Chapter 298: The Briar Crossing

Theren stopped them before they could see the bridge.

He knelt beside a patch of glossy leaves and pressed two fingers into the soil. A thorn stem moved against his wrist. Rod watched it tighten, then settle when the dryad withdrew his hand.

"Fresh growth." Theren said. "Stay on the stones."

The old approach descended between two banks. Paving appeared beneath leaves and dark runners. Beyond the next bend, water struck rock with a steady, hollow sound.

Dirk moved ahead only as far as the dryad allowed. Dain stayed beside Branth, whose tools hung from a short shoulder frame. Senn and the workers waited at the last clear stretch with Nessa.

Rod had asked for a small survey group. The others would carry equipment only after the party marked somewhere safe to put it.

Lana watched through Midnight as the familiar climbed a fallen trunk. His view opened above the lower brush. She pointed toward the sound of water.

"The bridge is there. Stone ends. Wood across the middle."

Rod followed her direction. A curve of dark timber showed between thorns. The near approach had slumped along one edge. On the far side, the road rose toward a stand of alders.

Higher on the bank, a shallow hollow lay beneath exposed roots.

Something moved inside it.

The briarback emerged slowly enough for Rod to appreciate its size. Its shoulders stood above his chest. Dark plates overlapped beneath a ridge of pale thorns, and mud coated its legs almost to the belly. Two tusks curved beside a broad snout.

It rubbed one flank against a tree.

The bark split. A branch shook loose overhead and fell through the thicket.

Rod watched it lower its head to root at the wet soil. Thick stems lifted around its forelegs. They did not move quickly, but he could see the change without waiting long enough for ordinary growth.

"That is an old one." Senn said behind him.

"Quietly." Rod replied.

They withdrew to the clear stones before discussing it. Dirk sketched the hollow, the bridge, and the fallen trunk Midnight had used. Theren marked three roots that held the bank. Branth added where the old timber footing probably stood beneath the mud.

"Probably?" Dain asked.

"I need to get under it to be certain."

Rod looked toward the beast’s hollow. "Later."

Branth did not argue.

The party’s first task was learning how far the thorns extended. Dirk and Theren worked along the lower edge, using cut sticks to probe the ground. Rod followed close enough to help if either became caught. Lana remained where Midnight could watch the hollow.

They found old wheel ruts filled with black runners. The plants had grown across standing water and bound loose stones together. In one place, a discarded pole lay beneath a mat of stems thick enough to support Dirk’s weight.

He did not step on it.

Theren cut a small runner and held it away from his skin. Pale sap gathered at the end. Nessa received the sample in a jar, wrapped the jar, and marked it before it entered her pack.

Lana touched a second stem with a thin edge of frost.

The stem stiffened. The small leaves beside it curled inward, and the sap stopped forming at the cut.

"Cold slows it." she said.

Theren examined the frozen length. "Until it warms."

"Long enough to cut?"

He tried with his pruning blade. The runner snapped cleanly instead of bending around the edge.

Rod looked at the width of the thicket. Lana could not freeze all of it, and they would exhaust themselves trying to clear every stem. They needed lanes, firm ground, and a way to keep the beast from reaching the workers before those lanes existed.

Dirk signaled from farther down the bank.

He had found a narrow stone shelf overlooking the bridge. The approach to it remained mostly clear. A bowman could stand there above the boar’s head, although the rear of the shelf opened into dense young growth.

Rod inspected the stone. Its outer edge had no obvious cracks. From there, he could see the animal’s shoulder armor more clearly.

The plates overlapped toward its rear. The softer joints lay low, partly hidden by mud and thorn growth. A direct charge would offer very little useful target.

"Can you hit behind the front leg?" he asked.

Dirk judged the angle. "If it turns. Not through all of that."

They needed the beast moving across them rather than directly toward the archer.

Below, Branth pointed to the broken cart half buried near the approach. Its axle remained intact on one side. Theren wanted the metal fittings removed before new growth buried them completely. Rod decided they could test the animal’s response by retrieving a length of detached rail.

They attached a rope from the clear stones. Dain and Senn would pull while everyone else watched.

The rail moved less than a handspan before the briarback raised its head.

Rod looked from the animal to the rail. The boar could not see Dain through the bank. It paused, sniffed, and turned toward the exact point where the rope entered the thicket.

"Stop." Rod said.

Dain released the tension.

The animal remained still. A line of leaves trembled along the ground between it and the cart.

Lana sent Midnight farther up the trunk. Through his eyes, she followed the line back to the boar’s forefeet.

"The roots." she said. "They connect to the runners."

Rod asked Dain to move the rope again, gently.

The briarback wheeled before the rail shifted visibly.

This time, it came down the slope.

"Back." Rod ordered.

Dain dropped the rope. Senn moved the workers toward the alder path. Dirk stepped off the shelf while Lana called Midnight to her.

The animal struck the abandoned rail, drove it across the ground, and snapped it against a stone. Its tusk caught the rope. The loose line whipped through the thicket and dragged a wave of stems toward the clear approach.

Rod and Dain withdrew together.

The beast saw them and lowered its head.

Lana froze a band of wet growth across the narrowest part of the approach. Theren cut the stiffened stems while Rod waited beyond him with his axe uncovered.

The briarback charged.

It crossed the first stretch faster than Rod expected. The frozen runners broke beneath it. Dain moved toward the side bank, keeping his shield angled as the animal’s shoulder brushed the stone. Rod struck a low branch hanging across their escape and cleared it before Nessa reached the gap.

They passed between two alders.

The boar struck the nearest trunk. Its thorn ridge tore a strip from the bark. The gap narrowed around its shoulders, and it pulled back with an angry, coughing grunt.

Rod did not stay to see whether it could break through.

They regrouped on the upper path, where Senn counted the workers. Nessa checked each person for scratches. One thorn had torn Dain’s sleeve without reaching his arm. Branth had lost a measuring rod and looked more annoyed than frightened until he noticed his hands shaking.

Rod waited for everyone to breathe normally before asking questions.

"Who stepped into the growth after the rope moved?"

Theren identified the positions. Dirk marked them. The boar had reacted to the rail before anyone entered its sight. When the connected stems were severed, it had paused briefly, then followed movement it could see.

"It can feel through the thicket." Lana said. "It still has eyes and ears after we cut that connection."

"But we can limit what it knows." Dirk replied.

They returned only as far as the overlooking ridge. The animal had gone back to its hollow. Its forelegs sank into the loose soil, and fresh shoots began rising where the frozen band had broken.

"How quickly?" Rod asked Theren.

"That lane will be tangled again by evening."

Clearing in advance would require someone to keep cutting. The workers could do that, provided the party held the beast away. The discovery changed their plan from preparing a static battlefield to maintaining one while the fight continued.

Branth pointed to an upper track outside the densest growth. Old retaining stones bordered it.

"Cart turning place." he said. "Firm under the leaves. We can brace barriers there."

Rod inspected it with Dain. The space was wide enough for the party to move, with two exits and a slope the boar would have to cross to reach it. If they drew the beast out of the hollow and across that slope, Dirk would have the angle he needed.

Nessa asked to walk both exits before anyone carried tools down. The upper path led back to the ridge, but a fallen trunk narrowed it where a person carrying someone injured would have to turn sideways. The lower path crossed wet stones beside the stream before reaching the alders.

They moved the loose timber from the upper route. Dain tested the lower stones with his full weight while Rod stood ready beside him. Two rocked enough to require replacement. Branth marked them and sent the workers to fetch flatter pieces from the dry bank.

"We could pull someone up from here." Senn said, indicating a tree above the stream.

He passed a rope around it and lowered a loop. Nessa inspected the position, then asked him to move the anchor so the line would not drag an injured person through thorn growth. He shifted it without complaint.

Dirk walked the route from the stone shelf as well. A branch caught his bow at the narrowest turn. He shortened the overhanging end with his knife and tried again, carrying it as he would during a retreat.

Rod watched the small changes accumulate. None would defeat the briarback. Any one might keep a withdrawal from becoming a rescue. By the time they finished, each member of the survey group had used both paths and knew which required help for an injured traveler.

"No one builds until we mark the escape lanes." Rod said.

They spent the remaining daylight marking those lanes with cloth and cut poles. Theren distinguished the bank roots from the briarback’s growth. Branth checked the retaining stones from above. Senn carried messages to the workers waiting farther back.

At the end, Rod gathered everyone where the old road widened.

"We can take this." he said. "It will require the clearing crews to keep working while we hold its attention. If a lane closes, you leave the tools and use the other route. Senn and Theren call that withdrawal. Nobody waits for me to approve it."

Both men agreed.

Nessa looked at the torn sleeve on Dain’s arm. "And we cover every exposed edge before starting."

They returned to the station with mud on their boots, a jar of sap, and a useful measure of the enemy. The day’s work had cost a rope and a rail. Rod considered that cheap for what the first charge had taught them.

He still asked Hadrin for a longer table when they arrived. The small sketch they had brought from Reedbank would not hold the plan they needed now.