The horn note lingered like frost-smoke, then died into the valley's white throat.
For a long breath the ridge crown was silent except for the small sounds of victory being nailed down: hammers seating pike-shafts, sled-runners grating as ballistae were trundled into new embrasures, the wet slap of snow shoveled against wicker mantlets.
Lan tasted iron on the wind—not blood, but the scent of anvils cooling after judgment.
Shen stood at the forward lip, cloak snapping black against white sky, watching Wei Lian's camp rearrange itself into chess squares.
Lan joined him, offered a cup of pine-tea thick as resin.
He drank without tasting, eyes never leaving the far banners.
"They're building a tribunal," he said quietly.
She followed his gaze: engineers were outlining a rectangle of scarlet cloth on the snow—thirty paces by twenty—staking it with spears whose shafts had been painted white.
Inside the rectangle they laid planks, then carpets of grey wolf-pelt.
At the up-slope edge they raised a single pole bearing Wei's wolf-and-phoenix seal, but the banner hung reversed—white field on top, wolf below.
A court of appeal, or a scaffold dressed for diplomacy.
Korin spat over the palisade. "Parley. Means they want something we haven't yet surrendered."
Shen's thumb rubbed the slit in his palm where blood had clotted black.
"Then we attend. Dress the wound in silk, not sackcloth."
He turned, issuing orders like flakes settling:
Black Raven company to hold the rampart, visors down—show iron, not faces.Pioneers to keep sled-ballistae wound, but angles lowered—respect, not threat.Prisoners washed, bound, lined inside the rear trench—living ledger, visible collateral.Lan at his left, cloak reversed to raven-blue, bow unstrung—witness, not executioner.
Lastly he called for water, soap, needle.
At a field bench he scrubbed dried blood from his hands, stitched the reopened gash himself—six stitches, black silk, knot at each end like a ledger post.
When he flexed fingers the thread glinted briefly, then vanished against skin—a binding visible only when light struck debt.
The Walk Downhill
An hour before noon the ridge gate opened.
Shen descended with nine—the number of White-cloaks who had died kneeling on the salt circle—Lan third in file, carrying a staff from which hung a strip of black linen: the colour of unpaid accounts.
They walked slow, giving watchers time to count boots, to weigh resolve.
Behind them the Black Ravens beat shields once—a single iron heartbeat—then resumed silence.
Half-slope they met the opposing delegation: also nine, also led by a prince.
Wei Lian wore white fox over lamellar, but the cloak was thrown back to reveal a breastplate lacquered crimson—the colour of the palm-print Shen had left on snow.
At his left walked a woman in grey lamellar, hood shadowing the cheekbones Lan had last seen on a cliff-edge before they stepped into air.
The same woman—or twin to the one who had carried the crimson-tipped bolt.
Lan's pulse stumbled; she kept stride.
The two parties halted ten paces apart—close enough to smell horse on each other's breath, far enough to draw steel.
Between them the scarlet rectangle waited like a wound packed with snow.
Wei Lian stepped forward first, palms open, showing no weapon.
Shen mirrored.
They entered the rectangle together, boots sinking into wolf-pelt, and sat on camp-stools set by servants who retreated backward, eyes lowered—ushers of a court where murder wore courtesy.
The Pleadings
No herald spoke.
Custom said the challenged—holder of ground—opened.
Shen waited; Wei began.
Voice carried the soft nasal of capital salons, but frost gave it edge.
"Brother," he said—the word legal, not affectionate—"the ridge is yours by claw, not by charter. I offer charter."
He lifted a scroll bound in green silk, laid it on a field-desk of birch.
"Withdraw west of the river. In return I cede you the grain you took at the salt circle—thirty-two barrels, imperial seal—and safe passage to the Red-Forge Pass. Thereafter we campaign separately, accounts clear."
He pushed the scroll forward.
Shen did not touch it.
"And the interest?"
Wei smiled—small, precise.
"Interest is memory. You carry my dead from the ridge; I carry yours from the ford. Let memory end here."
Shen's turn.
He drew a folded parchment from his wrist-guard—the ledger taken from the command dugout, edges blood-blurred.
He laid it beside Wei's scroll.
"Your clerks write in red," he said. "Mine write in black. Neither colour washes. I keep the ridge. You keep your memory. We both keep killing until ink runs dry."
Wei's eyes flicked to the woman in grey.
She stepped forward, drew from her sleeve a single object: a white-jade arrowhead, silk tassel new, point unbloodied.
She held it toward Lan—not Shen—as if debt could be paid by deputy.
Lan felt the gorge and the cliff and the salt circle compress into that sliver of stone.
She took it, fingers steady, placed it on the parchment between the two ledgers—a wedge to keep accounts open.
Wei exhaled—steam veiling his face.
"Then court adjourns," he said. "Judgement rides at dusk."
He stood; Shen stood.
They bowed—equal depth, equal duration—backed three paces, turned.
Nine cloaks white followed him uphill; nine cloaks black followed Shen back to the rampart.
The scarlet rectangle remained, carpets already stiffening with blown snow—a verdict waiting to be written in iron.
The Reckoning Hour
They climbed in silence until the palisade hid them.
There Shen stopped, opened his stitched palm; the black silk had turned red again.
He spoke to the wind, but Lan answered anyway.
"Dusk," she said. "He'll hit at dusk—when the ridge casts shadow on the valley and our ballistae lose the sun."
Shen nodded once.
"Then we pay early."
He turned to the valley, raised his bandaged hand.
From Wei's camp drums answered—low, patient, counting interest.
Above them both, the reversed wolf banner snapped, then wrapped itself around the pole like a rope waiting for a throat.