Page 158 of Of Empires and Dust

Anya smiled softly, a smile that faded within seconds. She shoved the remainder of her cake into her mouth, almost inhaling it. “On that, I’m exhausted and need to sleep. Shall we?”

Erdhardt and Anya walked the streets of Salme, nodding to those who passed while going about their morning. He remembered what Salme had looked like only a year or so prior. No more than a village, with stout log homes not much different to The Glade and a population of no more than a few hundred.

Now the place was a city by any definition, home to thousands who had flocked from across western Illyanara. The homes that had been erected to house new citizens were a mishmash of stone, log, and mudbrick with rooves of thatch and shingle.

Erdhardt and Anya stopped at a patch of land at the western edge of the city, far enough from the water that the soil was moist but not sodden. It was there they had planted the ash seeds.

It had been Tharn Pimm’s idea. In The Glade, they had taken locks of hair from every body they’d buried and planted each with its own seed. When humans had first come to Epheria, the ash tree had been sacred to their gods – the tree of life and death. The teachings and worship of those old gods was all but gone and dead, but the knowledge of the ash tree remained.

Erdhardt knelt before Aela’s sapling, which was less than half a foot tall. He laid his palm flat against the soil. “I miss you again today, my love. Just as I will tomorrow. Just as I did yesterday. Why didn’t you just run?”

He’d been angry at her for quite a while. Furious, even. But then he’d realised that at least this way, he could bear the pain of a world without her. A pain she would never have to know in return.

He knelt there, unmoving, his hand pressed into the soil, until Anya finally broke the silence.

“It’s time I slept.” Anya stood over the sapling that was her mother’s, her eyes raw, tears dripping from her chin. “And you. You’re no good if you’re too tired to swing that hammer.”

“I will see you again tomorrow,” Erdhardt whispered to Aela. He placed his fingers to his lips and kissed, pressing his hand into the soil before standing. “Sleep doesn’t call me yet.”

He turned to Anya and held out his arms, offering a hug. The young woman wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head into his chest, sobbing gently.

“Two peas in a pod we are.” He rubbed his hand on her back.

“Except I’m a lot younger and I smell better.” Anya sniffled and laughed, smiling as she pulled away.

“You watch your tongue. I’m still an elder of The Glade.” Erdhardt squeezed Anya’s shoulders softly, sighing and brushing a tear from her cheek. Anya Gritten had saved him. Not physically but mentally and emotionally. Of all the people in The Glade, it had been she who had refused to let him wallow inhis cups, to let him lose himself. And for that, he owed her an unpayable debt. “Go get some rest.”

With Anya gone, Erdhardt placed one last kiss on Aela’s sapling and went to do his round of the city before retiring himself. It was a routine he had fallen into, and thank the gods for it. More than once he’d found a broken section of wall unattended, an injured man or woman left lying in a ditch, or any other manner of issues, of which there seemed to be no end.

Many of those problems had grown fewer and fewer since Dahlen Virandr had taken over as the commander of Salme’s defences – or the Lord Captain, as many of the others had taken to calling him. He was an impressive young man, clearly bred for war. Were it not for him, the Belduarans, and the dwarves – and he supposed the Lorians if he was being truthful – Salme would have been nothing but rubble months ago, every soul within dead.

As he walked, he passed one of the many squares built into the city. There he found near a hundred youths with spears in their hands, all standing tall and paying close attention to three of the Belduarans, who were instructing them on the proper way to stand and move in formation. Dahlen had introduced these training sessions. The young – sixteen or younger – didn’t fight on the walls. At least not yet. And so they were drilled in the morning with the second rotation.

Once past the square, Erdhardt ascended a set of stairs that led to ramparts along the city’s palisade wall, which had grown thicker and taller. The Uraks had only attacked during the day three times. But twice out of those three, Salme’s defenders had been caught with their trousers around their ankles. It wouldn’t happen again.

He marched along the ramparts, ensuring each and every guard stood at their post.

They knew him. They all did. ‘Fellhammer’ they called him. It seemed as silly as naming a sword. Perhaps heroes of legend deserved names. And even then, the true legends never needed one – the great Cassian Tal, Alvira Serris, Ruarc Oden. Erdhardt had never gone to fight for the Illyanaran army like Vars and the others. The most battle he’d seen had been during his time in the town guard of The Glade in his younger years, where his hammer had crushed many an Urak chest. But even then, that had been nothing on the scale of the war that now burned Epheria. Still, he would abide the name so long as it put courage in their hearts to think him worthy of it.

As he made his way around the rampart and closer to the gates, he found Lanan Halfhand, one of Salme’s elders, looking out at the land on the other side. She stood with her arms folded, head tilted to the side.

She glanced at Erdhardt as he approached.

“Hammersmith. You should be resting.” Her eyes were dark and sunken, and flecks of blood on the back of her neck and behind her ears had clearly been missed when she had cleaned herself after the fighting.

“I’ve heard that a lot this morning, though only from hypocrites.”

Lanan snorted at that as Erdhardt took his place beside her. She had been watching the workers toil before the walls, digging the dry moats that Dahlen had ordered. One was already finished, and at that very moment, men and women were pulling impaled Urak corpses from the stakes set into its base.

While the bodies from the night before were removed, another group worked on a second moat, some ten feet further from the walls than the first. They dug the trench with shovels, piling the dirt high on the other side, before setting long wooden stakes in place. It was hard, gruelling work, and even in the cold winter air, many of the workers were shirtless and sweating.

“I never thanked you, Hammersmith,” Lanan said.

“For?”

“Beating Benem bloody. He’s been much easier to deal with ever since.”

“My pleasure.” Erdhardt folded his arms. “Though men like that never let things lie. He will come for me, whether it’s a spear in the back during the fighting or some kind of poison in my drink, or perhaps one night I might simply fall from the wall. I reckon I can keep him in check. But I’d advise you to exercise the same caution.”

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