The Iron Revolution Chapter 71: Sins Of The Past

Chapter 71: Sins Of The Past

Cedd was managing the left side of the gate when Beorn arrived. He moved between the militia squad and the three crown soldiers on watch duty with the ease of who had stopped pretending at the role and had started living it.

His left hand still would not close fully. The gate incident had left something damaged in the tendons, and it had not healed yet. The right hand worked, though, and the command in his posture was no longer something he had to force. It was simply there.

He noticed Beorn, adjusted for, and didn’t interrupt.

A refugee stream had been moving since dawn. By the time Beorn took position just inside the gate with the ledger open across his forearm, six groups had already come through and three more were waiting.

These were not arrivals driven by trade or opportunity. The earlier influx had been people who heard Ashmark was still standing and came to test their chances. These people had walked in bad weather without planning for it, and that showed in the way they carried themselves.

The first group had come from a mining camp two days east. Four adults and two children, with the smallest child riding on a man’s back while the adults took turns carrying their baggage.

The camp had seen the shimmer the night before the fractures opened, they said. The sky looked dense, and by morning the cracks were visible. The creatures were already through them before any watch could organize a response.

Beorn asked where the shimmer had sat exactly, whether it had been over themselves or spread across the area, how long it had held before the fractures opened.

He wrote the answers in the margin of the ledger and sent one of the militia to help the group through the intake process.

The next group came from Earnmere in the late morning. Eight people, two of them carrying minor injuries from the departure.

The man speaking for them was thick through the shoulders and chest, the sort of broad build that came from mine work rather than simple size. He described the same shimmer and the delay before the fractures opened.

When he named the settlement, Aestrith said, "I know that town."

Beorn looked at her.

"I passed through there three years ago," she said. "Heading west."

She shifted her weight and kept her eyes on the man for a moment. "There are really old ruins on the high ground north of the town. In the Badlands, those ruins are normally considered taboo."

She met the group leader’s eyes briefly. "That was where the shimmer was, yes."

The man confirmed it. The cracks had opened directly above the ruins, and the creatures had come through there.

Beorn frowned and asked, "Aren’t those just from a previous kingdom? What makes them special?"

Aestrith looked at the gate’s upper hinge for a moment, working through how to turn what she had seen into something exact enough for Beorn to understand. Her arms stayed folded below her chest.

When she answered, her eyes moved south and east before returning to him. It was a brief shift, one that had nothing to do with the question and felt unintentional, and she did not explain it. "They are related to the Sinbound."

She continued with an indifferent tone. "The tale is that back thousands of years ago, a mighty Empire ruled the entire world. This nation rulers had powers never seen before, and these powers is what made them invincible."

She paused, then added, "Then, in their folly, they caused a catastrophe that created the Scar and doomed the entire world. Hence why we call ... them Sinbound. The heirs of this sin against humanity."

Beorn stopped for a moment, then he turned to one of the militia waiting nearby and pointed down the line.

"Go through the groups."

He instructed. "Ask each one the same question. Was there old stonework near your settlement, taboo ruins or construction older than any name the settlement has for it? Note which direction from the settlement and roughly how far. Then come back with the answers."

The soldier nodded and went.

A second soldier followed without needing to be told. He took the instruction as applying to both ends of the line. Godric had trained them well enough that they read context before they needed orders spelled out.

While they worked, Aestrith moved to the inside wall of the gate and looked out at the road the way she looked at anything she was still sorting through before she chose a position on it.

"Coss will take advantage of this," she said. "He can hide his men between refugees."

Beorn kept his eyes on the line of refugees. "Yes."

She turned her head toward him. "You don’t seem to mind."

He glanced at the Earnmere group as they were guided through the gate toward intake. "They are labor, rare workforce. Some of them will find their footing here. And I cannot make the city into a door that closes just because the territory is breaking apart."

A sound came from her that was not agreement, but not exactly protest either.

He tapped the ledger once with his thumb. "He already has many men hiding through the population. Denying entry does not remove that risk, it only makes it slightly worse."

He wrote a short note at the top of the page without looking up. "It’s a small price to pay."

There was also another issue in his mind. Lewin had sent no word. The eastern settlement had been his destination, and by Beorn’s count the departure had been four days ago.

He had sent one militia rider east the previous morning with instructions to go to the settlement and report back.

He marked it in the margin even if he could not act on yet. A sign. A question. No conclusion until he had information to conclude from.

The militia soldiers returned together and compared notes at the gate line before they came to him. The one who had taken the near end spoke first.

"Every group," he said. "All of them have ruins near the settlement. Two said directly above. Four said north or east at a short distance. One said she did not know the ruins, but there was old stone on the high ground she had always been told to avoid."

Beorn looked at the marks on the page.

The shimmer location. The fracture point. The placement of the ruins relative to each.

The marks formed a consistent picture. Every fracture had opened over or immediately beside these ancient empire ruins in the area.

He drew a rough line through the marks and studied the path it made. The Barrenland east and south of Ashmark.

The ruins were not there by chance. They were there because something had happened in those places a very long time ago, and whatever had happened had left the ground under them permanently different from the ground elsewhere.

He wrote one line below the map.

Then he added a question mark.

He closed the ledger.

Cedd was still on the left side of the gate, working through the incoming flow with the steady competence of who had found what he was built for. The refugee stream showed no sign of ending before dark.

Beorn looked at the road beyond the gate.

After that, he lifted his eyes to the sky above the road, pale and ordinary, with the Scar stretched along its jagged line exactly as it had always been.