Regardless, all the major roads had bonesmith-installed protections anyway. They would be totally safe, especially since Wren was with them, but when they arrived at a small roadside village, she was told to exit the wagon and sleep in the stables Ralph had secured for the night, so she did. With distaste.
Backwoods places like this would be unable to afford to keep a bonesmith in residence, so they had likely paid for one to see to their protections. Wren could sense the bones that surrounded the village, as well as the additional talismans that had been set into several of the larger buildings, including the stables. Perhaps they’d had a ghost attack their expensive horses at some point, making them wary. Or perhaps this allowed them to house visitors in a place with no inn.
When they departed the following day, they had three additional passengers. They stopped several more times in smaller villages before they reached Aspen Ridge, a large town with a full bone palisade outside the stone walls that enclosed it. It was a highly frequented crossing, with a dedicated bonesmith temple. Homes and villages could erect whatever protections they wished to guard themselves from what lay beyond their borders, but they did nothing against the undead within. All it took was one citizen too poor to pay for proper burial rights, or a tavern brawl gone awry and an unchecked body in a gutter, and there could be a ghost haunting their streets. That’s why the larger towns kept at least one reapyr and valkyr pair on hand, or if they could afford it, a temple in charge of all burials, death rites, and defenses.
The capital had a full embassy housing dozens of bonesmiths. It was where Wren’s father spent most of his time when he wasn’t visiting Marrow Hall and being disappointed by her. However, it was her father’s travels across the Dominions to inspect local temples or dine with important nobles that most interested her. Not for the chance to rub elbows with high society, of course, but for the sights. For the adventure. Despite the circumstances, this trip to the Breachfort was sadly the most exciting journey Wren had ever been on.
Most of the passengers they collected were poor villagers in search of paid positions as Breachfort guards, looking for regular meals and a roof over their heads, but they did pick up another tribute, a silversmith healer fresh from Brighton’s academy.
They also picked up a pair of stonesmiths, hired on for temporary work, and a girl who claimed her father was a woodsmith.
“I’ve seen him call up trees myself.”
The others shared dubious looks at that. The woodsmith craft had all but disappeared from the Dominions, along with some of the other lesser smith abilities like tin, lead, or copper. The stonesmiths, too, might have followed them into obscurity, if not for the fact that their craft was still useful. As such, they could support themselves with good pay and steady work, if not status. But training to become a tinsmith or coppersmith was seldom worth it, their wares not valuable enough and their careers less lucrative. Most learned at the knee of parents or grandparents and were considered hedgesmiths or base-level conjurers in comparison to nobly trained smiths.
If the girl’s father was a woodsmith, he was part of a dying breed, and if any of them had been powerful enough to raise trees from the ground, they weren’t anymore.
All smiths had been more powerful once. There were stories of stonesmiths calling up the Spearhead Mountains from flatlands and goldsmiths drawing molten streams of gold straight from riverbeds. The librarian at Marrow Hall said the Gravedigger could sense bones from miles away, but apparently magic faded over time, bloodlines watered down and abilities weakened generation after generation. In the case of the woodsmiths, there wasn’t a lot of forest in the Dominions to begin with, so it was probably difficult to maintain the connection to the material their magic required.
Luckily—for bonesmiths anyway—as long as there were people living in the Dominions, there would always be bodies and bones.
* * *
They arrived at the Breachfort the following afternoon.
Wren spotted the Wall first and stood in the wagon to get a better look at the massive granite barrier that marked the Border. It snaked across the landscape, over steep hills and rocky ground, disappearing in both directions. As they grew closer, the fort itself became visible, nestled against the base of the Wall and made of the same gray stone. Its highest tower was built directly into the Wall behind it, rising several stories above, giving the best view of the land beyond. Matching towers were spread along the rest of the Wall, acting as lookout points and housing smaller garrisons. There was a gate within the Breachfort, allowing crossing to the other side, and another farther south called the Silver Gate, though the accompanying fortress was small and more lightly guarded.
The Breachfort was the main defense, and larger than Wren had expected, though less grand. It was roughly built, made of large stonesmith-hewn blocks without decoration or artifice. She reminded herself that when it had been raised, undead had been wandering freely across the Dominions, and it was required to serve a dire defensive purpose. The Border Wall, too, was similarly constructed, with function superseding form. This was truly a structure made for war, and the effect was brutish and bleak. A solitary Dominion flag, featuring falling stars on a dark blue field, snapped in the breeze.
Guards ranged along the fort’s battlements as Wren’s party rode through the western gate, though it was too high for her to see which way they looked—east, toward the Breachlands and the Haunted Territory beyond, or west, at the newcomers.
The courtyard, however, was a different story. Breachfort servants and stable hands milled about, staring openly at the arriving wagon, while guards halted in their training exercises or paused on the way to their postings.
Wren raised her chin instinctually—it wasn’t her first time being openly stared at—and busied herself leaping from the wagon and unloading her bags. She hadn’t gotten far before she and the others were directed to stand at the foot of the wide steps that led to the main hall and await Commander Duncan, the Breachfort’s leader.
Ralph and the wagon driver cleared out, and panic, sudden and fierce, pinned Wren to the spot. She had the mad urge to chase after them. Maybe she hadn’t tried hard enough to convince her father to let her stay. Maybe if she really begged, he’d take pity on her.
Commander Duncan descended the steps, an older man dressed as a steward standing beside him.
The commander was a tall, broad man with ruddy brown skin, who looked like he might have made an impressive warrior… once. Now his shoulders were rounded, his hair receding, and his belly straining against the buttons of his jerkin.
He still dressed as a soldier, but one who was off-duty, with tall boots, thick gloves, and a sword at his waist. Wren doubted he had seen any real action in years.
He didn’t bother with welcomes or pleasantries. The steward, a pale, reedy man with white hair, handed over a list, and Commander Duncan called out assignments.
The villagers would be heading to the guard captain to start their basic training, while the silversmith would report to the infirmary and the stonesmiths to maintenance.
“Lady-Smith Wren Graven, of House Bone?” he called out finally, easily identifying her in the crowd. “You’ll report to Smith Odile Darrow at the bonesmith temple.”
Ah, yes, Odile Darrow. Highest-ranking Breachfort bonesmith and former reapyr of Locke Graven.