Chapter 326: The Station Fight

Ren settled the retreat before they left the channel.

Ward held in the deep water clear of the collapsed bank, with Keep mounted and dry. Riptide had checked the stretch behind the whale and found room to turn. Tarin stood above them with its spear, its Lawfire burning in the water below. Mistwhisker rested beside the supplies, the dressed paw tucked beneath its chest.

"Back over the ridge, past the mound, to this bank," Ren said. "If we’re seen, Eira goes first. Vesper, cover her flank. Anyone at the station who stays out of the fight, leave them alone."

"And you?" Eira asked.

"I’ll keep them off you."

He checked Keep’s spore inside his coat and showed Tarin the return time. If they missed it, the water group would leave for the landing and wait there after reporting. Vesper checked the earlier limit for leaving the ridge on her own slate.

Then the three of them crossed the low ground, following the folds past the mound.

— • —

The handover began within the booked window.

From the ridge, Ren watched a wagon arrive along the pale flags. The receiving party came up the second route with a hand-cart: three carriers and an escort walking beside them. Through a break in the mist, he could read the references on the two crates as the wagon crew shifted the lined boxes aside.

They matched the carrier’s notice.

The crews transferred the sealed pair to the cart, checked the crate ends against a sheet and made their entries. The wagon leader folded the paper and put it in the box on the post.

Ren glanced at his slate. They still had time before the departure limit, but the workers were settling in to check their ropes. The escort had moved out of view along the ridge’s near flank.

"We’re leaving," he said quietly.

Vesper closed her notebook. Eira backed from the crest, keeping low.

A boot scraped against rock to their right.

The escort came into view along the flank, carrying a long blade on a short haft. The man stopped when he saw them, then shouted toward the station.

"Go," Ren told Eira.

She crossed the crest and headed down toward the mound. Vesper moved along the shoulder above her route, while Ren turned to face the escort.

The man charged before Ren could follow them.

Below, one of the receiving carriers dropped his end of the cart and ran around the ridge’s foot. Power gathered in his raised hand as he climbed toward Eira’s path.

Ren asked the System privately about both attackers.

[SCAN — ESCORT: STAGE FIVE. TIER TWO. SECOND ATTACKER: STAGE FIVE. TIER TWO.]

Both were below his stage. The five remaining workers were still on the boards, and the station lay directly down the slope behind the escort. Ren kept his attack close as the man reached him.

— • —

The blade swung toward his ribs.

Ren stepped inside its reach and brought Heavenpiercer out along his right forearm. His edge met the haft close beneath the blade and cut into it as he drove the weapon aside.

The escort released his forward hand and struck Ren’s chest with an open palm.

Force drove through him toward the far slope. Ren bent his knees and set Holdfast; roots caught in the cracks beneath his boots, arresting the slide before he lost the crest. Grit scraped under his heels. He held through the pressure and kept Heavenpiercer between them.

The escort dragged the damaged weapon back and swung low at Ren’s anchored leg.

The seeds at his heel answered. Black petals opened over the approaching edge, catching the strike before it reached his knee. As the spent bloom withered to dust, Ren released his stance and stepped across the man’s front.

The escort tried to bring the blade around again. Ren cut through the weakened haft before it rose past his waist.

The severed head struck the grit beside them. Ren continued forward with the same step, driving Heavenpiercer beneath the man’s raised arm and through his chest.

The escort’s free hand caught at Ren’s sleeve. Its grip loosened as Ren withdrew the blade, and the man fell onto his side. He drew one broken breath, then stopped moving.

Ren turned toward Vesper.

— • —

The second cultivator was climbing below her, trying to reach the open ground behind the ridge. Eira had passed the first fold and was moving toward the mound, but his raised hand followed her route. A dark working thickened around his fingers.

Vesper came down across his flank as he planted his uphill foot. She struck the side of his knee with her shoulder and drove through the leg before he could turn toward her.

His working hit the slope. Grit burst from the impact, and he dropped to one knee with his hand braced against the ground.

Vesper carried her movement past him, then broke uphill toward Ren. The cultivator rose and swung after her, turning his wounded side away from the crest.

"Clear," she called.

She had passed above Ren’s line. Beyond the attacker, the slope fell into empty scrub, well away from the station and Eira’s route.

Ren sent Stormsever across it.

The cut swept through the cultivator’s turning arm and thigh, then tore a line through the scrub beyond him. He fell hard. When he pushed himself upright, blood ran down his leg and his injured arm hung close to his body.

He looked up at Ren, saw Vesper beside him and backed down the slope. Then he turned and fled toward the second route, stumbling whenever the wounded leg took his weight.

Ren let him go. Vesper stayed at the crest, watching until the man passed below the nearest flags.

"Eira?" Ren asked.

"Still moving. She’s clear of him."

Ren could see her now, crossing the higher ground toward the mound. Nothing had followed her over the ridge.

— • —

The crews were leaving too.

Two workers lifted the wagon’s shafts and pulled toward the yard, the lined boxes jolting beneath their ropes. The two remaining carriers took the loaded hand-cart down the second route. The wagon leader abandoned them and ran ahead along that same route with his hands empty.

He looked back at the crest before disappearing into the mist.

Ren watched where he went but made no move to follow. The worker had seen the attack and their position. Chasing him would leave Vesper and Eira behind and carry Ren farther down a route he had never checked.

Keep’s report reached him: the land party on the ridge. Ren checked its age against the time on his slate.

"That’s from before the escort reached us," he told Vesper. "Keep hasn’t caught up yet."

She looked back along Eira’s path, then toward the station. The workers had cleared the boards, and both approaches remained visible as far as the nearest flags. Beyond those, the mist still hid the routes.

Ren checked their departure limit. There was time for the box if he went now.

"Watch the approaches. Call if anyone turns back."

"You’re taking the sheet?"

"Yes. I’m not staying down there to copy it."

He went straight down the slope. Vesper held the crest where she could watch the station and their retreat.

— • —

The fresh sheet lay beneath the retaining strip on top of the others.

Ren opened the latch, lifted the lid and drew it out. He saw the two expected references before folding it into his hand. The rest of the file stayed in the box.

He closed the lid and crossed the boards, looking along each approach before climbing back to Vesper. No one had returned within sight. She led him over the crest, and they left the station behind before the limit on her slate.

On the sheltered side, Ren opened the sheet against his forearm while they walked.

It listed the two consignments as sealed and unopened. The handover station and the parties’ marks occupied the same fields as before. Beside the next-station designation, however, the receiving instructions gave a name and an approach.

Old Cistern. Approach by the sunken road from the second route’s end. Unload at the stone lip. Do not use the upper bank.

He read the instructions twice, then passed the sheet to Vesper. She held it against her notebook while he flattened the corner crushed in his grip. His fingertips pressed along the crease until the words lay clear.

The earlier designation now had a place attached to it. He still had to locate that place, but the sunken road and stone lip gave them something to look for.

"They saw this approach," he said. "We can’t come back expecting the ridge to be empty."

"The side channel?"

"We’ll look at it. First we get this to the landing."

He took the sheet back and put it inside his coat. Vesper kept her notebook out long enough to mark where the escort had appeared, then followed him toward the mound.

— • —

They caught up with Eira beyond it, on the higher ground overlooking the channel. She checked Ren and Vesper as they reached her, looking first at his chest, then at Vesper’s hands.

"Either of you hurt?"

"No," Vesper said.

Ren shook his head. "The escort’s dead. The other attacker withdrew wounded. A worker got away ahead of the cart."

Eira tightened the strap of her kit and went on with them. Vesper watched the ground behind while Ren kept the channel in view. Tarin stood on the bank where they had left it, and Ward was still holding clear of the collapse.

They reached the water group before its return deadline.

Keep’s next report placed them beyond the mound. Tarin had their arrival in front of it now; Ren gave it the account of the fight while Vesper collected Mistwhisker and Eira checked the supplies.

"Back to the landing," he said. "Same order."

Riptide went ahead. Ward turned through the deep stretch already checked for it, carrying Keep and the packs toward the road home. Ren joined the land group with the recovered sheet inside his coat.

At the turn, he looked back once toward the ridge. They had the record, but the next watch there could already be meant for them.

The worker had seen their faces before running down the second route.