the inner road, cheering when they saw the grain and falling silent when the covered cart carrying Farlan entered behind it.
Callum dismounted beside the gate and gave Orlan the casualty count before allowing the prisoners inside.
The grain went into three separate stores.
Ossa inspected each sack for water, smoke and insects. The northern granary received the driest loads. A second portion went into the old keep cellar. Garen raised a smaller stone store beside the mill for the remainder.
The experimental hauler carried grain from the gate until its mana cell emptied after four trips. Tobin replaced the loosened rear linkage himself and sent the machine back to its charging stand.
Desmond publicly recorded the amount purchased, the sacks lost and the silver spent. Seven wagons had returned with most of the shipment intact. The recovered grain would still give Duskwatch several weeks of reserve if the harvest failed.
Household prices dropped the next morning.
Merchants were prohibited from purchasing ward grain for western resale. Calder sellers would receive priority market space only after the surviving hired wagons completed their return journey and confirmed that Duskwatch had honoured the agreement.
The first regular contract remained unsigned.
Halric would decide after hearing about the ambush, the lost wagon and the repaired route.
Farlan Vey was buried beyond the eastern wall that evening.
He had entered Duskwatch alone and sent part of every militia payment to a younger sister living near Hollowmark. Desmond added a death payment to her name and assigned Farlan’s permanent-resident share of the current common stores to her household if she chose to come east.
Callum placed Farlan’s short spear across the grave before Garen sealed it beneath a flat stone marker.
The victory on the grain road no longer felt clean once the settlement saw the body that returned with it.
Callum spent the following days revising convoy procedures. Water barrels were divided across several wagons. Forward and rear squads received separate signal calls. Drivers practised closing wagons together without tangling teams.
The repeating crossbows kept their place in the armoury, though Weston added a cover over the magazine catch and changed the feeding track so a bent bolt could be removed without dismantling the entire mechanism.
The prototypes had helped the soldiers advance. They had also failed exactly where Callum expected unreliable machinery to fail: in dirt, under pressure and far from a workbench.
Garen returned to the ridge after Elara cleared him for limited casting. A small fortified post rose above the upper road near the ravine. It held six people, a covered water tank and a locked tool store for bridge and road repairs.
Calder Hollow agreed to send two guards there whenever its wagons travelled east. Duskwatch could not staff the post permanently yet.
The prisoners provided little additional information.
They knew Dorran’s description, two Black Chain meeting yards and the names of several lower enforcers. None had met a noble or estate steward connected to the attack.
Desmond sent separate questions through his informants.
The Calder warehouse clerk would watch for brokers purchasing exclusive transport rights. The Hollowmark innkeeper would listen for Dorran’s damaged ear and heavy build. The salt merchant would trace which western warehouses had recently received large grain purchases.
No one received the complete chain of names.
Maevra reviewed the convoy losses and the Black Chain marks before preparing another report for Ashenvale. She had three days remaining under her father’s original authority, and her request for additional time had not yet received an answer.
Weston found her near the rebuilt Skybreaker chamber.
“Will you leave when the fourteen days end?”
“If my father orders it.”
“And if he does not answer in time?”
“I return unless his existing letter allows an extension.”
Weston nodded. He wanted her expertise on the furnace and pressure chamber, though he understood that she commanded another lord’s soldiers.
“The foundry still needs your assessment,” he said. “Send that with the casualty report.”
“I already have.”
There was no promise that she would remain. Her messenger had carried the request west, and House Solenne would decide what support, conditions or demands followed.
Elara mentioned the matter later while she and Weston replaced cooling stones inside the medicine cabinet.
“Maevra’s fire control would help with the next chamber test,” she said.
“It would.”
“Then I hope Ashenvale allows her to finish.”
Weston glanced toward her.
Elara closed the cabinet and checked the temperature strip. “You also owe me another quiet meal. The last one ended with a wagon full of fire-pots.”
“I remember.”
“Good. Solve one problem without scheduling it during dinner.”
Her expression held no resentment toward Maevra. She was simply making certain Weston did not let every new crisis consume the few private moments they had begun sharing.
Desmond’s strongest clue arrived three nights after the convoy returned.
The Hollowmark innkeeper had seen Dorran meeting a grain clerk named Esten Varl in a private back room. Varl handled warehouse purchases for several estates, including shipments overseen by Malrec Dane’s office.
The meeting did not prove that Malrec knew about the ambush. Varl conducted legitimate grain business for other clients, and Dorran could have approached him for warehouse space.
It gave Desmond another person to watch.
He added Varl’s name to the Black Chain file and instructed the salt merchant to trace his recent payments without approaching him directly. Nella sent one scout toward Hollowmark disguised as a carter’s cousin.
The following morning, the four surviving Calder wagons rolled north again. They carried steel fittings, preserved meat and a sealed account of the ambush for Halric Venn. Two Duskwatch riders escorted them as far as the ridge post.
At the same time, a salt cart left through the southern gate.
Hidden beneath its wooden scoop was Desmond’s first coded request for information about Esten Varl.