The day broke gray and heavy, the air thick with mist curling off the hills. Thornholt's yard had turned to frozen mud rutted with hooves and cart tracks. Fires burned low, and the scent of boiled roots did little to mask the stink of damp wool and unwashed men.
Garran waited by the gate, his cloak drawn tight against the cold, watching the eastern road. He'd spent the better part of the night reviewing the old tax records Mera had scrounged from the abandoned tower library. Dust-choked and water-stained, the pages were a relic of Thornholt's better days, naming steads and villages owing tribute to the hold. Wynmere had been listed. A small place, but well-stocked in lean years.
If Mera returned with the tribute, it would be the first thread in the web Garran needed to weave.
Jorik approached, shoulders hunched against the wind. His beard was crusted with frost. "No sign yet."
"She'll come," Garran said, though weariness gnawed at him.
Behind them, the walls buzzed with work. Aldric's men hauled timber to reinforce the eastern rampart. The Black Harp drilled in the yard, dull-eyed but obedient. The last of the winter stores had been boiled down to thin porridge.
A man could fight hungry, Garran knew, but not for long.
Hoofbeats clattered beyond the treeline.
Garran straightened. Jorik's hand dropped to his axe.
Mera rode out of the mist, mud spattering her cloak, a hard set to her face. Behind her came sixteen riders, some carrying sacks slung across their saddles, others leading two scrawny cattle. Their mounts looked as weary as the men riding them.
She reined in before the gate and slid from the saddle.
Garran met her with a look. "Well?"
She yanked back her hood. "They paid."
Jorik let out a breath. "Did it come to blades?"
"No." Mera passed him a bundle of parchment. "The reeve's mark. Signed for winter tribute. Grain, cured meat, roots, two head of cattle. Not enough for a season, but it'll hold the men till we reach spring."
"And the people?" Garran asked.
"They're cold and hungry, like the rest of us. Not fools, though. They saw the fires on the horizon and knew Thornholt held the hill still. The reeve said better to deal with one wolf than a dozen."
Garran opened the parchment. The mark was crude, a hastily drawn stag's head, but it would do.
"Any word of Erondale?" he asked.
Mera shook her head. "No banners raised, no messengers seen on the roads. Either they don't care or they can't afford to."
Jorik grunted. "Good. Means no one's watching their steadings either. There's coin in that."
"Not yet," Garran said. "We take what's owed, nothing more."
He meant it too. Thornholt's survival couldn't be bought with petty theft and burned villages. If this place was to be more than a den of cutthroats, the rule of law had to begin somewhere. Even if that law was written in ash and blood.
The cattle were driven into the yard. The sacks of grain hauled toward the ruined granary. Men gathered to watch, gaunt faces brightening at the sight of food. Garran caught a murmur spreading through the crowd.
Some were already calling Wynmere Thornholt's.
It wasn't, not yet. A levy was no vassalage. But it was a beginning.
That night, the fire in the hall burned higher than it had in a fortnight. A proper meal, rough as it was. Boiled beef, coarse bread, thick stew made from roots and barley. Garran watched his men eat with something like peace. Even Aldric's small knot of retainers shared wine with the Black Harp's veterans.
It was a rare thing — not joy, but the easing of hunger, and for men who'd seen the past month, it felt like a kind of victory.
Mera joined him at the high table, her hair still damp from the snow.
"The reeve asked what name to write on the parchment," she said.
Garran lifted a brow. "And what did you tell him?"
"That Thornholt stands. No banners. No lord's name. Just the hill and the men holding it."
Garran gave a short nod. It was fitting. Banners could be stitched later. Names were claimed by deeds, not ink.
Aldric approached then, his face serious. "Word of the tribute will travel. Faster than coin in a tavern. Others will come."
"I know," Garran said.
"Some with oaths to swear. Others with blades."
"All the same to me," Garran replied. "Let them come."
Aldric's mouth twitched. "Then I'd best see my men sharpen their swords."
He left them to their wine.
Mera studied Garran across the table. "You're making a claim, whether you name it or not."
"Survival, nothing more."
"Survival's a banner too, in a land like this."
He said nothing. But she was right. Every levy taken, every man sworn, every hold reinforced was a stone in the foundation of something larger. Something dangerous. The realm had no stomach for new kings. But it had plenty of room for men who could feed their soldiers and hold their walls.
In Eldralore, strength was its own warrant.
Outside, the snow began to fall again. Winter thickened its hold on the land, but Thornholt stood. Fed, armed, and for the first time since Garran claimed its broken ramparts, feared by those beyond its walls.
And in the distance, others would see the smoke rising from the hill and start to wonder whether the old order could hold.
Or if new men might carve a place from its ruin.