Chapter 004| Soren's Night

The 24th of the Cold Moon, the last of dawn.

Kael woke.

The wound in his left calf was moving—an itch, not pain. The army doctor had said one thing yesterday while changing the dressing: when it itched, that meant the wound was inflaming, and an inflamed wound would not hold its stitches—they would have to be cut out and sewn again. Kael had kept that one sentence, and now it itched on his calf, one beat, another beat.

Kael did not get up. He lifted his left leg, slowly, out from under the small blanket, and looked at the bandage the doctor had changed last night. No blood had seeped through the outside. The inside, he did not know.

The doctor came to change the dressing at the last of dawn.

"Kael. Show me."

The doctor was a man of forty-five, old pox scars on his face, a pair of filthy linen gloves that he never took off—"taking them off won't make them clean, keeping them on at least blocks a layer" was his exact phrase. His name was Fenn. He did not like to talk. He had been at Watchtower No. 46 six years.

Kael held out his leg.

Fenn unwound the bandage.

The seven stitches were even, not split. The edges of the wound were red, but not deep red.

"Three more days," Fenn said. "Don't walk too much."

"I have to stand watch," Kael said.

"Sergeant Gorm rides south to the capital this afternoon," Fenn said. "Soren takes the tower. Soren on the tower doesn't need a recruit. You rest three days."

Kael did not answer.

Fenn dressed the wound again. The salve was the Mute March Wallwardens' standard ointment, and it smelled like pine resin mixed with something else—it was, in fact, pine resin mixed with the fat from a hound's belly, Fenn's own blend, the recipe he told no one.

Fenn finished the bandage, stood, made to leave.

"Doctor Fenn," Kael said.

"Mm."

"The man who died last night at Watchtower No. 49."

Fenn stopped.

"Do you know who it was?" Kael asked.

Fenn thought for a second. "I don't know. When the horn passed it along, I was at Watchtower No. 46. No. 49 isn't mine to manage."

"Can you find out?"

"Why?"

"I want to write it down."

Fenn looked at him, looked for a second.

"You write down other men's deaths. What for?"

Kael did not answer.

After a while, Fenn said, "This afternoon I'm taking medicine to Watchtower No. 48. I'll pass the relay station downstream of No. 49. I'll ask."

"Thank you."

Fenn did not answer, and left.

---

Mid-morning, Gorm came up the tower.

Gorm's right shoulder—no. Gorm had not been hurt yesterday. Kael had it wrong—Gorm's left hand was on the sword-hilt, the right was not. Gorm had warded the wall eleven years; his habit was the left hand pressed to the hilt, no switching.

"Kael."

"Here."

"This afternoon I ride south to the Mute March Wallwardens' central command, to report," Gorm said. "Soren takes the tower. Ming from No. 46 takes a stretch, Saya from No. 48 takes a stretch, rotating two nights. I'll be three days and back."

"Yes."

"Soren won't take you up to fight. You see to the oil-drums and the bolts, and you take Soren's orders. Heard me?"

"Yes."

"One more thing." Gorm paused a second. "Don't go down off the tower. Unless Soren lets you down, don't. The footing of the wall at Watchtower No. 47 is not a safe place right now."

"Yes."

Gorm said no more. From inside his cloak he drew out a small slip of paper and tucked it by Kael's pillow, then pressed it deeper into the seam of the pillow, into a place no one would catch with one glance. He did not let Kael see what was written on it.

"Keep it under the pillow," Gorm said. "Don't read it, don't move it. Three days, I'll come back and take it myself."

Kael did not ask what it was.

"Yes."

Gorm left.

Kael sat up, slow, not bearing down on his left leg. He pushed the small slip deeper under the pillow, did not lift it open.

Noon, Gorm left the tower.

Down from Watchtower No. 47 there was a small road south, half a day's walk to the great relay at Watchtower No. 41, and from there Gorm took horse down to the capital.

Through the tower's narrow window, Kael watched Gorm walk out of Watchtower No. 47's shadow, walk into the snow, become a small black dot, vanish.

After Gorm vanished, Kael stood in the tower a while. The tower was still as big, the oil-drums, the bolts, the longbow all in their places, but the tower had lost a little weight. Kael could not say what it was, only that the air seemed thinner than before.

---

Early afternoon, Soren came up the tower.

Soren was fifty-five, twenty-seven years on the wall, four-fingered—a joint of his right ring finger taken off. The way he came up taut over his bow was the same as last night—his shoulders drawn tighter than the bow.

"Kael."

"Soren, sir."

"Sit."

Kael sat—he was already sitting; Soren's "sit" was telling him not to stand.

Soren leaned the longbow against the stone of the tower-top and sat himself down opposite, not beside Kael—he sat on the far side of the tower-top, where he could see toward the northwest.

"The wall," Soren said.

Kael looked at the wall.

The stretch of wall-face that Watchtower No. 47 faced—the crack in the third stroke of that king's name, the one Soren had pointed out yesterday—this morning—had widened.

From the tail of the third stroke, it ran into the fourth. The whole lower half of the character had begun to break apart into hollows.

"Kael, you can read that character," Soren said. "You told me yesterday."

"I don't know the whole character," Kael said. "I just—feel that I can read its shape."

"That's enough," Soren said.

After a while, Soren said, "That isn't one king's name."

Kael did not react at once.

"It's a stretch of name," Soren said. "Four hundred years ago, the whole face of the Mute Wall looked like this—" Soren held out his right hand and sketched with the four fingers—"every stretch, not one king, a dynasty. The first stretch is the first dynasty, the second stretch the second dynasty, and of the twelve stretches, four have now flaked away by half."

"Four stretches?"

"The fourth stretch, the seventh, the eighth, the eleventh," Soren said. "The kings in those four stretches—no one remembers them now."

"How do you know?"

"My father was sergeant of the seventh squad of the Mute March Wallwardens. Warded the wall thirty-two years," Soren said. "Before my father died he told me: 'Soren, the flaked-off characters on the wall are the kings who were forgotten. The forgotten kings—they were not killed. They were called by a name, and then from the world, one character at a time, erased.'"

Kael listened.

"The year my father died, the fifth stretch—" Soren paused, "look there—" he pointed with the four fingers—"the fifth stretch, back then, was still whole. My father said, 'In my life, I won't see the fifth stretch flake. My son, you may see it.'"

"It's flaking now?" Kael asked.

Soren did not answer at once.

After a second, Soren said, "It began to flake last night."

Kael did not take it up.

Soren looked at the wall. Kael looked at the wall too.

After a moment, Soren said, "Kael, what have you written in that little ledger?"

"The dead," Kael said. "The horn passes it along, I write the surname and the tower number."

"Why?"

"Because the rolls aren't reliable."

Soren nodded, asked no more.

After a while, Soren said, "Write down Soren."

Kael froze. "You?"

"Not now," Soren said. "I haven't died yet. But you write 'Soren, Watchtower No. 47' first. Write it, hold the place. When I die, fill in the hour."

Something in Kael's chest bent.

"Soren, sir—"

"Kael, you write," Soren said. "When my father died, the fifth stretch was still whole. When I die, the fifth stretch has already begun to flake. By your son's time—if you have a son—the fifth stretch may be gone entirely. We are the generation in between."

"I don't have a son," Kael said.

"You may," Soren said. "You may not. But you write."

Kael did not answer.

Soren looked at him, looked for a second, then turned his head and looked at the wall.

A long time passed. Then Soren said, "It's getting dark."

Kael noticed now that it truly was getting dark—listening to Soren talk, he had not noticed.

"The second night," Soren said. "You go down off the tower, into the tower, don't come up. Ming and Saya and I, we'll ward it."

"Yes."

Kael went down off the tower, into the tower, and found a place to sit where he could hear the outside but not see it.

He took the little ledger from beside his pillow, turned to the first page, and looked at what he had written last night:

Lan, Watchtower No. 51, a quarter before dawn.
Kun, Watchtower No. 38, the last of the small hours.
Watchtower No. 49, surname unknown, a quarter before dawn.

He thought for a second, then at the bottom added a line:

Soren, Watchtower No. 47, (to be filled in).

He wrote it very slowly. When he had finished, he closed the ledger and put it back beside the pillow.

Dusk's end, outside, came the first howl.

Kael did not go up the tower. He sat inside the tower, and listened.

---

The second night's Hounds of the Gods numbered eleven.

Kael, inside the tower, heard Soren's bow—Soren's bow was very quiet, the same as last night—one shaft, one shaft, one shaft.

The first wave, four dead, seven left.

Soren did not slacken, kept warding.

The second wave, the dead of night, eight more came.

The bow still sounded overhead. Kael now heard another sound from below the tower, low, hugging the stone, something climbing the wall-face.

Kael's right hand pressed once on his shortsword.

He did not go up the tower. Soren's order was "don't come up." But he wanted to know what was happening below the tower.

After a moment, Soren's voice came from the tower-top, not loud, like a man talking to himself:

"Kael, don't come up."

Kael did not.

After a moment, the climbing sound below the tower stopped.

Kael did not know what had happened.

Three quarters into the dead of night, outside fell quiet.

The whole second night, Soren shot fifteen hounds dead—Kael only learned later—Soren himself was not hurt, but one cord of the longbow had snapped.

The last of the small hours, Soren came down the tower.

"Kael, come out."

Kael walked out from inside the tower.

Below the tower, on the ground, were fifteen hound corpses, five already dragged to the burning pit, ten still lying at the foot of the wall.

Soren stood below the tower, his left hand gripping a length of snapped longbow cord.

"Look," Soren said to Kael.

Kael went over to look.

Where the cord had broken there was no fraying. Wear would have splayed the cord-end out; this end was clean. On the clean cut was a row of small tooth-marks, sunk into the core of the cord, very deep.

"Not a hound," Soren said. "A hound can't bite this cord of mine in two."

"Then what is it?"

Soren looked at him.

"I don't know," Soren said. "But tonight, something else came with the hounds."

---

A quarter before dawn, Kael walked back into the tower.

The wound in his left calf no longer itched now. Perhaps it was the cold.

He opened his left hand.

The mark in his left palm—last night grown to the shape of a second stroke—

—this morning—had a third stroke.

Three strokes.

The shape was like a character written half through.

Kael stared at the three strokes a long time.

Then he took the little ledger from beside his pillow, turned to the second page—the second page had been blank; he had meant to start his watch-records from the third page—

—on the second page, with the greypen, slowly, he wrote four characters:

I will not forget.

When he had finished, he closed the ledger.

Put it back beside the pillow.

Outside, the day broke.

【Ch. 004 End · Watchtower No. 47 · The night of the 24th of the Cold Moon → dawn of the 25th】