Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 94: Destruction Doesn’t Need a Reason

The second cannon-production run had entered the drilling phase. The third was still at materials collection. If the schedule held, Roland would have four twelve-pounders within the month — a battery, by any reasonable definition — and the firepower advantage over Longsong Stronghold would be unambiguous.

The harder question was how to convert that advantage into a result.

Before the crossing, he had been an engineer with a desk job and an unremarkable understanding of military history derived from textbooks, films, and two hundred hours of strategy games. Cold-weapon battles he could have delegated: Carter and Iron Axe had both fought in them, could read terrain, knew what a cavalry flank looked like from inside it. But this campaign would not be a cold-weapon battle. It would be fought with guns, at ranges and tempos no one in Border Town had ever experienced. That made the knowledge gap his problem, specifically.

So he built on what he had.

He sent Lightning out daily between Border Town and Longsong Stronghold. Nominally she was monitoring road conditions; actually, he was calibrating her. He had done it the same way he’d ranged the cannons earlier: a measured kilometer with iron pipe and hemp rope, and Lightning flying it at a consistent expenditure of power until she had the interval memorized. When she could reproduce it reliably, he used her as a ranging instrument.

The linear distance between Border Town and the stronghold came out at approximately fifty-five kilometers. Ground distance was longer — the road bent twice to avoid the foothills of the Impassable Mountain Range — which meant any force the Duke sent overland would need at least three days in the field before it arrived. Three days of approach, with Lightning watching every step of it.

He had already planted signal flags at hundred-meter intervals for two kilometers west of the wall. When enemy forces entered that corridor, his gun crews could read distance directly from the flags and set elevation without a ranging shot. No wasted ammunition, no revealed position before the first volley. He was satisfied with this.

The remaining problem was the inverse one: what if the Duke chose not to attack?

He was still working through it when a knock came at the study door.

The couch across the room was empty. Nightingale had materialized elsewhere — or rather had dematerialized; the bag of dried fish slices was the only evidence she’d been there. Roland cleared his throat and said, “Come in.”

Barov entered. His assistant minister had a particular expression for situations he found distasteful but was obligated to report: patient, faintly aggrieved, accurate. He wore it now. “Your Highness — a member of the Longsong Stronghold nobility requests an audience. Baron Cornelius, who departed before the Months of Demons and has now returned.”

“The ambassador again?”

“No, Your Highness. Cornelius himself.”

Roland took a moment to locate the name in his memory. Yes — one of the Border Town noble families who had evacuated to the stronghold at the first frost and apparently considered this a reasonable decision. “What does he want?”

“His house was demolished during wall construction. He wishes to discuss compensation.” Barov paused. “I can send him away.”

Roland found, to his own mild surprise, that he did not want that. “Put him in the parlor. Tell him I’ll be there shortly.”

He finished the page he was working on, made a few additional notes, checked the window — still melting, steady — and after approximately half an hour, went downstairs.

The Baron was a round man; there was no other word for the shape of him. His belly preceded him into any room, and the layers of his face moved independently when he walked. He had been pacing alongside the long table when Roland arrived, and he stopped, ran through the greeting ceremony with the mechanical haste of a man who resented needing to do it, and lowered himself into a chair before Roland had sat down.

Roland did not order tea.

“Your Highness,” Cornelius began, before he was fully seated, “Your stonemason demolished my house. A good house — roof beams of prime timber from the parapet down, solid construction throughout. I paid one hundred —” He corrected himself, upward, without apparent self-consciousness. ”— one hundred and fifty gold royals for it.”

One hundred and fifty. Roland had access to the actual property records. He kept his expression pleasant. “The house to the furthest west? The stone-fronted one?”

“Yes! The grand mansion — second only to Baron Simon’s in the whole of Border Town.”

“A shame about the location,” Roland said. “It blocked my men’s passage along the wall. The Town Hall authorized compensation.” He paused as if recalling the figure. “Twenty gold royals.”

The Baron’s face collapsed. “Twenty? Twenty? Your Highness —” He caught himself, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, and marshaled something resembling restraint. “Where would I collect this twenty?”

“The compensation has already been paid.”

“Then where — to whom —”

“To Blair. Captain of the Second Militia.”

Cornelius stared at him. “Who is Blair? Your Highness, I am the owner of that house. Have been for —”

“That’s a curious claim,” Roland said, “given that I didn’t see you this winter.”

“I was at Longsong Stronghold! No sensible person stays in this place during the Months of Demons — the whole territory is nothing but feeding ground for the beasts —”

“So,” Roland said, “you’re telling me that you fled because you were afraid of the demonic beasts.” He kept his voice gentle, almost conversational. “And you’d like me to acknowledge you as lord of your property here.”

The Baron opened his mouth. Then closed it.

“Guards.”

Two came in immediately. They took Cornelius by the upper arms with the professional ease of men who had done this before, and the Baron made a strangled noise that began as outrage and ended as something more careful.

“Two choices,” Roland said, remaining seated. He did not raise his voice. “The first: you acknowledge that you’re mistaken about the house — that it doesn’t belong to you — and I treat this conversation as a misunderstanding with no further consequences. The second: you maintain your claim, at which point I’ll have to formally charge you with desertion — abandoning your lord’s territory without permission during an active emergency, fleeing to a rival stronghold, the full accounting.” He let the silence hold for a beat. “Desertion, in my jurisdiction, is a hanging offense.”

Sweat had appeared on the Baron’s forehead. His eyes moved between the guards, the door, Roland’s face, and back.

“Your Highness,” he said at last, in a much smaller voice. “I… made a mistake. The house was not mine.”

“Then this was all a misunderstanding.” Roland stood, smiled pleasantly. “Send the Baron on his way.”

At the door, he stopped them once more. “Oh — Baron. When you return to Longsong Stronghold, would you pass along a message? For anyone there who might be in a similar misunderstanding about property in Border Town.” He considered his phrasing. “Tell them they don’t need to make the trip. If they prefer to avoid the second choice, staying home is entirely sufficient.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” The smile Cornelius manufactured was a poor piece of work. He turned for the door.

Roland caught the expression the man wore on the other side of that turn: jaw set, teeth together, the face a man makes when swallowing something he cannot spit out.

That should make enough noise in the right rooms, Roland thought, watching the door close. Let them chew on it.

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