The return to Blackcliff was a journey into a different kind of winter. The physical cold of the mountain passes was familiar, a biting companion to William's thoughts. But the deeper chill was the knowledge of what awaited him: a realm straining under the sentence passed in that distant chamber of oak and judgment. He rode not as a returning victor or even a chastened lord, but as a man carrying a delicate, poisoned package—the king's verdict.
The first reality greeted him at the gates of his keep. Cuthbert's face, always a map of worry, now looked etched by true despair. "The first royal tax collectors arrived a week ago, my lord," he said, dispensing with greetings. "They've inventoried the mine's first full shipment. By the king's command, the entire yield has been sealed in the lower vaults under their guard. It is not ours to spend. The miners… they ask about their village shares. I have no answers."
William dismounted, his muscles stiff. He looked at the keep, its grey stones seeming to absorb the weak afternoon light rather than reflect it. "And the Borrell representative?"
"A rider came ahead. He will arrive tomorrow. A man named Kael. He served as a captain in their… militias." Cuthbert's distaste was evident. "Where shall we house him? The east tower is drafty, perhaps—"
"No," William interrupted. "Put him in the chamber adjacent to my own. The one with a good fireplace and a view of the courtyard. He is to have free access to me, and to all public proceedings. He is not a prisoner in a cell. He is an ambassador in a gilded cage. Let him see everything."
Elric, standing nearby, gave a barely perceptible nod. It was the right move, however dangerous. That night, in the privacy of his solar with the door barred, William allowed the mask to slip. He poured a cup of wine, his hand trembling faintly with fatigue and suppressed rage. The ledgers Cuthbert presented were a chronicle of impending ruin. The royal forfeit had taken not just future income, but the tangible wealth needed now—to pay the mine captains, to buy tools, to replenish stores depleted by the watchtower construction and the rescue expedition. The credit from Tavelin's consortium was a lifeline, but it was precisely that: a debt, with interest accruing like silent poison.
"We have until the deep snows to show progress," William murmured, more to himself than to Elric or Cuthbert. "If the mine stalls, the consortium calls its loan. If the villages see no return on their labor, the compact breaks. And if our Borrell guest sees only desperation, his reports will urge his cousins to press their advantage."
"We could… restrict what he sees," Cuthbert ventured.
"And confirm every suspicion of weakness and duplicity they hold?" William shook his head. "No. We show him the truth. The hard truth. Let him see the work. Let him feel the strain. And let him also see how we bear it."
Kael of the Borrell Marches arrived the next morning under a sky the color of iron. He was as William expected: a man in his middle years, built like a barrel, with a beard of coarse black shot with grey and eyes that missed nothing. He wore good, practical furs and bore a long hunting knife at his belt. His bow, slung over his shoulder, was a beautiful, deadly thing of yew and horn. He dismounted with the ease of a man who lived in the saddle and gave a curt, correct bow that held not a shred of deference.
"Lord Marren. I am to observe your governance for the turning of the year."
"You are welcome under my roof, Kael," William said, equally formal. "You will join me at table, at council, and in the field. My steward will see to your needs. I ask only that you bear no arms in my hall."
A flicker of challenge in the dark eyes. "A man is his weapons in the high valleys."
"This is Blackcliff. The peace here is kept by my law. You are under its protection. You do not need them."
For a long moment, Kael held his gaze. Then, with a shrug that was neither acquiescence nor defiance, he unbuckled his knife belt and handed it, along with his bow and quiver, to a waiting servant. "As you say. Lead on, cliff-climber."
The epithet was deliberate, a reminder of their first meeting by reputation. William let it pass. The game had begun.
Kael proved to be a silent, pervasive shadow. He sat at the high table, eating the plain fare with methodical efficiency, his eyes scanning the hall, noting the number of guards, the quality of the plate, the demeanor of the servants. He attended William's daily court, standing at the back, arms crossed, as William heard disputes over stolen sheep, damaged fences, and marital conflicts. He said nothing, but William could feel the man's assessment like a physical pressure.
After a week, William took him to the Silverflow. The mine entrance was a hive of grim activity. The rhythmic clang of picks, the groan of the pumps, the shouted, terse commands of the captains created a symphony of industry. Men emerged from the shaft, their faces and clothes blackened with rock dust, their eyes weary but intent. William introduced Kael to the two master miners. "They come from the southern kingdoms. Their skill is what will make this venture live."
Kael watched a cart laden with raw, dark ore rumble past. "In the Marches, we take the silver the mountain gives freely in the streams. We do not rape her belly for it."
"Then your streams are richer than your hospitality," William replied evenly. "This mountain gave me nothing but a cliff to scale and a people to defend. I will take from it what I need to fulfill that duty."
He then took Kael to Stoneford. They stood before the watchtower, its solid form rising from the hamlet's heart. Villagers stopped their work to stare, their expressions a mix of curiosity and deep-seated hostility towards the Borrell man. William called Maren and Lissa forward. The girls had regained some color, but a haunted look lingered in their eyes, especially when they looked at Kael's furs and beard, so like those of their captors.
"These are the reasons I climbed your mountain, Kael," William said, his voice carrying in the quiet yard. "They were chained like animals in a steading under the Broken Tooth. Is that the hospitality of the Marches? The freeholding you protect?"
Kael's face was unreadable stone. He looked at the girls, then at the suspicious villagers, then at the tower. "A man may lie. Chains may be forged after the fact. A tower is just stone and wood." But his voice lacked conviction. He was a practical man, and the raw, unvarnished hatred of the villagers was not something that could be staged.
The true test came days later, from an unexpected direction. A late-autumn storm, a snarling beast of wind and early snow, swept down from the highest peaks. It raged for two days, howling around Blackcliff's towers like a besieging army. On the morning of the third day, as the wind died to a miserable groan, a mud-spattered rider fought his way to the gate from Ironwood Valley. The news was dire: a massive landslide, triggered by the storm's saturation, had blocked the upper gorge of the Ironwood River. The waters were backing up fast, threatening to flood the entire lower valley—home to nearly a hundred souls, their winter stores, and their livestock.
Cuthbert was aghast. "We have no men to spare! The mine requires every hand to meet the quotas before the royal assessors return! And the tools, the—"
William cut him off, already strapping on his heavy cloak. "Sound the alarm in the yard. Every man not at the mine pumps or on essential guard duty is to assemble. We need picks, shovels, saws. Rope. And send riders to Stoneford and High Pass. Levy twenty men from each. They are to meet us at the Ironwood head with their own tools." He turned to where Kael stood observing. "You know rock and mountain. Will you observe from here, or will you see how a lord of Blackcliff meets a crisis?"
A challenge, thrown back in his face. Kael's eyes gleamed. "I will come. I have seen mountains kill men. I will see how you fight one."
What followed was a battle as desperate as any against armed raiders, but fought against earth, water, and time. The scene at the gorge was one of primordial chaos. A vast, wet scar of raw earth and shattered trees choked the narrow passage where the river once ran. Behind this natural dam, a lake was swelling, its dark, icy waters already licking at the roots of trees on the higher banks. The air was filled with the ominous groan of shifting rock and the panic of gathered villagers.
William did not make a speech. He split the men into three shifts: diggers, haulers, and a risky team of climbers to secure the unstable slopes above. He worked in the diggers' line, his pickaxe rising and falling in rhythm with a blacksmith from the valley, a miller's son, and Kael. The Borrell man worked with a savage, efficient strength, saying nothing. The cold was brutal; the mud was a clinging, freezing enemy. Men slipped, cursed, bled from torn hands. William's injured leg ached fiercely with each step in the sucking muck.
He saw the fear in the villagers' eyes—not just of the flood, but of him. This was a new test. Would he save them? Or would the mine, the king's silver, take precedence? He worked until his muscles screamed, then worked longer, pushing the shift beyond endurance, showing them he would break before he let the water break them.
It was during the second day, under a sleeting rain, that the crisis within the crisis struck. A section of the landslide, undermined by the rising water, gave way with a sound like grinding teeth. A wall of mud and debris slurry surged towards the men working at the dam's base. William, who was overseeing from a slightly higher perch, saw it first. He bellowed a warning, but the roar of water and shifting earth drowned his voice.
He saw Kael, hip-deep in muck farther down, look up, see the danger, and instead of running, turn and shove the young miller's son next to him towards safer ground. Then the slurry hit him, engulfing him up to his chest and pinning him against an unyielding boulder.
Without thinking, William scrambled down the treacherous slope, shouting for ropes. He reached the edge of the slurry, the cold mud pulling at his own boots. Kael's face was pale, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the pressure on his chest immense.
"Get back, you fool!" Kael gritted out. "It'll take you too!"
William ignored him, driving his pickaxe into firmer ground as an anchor, looping a rope around his own waist. Elric was there suddenly, adding his strength, throwing another line. Together, with four other men hauling from above, they pulled against the hungry mud. It was a brutal, slow-motion tug of war against the mountain itself. With a final, wet sucking sound, Kael came free, collapsing onto the firmer bank, caked in freezing filth and gasping for air.
For a long moment, the two men lay there, the sleet pelting them, the disaster momentarily forgotten. Kael looked at William, his dark eyes wide with something beyond pain or surprise. It was the shattered understanding of a man whose world has just been inverted.
"Why?" Kael coughed, mud on his lips. "I am your enemy. Your spy."
William pushed himself up on trembling arms. "You are a man under my protection, in my fief, fighting my mountain. That is the law here." He offered a muddy hand.
Kael stared at the hand, then took it, his grip like iron. William hauled him to his feet. No more words were exchanged. They went back to work. But something had changed. The Borrell representative worked alongside the Blackcliff men not as an observer, but as a participant. He offered gruff suggestions on stabilizing the slope, his knowledge of mountain terrain proving invaluable. He shared his waterskin, took his turn in the worst spots.
Three days and nights of relentless labor later, they carved a narrow channel through the dam. The pent-up water roared through, a controlled, furious release that spared the valley below. Exhausted, filthy, and victorious, the men stood watching the torrent, a collective breath finally released.
On the slow, weary trudge back to Blackcliff, Kael rode beside William. The silence between them was no longer hostile, but contemplative.
"Your people," Kael said abruptly, his voice rough. "They did not have to come. The levy from Stoneford… they came even though their own homes were safe."
"They came because their lord asked, and because their neighbors were in need," William said, bone-tired. "The tower at Stoneford is not just a warning against raiders. It is a promise that they are part of something larger. Today, they upheld their end of that promise."
Kael was silent for a long time. "In the Marches," he said finally, as if confessing a weakness, "Rorik and Joric would have taken the strongest men for their own halls. The valley would have flooded. The weak would have died. That is the way of the mountain. The strong take."
"And what does it make them?" William asked, looking at the stark, beautiful, deadly landscape around them. "Just another force of nature, like the landslide. A lord should be better than the mountain. He should be the reason people can live on it, not just die from it."
Kael made no reply, but his thoughtful silence was more eloquent than any agreement.
Back at Blackcliff, as William soaked his aching body in a tub of blessedly hot water, he considered the harvest. The financial thorns were still there, sharp and deep. The king's silver sat in his vault, a taunt. The consortium's debt loomed. The villages were hungry for the prosperity he had promised.
But he had sown other seeds. In the mud of the Ironwood Gorge, he had sown a seed of doubt in his enemy's heart. He had reinforced the fragile compact with his people through shared sacrifice, not just shared fear. He had shown, most importantly to himself, that the law he was building—of mutual responsibility, of protection earned through effort—was not just words in a cold hall.
The crown of Blackcliff was still a band of cold iron, constricting and heavy. But as he looked out at the three beacon fires glowing once more in the clear, cold night, he felt a faint, stubborn warmth beneath the metal. He was not just the Unforgiving Mountain. He was becoming its steward. And perhaps, just perhaps, that was a title worth the blood, the silver, and the endless, thorns harvest. The path ahead was still steep and shrouded in mist, but for the first time since the king's judgment, William felt not the vertigo of a fall, but the firm, treacherous ground of the climb itself beneath his feet.