The roof had a hearth, two benches and a door that had swollen against the threshold. Derren opened it far enough to let everyone through, then shut it with his shoulder. Rowan put down his pack while Phia examined the water jar beside the hearth.
“Empty,” she said.
“There's a spring behind the wall.” Derren took the jar. “I'll show you before we lose the light.”
They filled it together. The spring came out beneath a stone ledge, clear enough to see where it gathered before spilling into a narrow runnel. An old channel brought some of that water beside the shelter. The rest passed downhill through fern and roots. Phia stood looking at the division while Rowan rinsed the jar.
“This will do,” she said.
Inside, Venn had found dry wood beneath the bench. They ate beside a small fire. Derren knew the roof's keeper, who lived on the inland track and checked the supplies when he passed. There was no one waiting to be paid for the night, but Rowan left a mark on the room's slate to show they had used it.
They arranged the watch before sleeping. Venn took the first turn outside the door; Derren would follow him. Rowan lay beside his pack, with the spring's channel audible through the wall.
In the morning, he woke to someone arguing outside.
“I'm not going back.”
The voice was young, strained enough to carry into the room. Rowan sat up. Derren stood just inside the door with one hand raised toward him. Beyond his shoulder, Venn waited beside the end of the wall. A man had come onto the inland track below the spring.
Rowan put on his boots without drawing the straps tight.
The stranger wore a coat too large for him, fastened at the waist with a cord. There was a knife in his hand, held low. He kept looking back toward the trees, then at Venn's cloak.
“Put that down,” Venn said.
The young man shook his head. “Tell him to leave me.”
“Who?”
“He'll come. I didn't take anything.”
Rowan came to the door. Phia had risen behind him but stayed within the room, where the wall screened her from the track.
“Set the knife on the ground,” Rowan said. “Then come as far as the wall. No farther yet.”
The young man looked at the roof as though he had expected something else inside. His hand tightened around the knife. Venn stepped aside, leaving the place Rowan had offered clear without giving up the corner of the wall.
“There's water here,” Rowan said. “You don't need that to drink it.”
The knife went onto the earth. The man did not throw it. He laid it down carefully, then straightened with both hands open.
Before he reached the wall, another voice called from the trees.
“Pell. Stay where you are.”
Venn turned his head. Rowan watched the young man's face.
Three people came out below the spring. One walked with an arm held close against his body, a second steadying him beneath the elbow. The third followed them without offering help. He was taller than Venn, dark-haired, with a scarf loose at his throat.
Venn's hand went to his weapon.
“That one,” he said quietly.
The taller man stopped when he saw the cloak. Behind him, another figure showed between the trees, then remained there. Rowan counted the young man beside the wall and the four below it. The person farthest back held a bow down beside one leg. He did not lift it.
“You've followed us,” the taller man said.
“You've come to our roof.” Rowan stayed in the doorway. “Keep your hands where we can see them.”
“We want the boy. Then we'll go.”
Pell had backed against the wall. His eyes went to the knife on the ground, then away from it.
“He's put his weapon down,” Rowan said. “You can do the same.”
The taller man looked at Venn. “We weren't coming for you.”
“You came for the people we were guarding,” Venn replied.
For a moment no one moved. Water passed along the small channel beside the wall, tapping against a loose stone. The injured man sagged against his companion. Rowan could see a dark patch beneath his coat, at the upper side where the arm pressed against it.
Phia came far enough to look past Rowan's shoulder.
“Sit him down,” she said.
The companion lowered him onto a stone. The taller man glanced back, annoyed by the movement. That glance gave Rowan time to ease one foot clear of the threshold. Derren remained inside on the other side, where he could see the spring and the track together.
“I haven't offered you a road past us,” Rowan said. “The weapons go down first.”
“We've others behind us.”
The injured man lifted his head. “Don't.”
The taller man turned toward him.
“We've walked all night,” the man said. “Let her look.”
“You should have stayed where I put you.”
“You put us beside a stream with nothing left to eat.”
Rowan heard Venn draw breath beside the wall. If the guard had recognized him rightly, the man who had promised more people had come with an injured companion and a boy who wanted to leave. That did not make the bow in the trees harmless.
“Derren,” Rowan said.
The warden moved into the doorway beside him. Phia went back behind the wall, taking her bag. Rowan let Derren hold the entrance while he came toward the spring. He kept the wall between himself and the bowman.
“Bring him to this side,” he told the companion. “Stop at the end of the channel. Put your own knife down before you lift him.”
The man looked at the taller one, then set a short blade beside his boot. He lifted the injured man by the good side and brought him forward. Rowan waited until they had stopped before stepping close enough to see the wound through the coat.
The cloth had adhered where the bleeding dried. The man's skin felt hot when Phia touched his neck. He flinched before she reached the injured side.
“I'll need to wet this,” she said. “I won't pull it off dry.”
The taller man started toward them.
Venn moved to meet him at the wall's outer corner. “Stay back.”
“I can help him.”
“Then put down what you're carrying.”
The man's knife had been half hidden beneath the scarf's end. He brought it into view, holding it by the middle of the blade. His eyes moved from Venn to Derren, then to Rowan kneeling beside the injured man.
“Take it, if it makes you comfortable.”
“No. Set it down.”
The man crouched. His free hand closed on a stone beside the channel.
Rowan licked two fingers and drove them into his ash pouch to the second knuckles. They came out glowing softly green. He raised his arm toward the track, fingers spreading as the light flared. Moonlight pooled in his other palm.
The stone left the man’s hand. Rowan clasped his hands, and a dome of light burst out around the wall and the people beside it. The stone struck its rising face with a crack. Phia looked up from the injured man. Beyond the shield, the bowman had raised his weapon.
Rowan pushed the working wider, taking the doorway and the spring-side end of the wall into it. Strain drew tight across his face. He twisted his hands, pulled them toward his chest and thrust them outward. The dome seated around them, green threaded with silver. He released the working from his hands and drew breath.
An arrow struck above Venn’s shoulder. It hung for a moment against the light, then dropped onto the track.
Phia glanced at Rowan, surprise lifting her brows as the arrow dropped. Then she smiled and turned to the channel. Bright droplets rose into his working, each reflecting a small piece of the sky. Where they touched, the silver spread. The glow became a solid, curved mass.
She lifted both hands close against her body and murmured something Rowan could not catch. Water flared through the dome. Layers turned through one another where he had made a single breadth of protection, answering to her now.
Relieved, Rowan could only stare. He might have built something like that around a dwelling, given time to prepare and seat it. Phia had made it while kneeling beside a wounded man, scarcely interrupting her care of him.
“Stronger than I expected,” she said, looking at him. Then her attention went back to the track.
The injured man’s companion had stepped clear of the wall when the light rose. He stayed outside it now, looking from the dropped arrow to the taller man.
The knife was in the taller man’s hand again. He came toward the channel, trying to pass outside Venn’s reach. Phia’s fingers moved; the light cleared at the wall’s corner. Venn stepped through, and Derren came beside him, striking the man’s wrist with the short staff he had kept by the bench.
The knife fell against the stones. The man drove his shoulder into Derren and caught his coat. Both went against the wall. Rowan stepped through the shield and took the gripping arm, turning it away from the warden’s throat while Venn came behind. The man fought to pull free. Rowan could smell the damp scarf as it dragged across his face.
Behind them, Phia turned one hand. The shield’s lower edge shone across the track between the bowman and the wall.
The bowman stepped back. He had another arrow in his hand but had not set it to the string. Behind the wall, Pell crouched beside the injured man with both hands over his own head.
“Down,” Venn said into the taller man's ear. “You can stand, or we can put you down.”
The man tried once more to turn. Rowan's hand slipped on the wet coat. Derren shifted his staff beneath the other elbow, and Venn brought the arm high enough that the man stopped pulling.
The bowman was no longer among the trees.
Rowan looked toward the spring. Someone ran farther downhill, out of view. The injured man's companion had gone back for his knife while they held the taller man. He stood with it now at the edge of the track, his eyes on the arm Venn had pinned.
“Leave it,” Rowan said.
The companion backed away. He did not come toward them. At the trees, he turned and ran.
Venn moved as though to follow. Rowan kept his grip on the taller man's arm.
“Here.”
The guard stayed. Derren trapped the fallen knife beneath his boot and picked it up. Phia let them through with the man, then the light closed across the corner again. They put him on the bench facing the wall. Venn bound his hands behind him; Rowan checked the cord while Derren watched the door.
Outside, the injured man lay with his head against Pell’s knees. Phia knelt beside him. The shield curved over the wall, nearly clear now; Rowan could see the droplets moving through its surface. The little channel ran beneath it.
Rowan went to her.
“Did the stone touch you?”
“No. Bring clean water.”
He took the jar from inside. The taller man sat with his face turned away from Venn, breathing through his nose. He had a cut beside his mouth where the wall had caught him. Rowan left a cup on the bench, beyond his bound hands, and said they would help him drink when the others were settled.
“I didn't throw at her,” the man said.
Rowan looked at the stone beneath the shield. “You’ll have someone to tell that to.”
He carried the water out.
Phia softened the cloth until she could lift it without opening the wound again. Beneath it, the cut ran below the shoulder, long enough that Rowan understood why the man had needed help climbing from the raid. One edge had become swollen. Phia cleaned what she could reach and covered it with the cloth she had brought.
“He’ll need more care than a dressing,” she said. “I’ll settle him here. When we’ve a proper bed, we can do the rest.”
“Can he walk?”
“For a little. Not the way he came.”
Pell looked at Rowan. “He's called Arven.”
“Does he have any other injury?”
“I don't know. They wouldn't let me see it.”
Arven opened his eyes. “I'm here.”
Phia put his good hand against the folded cloth. “Then keep this still while we move you.”
They brought him onto the second bench inside. Pell helped under Phia's direction, his oversized coat catching on the door. When Arven had been settled, the young man remained beside him, staring at the fresh dressing. Rowan collected the knife Pell had left outside and put it with the one Derren had taken. They went beneath the other bench, wrapped and beyond anyone's reach without crossing Venn's position.
There were three people in the room who had come from the trees. Two others had gone back into them. Rowan asked Pell whether anyone else had been waiting above the track.
“No.” He looked toward the bound man. “Not with us.”
“Pell,” the man said.
“There's nobody to bring,” Pell continued. “You said there would be. There isn't.”
Rowan did not make him say it again. Derren watched the spring from the doorway.
“What are you called?” Rowan asked the bound man.
“Ask him. He'll tell you anything.”
“Rusk,” Pell said.
Venn looked at him. “The one who told us to leave the carts?”
Pell lowered his eyes.
Rusk shifted on the bench. “The goods weren't yours.”
“Neither were the trees,” Venn said.
“They use our landings. Take what they want through them, put their people where it suits them. Now another commander. More orders.” Rusk looked at Rowan. “You came to keep the road open for that.”
“I came for the people beneath the carts.”
“They'd have walked away if the officer had stayed.”
“The man with the broken leg couldn't.”
“He wasn't meant to be there.”
For the first time, Pell looked directly at Rusk. Arven lay with his eyes closed. Rowan let the words remain in the room before taking the cup to the bound man's mouth.
Rusk drank. Water ran down his chin, and he turned his face aside before the cup was empty.
“Did you cut the trees?” Rowan asked.
He said nothing.
Pell began to speak. Rowan lifted a hand. “I’ll hear you separately.”
Phia could protect the room and care for Arven. Venn still needed help with the other two. Beyond the old descent, six people remained missing.
He went to the door. Below the wall, the water had darkened the track. Beyond it, the path turned toward the standing stone and the way to the river house.
“We need help here,” he said to Derren.
“The nearer roof first?”
“Yes. If there's someone there who can bring this to Cadd, stay and help me. If not, take it yourself.”
Rowan wrote the roof’s position and the names given: three detained, one wounded; two fled into the trees. He asked for care and an escort, adding that the party of six remained unlocated.
Derren read it before folding it. “It's most of the day back to the camp from here.”
“I know.”
“If I have to go, I won't be back tonight.”
“Tell Cadd we stay here until someone can take these three. I need you or the other warden on this side again. Bring help to move Arven, not another man who'll need his hands for fighting.”
Derren glanced at Venn. The guard had moved the first bench farther from the weapons and could see both Arven and Rusk without standing between them. Pell sat on the floor beside Arven's good hand. He had been given no binding, but Rowan had told him not to pass the door.
“Will that hold?” Derren asked.
“It has to be quieter than it was.”
Rowan went inside before the warden left. He told the three men where the help was coming from and that no one would leave without an escort. Rusk asked how many guards they meant to bring.
“Enough to take you to care and hear the accounts,” Rowan said. “I'm not offering you a way onto the road alone.”
Rowan put the food on the hearth shelf. Venn checked the high window slit, then settled where he could see both benches. Rowan would keep the entrance; once Arven was settled, Phia could share the watch and let Venn rest.
Rowan left the swollen door open far enough to see the track, the bar ready beside it.
Derren took food for the road. At the spring he stopped to refill his water, then followed the kept approach uphill. Rowan watched until the warden passed beneath the roots.
Phia came beside him, wiping her hands on a clean cloth.
“The boat may still be down there,” Rowan said.
“Yes.”
“And six people who don't know why nobody has come.”
She looked into the room, where Arven was trying to turn toward Pell's voice. “There's someone here who knows you've come. He needs you to stay long enough.”
Rowan drew the door in until he could set the bar without shutting out all the light. Their food would not last beyond tomorrow. Arven’s breathing had eased; at least he could hear that while he waited.
He gave Pell the remaining loaf and asked him to divide it into six pieces. Venn watched Rusk while the young man worked with his hands, tearing the loaf rather than touching a blade.
The pieces were unequal. Pell put the smallest in his own palm. Rowan moved a larger one toward him and took that piece for himself.
Outside, the lower river kept sounding through the trees. Rowan ate at the door, with the folded care cloth beside him and the bar within reach.