Caber Kiber's Return - The Rescue

[storyteller]

The northern wind cut sharply across the harbor as the returning vessel's lines were made fast. Caber Kiber had come home with nearly a score of men, weather-beaten from the journey but well equipped.

The ship had brought considerably more than men.

Crates, barrels, sacks of grain, medicine, tools, and bundled provisions steadily disappeared from the quay beneath the hands of Blackwatch soldiers. There was steel among the cargo as well, packed carefully against the salt air.

Ironmantle watched the unloading for some time before turning his attention to Kiber.

Ironmantle: "You left with fewer men."

Kiber: "I noticed."

Ironmantle: "And considerably less than that."

He nodded toward the ship and the growing stacks of supplies along the quay.

Kiber: "Also noticed."

Ironmantle: "Then perhaps you'd like to explain why you've returned with enough cargo to make winter look considerably less threatening."

Kiber gave a tired chuckle.

Kiber: "Food. Medicine. Tools. Some proper steel. Enough to make the next few months considerably less miserable."

Ironmantle: "I can see what it is, Caber. I'm asking where it came from."

Kiber glanced toward the vessel.

Kiber: "From people who have taken an interest."

Ironmantle: "People."

Kiber: "People."

Ironmantle: "That's a remarkably useful word when a man doesn't want to answer a question."

Kiber: "Which is why I chose it."

Ironmantle stared at him for a moment.

Ironmantle: "And the men?"

Kiber: "Volunteers, mostly. Hard men. Useful men. They've heard enough about us to decide there are worse places to stand."

Ironmantle: "From whom?"

Kiber's expression shifted into the faintest smile.

Kiber: "People."

Ironmantle: "I'm beginning to dislike that word."

Kiber: "You'll like the flour."

That earned him silence.

Kiber finally sighed.

Kiber: "Nobody is asking us to kneel, Grayson. Nobody is asking us to swear an oath, raise another man's banner, or put a foreign hand on the reins. I made that clear."

Ironmantle: "And they agreed?"

Kiber: "Immediately."

That answer seemed to trouble Ironmantle more than if Kiber had said otherwise.

Ironmantle: "Men do not put food, medicine, steel and fighting hands aboard a ship and send them across the sea because they've suddenly developed charitable hearts."

Kiber: "No."

Ironmantle: "Then they want something."

Kiber: "Probably."

Ironmantle: "Probably?"

Kiber: "Nothing was demanded."

Ironmantle: "Yet."

Kiber met his eyes.

Kiber: "Yet."

For several moments, only the cries of gulls, the creaking of rigging, and the calls of men unloading the vessel broke the silence.

Ironmantle: "And you trust them?"

Kiber: "No."

The answer came quickly.

Kiber: "But I trust hunger less."

Ironmantle looked back toward the ship.

Kiber: "We've spent years being told to survive on principle. Principle doesn't fill a grain sack."

Ironmantle: "It also doesn't sail unexpectedly into our harbor."

Kiber said nothing.

Before Ironmantle could press him further, one of the Blackwatch soldiers approached. The man leaned close and spoke quietly to Kiber.

Whatever was said wiped the last trace of amusement from the jailor's face.

The soldier departed.

Ironmantle: "What happened?"

Kiber: "Westgate."

Ironmantle: "What about it?"

Kiber: "Someone attacked the keep."

Ironmantle's attention snapped fully to him.

Ironmantle: "When?"

Kiber: "While we were away, from the sound of it."

Ironmantle: "Casualties?"

Kiber: "Some."

Ironmantle: "And the prisoner?"

Kiber: "Still secured."

Ironmantle exhaled slowly.

Kiber's expression changed. The grimness gave way to something considerably less charitable.

Kiber: "Apparently our dear High Inquisitor had an unpleasant time of it."

A grin crept across his face, followed by a short laugh entirely devoid of sympathy.

Kiber: "Valyra Dunharrow. Finally meeting someone who doesn't tremble because she puts 'High Inquisitor' before her name. I would have paid good coin to see that."

Ironmantle: "She was defending our keep."

Kiber: "I didn't say I wanted her dead."

He paused, considering his own words.

Kiber: "I said I wanted to watch."

Ironmantle: "Your affection for Dunharrow remains touching."

Kiber: "Her cousin got the family's share of sense. Valyra got everyone else's share of temper."

Ironmantle: "If the prisoner is still there, she did her job."

Kiber: "And someone just attacked Westgate trying to get at what we're keeping inside it."

The humor disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Kiber: "Which is precisely why the prisoner should never have been kept there."

Ironmantle: "We've had this argument."

Kiber: "Yes. You won. Look how well that's going."

Ironmantle: "You wanted to sell a human being."

Kiber: "I wanted to sell a prisoner."

Ironmantle: "There's no difference once coin changes hands."

Kiber: "There is to the man receiving the coin."

Ironmantle's expression hardened.

Ironmantle: "We're not slavers."

Kiber: "No. We're apparently innkeepers now. Except our guests are locked underground and their friends attack the walls."

Ironmantle: "Enough."

Kiber: "You asked my counsel when we took the prisoner. I gave it. Someone was willing to pay, we needed supplies, and keeping the prisoner was always going to bring trouble."

Ironmantle: "And I told you then what I'm telling you now. We do not put people on the block."

Kiber: "Fine."

Kiber gestured vaguely inland.

Kiber: "Then move the prisoner."

Ironmantle: "Where?"

Kiber: "Anywhere that isn't a fortress everyone knows we occupy."

Ironmantle: "You have a suggestion?"

Kiber: "Several. None Dunharrow will like."

Ironmantle: "That isn't a requirement."

Kiber actually smiled at that.

Kiber: "Perhaps there is hope for you."

Ironmantle: "If Westgate held, we have time."

Kiber: "No. If Westgate held, we have warning."

That silenced them both.

Ironmantle's gaze drifted toward the harbor once more. Men continued hauling supplies from the hold as though nothing beyond the quay mattered.

Eventually, he spoke.

Ironmantle: "So that's it, then."

Kiber: "That's what?"

Ironmantle: "You sailed farther than you told me."

A pause.

Kiber: "I did."

Ironmantle: "How far?"

Kiber: "Far enough."

Ironmantle's expression hardened.

Ironmantle: "Careful, Caber."

Kiber: "I'm being very careful."

Something about the way he said it ended that line of questioning.

Ironmantle studied him instead. Kiber looked exhausted in a way the voyage alone did not explain.

Ironmantle: "This wasn't only about supplies."

Kiber's humor disappeared.

Kiber: "No."

Ironmantle: "You found her."

Kiber looked away, out across the water.

Kiber: "I did."

Ironmantle: "Alive?"

A long silence followed.

Kiber: "For now."

Ironmantle's demeanor softened.

Ironmantle: "Caber..."

Kiber: "Don't."

Ironmantle: "What did the healers say?"

Kiber: "The same thing everyone else has said."

He rubbed a hand across his face.

Kiber: "They can slow it. Ease the pain. Give her good days between the bad ones. Nobody can stop it."

Ironmantle: "And she still thinks she can?"

Kiber gave a small, bitter laugh.

Kiber: "You remember her."

Ironmantle: "I remember you following her around like a lovesick hound."

Kiber: "I was seventeen."

Ironmantle: "You were an idiot."

Kiber: "I was seventeen. That's what I said."

For the first time, Ironmantle almost smiled.

It didn't last.

Ironmantle: "What happened to her?"

Kiber stared toward the horizon.

Kiber: "She happened to herself."

Ironmantle: "Meaning?"

Kiber: "She thought she'd found something. A way to change what could be changed. Fix what couldn't be fixed."

Ironmantle: "And?"

Kiber: "It worked."

Ironmantle frowned.

Kiber: "That was the problem."

He let the words sit between them.

Kiber: "By the time she understood the price, whatever she'd done had gone too far. She's spent years trying to undo it."

Ironmantle: "Can she?"

Kiber: "No."

Ironmantle: "Does she know that?"

Kiber's jaw tightened.

Kiber: "She does now."

Ironmantle rested a hand briefly on his shoulder.

Ironmantle: "I'm sorry."

Kiber: "So am I."

Kiber's eyes followed a pair of the newly arrived men as they carried a heavy crate away from the quay.

Kiber: "She helped me while I was there. More than she should have."

Ironmantle: "With this?"

Kiber: "With introductions."

Ironmantle's eyes narrowed.

Ironmantle: "Introductions to whom?"

Kiber looked at him.

For just a moment, the old humor returned.

Kiber: "People."

Ironmantle: "Caber."

Kiber: "When there's something worth telling you, I'll tell you."

Ironmantle: "And until then?"

Kiber looked toward the supplies being hauled from the ship.

Kiber: "Feed the men. Count the medicine. Put the steel somewhere dry."

He started to walk away, then stopped.

Kiber: "And Grayson?"

Ironmantle: "What?"

Kiber: "Whatever you think this means..."

Kiber glanced back toward the vessel rocking quietly against the quay.

Kiber: "...think bigger."

Then he walked toward the keep, leaving Ironmantle standing on the quay beside a ship that had crossed a very long stretch of sea to bring aid to men the rest of the world had supposedly forgotten.

[storyteller]

No one knew whether Mercadia would return.

That uncertainty proved more troublesome than certainty might have been.

Within hours of his arrival at Westgate, Caber Kiber had the men who had crossed the sea with him scattered throughout the keep and its surrounding defenses.

They did not waste their time digging holes.

Barricades appeared across the most obvious approaches. Existing cover was reinforced. They abandoned exposed positions for better ones.

The eastern gates received rather less subtle treatment.

Under Kiber's direction, the gates were barred, braced, and finally fused shut. Whatever purpose they had once served as an entrance to Westgate, they would not be serving it again anytime soon.

His new men found their own places.

A few took positions along the walls. Others settled into towers, overlooks, windows, and sheltered positions commanding the approaches. They carried themselves differently from the ordinary garrison. There was little boasting among them and less conversation. Each seemed considerably more interested in what he could see from his position than in the man standing beside him.

Kiber was inspecting the work at the eastern gate when a familiar voice reached him.

Valyra: "What have you done?"

Kiber looked at the fused gates.

Kiber: "Improved them."

Valyra: "You have sealed one of our gates."

Kiber: "Then you spotted the improvement."

High Inquisitor Valyra Dunharrow stopped beside him. Whatever injuries she had suffered during the previous attack had done little to improve her disposition.

Kiber glanced at her.

Kiber: "You look terrible."

Valyra: "And you remain intolerable."

Kiber: "There. We're both recovering."

Her stare could have stripped bark.

Valyra: "Who gave you authority to alter the defenses of this keep?"

Kiber: "The people who came through them."

Her expression hardened.

Valyra: "They did not take Westgate."

Kiber: "No. They merely demonstrated which parts of it needed work."

Valyra: "We drove them out."

Kiber: "After they got in."

Valyra: "Westgate stands."

Kiber: "Yes."

He glanced upward at the walls.

Kiber: "Very impressively, from this angle."

Valyra: "Choose your next words carefully."

Kiber: "Why start now?"

Valyra stepped closer.

Valyra: "You weren't here."

Kiber: "No."

Valyra: "You didn't see them come. You didn't stand on these walls. You didn't watch our people bleed holding them."

Kiber: "No."

Valyra: "Then spare me the judgment of a man who arrived after the fighting was finished."

Kiber finally turned fully toward her.

His expression remained irritatingly calm.

Kiber: "I don't need to have watched the roof catch fire to notice the ashes."

Valyra: "We held the keep."

Kiber: "You keep saying that."

Valyra: "Because it is the truth."

Kiber: "So is the part where they breached your defenses."

Valyra: "And failed."

Kiber: "This time."

That landed harder than his jokes.

Kiber turned his attention toward the nearest approach. One of his newly arrived men had taken a position overlooking it. He rested quietly behind cover, weapon close at hand, watching the distant road.

Farther along the wall, another did much the same.

And another beyond him.

Valyra: "Your men are everywhere."

Kiber: "That's generally how twenty men work."

Valyra: "Men no one here knows."

Kiber: "I know them."

Valyra: "That does not reassure me."

Kiber: "It wasn't intended to."

Valyra looked toward the nearest of the newcomers.

Valyra: "They do not look like soldiers."

Kiber: "I'll tell them. They'll be devastated."

Valyra: "They keep apart from the garrison."

Kiber: "They prefer the view."

Valyra: "From every tower?"

Kiber: "They're very fond of scenery."

As if on cue, one of the men farther along the wall shifted several paces to his left, studied the approach again, and apparently found the new position more satisfactory.

Valyra watched him.

Valyra: "Where did you find them?"

Kiber: "Away."

Valyra: "Across the sea."

Kiber: "There was quite a lot of sea involved, yes."

Valyra: "You brought armed strangers into Westgate without explanation."

Kiber: "They brought food too. I notice nobody interrogated the flour."

Valyra: "Flour does not carry a weapon."

Kiber: "You haven't met our baker."

Valyra's lip curled.

Valyra: "You think everything is a jest."

Kiber: "Not everything."

Valyra: "You mock conviction because you possess none of your own."

Kiber's faint smile disappeared.

Kiber: "Careful."

Valyra: "Have I touched something tender?"

Kiber: "No. You've mistaken shouting about your convictions for being the only person who has them."

Valyra stared at him.

Kiber: "I don't care what you believe, Valyra. Believe twice as hard tomorrow if it pleases you. I care whether the gate holds when somebody hits it."

He rapped his knuckles against one of the braces reinforcing the eastern gate.

Kiber: "This one will."

Valyra: "At the cost of removing our own means of using it."

Kiber: "That's the clever part."

Valyra: "And if we need to sortie east?"

Kiber: "Use another gate."

Valyra: "And if we need to retreat through it?"

Kiber: "Then I'll admit I've made the situation slightly inconvenient."

Her voice dropped.

Valyra: "Your arrogance is astonishing."

Kiber: "I learned from watching professionals."

Valyra moved closer.

Valyra: "Men like you are always very clever when others are willing to do the necessary things. You sneer. You question. You stand at the edge and congratulate yourself for seeing flaws in those willing to act."

Kiber: "And people like you are always very certain right up until someone comes through the gate."

Valyra: "Faithless little man."

Kiber: "Failed little defense."

Valyra's hand shifted instinctively toward the weapon at her side.

Kiber noticed.

He did not move.

Kiber: "There she is."

Valyra: "You test me deliberately."

Kiber: "No. Deliberate tests generally have uncertain outcomes."

For several seconds neither spoke.

Somewhere above them came a brief whistle.

One of Kiber's men on the wall answered it with two quieter notes. Another figure shifted position in a tower overlooking the northern approach.

Kiber looked up, saw whatever they had seen, and apparently decided it was nothing.

Valyra: "You presume much for a jailor."

Kiber: "Keeping prisoners alive and where I left them is rather central to the profession."

Valyra: "Then perhaps you should concern yourself with your cells and leave warfare to those suited to it."

Kiber looked toward the damaged portions of Westgate.

Then back to her.

Kiber: "How did that work out?"

For a moment, neither spoke.

Valyra: "The prisoner remains secure."

Kiber: "Yes."

Valyra: "Despite your obvious disappointment."

Kiber: "Don't confuse two different arguments."

Kiber folded his arms.

Kiber: "Grayson wouldn't let me sell the prisoner. Fine. I lost that argument."

Valyra: "For once, Ironmantle demonstrated judgment."

Kiber: "Don't sound so pleased. I also told him keeping the prisoner at Westgate was stupid."

Valyra: "The prisoner is precisely where they belong."

Kiber: "Yes. That's why people came here to take them back."

Valyra: "And they failed."

Kiber: "This time."

Valyra: "You doubt my ability to keep the prisoner secure?"

Kiber: "I don't have to doubt it."

He gestured toward the scars left by the previous attack.

Kiber: "Someone already demonstrated the problem for me."

Valyra's expression blackened.

Valyra: "If Mercadia comes again, they will find us waiting."

Kiber: "Good."

The immediate agreement seemed almost to disappoint her.

Kiber: "Because that's what all this is for."

He indicated the barricades, the blocked approaches, and finally the sealed eastern gates.

Above them, one of his men moved from shadow into a firing position overlooking the road before settling motionless again.

Kiber: "They came here once and learned where the doors are. If they come again, I'd prefer they discover we've rearranged the furniture."

Valyra: "And these men of yours?"

Kiber: "They'll watch."

Valyra: "Watch."

Kiber: "Very carefully."

Valyra looked toward the walls again.

Now that she was paying attention, a pattern became apparent. The newcomers had not chosen their positions randomly. Each commanded a road, an opening between structures, a section of wall, or some other avenue by which an attacker might approach.

Very little ground around Westgate escaped someone's view.

Valyra: "You expect me to trust them?"

Kiber: "No."

Valyra: "Then why should I tolerate them?"

Kiber: "Because if Mercadia comes over that hill, they'll be looking at Mercadia instead of you."

Valyra regarded the newcomers with open contempt.

Valyra: "And if they prove disloyal?"

Kiber: "Then you can finally have the terrible bloody afternoon you've been hoping for."

Her gaze snapped back to him.

Kiber gave her a pleasant smile.

Kiber: "Until then, try not to frighten them off."

Valyra: "One day, Kiber, that tongue of yours will put you in the grave."

Kiber looked at her for a moment.

Then he shrugged.

Kiber: "Probably."

He turned and started toward the next barricade.

Kiber: "But not today."

Valyra watched him go.

Above Westgate, the newly arrived men remained at their posts.

They spoke little. They moved rarely. They watched the roads, the gates, the broken ground, and every approach to the keep with patient attention.

Below them, the eastern gates stood fused shut.

Westgate waited.