North Wall emergency repair begins. Militia readiness appears as a visible duchy stat. A watchtower scaffold upgra...
The north warning bell rang with a cracked, panicked note while Adrian had both hands inside a sack of barley.
Grain ran through his fingers onto the Ducal Hall table. Mara's new ration list fluttered in the draft as the second bell struck. By the third, Lyra Stone kicked the hall doors open hard enough to splinter old varnish.
"North Wall," she said. "Fresh break. Riders beyond the ditch."
Every person in the hall turned toward the sacks. Forty work rations for the West Gate waited under guard. Three days of verified stores. A city with ribs showing under its coat.
Adrian wiped barley dust from his palms. "How many riders?"
"Six seen. Could be scouts. Could be bait."
Oren Pike, the mason from the gate, limped in behind her with a stone hammer slung from his belt. "The north stones were worse than the west. I said so last winter. Cale said no funds."
Bram Cale, bound to a chair under watch, lifted his bruised face. "You cannot blame every fallen rock on me."
Adrian picked up one barley grain and set it on the map where the North Wall bent around Ashwell Chapel. "No. Today I blame the one that lets blades reach the clinic."
The hall went quiet.
Sister Nahla's face hardened. "There are thirty-two fevered in Ashwell. Four cannot stand."
The system opened without ceremony.
NORTH WALL INTEGRITY: 12.
RAID PROBABILITY: 61.
EMERGENCY UPGRADE AVAILABLE: WATCHTOWER SCAFFOLD.
COST: 28 TIMBER, 30 WORK RATIONS, 12 MILITIA HOURS.
Adrian read the cost once. Then again. The city had timber enough for cook fires and coffin boards if he was generous with neither.
"We move the gate crew north," he said. "Rations follow."
A citizen near the table slammed both hands down. "Those were promised for gate work!"
"They are still pay for wall work."
"My brother hauled stone all morning. He needs supper."
Adrian looked at the man's hollow cheeks. In the first life, Adrian had hidden behind clerks when choices came wearing faces. "What is your brother's name?"
"Hale."
"Hale eats before I do. So does every worker who moves north. No extra measures for rank, no private kitchen in this hall."
Lyra snorted. "You will regret saying that when hunger keeps you awake."
"I already know what regret does. Move."
They ran.
Greyhold's streets did not clear for a duke. They clogged around the sound of the bell: mothers dragging children indoors, men grabbing poles, old soldiers limping toward a wall they had not been paid to defend in months. Adrian passed a cracked fountain where Tomas Reed was filling buckets with three other boys.
"North?" Tomas called.
"Ashwell side."
The boy's face went white. He lifted two buckets and followed without waiting for permission.
The breach was not a dramatic hole. That made it worse. A seam of old mortar had opened from knee height to parapet, and every bell strike shook dust from it. Beyond the ditch, six riders watched with bows across their saddles. They did not charge. They waited for panic to do cheaper work.
Oren spat on his palms. "If that seam goes, the chapel road opens."
"What keeps it standing?"
"Labor, bracing, and a saint with strong shoulders."
"We have labor and no saint. Use me for the missing part."
Oren stared. "My lord, I meant beams."
"Then shout beam sizes instead of titles."
That drew the first real grin Adrian had seen from him.
Lyra formed twelve watchmen along the ditch, too few to look brave and too stubborn to look away. "If the riders test us, we bleed."
"Hold arrows until they cross the ditch."
"You command soldiers now?"
"No," Adrian said. "I command a ration ledger that cannot afford wasted arrows."
She gave him a sharp look, then barked the order in her own voice. It landed better from her.
Work hit the wall like a storm. Oren set men to wedge beams. Tomas and the boys hauled water for mortar. Adrian carried stones until the skin tore at the base of his fingers. Once, a rider loosed an arrow. It struck a beam above Adrian's shoulder and sprayed splinters across his cheek.
The militia line twitched.
"Hold," Lyra snarled.
The riders laughed.
Adrian pulled the arrow free. The shaft was black, cheap border wood. The fletching had been tied with red thread. At the nock, a bead of dark wax clung where someone had sealed a message or payment mark.
He closed his fist around it and went back to lifting stone.
The system flashed at the edge of his sight as the first scaffold locked into place.
EMERGENCY UPGRADE ACCEPTED.
WATCHTOWER SCAFFOLD: INITIATED.
WALLS: 19 -> 23.
MILITIA READINESS: 23.
STORES PROJECTED: 3 DAYS -> 2.5 DAYS.
A cheer broke from the workers when the seam stopped shedding dust. It faltered as ration baskets arrived half-full.
Sister Nahla came from Ashwell Chapel with blood on her sleeve. "One boy crushed two fingers under a brace. Another fainted before he ate."
"Names," Adrian said.
She handed him a scrap. "Do not turn them into a victory."
That struck harder than the arrow. "I won't."
Oren wiped mortar from his beard. "You bought the wall a night."
"Only a night?"
"Stone is honest. It tells you when it hates you."
Below them, Lyra's watchmen finally lowered their bows. The six riders had turned away. Not defeated. Informed.
Adrian held up the captured arrow for Lyra to see. "Do raiders seal arrows?"
She took it, scraped the wax with her thumbnail, and went still.
"Marrow sheaf," she said.
The nearest workers heard. The name moved along the scaffold in low, frightened pieces.
Bram Cale had been dragged to the wall under guard to identify any local marks. When he saw the wax, his face sagged.
Adrian crouched before him. "Tell me why House Marrow pays men to watch our wall fail."
Bram swallowed. "Because a failed wall voids a border grant."
"And after the grant?"
"Emergency seizure. New steward. New contracts." His eyes flicked toward the city behind them. "The famine becomes someone else's inheritance."
The warning bell had stopped. In its place came the scrape of stone, the groan of hungry workers, and Tomas Reed quietly dividing water so the injured boy drank first.
Adrian looked over the wall at the riders shrinking into dust.
Greyhold had bought one night with supper it could not spare.
At sunset, a black arrow landed in the chapel door below them. This one carried no wax, only a strip of paper tied around the shaft.
Tomorrow, the wall opens from inside.