The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 133: Volume 5: Chapter 118 – The Siege that Wasn’t

Read chapter 133 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 5: Chapter 118 – The Siege that Wasn’t Day 133 | Khaz Thorum Approach The last climb to Khaz Thorum felt like walking up the spine of a stone beast that did not want them there. The air thinned as the road narrowed. Breath steamed. Armor creaked a little louder. Even the Chainwolves slowed, tongues lolling for the first mile of the final ascent before their altered bodies adjusted and they found a new pace. Rosa felt every missing layer of sea-level air in her lungs. She did not complain. She chewed dried mint, kept walking, and adjusted her supply notes so the water distribution made sense in thin air. Renn walked at her other side, boots steady, eyes tracking barrels and crates with the calm attention of a man who refused to let altitude ruin his count. “We are down one crate of hardtack,” he said quietly. Rosa squinted upslope to where Daryl was walking entirely too close to Fiara and the Nightmares. “We are not down any crates,” she said. “We are misplacing future indigestion.” He hid a smile. “Of course.” Ahead, the road bent around a shoulder of naked granite. When they rounded it, Khaz Thorum finally revealed itself. The mountain did not just hold the city. It was the city. Fifty-foot stone doors were set into the living rock, flanked by reliefs carved so deep they seemed almost alive: dwarves in battle lines, hammers raised; forges that looked like rivers of molten metal; stylized mountains rising and falling in endless, repeating patterns. Pillars flanked the entrance, each one carved as a tower of ancestors, faces stacked on faces, beards flowing together into one long, rippling column of stone. Above the doors, an arch of runes marched across the rock. Bruno could not read them, but he knew what they said. You do not belong here. The hold’s outer wall was simply the mountain face itself. No battlements. No towers. Just layered stone with cunning cuts and narrow ledges where dwarven scouts already watched, black silhouettes against pale sky. Bruno planted his feet on the road and looked up until his neck hurt. “We are not breaking that,” he said. Rosa followed his gaze. “No,” she agreed. “We are not.” He exhaled, the breath frosting in front of his beard. “Good thing we are not trying.” Behind them, the camp began to unfold. Corvin paced at the front of the Chainwolves, the pack fanning out behind him in a crescent. Their chainmail-fused hides gleamed dully, breath puffing from muzzles, tails still. If they felt the altitude, they did not show it now; the first mile of thin air had been enough to teach their altered lungs what was required. Salt and Whistle took the outer edges, steady and alert. Petra kept close to Bruno’s left, always within reach of his voice. He pretended not to notice that she hovered near the command knot instead of running the line. Yara’s favorite wolf or not, she earned her place as alpha. Rosa moved through the ranks, checking fingers for numbness, faces for confusion. “Drink water, not pride,” she snapped at a soldier trying to stand too straight for his own lungs. “If you faint, I am not writing your name down. I am writing ‘died of stupidity.’” The soldier drank. Renn directed pack mules to the flattest ground, sending men to clear rocks where the ration tents would go. “Fires low,” he reminded Fiara as she came up with the Nightmares. “Smoke is a signal.” Fiara barely seemed to feel the cold at all. Heat shimmered faintly around her like a second skin. Her leathers were reinforced with layered, fire-treated plates, scar-lines etched into the surface where old heat had nearly taken her apart, and Yara had stitched her back together. Embers seemed to live under her skin. Her breath came steady and easy, red-gold light deep behind her eyes. The Nightmares moved at her shoulder. Ember Mane tossed its head, mane and tail streaming real fire that did not consume it. Ash Hoof’s hooves left blackened crescents on the stone with every step, smoke curling from flared nostrils. They were re