The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 28: Chapter 27 – The Ledger of War

Read chapter 28 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Chapter 27 – The Ledger of War Dawn came thin and gray. The torches out beyond the broken gate looked like slow stars marching into a wrong sky. Yara hadn’t slept. She had spent the long hours with the Gem humming inside her chest just below her ribs, listening to it settle and ache like a caged thing. Rolen’s voice dropped from the awning, low and tight. “They’re not coming out,” he said. “Scouts report the garrison sealed in the barracks, two, maybe three hundred men under roof. He’s pulling them back to plan; if he gets a day to set himself, he’ll be able to throw everything at us in a way we can’t face.” “That’s why we hit first,” Marcus said, not loud. “If he retreats and plans, he’ll be able to coordinate every scrap of force across his keep. He’ll mass them, draft a new strategy, and sweep us when we’re thin. He thinks he can wait us out; he hasn’t got someone who can turn men into metal in a morning. We do. That advantage doesn’t last if we give him time to adjust.” Bruno cut in, “We can convert the twenty-three by morning. We strip the dead, feed the piles to the Gem in one surge. You get twenty-three Iron Defenders fast, obedient, durable, enough to give the regent the kick in the head he deserves.” Eliza closed her ledger. Her face went white at the thought of so many minds wasted. She looked at Yara’s young face and frowned in worry for a moment. Yara felt the Gem press harder beneath her ribs, eager and simple. The hunger tasted like leverage. “Then do it,” she said. “Make them hold. Make them useful. Do it before he can plan otherwise.” Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “If you can turn all twenty-three by morning, we can do something I’ve been thinking about all night. The Regent stacks his men in the barracks. He’s selfish; he keeps them closed and safe inside until he needs them. If we get a leader and five Iron Defenders past the outer guards, we can move fast, wedge the doors, and seal the barracks from the inside. Trap the garrison. If we do that, the rest of his forces can’t be poured out at him. It buys us time, and it saves lives.” Bruno spat and laughed, half-grim. “So we steal their teeth and stick them in ours. Quick strike, seal the jaws.” Yara looked at Marcus. “How fast?” “Fast.” Marcus ran a finger through ash on the table and sketched a box. “Rosa and the women who'd learned basic care keep the wounded alive. Even a small breath in them makes them 100% when Lady Yara changes them. I’ll pick the leader.” A quick mental inventory of his troops, and he said, “Varrek, and five of the new Defenders move on the barracks. If we hit the levers and jam the doors, they can’t pour out. We either keep them penned or recover them later. Either way, they don’t save the Regent.” Eliza’s voice came low and practical. “It’s brutal. It works. You have to understand what you do when you feed the Gem like that. You’re not restoring them. You’re taking their histories, their gritted knots of fear and habit, and you’re compressing those threads into something that will hold a shield and follow an order without question. It saves their lives in a physical sense. It steals their futures in another.” Yara’s hand tightened on the crate. She could feel the Gem’s shadow in her ribs like a second pulse. “I know what it does.” “That mass feed will empty you,” Eliza said. “But—” She looked at Marcus, then back to Yara. “But you can create twenty-three hold-forms. You can make the manpower Marcus needs to seal the barracks.” Marcus took that in like a ration. “Seal the barracks, and we cut off the teeth. Delay, and he pours them out in the next wave. Delay and we die in numbers.” Yara heard the Gem’s eager whisper, small and bright: More for your army. We can do 23 every day, and you grow stronger. Yesterday, 10 would have been your limit. "Why?" Yara asked. "Why am I getting stronger?" The Gem's answer was pleased, almost proud. Because you feed me. Because you use me. The more you work, the more we grow together. Yesterday, you struggl