Frost spread from Didi’s palm along the muster rail, and the warden’s next order died halfway down the line.
[ The Unclaimed Kingdom | Muster seal contested | Forced obedience nullified ]
"Stand," the oath warden barked, slapping his gauntlet against the brass seal riveted over his breastplate, "every registered hand, stand and hold the rail!"
The captives stayed exactly where they were, and a few of them started to shake.
"You’re free to go," Didi told them, keeping her hand flat on the frosted oak, "the side door is open, and nobody in this room can call you back."
A gray-haired woman near the front touched her own wrist like she expected a chain to bite.
"It doesn’t pull," she whispered.
"It won’t again."
Wren swung his lantern low at the side door, "This way, one at a time, and mind that step!"
The line broke apart from the back first, people shuffling toward the night air with blankets and bowls clutched tight. The shield the warden built from their bodies thinned with every step, and his eight Shards flared around both forearms.
’There goes your army, so now show me what you are without it.’
"Lawful debtors walking off a lawful post," he snarled, ripping a long-hafted poleaxe from the weapon rack, "that’s theft, Your Highness."
"Then report me," Didi drawled, sliding her rapier free, "I’ll wait right here."
"Gladly, once you’re on the floor."
He came at her with every scrap of his own strength, and the Kingdom did nothing to stop that.
The first swing whistled across the housing and split a bunk post where her head was only a heartbeat earlier. Didi slipped backward into the narrow aisle between the sleeping frames, the gap she marked the very moment she entered.
"Running already?" he sneered, wrenching his blade out of the splintered post.
"Choosing the ground, actually."
His next cut clipped a frame on the backswing and lost half its speed against the timber.
’Long weapon, short room, and every big swing costs him a beam first.’
He switched to thrusts at her ribs, and she turned each one aside along her blade.
The third thrust still caught her sleeve and opened a stinging line across her forearm.
"Eight against seven," he panted, driving her another step back toward the frames, "and no little circle of yours changes that sum."
"It changes who stands behind you," she shot back, flushed and breathing hard, "and right now that’s nobody at all."
Behind him the last dozen captives filed past the rail while Wren counted them out the door.
"Twenty-two, twenty-three, keep moving, keep moving—"
The warden heard the count and twisted around, and his face went blotchy with rage.
"Back in line, all of you, your debts stand where you stand!"
A boy near the door flinched at the shout, then kept walking, and so did everyone behind him.
’Good, keep walking, he gets nothing from you but noise now.’
The warden slapped his gauntlet against the seal on his chest again, dragging at the broken route one more time.
Didi lunged inside the poleaxe before his fingers left the plate, and her free hand closed over the exposed connection. Crowned Frost locked the seal’s wire to the frozen brass, and her rapier point struck the buckle strap beneath it.
The strap parted with a crack, and his shoulder harness twisted down across his fighting arm.
"What—get off—" he choked, clawing at the plate with his free hand.
’Your own armor, your own weight, so go ahead and lift that axe.’
He tried anyway, hauling the poleaxe up one-handed in a wild sideways swing toward her neck.
Didi caught the haft on her guard and drove it down into the muster rail with all her strength.
The blade bit into the oak, and frost raced down the haft until it welded the edge to the timber. She twisted her rapier through his trapped fingers, and his grip broke open with a strangled yelp he clearly hated.
"Down," she said, setting her point beneath his chin, "knees on the floor, and keep your hands where I can see them."
He went to his knees with the twisted harness pinning one arm against his own ribs.
"You can’t hold me forever," he spat, glaring up at her through the frost.
"I don’t need forever," Didi said, eyes on the door instead of his face, "just until the last of them is out."
"They’ll come crawling back, debt always finds people."
"Not tonight it doesn’t."
The gray-haired woman was the last through the door, and she looked back once before the dark took her.
"That’s all of them, Your Highness, every last one!" Wren called from the doorway.
’Seven Shards, no borrowed army, and the room still belongs to them.’
The roof worker dropped from the rafters and barred the inner door, then jerked his chin toward the gear room.
"Nobody gets through that from the yard side," he rasped, rubbing his raw wrists, "so your smith gets the joint all to herself."
"Thank you," she said softly, meaning every word of it.
He blinked like nobody said that to him in years, then ducked away to check the bar again.
Frost crept up the rail posts and snuffed the muster lamps one after another until the housing went dark.
Somewhere above them, a horn blew three hard blasts from the captain’s tower.
Captain Brann Keld’s voice carried down across the yard, "Full raise on the gate, all of it, and let the road drown!"
Chains shrieked beyond the wall as his guards threw their own shoulders against the gate wheel.
’No borrowed hands left, so now he burns the road down himself.’
---
Hajin ducked through the side door with Ferra at his heels and a lantern swinging from his fist.
"Holy shit, the lamps went out and I thought—" He stopped dead at the sight of the kneeling warden.
"You thought what?" Didi arched a brow, her rapier still steady beneath the warden’s chin.
"Nothing, zero, I was totally calm, ask anyone," he blurted, ears going red.
Ferra shoved past him toward the gear room with her hammer already in her fist.
"Save the flirting, the bastard’s lifting the damn gate."
"I wasn’t—okay, fine, I was a little."
[ IronVanguard: We only heard a poleaxe on audio, and now the eight-Shard guy is kneeling, what did she do? ]
[ HearthKeeper: Everyone walked out on their own feet, that’s the real win here. ]
[ Seoul_Tactician: Lamps out, horn up top, the captain’s about to flood the lower road. ]
He crouched beside the warden and gave him a lazy little wave, "Rough night, buddy?"
The warden glared at the frozen poleaxe and said nothing at all.
"He’s yours to tie," Didi said, finally lowering her point, "and gently, he’ll answer to the magistrate in one piece."
"Yeah, yeah, gentle knots, I know the drill," he grumbled, pulling cord off his belt before he froze, "wait, you’re bleeding."
"It’s a scratch."
"Vella’s going to skin me alive for that scratch," he whined, already wrapping the warden’s wrists with careful loops.
She almost laughed, then the river answered for her, a deep rising roar beneath the floorboards.
Ferra’s hammer rang once against the joint housing, sharp and furious through the dark.
"He’d rather drown his own road than let them walk," he muttered, all the play gone from his voice.
"Then we take the road from him before it drowns," Didi said, wiping her blade clean on her sleeve.
Above the tower the captain’s horn blew again, and the chains kept climbing toward the full raise.