• • •

She trudged toward the overgrown ruins of the ancient keep that was home. A few of the walls still stood to a certain degree. One among them who was a mason had, with the help of others, spent the warm months making repairs and stabilizing what remained, while others rebuilt the roof to keep the weather off. The keep was surrounded by a crumbling curtain wall. The complex was situated upon a hillock within the forest. It must have once stood prominent over agricultural lands before they were deserted and the forest closed in.

Rough shacks and cabins had gone up against both the curtain wall and the keep proper, a shanty village erected by both soldiers and civilians of Second Empire, the refugees who had fled Sacoridia, her people. This far north in the Lone Forest, beyond the boundaries of Sacoridia, the winter was especially harsh. Frigid winds rushed down from the arctic ice, and each day saw the loss of the weak and infirm. It meant fewer mouths to feed, but to Grandmother, it felt terribly unfair that her people should suffer while her enemy, King Zachary, stayed warm and well-fed in his grand castle.

The air smelled of smoke. Bonfires, torches, and lanterns offered a golden welcome as she approached the keep. Luckily, they did not lack for wood.

“Where do you want the litter to go?” one of the soldiers asked her.

“To the great hall,” she replied. “There we shall get a closer look at our trade.”

Dogs barked at their arrival, and people called out greetings to her as they warmed themselves by the fires. They cast curious glances at the litter.

Soldiers saluted as they passed through the gap in the curtain wall where there had once been a gate. Little remained of the original, but carpenters were working on a new one. Its utility would be questionable until other gaps in the wall were repaired. Currently, an army could swarm through at will.

Inside the wall were more shacks and pens for sheep, pigs, and a few cows. Chickens roamed where they wished. She crossed the courtyard, and a soldier pulled aside an old wool blanket that served as the keep’s door so she could enter.

Inside the keep it wasn’t much warmer, but the walls cut the wind. The air was dank and smoky. Roiling torch flames cast erratic shadows that slithered across stone. The great hall was the most repaired chamber in the keep with a roaring fire in the massive hearth. Some great clan chief of old would have feasted his vassals in this chamber. When they found it, it had been filled with the detritus of hundreds of years of neglect, and whatever had drifted through the broken roof from the forest. But for the new rafters and roof, one would have little idea the level of disrepair the place had been in. It had taken substantial effort to make it habitable for people rather than rodents. Luckily, they’d captives to do the hard labor.

The litter had been dragged over by the hearth, and a group of her people were peering down at its occupant, including Lala and her tutor.

“Now, now,” Grandmother said as she approached. “Give us some space to see what we’ve got.”

The group parted and let her in. The heat of the fire was a relief, though she did not think her toes would thaw out completely until summer. She gazed down at the man, and if anything, his face looked more ghastly than it had by lantern light out in the woods. Swollen and bruised and cut, and who knew what his beard hid. What would they find when they removed the fur that covered him? She reached down and peeled his eyelids back. Brown eyes, with pupils unevenly dilated. Concussion, but not surprising.

“Who is he?” Lala asked.

“I do not know, child. The groundmites found him.”

“Groundmites . . .” Arvyn, the tutor, murmured. He stared down at the man in disbelief.

“Yes, we traded some things for him. Now all of you, back to work so Min and Varius can have a look at the fellow.”

Varius was a skilled mender, and Min very capable, as well. She left them to tend the man, whoever he was. If they needed help, they would call on her. If the man survived his wounds, whatever they were, they would learn his name and how he came into the clutches of Skarrl and his people. If he were no one of particular interest, she could always put him to work on the excavation. If he did not survive? She shrugged. He would die a mystery.

She headed back toward the chamber they had set up as a kitchen. The broken walls had been patched with timbers and tarps, but the hearth was fully repaired and kept the area warm. Sarat and a few others fussed around her, getting her seated by the fire with a cup of tea to warm her hands, and entertaining her with the day’s gossip of who had shirked their chores, which young man was stealing kisses from which young woman, what the children were up to. It was all very domestic and cozy, and she could almost forget she was in some abandoned keep in the wilderness preparing her people to battle the Sacoridians and their allies. She left most of the military strategy to Birch, now a general rather than a colonel, and he was spending the winter ensconced with his troops at one of their bases a day’s ride to the east. Soon, winter would fade and conflict would reignite.

As Grandmother relaxed, another woman entered the kitchen. She was a stocky person with a mop of curling hair. She was bundled in a cloak, her cheeks red as if she’d just been outside.

“Hello, Grandmother,” the woman said, ignoring Sarat who looked displeased to see her.

“Ah, Nyssa, dear,” Grandmother replied. “How goes your latest project?”

Nyssa dropped onto a bench. Her cloak fell open revealing trousers and a tunic flecked with blood. Not her own. “Forty strokes was too much for him,” she said with a shrug. “His heart stopped. He was old, anyway.”