Wolves at the Gate

The Marches answered Calder's defiance with silence at first.

No armies stormed Caer Morlan's gates.

No assassins slipped through the broken walls by night.

Only the endless white of winter creeping closer, filling the cracks in the stone with frost, the halls with breathless cold.

For three days and three nights, they waited.

For three days, nothing came but the wind and the slow grinding of hunger inside their bellies.

Men sharpened their blades until the edges bit their fingers out of boredom.

Fingers itched against hilts for imagined slights.

Eyes grew wary.

Laughter became rarer than food.

And Calder watched it all without blinking.

It was the same old lesson the Marches had taught him long ago:

Idle wolves turn on each other when the prey runs too long.

At dawn on the fourth day, the sound came.

Distant.

Heavy.

Measured.

Hooves against frozen earth.

Steel rattling in cold fists.

Banners snapping in the dead wind.

Calder stood atop the shattered battlements, staring out across the blasted valley.

The first scouts crested the distant ridge — Thornhollow's colors, ragged but undeniable — followed by a slow, steady surge of armored bodies moving in tight formations.

More organized than Calder expected.

More desperate, too.

Thornhollow was finally done sending half-measures.

Good.

Calder was tired of starving.

He moved through the keep, silent as a blade through flesh, waking the warband.

No shouted orders.

No rallying cries.

Just a hard hand on a shoulder.

A grim nod.

A look that said: Now. Now, or never.

Dren Malco cracked his knuckles eagerly, flashing teeth that hadn't seen a mirror in months.

Saelen Crow-Eater checked the bindings on her battered armor without speaking.

Thann Veyr trembled, but not from cold.

Branwen buckled on his swordbelt with a face carved from stone.

Calder paused briefly to watch them.

He didn't see soldiers.

He saw tools.

Weapons sharpened on fear, honed by necessity.

Good enough.

The battle didn't begin with a charge.

It began with patience.

Thornhollow's men set siege lines just out of bowshot, building earthworks with cold, brutal efficiency.

They meant to starve Caer Morlan.

Freeze it out.

Calder didn't have the time — or the food — to let that happen.

He ordered raids at dusk.

Small, vicious sorties against their outworks — spears in the night, blades flashing between howls.

Wound them.

Weaken them.

Remind them that death didn't need to march in shining rows to find their throats.

On the third night, it went wrong.

The warband moved out in two groups — Dren leading one, Calder the other — circling wide to harass the enemy's southern flank.

But Thornhollow's men were ready.

They had learned.

Adapted.

Set traps in the darkness — shallow pits masked with brush, sharpened stakes at the bottom.

Calder's group skirted danger by sheer instinct.

Dren's wasn't so lucky.

The ambush triggered in a spray of screams and splintered wood.

Calder heard it first:

The wet crunch of a body impaled.

The ragged, animal wailing of a man who realized his guts were no longer inside him.

Saelen Crow-Eater swore low under her breath.

Thann Veyr tightened his grip on his shield until the wood creaked.

They pushed forward, grim and fast, Calder setting the pace.

No hesitation.

No foolish hope to save anyone.

They found Dren impaled in the nearest pit, skewered through the thigh and belly.

His face was white, teeth gritted, breath hissing out through bloodied lips.

"You bastard—" he rasped when he saw Calder above him.

A snarl.

A plea.

Calder crouched at the edge of the pit, studied the wound dispassionately.

Too deep.

Too ragged.

Even if they hauled him out, infection would take him before the snow melted.

Worse:

Dragging him back would slow them.

Expose them.

Cost others their lives for a corpse too stubborn to admit he was already dead.

Dren saw the decision pass across Calder's face.

Recognition dulled the fight in him faster than the blood loss.

"No," he managed.

Voice breaking.

"I helped you. I—"

Calder drew a short dagger from his belt, cold and clean in the frozen air.

He slid into the pit without a word, one smooth motion.

Dren's eyes widened.

He tried to scrabble backward, but the stakes pinned him fast.

"No—! Calder, wait—!"

The blade flashed once, deep and fast across the throat.

Blood gouted, dark and steaming, spraying across the broken stakes.

Dren's body spasmed once.

Then sagged.

Silent.

Empty.

Calder wiped the blade on Dren's ragged cloak, climbed out of the pit, and turned back to the others.

No anger.

No regret.

Just necessity.

Dren's cries had stirred Thornhollow's men. Calder knew the advantage of surprise had been lost.

"Back to the keep," he said.

"Nothing left worth carrying."

Thann Veyr paled but said nothing.

Saelen nodded once, without judgment.

Branwen's jaw tightened, but he followed without a word.

The Marches didn't reward sentiment.

Only survival.

Only the ruthless willingness to keep moving through the bodies left behind.

They returned to Caer Morlan under a shroud of mist.

Fewer now.

Harder now.

The wolves in the valley howled louder that night, scenting blood, or perhaps sensing that the true hunt had begun.

At the broken gate, Calder stood watch alone.

The cold gnawed at him.

The silence pressed down like a hand over his mouth.

He did not pray.

There were no gods worth speaking to.

Only debts.

Only promises made in blood.

And Calder Vane — the Stonewolf — would pay them all.

One corpse at a time.