Grim grasped Marc’s hand and the man pulled him from the pit. Grim emerged back into the reinforced shack where he had descended into the tunnels. Marc had insisted on personally guiding him back, much against Grim’s wishes. The man left a sour taste in his mouth as if every word exchanged was poison. And those eyes were unsettling to look at for too long. It brought back memories of his father during the war. Obsidian eyes, gathering soldiers to lead beyond these walls and returning battered and bloody for more men. The worst were the days when it wore off while he was home. Grim had witnessed it once. The withdrawal was worse for the blessing’s leader than it was for the recipients.

He waited for Marc to unlock the door while he helped the rest of his men off the ladder. Instead, Marc grabbed a torch from the pile and lit it.

“Are you not going to let us out?” Grim asked.

“Patience, Thorne.” Marc hefted the flame into the air and fished a key from his pocket. Walking to the door and unlocking it with a click. He pushed it open and walked through. Grim followed, his men in tow. As Marc emerged into the day he began waving the torch through the air in wide arcs. Grim looked around as he crossed the threshold.

His fifty men were in formation, holding the street just as he asked. But beyond them stood hundreds of masked figures, blades in hand. Grim stared wide eyed at the sea of Sons, their ranks stretched for as far as he could see. A horn sounded from above, drawing Grim’s eyes upwards to the roofs. Dozens of archers rose from their prone positions atop the adjacent shacks, one with a horn to his lips.

Grim’s heart beat faster as he took in the sight. Marc let the torch drop to the ground, it’s flames flickering uselessly atop the dirt. He looked to Grim. “You didn’t think I’d let you go if this went poorly, did you?”

“How did you do this so quickly?”

“I knew you were coming the minute you were in sight of the gate. It was just a matter of waiting to see where you would stop.” To Grim’s right, the army of Sons opened up, a gap forming between them. “Go home Thorne, and tell your father what we spoke of.”

Grim looked around. “Where’s Kid?”

Marc frowned, and his eyes flashed as they moved around. But he didn’t answer.

Grim grimaced, figuring that was a bad sign. Grim roared for the soldiers to fall in formation behind him and he led them down the street through the small gap the Sons left for them. Blackened eyes and a smattering of clear ones stared through masks at him as he walked through their ranks. The Sons made no movement, no sound. They only watched. The effect was worse than screams of anger. Dread creeped into Grim’s spine and he had to force himself to keep a steady marching pace. There had to be near a thousand of them on this side alone. Far more than he had expected. But beyond the Sons, in the row nearest him he could see men and women standing without weapons in hand. Darkness was absent from their eyes and they stood without the steady confidence of the men nearest him. New recruits?

Grim could only imagine how the sudden shift in power had swelled Marc’s ranks. Within a week it would likely be impossible to dislodge them, short of burning the Outwalls to the ground. Grim ran a hand across his face as he finally broke free of their encirclement. As the last of his men passed through, the gap closed, and the Sons followed them down the roads, all the way to the gate. There they stopped, looking past the terrified gate guards into the city, like caged animals waiting to be set free.

***

Grim sawed the knife through the tender meat, red juices flowing over the blade. He scowled as he pierced the flesh with his fork and took a bite of the roast. Ilyena glared at him while his father sat across the long table, hands folded in contemplation.

“He wants the clans returned,” the Earl more stated than asked.

Ilyena snorted then swallowed a spoonful of peas. “What he wants is to be king. And my imbecile of a brother is handing it to him on a silver platter. Instead of a southerner for a king we’ll have a psychopath. Excellent.”

“I didn’t hand him anything,” Grim said, “I simply agreed to a return to the old ways.”

“Yet, he is the one who broke the back of Venar. Who do you think the people would flock to given a choice?”

“It doesn’t matter who they’d flock to, only who the chiefs vote for,” Grim answered.

Ilyena placed her fork atop the table. “And you promised him a position as chief, so he already has a vote.”

“So does father, as leader of the Briar.”

Ilyena opened her mouth to speak but closed it when the Earl raised his hand. “Ilyena is right Grim. You only half know what you speak of. I don’t get a vote, I decide in the event of a tie between the four clans. An event that more often ends in civil war than civil agreement. There were once eight clans, but you can imagine how the other four met their end.”

Grim frowned as the Earl shook his head. “But you weren’t wrong to accept the deal. As de facto King, I’ll be able to name the chiefs. However, they’ll have to be of the clan and accepted by their people as worthy of their founder’s legacy. Marc is the obvious choice for Gareth Sorrowsbane. Picking anybody else would have been a laughable farce after yesterday.”

Grim talked through another bite of roast, “He said the clan of Yerna Reapersdottir still had a living chief. Is that true?”

Rodger Thorne scowled, abandoning his calm façade. “Ulf is still fucking alive?”

Grim shrugged. “He didn’t give a name, just claimed the chief had been one of his benefactors.”

His father cursed under his breath as he sawed into his meat. He thrust his fork into the piece let loose, raised it to his mouth, stared at it for a momen,t then put the fork down in disgust. “The guild master of the Forgers will have to take on the legacy of Olg Ironclaw. He’s a bear and has greatly improved on the man’s metallurgy.”

“And Ralor Beastmaster?” Ilyena asked.

The Earl shrugged. “A man of note will make himself known in the coming months. Hard times make great deeds shine all the brighter. We have six months to bring them to our side.” He sighed. “Grim, you will have to go north.”

Grim’s eyes widened. “I’ll have to what now?”

“Somebody needs to bring Ulf and his exiles home. We’ll give the Marshal some pretense about you patrolling the coast against Sorrowmen.”

“You send me north with winter so near?”

The Earl leaned forward in his chair. “This is your plan and you will bear the consequences of it.”

Ilyena smirked at Grim from her seat between them. Grim scowled at his plate. This was going to be a very unpleasant winter. “Of course, father.” He fought not to spit the final word.

“While you are north, you will also liberate the northern labor camps. We have arms but will need many more men to bear them.”

Grim looked up to his father. “What of the southern garrisons?”

“Kill them. I’ll not have them at my back.”

Grim nodded, fighting the urge to sigh. “I also negotiated the release of several Venaran officers.”

Ilyena’s fork clattered against her plate. “Who?”

“Gabriel was the only one I knew by name.”

She looked away from him as if she had lost interest but Grim caught the slight twitch of her lips she fought to hide. His father was less amused and more bemused. “Why?”

“Because I know one to be a good man.”

The Earl nodded as if that were enough for him. He pushed his plate from in front of him. Grim half expected a servant to take it but then remembered his father had banished them from the room. “Ilyena, over the next few weeks I want you to account for the city food reserves and how long we can stretch them. Fill them as much as you can. Cost is no issue. Sell the tapestries from our very walls if you must. It’s going to be a long, bloody winter.”