Sunlight pressed against Highmarsh like a third set of walls.

  From the solar, Kay watched the fields beyond the town turn into a patchwork of canvas and trodden grass. Tents had sprung up in careful rows on the flat outside the southern gate—white and brown and dyed scraps from a dozen holdings, their guy-ropes catching the light like taut silver lines. Smoke drifted from the cookfires in thin blue ribbons, curling lazily past the falcon banner on the outer tower.

  Lawrence stood beside him, hands folded neatly over the ledger he carried everywhere. “Yellowhill’s contingent has finished pitching,” he said. “One hundred and twenty men-at-arms, four knights.” His eye twitched toward another camp. “Timberlake is at one hundred and forty men-at-arms and five knights. Shimmerfield, one hundred men-at-arms and seven knights.”

  “And the sellswords,” Kay asked.

  “Vincent’s company of fifty men-at-arms there.” Lawrence tipped his chin toward a tighter block of tents set slightly apart, their lines too straight to be peasant work. “Graves and his hundred and twenty bowmen on the rise beyond. I thought it best to keep the archers where they can see the road and beyond.”

  Men moved like ants between the canvas streets—armor glinting dimly, cloaks dark with damp, horses shifting at picket lines. The sound reached even up here—hammer on stake, the rise and fall of orders, unfamiliar laughter trying to make a home in Highmarsh’s air.

  Kay’s fingers tightened on the window ledge. “And our own?”

  “Two hundred at readiness within the walls, a hundred more that can be armed in a day if we drag them from their plows,” Lawrence said. “But not for long if we expect to eat through winter.”

  Kay’s mouth curved without mirth. “We’ll solve that by making sure winter comes at all.”

  Lawrence didn’t smile, but the lack of argument was as good as agreement.

  A knock sounded at the door. “My lord,” came the page’s voice, slightly breathless. “They’re in the hall.”

  Kay drew a breath, let it out slow, and stepped back from the window. “Very well.” He glanced at Lawrence. “Let’s see what my father’s writ has actually bought us.”

  The great hall never felt small, but today it felt crowded.

  Banners hung along the stone—the white falcon of Highmarsh at the high end, flanked now by the green-and-gold tree of Timberlake, the yellow boar of Yellowhill, the black stag of Shimmerfield. Cloaks hung warm on shoulders, dust softening the edges of plate and mail.

  Sire George of Timberlake stood near the hearth, heavy-shouldered and thick-necked, his beard shot through with grey. Sire Gordon of Shimmerfield leaned one hip against the table, long-fingered hands folded, his hair cropped close save for a single braid at his temple. Between them, Sire Klod of Yellowhill looked like a man who’d ridden hard and decided the ride had not been worth the dust—narrow, pouchy eyes, cheeks florid from the fire and the climb, yellow boar sewn in thread a bit too bright across his chest.

  Vincent and Graves stood further down, respectfully out of their depth among so much land and steel. Vincent had the patient look of a man who’d led men long enough to know better than to interrupt lords—broad, scar along one jaw like a thumbprint. Graves was leaner, his shoulders bowed slightly as if he were perpetually ducking a low bough, fingers stained dark where bowstring had bitten them over the years. Both wore their swords, but neither had unbuckled their cloaks yet, as if ready to be turned back out into the sun.

  As Kay entered with Lawrence at his shoulder, talk thinned, then stilled. The lords turned. For half a heartbeat, he saw it—the measuring in their eyes. How young. How thin across the shoulders. How recently that chair had seated another man.

  He pushed it aside and walked forward.

  George got there first. He gave Kay a short nod, then turned his head slightly, voice pitched just loud enough to carry.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you’d show up,” he said to Klod.

  Klod’s jaw bunched. “I came when the writ reached me. Some roads take longer than a single night’s trot to Timberlake. Not all of us sleep with the crown’s messengers at our hearth.”

  “Nor would I,” George said. “They snore.” A few of his knights chuckled softly behind him.

  “Let’s not waste the time it did take,” Kay said, taking his place at the head of the table. He did not sit. His father had often stood for councils that mattered. “You’ve all marched men because of that writ. I don’t intend to make them wait in mud while their lords trade jabs.”

  Gordon’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close enough to be encouragement. “Then to business, my lord. You called. We answered. What shape does your need take?”

  Lawrence slid a slate across the table, its surface already marked with lines indicating rivers, fens, and the jagged edge of the marsh. “The elves have not pressed a full assault yet,” he said. “Raids, burnings, strikes at lone farms and small hamlets. Their movements suggest testing—probing for weakness, not commitment.”

  “Testing,” George repeated. “We’ve all felt the pinch.”

  “Highmarsh most of all,” Klod said. “You sit in the crook of their reach. Yet I don’t see Hudson’s stag up there.” His gaze flicked to the banners above the dais. “Did he lose it in that last little… misunderstanding?”

  He let the word hang.

  George rolled his eyes. “Do you live under a rock at Yellowhill? Of course Amberwood wasn’t summoned. That’s the feud the south’s been drinking to for months.”

  Klod’s eyes narrowed. “I live under a hill. It’s my land. And I know the gossip well enough. I also know we can’t afford to let old quarrels decide who stands in the shield wall when the marsh fires again.” His look slid back to Kay, lingering a beat too long. “The safety of the south, my lord, is larger than bruised pride. Whoever’s… stewarding Highmarsh at the moment should know that.”

  The word ‘stewarding’ landed like a thrown coin.

  Kay felt the heat rise at the back of his neck. He kept his hands flat on the table. “Sire Hudson chose his place in that quarrel,” he said. “He tried to use an elven raid as cover to break my father’s line. He earned his bruises.”

  “And you earned a corpse,” Klod shot back. “Sire Ray is gone. Sire Hudson still sits in his hall. Numbers don’t care who started the song, only who is left to hear it.”

  “Enough,” Gordon said quietly. He didn’t raise his voice, but it cut through as clean as Maxwell ever did. “We are not small men in a tavern arguing who kicked whose dog first. We are lords with fields that burn the same color. Let the boy speak his mind. Then we judge the sense of it, not the age.”

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  Kay let the word ‘boy’ pass him like wind. He looked from one to the other—George’s solid expectation, Gordon’s steady patience, Klod’s puffed skepticism.

  “Hudson is not here,” he said. “Not because I forgot him. Because I chose not to trust him. He is the man who watched elves burn farms and thought to ride a flank while my father bled in the front. That is not caution. It is opportunism. You say we can’t let feuds decide the wall. I say we can’t give our backs to a man who sees war as a ladder.” He swallowed, forcing the iron into his tone. “If that makes me young, so be it. But it doesn’t make me wrong.”

  George grunted. “Hudson’s a snake. Even I’ll grant that. But snakes bite other things than you when the fire gets close. We might yet have used him.”

  “To do what?” Kay asked. “Sit on a hill and count how many of us fall so he can write a better letter to the crown when it’s done?”

  Lawrence cleared his throat softly. “In any case, Amberwood has not answered the first writ we did send after the battle. Their last messenger left Highmarsh six weeks ago. No word since. Either Hudson sulks… or he hoards.”

  “Either way, he isn’t here,” Gordon said. “And we are. So. Offensive, you said.”

  Kay nodded. “We cannot wait on their raids forever. Every farm burned is coin and bread we don’t get back. The king’s writ gives us the right to call your levies for defense. I intend to push that line—and use them for offense as well. We move into the marsh before they finish testing and settle on a plan we’ll like even less.”

  “Into the marsh,” Klod repeated, unimpressed. “And how many of your men have fought there and come back with a story that isn’t a lie?”

  Kay thought of Toby’s face when he’d volunteered to scout the south, the way duty had sat on him alongside old anger. “We have scouts in their shadow already,” he said. “Ser Maxwell rides with them. They’ll bring back paths worth trusting.”

  George planted his big hands on the table, leaning over the slate. “You’re thinking what, then? Two prongs? Highmarsh and Timberlake on one line, Yellowhill and Shimmerfield on another, meet in the middle and burn everything that isn’t ours?”

  Graves shifted slightly, as if about to speak, then thought better of it. Vincent kept his eyes on the board, patient as a stone.

  “Fire will only serve them if we aren’t careful,” Lawrence said. “Smoke favors archers who can see through it. And their metal cuts cleaner than ours. If we press too deep without supply, we’ll starve before they do.”

  “Then we keep the push short,” George said. “A week’s bite. Hit hard, pull back. Show them the south isn’t their larder.”

  Gordon tapped the edge of the slate with one finger. “We use Graves’ bowmen to screen. Vincent’s company as the hard hook on whichever flank sags. My knights can hold a center, Timberlake’s can match. Yellowhill…”

  “My men can stand,” Klod snapped.

  “I doubt their legs,” Gordon said mildly. “I doubt their lord’s memory of marching in marsh. The footing is its own enemy. But if you hold reserve on the dry ground, you can strike where we point without losing half your number to mud.”

  Klod flushed, but said nothing.

  Kay watched them draw lines on the slate with callused fingers, turning his writ into men into arrows. Part of him wanted to lean in and trace every path. Another part remembered Dylan’s words—command is responsibility when you’re wrong. He couldn’t be everywhere. That was why he’d called them.

  “We’ll need grain routes,” Lawrence said. “If we keep four hundred men in the field for more than a week, they’ll eat through stored oats like rats through a—”

  The far door burst open.

  The sound snapped the room tight. Hands went to hilts out of habit more than need. A page skidded to a halt just inside the threshold, cheeks flushed, hair plastered damp to his brow. He realized all at once how many eyes were on him and went white beneath the red.

  “Forgive me, my lords,” he gasped, bowing so fast he nearly fell. “Forgive—I was told—it could not wait.”

  Klod made a soft, offended sound. “Do folk here have no sense of respect? We’re in council, boy.”

  Kay lifted a hand, cutting him off without looking away from the page. “Breathe,” he said. “Then speak.”

  The boy gulped air, throat working. He hurried forward, up onto the first step of the dais, and leaned in to whisper. His words were a tangle of names and places—half-swallowed in his haste—but the sense of them landed clean.

  Amberwood. Smoke. Riders turned back. No scouts seen.

  Kay’s jaw locked. “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, my lord,” the boy said, near tears now. “Ser Sid sent me. The riders came in not ten minutes past. They say… they say the elves are on Amberwood in force. They came out of the fog before dawn. The outer farms are already gone. The main host was still in the yard when the first arrows flew. They were… surprised.”

  Silence landed like a hammer.

  George swore under his breath. Gordon exhaled slowly through his nose. Klod’s mouth opened, closed again—for once without a comment.

  Kay straightened, feeling every year he did and did not have. “Then Hudson’s games are over,” he said quietly. “Whatever he wrote about my father, the marsh didn’t bother to read it.”

  He looked at the other lords, meeting each gaze in turn. “You wanted to know why I didn’t call him. That’s why. He didn’t scout. He didn’t listen. He trusted the elves to stay where he wanted them. Now his people are paying for it.”

  “His people,” Gordon repeated, emphasis gentle.

  Kay heard it. He swallowed. “And whether we like him or not, the south pays if Amberwood falls. If they burn through him, they won’t stop at his fords. They’ll have a straight road to my walls. And yours.”

  George pushed away from the table, all amusement gone. “So we move.”

  “We move,” Kay said. “Not in a week. Not after another map. We march within the hour. Graves, your bowmen on the road first—I want eyes and points ahead of us. Vincent, keep your men tight—you’re our hammer if their scouts break through. George, Gordon, Klod—you wanted to prove the south can still stand together? Here’s the test.”

  Klod bristled. “You think to order me like a squire?”

  “I think to ask you to act like more than a border,” Kay said, meeting his stare. “You said the safety of the south is larger than my pride. Prove yours is smaller than your land.”

  For a heartbeat, he thought the older lord might snap back. Then something in Klod’s gaze shifted—not warmth, not respect, but a grudging acknowledgment that the boy in the high chair could, at least, hold it.

  “We’ll ride,” Klod said shortly. “Yellowhill will stand. If Hudson falls, I’d rather see it with my own eyes.”

  George grinned, savage and brief. “Timberlake’s ready to see that.”

  Gordon nodded once. “Shimmerfield will be on your flank. I’ll have my men ready to pivot if the line breaks.”

  Kay turned to Lawrence. “Rouse the garrison. Send word along the town—no one leaves the walls without writ. Have the quartermaster drag every spare cart to the yard. We’ll need bandages and barley and everything between.”

  Lawrence was already moving, quill somehow in hand. “At once, my lord.”

  Vincent inclined his head. “My lads will march light and quick. We’ll be where you point us.”

  Graves rubbed his thumb along the callus on his bow hand, eyes gone distant in the way of men who saw ranges and wind where others saw only rain. “We’ll make them pay for every step, if we can see them,” he said. “If we can’t, we’ll learn how.”

  Kay nodded. “Good. Then we go. Leave your men in their tents and we’ll be late to our own funeral.”

  As they broke—lords calling for squires, captains for sergeants, the hall filling with the clatter of movement—Kay stood a moment longer under the weight of the banners. The falcon snapped once in a gust from the opening door, white wings bright against the stone.

  Hudson had mocked that bird in ink. Now the marsh was on his doorstep.

  Kay thought of Toby riding somewhere in the south with Maxwell at his shoulder and Zak and Reece beside him. He thought of fields already blackened, of farms that had no name to anyone but the people who’d built them.

  He stepped down from the dais, feeling the stone under his boots, the hall’s eyes on his back.

  “Highmarsh moves,” he said.

  This time, no one answered with words. The scrape of benches, the ring of steel, the thunder of boots on the way to the yard were answer enough.