The commander didn’t offer either of them a chair as they entered the room. She let the silence linger, watching them grimly until the door thumped shut behind Pauline.

  Orion didn’t let her “bad cop” act scare him and activated the SDGs, curious about what level someone like her, ostensibly the leader of the city’s defense would be at, since she wasn’t a witch.

  Ilga Rusk — Commander of the River Watch

  Class: [River-Watch Captain] [C-rank]

  Level: 81

  Mind: 70

  Attunement: 104

  Body: 341

  Traits: Dockside Discipline [C]; Stormline Logistics [C]; Breakwater Stance [C]

  That’s not too bad. Very skewed, yes, but then again, I doubt she needs to cast extremely complex spells to do her job. No, a strong body is all she needs, most of the time, at least.

  Surprisingly, she was only the second woman Orion had met in the Sanctum’s lands with any sort of political power who wasn’t a witch, the first being Mayor Lucina of Silverpeak, who was in a class of her own, given her giant heritage.

  You’d think there would be more, but the Sanctum probably attracts any girls with an ounce of ambition, even if they don’t end up becoming anything special.

  “You,” Rusk said, tilting her chin toward them. "You must be the Sanctum’s envoy. We’ve been waiting for more than just proclamations since the siege. I could have excused the delay if you were busy dealing with the aftermath of the siege, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

  Her gaze flicked, pointedly, to the obvious fact of his gender.

  Pauline stepped past him, staring the woman down. “Considering that he’s the Veil Priestess’ son, he should be more than enough for you.”

  The words did their job and stunned Rusk into silence, as a muscle twitched in her jaw at the realization of whom she had addressed so rudely.

  Orion, however, wasn’t that bothered. Living in the Sanctum had taught him to expect all kinds of sexism, and he didn’t think it came from a bad place. Clearly, Rusk had prepared to keep Last Thaw peaceful on her own when nobody came to speak with her, and while she might have appreciated that someone eventually did show up, seeing a teenage boy walk through her barracks’ doors probably didn’t make her feel all that confident.

  “Commander Rusk,” he said evenly, “we should focus on the current situation unless you have pressing concerns. What’s the status, and what do you need to hold Last Thaw?”

  Something in her shoulders eased, probably more because he hadn’t lorded his status over her rather than because he was all that reassuring.

  She jerked her chin toward a map pinned to the wall, where charcoal sketched coastlines, the Belt ran like a pale spine, and pins stuck to specific spots with times and estimates that reminded Orion of missing people manhunts. “You saw the flogging in the yard, the situation isn’t good, and those two idiots are not the only ones we had to punish, despite more than four boats going missing in the past day after evading our cordon.”

  Her stance eased further as she got into the explanation. “There are two issues behind the tensions. First, the fishermen are idle. The longer the ban lasts, the worse the mood will become, as they start creating chaos out of boredom and fail to bring home any catch. Relying on winter supplies isn't an option, since the season just ended and this is when they are supposed to bring in most of the new supplies to rebuild stores.”

  That was a reasonable point. It didn’t negate the facts of the matter, which were that wyrms were still lurking in the Belt, waiting to attack again, but it explained why the tensions had increased so much despite this being the first full day of blockade.

  “Secondly, we have a flood of wanderers on our hands. It’s crews from upriver who ran from the storm and the attack on the bridge, along with those who came for seasonal fishing from the south. Certainly hundreds, maybe up to a thousand of them. They don’t answer to any local authority, and while the other fishermen fed them last night, and the temples handed out bread this morning, that won’t last. They’ll be the first to riot and the first to run when the worst happens. If it happens.”

  “You think it won’t?” Pauline’s tone was dry.

  Rusk’s shrug was stiff. “I think nobody knows, that’s the real danger. We mostly got through yesterday unscathed, so today, the people fear hunger more than dragons."

  Orion didn’t like it, but it made sense. “It hasn’t even been a full day since they attacked,” he tried to reason.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “It hasn’t,” Rusk agreed. “But if you tell a man he can’t work and don’t tell him for how long, his head will come up with monsters worse than what might be lurking in the water. These people have handled the local beasts for centuries, so they think they can escape if it comes down to it.”

  Orion sighed. There wouldn't be any convincing those people, not in a reasonable amount of time, which meant they had to use force to keep them in. “How many men do you have?”

  “Three hundred capable of patrolling, and another two hundred old hands who can manage administrative duties. That doesn’t include the lads and gals who can barely lift a spear.”

  That was a decent amount, but still much lower than even the foreign fishermen, let alone the locals. There would be gaps people could slip through, and they’d die in the water because of it.

  I think this calls for a change in strategy.

  He looked at Pauline. “Would it be possible to schedule protected windows of time for them to fish? Two hours after dawn and two before dusk, under the protection of witches. We could even keep them within a relatively short distance from the city, but I don’t think this is feasible for more than a day or two, especially if we’re already at the point where they need to flog offenders publicly.”

  Pauline considered his request. “If we had ten tier-three witches rotating above the lanes, yes, it would be possible, but we don’t. Even just using tier-two witches, there are simply too few at this moment. We barely have enough to protect the city itself, the river is just not feasible. That might change when the Sanctum’s contingent arrives, though.”

  Rusk’s eyes cut to her. “The Sanctum’s contingent?”

  “Yes,” Orion hummed. “Reinforcements are on their way. War witches, wardwrights, logisticians. The High Priestess assured it, so I don’t think they’ll arrive in more than a few days."

  Rusk blinked in surprise, clearly calculating how that would change things. “We were not told.”

  “Did you truly think you were being left alone?” Orion asked, not unkindly.

  Color rose on her cheekbones, though whether from embarrassment or anger, he didn’t know, as she quickly schooled her expression. “In the years I’ve held this office, the Sanctum's attention has meant an inspection of our ledgers in the spring, a tithe every harvest, and a sermon on the new moon. The coven keeps to itself, while the Warden handles the day-to-day. That’s the way it’s always been.”

  Pauline’s temper bared its teeth at the unspoken accusation. “Mind your tone about—”

  “It’s not entirely wrong,” Orion cut in, and Pauline let the matter go with a huff.

  He met Rusk’s stare with a knowing look. “But you should remember that if the elder witches hadn’t burned themselves to maintain the wards during the siege, Last Thaw would have fallen. That’s more than any other major faction would have done, and now that my mother is in charge, things will improve.”

  There was a long silence as Rusk’s mouth flattened, but she swallowed her pride at being reprimanded by a teenage boy and gave a curt nod.

  Orion moved on, not wanting to press the woman further. “We need to keep a lid on it until the contingent arrives.”

  “How can we do that?”

  “You should signal certainty,” he said. “It’s uncertainty that eats them. Spread the word through the patrols that reinforcements are on the way and that the situation will change drastically within a day or two. Put the worst of the wanderers to work where people can see them, moving sand, filling gabions, doing anything that looks useful but also tires them out, and pay them in hot stew. Put your toughest sergeants at the docks with visible cudgels, to serve as the stick to the carrot.”

  Rusk’s mouth twitched. “That might work for now, but if these reinforcements don't show up, it'll start all over again in a couple of days.”

  “We’ll have a clearer picture of the situation by tomorrow. At the very least, I promise that no one will go hungry, even if I have to hunt in the forest myself to bring back enough meat. I won’t let that happen.”

  She looked at Pauline, at Orion, then back at the map. “You’ll pardon me for saying you look like someone who has never wanted for a meal,” she said at last. “Why would you shoulder this much responsibility?”

  There was a lack of shared experience between them that made understanding each other simply too difficult. No matter how much Orion might wax about his abilities, Rusk wouldn’t truly believe it until she saw him in action.

  “Because we have to,” he said simply, giving up on debating the issue.

  Something in that disarmed her more effectively than authority had, and she pushed off the desk with a sigh. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “A day or two, no longer than that.”

  “That’s all we’re asking.”

  Rusk tapped the doorframe with her knuckles, and the lash-man from the yard appeared. “Sergeant Tol. Have somebody prepare writs to spread through the riverbank, and put Fenn’s squad on the lower docks.”

  The burly man saluted and vanished.

  Rusk paused with her hand on the latch. “You know I can’t feed everyone from the barracks’ supplies. Good intentions are nice and all, but we don’t have the resources to handle all this ourselves, especially if we have to keep all the troublemakers busy.”

  “I know, I have something else in mind for that,” Orion said, and they left her to her work.

  “She didn’t look convinced,” Pauline said once they left the barracks, as the annoying drizzle started back again.

  “She doesn’t have to be,” Orion replied. “She just has to follow orders.”

  “And if the reinforcements get delayed? You can’t promise them the world and then not follow through," she argued.

  “I wasn’t lying when I said I would go hunt in the forest if it became necessary. With the Guardian, I doubt the wyrms will dare attack the interior. But I don’t think it will come to that; I have something in mind.”

  They went back to the river road, then turned uphill instead of toward the temple. Ahead, where the houses gave way to a park, a manor’s roofline could be seen. It was long and low, constructed from old stone with patches of newer material, and a tidy strip of pale gravel leading to its gate.

  “The Warden is your secret weapon?” Pauline asked, incredulous. “You really think he’ll open his larders without a fight?”

  “Last Thaw isn't a big city, but it's wealthy enough to have emergency reserves, especially since Magistra Margareth lived here for a long time, and she wasn’t the type to be cheated,” Orion said. “I don’t know exactly why this hasn’t already been done, but I’m confident that there’s enough grain and dried supplies here to last us for days.”

  “And if he won’t give them up?”

  “Then he will learn what it means to refuse his people in their time of need,” Orion replied dryly. After all, Wardens were nobility only as long as they had the Sanctum’s backing. The moment a high-ranking witch decided they had to go, their storied lineage would be worth nothing.

  The manor’s wall wasn’t tall, only about a foot taller than Orion’s head, but it was thick, well-mortared, and studded with black, oiled iron barbs. Two banners hung limply on its gate, displaying the Sanctum’s argent crescent on a night-blue background and a local symbol of three fish in a circle, tails to mouths, slightly lower.

  A pair of guards stood on either side of the gate, armed with halberds, warily watching them approach.

  “Halt,” the taller said as Orion and Pauline closed in. “State your business.”

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