A black battle line showed itself out of the northern wastes.
At its head came infantry with broad shields locked edge to edge. Plate painted black covered them from knee to chin, and long spears jutted at a slant through the gaps between the shields. Behind them followed two battering rams, each carried by six men, the iron capping the heads of the logs so dark it seemed to swallow the sunlight.
Kang Mujin measured the weight of that iron first.
It had not been cast as a single mass. Several sheets of plate had been heated, layered, and clamped with iron banding. The carbon content was uneven, and between the two frontmost sheets lay a hairline gap left by unequal cooling. Taken head-on, the gate would break first — but if he could put force into twisting it sideways, the seam where plate bit into plate would open.
The problem was distance.
The Blessing of Iron let him feel the grain of metal, but it was no power that moved a mountain without reaching out a hand. The heavier and farther the iron, the more strength it cost to take hold of. To break that ram, he had to draw it close to the wall.
“Rosen.”
Rosen was already standing behind the north gate with a drawing spread open.
“Let the ram come all the way up to the gate.”
His gaze moved back and forth between the ram and Kang Mujin.
“How close?”
“Fifteen paces.”
“And after that?”
“We tip it to the left.”
Rosen nodded without asking for reasons. He knew that when Kang Mujin named a distance about iron, the number was both a limit and a condition.
“North gate line, do not give ground until the first impact! Archers, target the ram crews. Militia second rank, ready the hooks!”
The order spread along the wall.
When Rakan planted his shield before the north gate, sixteen militia formed up behind him in two rows. Their armor and their builds were all different, but the spears Kang Mujin had forged were identical in length and weight. Only when they thrust the same distance on the same call could it be called a formation.
The spear tip of one young militia trembled. Rakan tapped the shaft down with the edge of his shield.
“Don’t try to kill the enemy. Just don’t let them past one step in front of you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Live to be relieved. If you die, I’ll make you run your own share at the next drill too.”
It was a threat that made no sense, but the corner of the militia’s mouth moved for a moment. The trembling spear tip settled a little lower.
The black shield wall came within range.
When Silvana raised her hand, sixteen bows on the wall and the rear platform tilted as one. The remaining eight waited with arrows nocked, held back as the relief and maneuver group. The arrows carried hooked arrowheads made by Doria. They were not shaped to bite deep into flesh, but to catch and tear at shield rims, armor seams, and the leather straps and iron rings that bore the rams.
“First mark.”
The bowstrings sang all at once.
The arrows arced over the front shields and fell. Six poured down onto a ram and lodged between the carrying straps and the handles, two caught on iron rings, and the rest glanced off armor and shields.
The enemy did not stop.
With the second volley, the eight archers atop the wall aimed for the gaps between shields while the eight on the rear platform shot at a high angle. One soldier carrying a ram lost his shoulder strap and the long log tilted to one side, but a soldier behind him filled the empty place at once.
A low horn call swept across the wastes.
The enemy shields rose as one.
Rosen did not miss the moment.
“Militia, javelins!”
Those lying flat below the wall rose up. Twelve short javelins flew low and struck the shins and insteps left bare by shields raised overhead. Several in the front rank went down and fouled the line behind them, and for the first time the stride of the solid shield wall broke.
Behind the infantry, a giant of a man tilted an axe-spear forward. He stood a head taller than the other soldiers, and three rows of red iron studs were driven into his pauldron. When the order came, the enemy soldiers did not drag their fallen comrades out. They trod over them as they advanced and filled the opened gaps with shields again.
Even a wounded soldier was no reason for them to halt.
Kang Mujin closed his grip firmly around his sword hilt. To them a person was a part that made up the battle line, and a part that no longer worked was simply left on the road.
He did not raise his voice.
“The first ram is coming in.”
The huge iron head passed fifteen paces from the wall.
Kang Mujin drew a deep breath.
As his senses spread in every direction, the cramps of the wall, the chains of the north gate, and the militia’s spears touched his fingertips first. Iron of differing temperatures and tensions rose like embers in the dark, and beyond them the plate of the ram’s head came heavily into his grasp. The gap between the layered plates was thinner than a hair; if he spread his strength wide, the weight of the log would crush it shut.
He had to take hold of one place only.
Kang Mujin turned his sword point-down, drove it into the ground, and laid both hands over the hilt. His temples pulled taut and his fingertips went numb.
The ram came within ten paces.
“Now!”
The militia threw their grappling ropes. Three of the five caught on the ram’s handles and iron rings; the men ran the other way, hauling on the ropes, and at the same moment Kang Mujin seized the left edge of the plate.
The cold iron grew as vivid in his palm as a heated ingot. He did not push the whole log. He drove his strength into the ill-joined gap and widened it an inch at a time, the way a hammer drives a wedge.
The ram charged for the gate.
Ten paces.
Five paces.
One iron band snapped.
Kang Mujin twisted his left hand and the ram’s head turned half a span. The militia hauling the ropes slid across the dirt, but no one let go, and the feet of the enemy soldiers carrying the ram tangled together.
The log grazed the right side of the north gate.
With a roar the earth fill of the wall caved inward and two stakes split. The shock rang up through the chains and the anchor posts into Kang Mujin’s senses, but the barrier line did not open. The tilted ram plowed straight into the ditch below the wall.
“That’s one finished!”
Doria swung a long-hafted hammer atop the north gate. The hook of a ladder reaching for the wall crumpled and flew off.
“These ones hold up worse than the wall of my forge!”
The second ram changed direction.
The enemy was aiming for the unset stretch of wall to the northeast. The earth there had been packed only recently, and with too few iron cores prepared, the reinforcement was spaced wider than in the other sections. Whether they had learned it by scouting or picked the weak point by eye, there was no telling.
Either way, they moved fast.
Silvana dropped her hand and a squad of elf archers ran along the platform. Terwin sent three arrows in succession at the ram crew. Two were stopped by shields, but the third drove into the iron ring of a carrying strap.
Then, from behind the enemy lines, came a short, heavy crack.
“Down!”
As Kang Mujin shouted, crossbow arrows poured over the wall. One thick arrow punched through an elf archer’s shoulder and dropped the archer onto the platform, and two militia were hit before they could raise their shields and went over backward.
The hand Silvana held her bow with trembled.
It was a very brief movement.
She did not run to her fallen kin. She followed the angle and the sound of the incoming arrows to the rear of the enemy line, then drew her bowstring to its limit.
“Crossbowmen. Under the black tent.”
The elves’ arrows gathered on a single point. The first arrows struck the shields in front of the tent one after another, opening a gap, and the wind of the spirits pushed the tails of the two that followed. After the last arrows passed over the shields and vanished into the black tent, the enemy crossbow fire stopped.
“Wounded to the rear!”
Rosen shouted.
Aisha came running, gripping one end of a stretcher. A grown man’s body was more than those small arms could manage, but when a refugee woman lifted the other end, Aisha matched her pace, stepping around the spears and arrows scattered on the ground. Each time the stretcher tilted, Aisha only bit down hard, and said nothing about being frightened or about it being too much.
The second ram reached the wall.
Earth and timber burst inward, stakes bent, and the whole platform shook hard. The archers grabbed the railing, and through the split black spears came thrusting one after another like serpents’ tongues.
“Hold the northeast!”
Rakan ran over, turned the first spear aside with his shield, and set himself in front of the breach. Five militia followed behind him, and their spears thrust as one toward the narrow gap. One enemy soldier fell back, but a fresh shield and spear pressed up from behind at once.
“Lower your hips! Don’t watch the spear tip, watch the shoulder!”
Rakan did not try to seal the breach completely. He held the number of enemies who could come through at once to two, angling his shield to turn their spears aside. The militia thrust in turns behind him, but the rhythm of real battle did not match the drills. When one spear went too deep and stuck in an enemy shield, Rakan kicked the shaft himself and broke it.
“Losing your neck to save one weapon is a bad trade. Pick up the next one!”
Kang Mujin took a step toward the northeast.
“Kang Mujin!”
Doria’s shout fell from atop the north gate.
The pauldron studded with red iron was coming on, splitting the shield wall as it passed. The enemy commander was not heading for the breach the ram had made. The giant walked straight toward the militia line before the north gate, axe-spear held at a slant.
Kang Mujin saw the intent.
The breach in the northeast was bait. With Rakan and the reserves pinned there, the commander meant to break the north gate line himself.
The axe-spear swung wide.
Two militia spears broke at once, and the giant drove his body shield-first into the gap that opened. The first row gave way and the heels of those behind dug deep into the dirt. They stood at a distance where one man falling would collapse the entire line.
Rakan looked back. A black spear hung caught in his shield, and rough breath spilled between his fangs.
“Hold that position.”
Rakan’s eyes flared at Kang Mujin’s words, but he did not leave the northeast breach.
“Finish it fast, blacksmith!”
“I will.”
Kang Mujin loosened one layer of the north gate’s chains, opening only enough of a gap for two people to pass. Doria jumped down from the platform and stood at his side; splinters of a shattered ladder were still wedged in the hammer’s head.
“This is no forge, but you’ll put up with some meddling, eh?”
“Take the left.”
“Hrmph. Picking the good spot for yourself first, are you.”
The two of them went out beyond the gate.
The giant’s axe-spear fell toward Kang Mujin’s head. He did not meet it head-on with his sword but slipped half a step aside and pushed the shaft with the back of the blade. The moment the axe head bit into the ground, the shock rang up through the binding collar.
The axe blade itself was sound, but the iron joining it to the shaft was far too thick. Metal added to increase the weight was not spreading the shock but gathering it in one place. Struck three times in the same spot, the grain would split.
The giant’s shield came at Kang Mujin’s chest.
From the side Doria’s hammer flew in and slammed the shield’s left edge. The plate dented and the giant’s body turned half a step, but through that opening two black spears stabbed in at Doria.
“I’ll handle the small fry!”
Doria swept the first spear away with the haft of his hammer, then shoved the second spear aside with his forearm guard. The split ends of his beard flew up over his shoulder, but he had no spare moment even to check whether a single hair had been cut.
The giant’s axe-spear swung on the horizontal.
Kang Mujin brought his sword up and struck just below the binding collar.
Once.
His wrist went numb and a small nick opened in the blade. It was a shock any proper sword should have avoided, but what he needed now was not the life of an edge; it was the ruin of the enemy’s weapon.
The giant soon abandoned the axe-spear’s range and pressed in with the shield. Whether he had noticed the weakness was unclear, but he plainly had no intention of offering the same spot again. Each short movement of the shield’s corner drove Kang Mujin back a step.
The ditch before the north gate touched his heel.
The giant’s shield filled his vision.
Kang Mujin took hold of the iron underground. Three iron cores, meant for reinforcing the wall but buried when they proved too short, lay at a slant beneath the ditch. Even through the soil he felt the shallow rust on their surfaces and their rough cut ends clearly.
He drew his fingers back, and one of the cores burst up through the earth.
The giant’s ankle caught, his balance collapsed forward, and the shield came down with it. Kang Mujin’s sword struck the exposed binding collar again.
Twice.
The crack reached his fingertips.
The giant roared and brought the axe-spear down. Kang Mujin twisted aside, but the tip of the blade grazed his shoulder guard, and as the flesh under the leather split hot, the strength went out of his right arm.
The third blow could not come from the sword.
Kang Mujin reached out with his left hand and took hold of the cracked binding collar directly.
The iron fought him hard. It was a weapon gripped in an enemy’s hands, and he had already spent much of his strength breaking the first ram. His finger joints burned as though crushed in heated tongs, and inside his temples the pain beat in time with his pulse.
Still, the crack did not lie.
Once a path had formed, it deepened every time force entered it.
Kang Mujin twisted his hand.
The binding collar tore and the axe head fell away from the shaft. For the first time, the giant’s eyes went wide.
Kang Mujin knocked the remaining shaft away with the back of his sword and drove his shoulder in. The instant the giant tried to raise his shield, Doria’s hammer smashed into the far knee.
“One knee is all it takes to kneel!”
The armor crumpled and the giant set one knee on the ground. Kang Mujin’s point aimed beneath the helmet.
“Drop your weapon.”
The giant did not let go of the broken shaft. Even with one knee ruined, he drew the dagger at his waist.
Kang Mujin waited one beat.
The moment the dagger moved forward, his sword drove in beneath the helmet first. The giant toppled forward without ever rising, and the pauldron studded with red iron struck the dirt.
The enemy line wavered.
Doria lifted his bloodied hammer.
“Your captain’s gone cold!”
From the northeast, Rakan’s roar broke out.
“Push!”
The militia thrust their spears as one. The elf archers punched cleanly through the hands and shoulders of soldiers trying to climb the wall, and Terwin’s arrow cut the last strap binding the ram. The log lost its support and rolled sideways, and three enemy soldiers pressed against the wall scrambled clear.
Rosen waved a flag inside the north gate.
The waiting militia second rank came out beyond the gate. They did not rush at the fallen enemy; first they took up the abandoned shields and set them, then reclaimed the open ground a step at a time. Human refugees carried the shields and beasts guarded the flanks beside them, and elf arrows passed above their heads.
The hands were different from one another, but there were no gaps.
Behind the black battle line, a horn sounded long.
The enemy soldiers began to withdraw. At first they kept order with their shields forward, but once they abandoned the rams their pace quickened, and because they did not gather their wounded, gaps opened throughout the column.
The elves drew their bows.
Silvana raised her hand.
“They are out of range.”
Terwin watched the retreating enemy with his teeth clenched. A moment later, his fingers left the string.
Kang Mujin did not order pursuit either. The northeast wall was half collapsed, and empty places showed in the militia’s ranks. Charging an enemy who had turned his back would make the victory a little larger, but it would add just as many who never came back.
“Close the gate.”
The chains drew taut again.
The black banners receded beyond the wastes, but no cheer came at once. People first made sure of whoever stood beside them, and then looked to those fallen on the ground. Only after that did a short shout break out, and the answering cries of a few did not last long.
There was work left to do.
There were thirteen wounded. Among them one elf archer and two militia had not regained consciousness, and few of the rest had come away with only light injuries. While Rosen counted what remained of the herbs and bandages, Silvana set two archers who could work the magic of the spirits to the healing.
The breath of all three was thin, but it did not break.
Some six paces of the northeast wall had to be built up again. More than half the arrows they had prepared were gone, five spears were broken, and one of the chain anchors at the north gate had cracked. Four of the militia’s shields were split too badly to be used in the next battle.
Kang Mujin sat down before the chain anchor with cloth wrapped around his bloodied shoulder.
Aisha sorted out the ruined nails beside him. The small hands had gone black with soot and dirt, and one sleeve was marked with a bloodstain whose owner was unknown.
“Can this one be used again?”
The child held up a bent nail.
Kang Mujin took it and studied the grain where the shock had passed through. It was not merely bent on the outside; fine cracks had spread below the head.
“Not as it is.”
“Not even straightened?”
“The inside is split.”
Aisha looked at the nail for a long while.
“If we melt it?”
“Then it can be used again.”
The child put the nail not into the discard bin but into the bin for scrap iron, then picked up the next one — and this time, without asking, rubbed a finger over the surface to look for cracks first.
Silvana came over. The bow was still in her hand, and her kin’s blood was drying stiff on her sleeve.
“I will report to the Council of Elders.”
“Do that.”
She glanced back once toward the infirmary. The chest of the elf archer who had fallen was slowly rising and sinking.
“That twenty-four fought, and twenty-four are going back.”
Kang Mujin answered as he pulled out the ruined anchor.
“See that all of them go back on their own feet.”
Silvana said nothing for a moment. Then she folded back her bloodied sleeve, picked up a new anchor from the ground, and handed it to Kang Mujin.
Rakan guarded the infirmary entrance without setting down his shield. Seven spear marks were left in it and blood ran from his left arm as well, but to talk of treatment he only shook his head, saying those inside were more urgent.
Rosen wrote the list of wounded and the counts of supplies on the same page. Nowhere did he write the word victory. Instead the length of the collapsed wall, the remaining food, and the number of people able to stand the next watch were filled in without a gap.
Doria dragged over the broken axe head.
“The iron tastes wretched. Still, melt it down and it will give a few hundred wall nails.”
“Collect the armor as well.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
Kang Mujin set the cracked chain anchor on the anvil.
“The stretcher cramps have to be mended first.”
Doria stroked his beard once, but gave none of his usual gruff reply. After wiping the dirt from his hammer, he dragged the broken axe head toward the forge.
When the sun went down, the fires of the Steel Bastion were lit again.
While the wounded were tended on one side, the collapsed wall was filled in on the other. As the elves sorted the broken arrow shafts, the militia stripped usable iron banding from the enemy shields, and the refugees hauled earth and stone. No one divided the lines by race. Hands went where hands were needed.
Kang Mujin drove the last nail into the new chain anchor.
Clang.
The sound of the hammer spread out into the darkness.
The first true defensive battle against the elite troops Grimoire had sent was over. The wall, the militia, the elf archers, and the weapons of the Steel Bastion had meshed on a single field for the first time, and unfinished as they were, they had not broken.
But Kang Mujin did not forget the count of the iron that had withdrawn beyond the wastes. More had gone back than had fallen, and elite troops or not, they would not be Grimoire’s main force.
He picked up one of the enemy commander’s red iron studs lying on the anvil.
Stamped small on the underside of the nail head was a crown wrapped around a three-pronged horn. The recovered armor and shields carried red iron studs from the same mold, and adding together Rosen’s records of casualties and of those who had pulled back, the ones carried by the men who had gone home alone came to hundreds.
The lookout who came down from the north watchtower reported that the enemy’s fires had halted at three points beyond the wastes. The map left by the scouts marked tracks that had not scattered as they withdrew, but had split to either side of the bastion.
Kang Mujin threw the red iron stud into the forge.
“Doria.”
“I’m listening.”
“From tomorrow the forge does not rest.”
Doria took hold of the bellows handle.
“Hrmph. Now that is talk with the taste of iron in it.”
The flames leapt high.
The enemy had not moved away.
On the scouting records, they were measuring the circumference of the Steel Bastion.
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