Chapter 10: Shocking Changes.
The next morning, the convoy finally reached Nightdew Valley.
The heavy wagons loaded with lead pillars had crawled along the winding mountain road for over ten hours to cover a mere thirty-plus kilometers. The wheels groaned over loose stones.
At the valley’s end, the black fog barrier stretched endlessly east to west, a wall of ink rising to the heavens. The thick fog churned silently, held in a fragile equilibrium by some invisible force.
Everyone here knew: this was the calm before the storm. The seventh Black Tide was gathering strength.
The column halted several hundred meters from the barrier. Iceberry militia, teamsters, and the numb-faced subwomen began unloading the cargo.
Three-meter-long, half-meter-thick semicircular lead pillars were hoisted down, their dull silver-gray surfaces catching the cold light. Two halves locked together on a stone base formed a single segment of the makeshift wall.
A century ago, when the North Ismark Basin fell, the empire lost its heartland and any hope of rebuilding the grand Empire Wall. This was the compromise. Hollow-core craftsmanship saved lead, yet each half-pillar still weighed over three hundred kilograms—four grown men barely enough to lift one.
Only those with corruption resistance worked here: the naturally immune, the sickness-cured, Lantern Bearers, or subwomen.
The Months of Endless Light and Endless Day were prime repair seasons. Blazing sunlight suppressed the fog’s power, letting ordinary folk approach within a hundred meters—for a moment.
Ahead, an old pillar stood pocked with honeycomb pits. Tiny blue sparks flickered in the holes: classic erosion collapse. Replacement mandatory.
Seven subwomen wrestled the corroded pillar free. Molten lead flecks spattered, burning holes in threadbare robes and blistering exposed hands and arms.
“Swap both. Mind the order… and that one farther—replace it too. Won’t last two years.”
Renat glanced down the line, shook her head, voice calm and clear.
Premature replacement of a seemingly sound pillar felt wasteful, but Bishop Alric—Degbrun’s overseer—nodded after brief hesitation. A veteran Lantern Bearer’s call carried weight.
Such was the grim reality: uneven craftsmanship, variable lead quality, patchy erosion—holes appeared unpredictably, turning maintenance into a frantic, reactive chore.
“Those pillars… always from your, er, father’s foundry?” Alric squinted at Merchant Matt.
“Holy Lord strike me! Top-grade, twenty years guaranteed!”
Matt hovered at a safe distance, sweating buckets, gulping holy water, cracking his whip to hide nerves.
Crack!
The lash caught an older subwoman’s back. She stifled a grunt, clenched teeth, and with her companions hoisted the next pillar—stumbling, swaying.
Behind them, a dozen loaded crossbows tracked every move. One wrong step: instant death.
“Just… one more…”
The fifty-two-year-old subwoman wheezed, sweat streaking flushed cheeks, whispering to blank-eyed juniors. “Repairing the wall… the Holy Lord sees… remembers…”
Her gaze flicked to the arrows, voice quavering.
She had forgotten her past, her name—only survival remained. In a world where forty was ancient, she was “long-lived.” She wanted more.
The fresh pillar rose, aligned, slammed home. Teamsters cheered from afar. Repairs nearly done.
Tola—in her tattered dark-green cloak—scanned the lax crowd, flashed a covert signal to an accomplice.
Both women yanked small clay vials and smashed them against the new pillar.
Crack!
Silver-white powder exploded across the metal.
Horror unfolded: the pillar blanched, crisped, shattered like plague-struck bone.
The hollow core revealed its fatal flaw. In seconds, it crumbled into brittle dust.
The invisible seal tore.
Balance shattered.
Black fog—pent-up for a millennium—roared like a freed beast.
A jet-black torrent gushed from the breach, thick as ink, lethal as poison.
Garrison lines broke. Screams erupted. Soldiers flung weapons, fled for safety.
Signal given.
The saboteurs dropped everything and sprinted into the fog.
“NO! YOU CAN’T!”
The old subwoman, terror overriding sense, lunged, clamped a fleeing companion’s leg. “STOP! YOU’LL KILL ME!”
“GET OFF, COWARD!”
The pinned woman shrieked, kicked viciously at ribs and chest, dragging the dead weight toward the fog.
The elder clung like a drowning soul to driftwood—immovable.
Twang-twANG-TWANG!
Seven arrows hissed.
Thuk! Thuk-thuk!
Both women jerked, arrowheads bursting through flesh. Eyes dimmed. They collapsed like marionettes with cut strings.
“BLOCK THE GAP—NOW!”
Renat reacted first, voice cutting chaos, vaulting panicked bodies to the spare-pillar wagon.
Only Chief Mocus and two villagers followed, teeth gritted. Teamsters and most soldiers scattered in panic.
In the madness, Tola’s lips curled in triumph. She didn’t run into the fog—she bolted for the opposite treeline.
Just as she reached cover, a figure burst from the shadows.
Cary drew his short sword and charged.
Steel flashed.
A choked scream—Tola’s chest split wide. Her smug grin froze into shock. She crumpled, twitching.
At that instant, Maren burst from hiding, sprinting toward her father.
Black fog boiled, spraying corruption.
Renat, Mocus, Cary, Maren, and two villagers—six souls—hauled the emergency pillar against the tide, racing the breach.
Every second lost risked a fog hurricane.
Nightdew’s water and soil would poison. Iceberry, dozens of kilometers away, could face a corruption plague.
No one questioned the teens’ presence. No one counted how long they could resist the fog.
Only one thought burned:
Protect home.