Chapter 47: The Tracker’s Ledger
The Green March offered a brutal, unforgiving silence just past the fourth mile marker. The morning frost clung to the dead briars in thick, jagged crystals, and the frozen mud of the trail crunched sharply beneath their boots.
Callis moved through the brush with a fluidity he had not possessed a week prior. The heavy boiled leather of his cuirass no longer chafed his collarbone; Yselle had pounded the stiff edges flat and treated the hide with a premium, weather-resistant wax that made the freezing drizzle roll right off his chest. Beneath the armor, his linen tunic was completely free of tears, meticulously mended with double-stitched reinforced thread by the district’s head weaver.
He was walking lighter, his center of gravity dropped low, his right hand resting easily on the pommel of his iron boar-sword.
A few paces ahead, Rhett Hollow suddenly raised a closed fist.
Callis halted instantly, his boots locking into the frozen slurry without a sound. He scanned the dense, frost-choked tree line, his eyes sweeping for the unnatural absence of light that signaled a predator in the brush.
"Tracks are cold," Rhett muttered after a long moment, lowering his hand and dropping the butt of his iron-banded spear into the dirt. "The crawler veered east toward the deep leylines before dawn. We aren't catching it today."
Callis let out a slow, measured exhale, his breath pluming in the freezing air. "Do we push forward, or log the perimeter and turn back?"
"We eat," Rhett decided, stepping off the main path to lean his back against a massive, frost-cracked oak tree. "Then we turn back. The bounties aren't high enough today to justify chasing a stray crawler into the deep woods on an empty stomach."
Callis nodded, stepping into the shelter of the oak’s broad canopy. He unclasped the heavy leather pouch at his belt and dug inside. The physical toll of the perimeter patrol was demanding, but Callis didn't feel the hollow, marrow-deep exhaustion that used to plague him.
He pulled out several thick parcels wrapped in waxed parchment. Unfolding the top one, he revealed a massive wedge of heavily spiced, slow-smoked venison flank from Morcant’s private reserve, accompanied by three soft, fresh-baked loaves of honey-and-sage bread that were still faintly warm to the touch.
Rhett, who had just pulled a rock-hard block of salted hardtack from his own canvas sack, paused. The veteran tracker stared at the extravagant feast sitting in Callis's hands.
Callis didn't hesitate. He tossed one of the warm loaves and a generous half of the smoked venison straight at Rhett.
"Catch," Callis said easily. "You'll break a tooth on that hardtack, and we need our jaws intact if we have to run. I have plenty."
Rhett caught the parcels automatically. He looked at the soft bread, then at the dark, perfectly marbled meat. He glanced back up at Callis, who was carefully re-wrapping a third portion to stow back in his pouch.
"I'm saving the rest for Kaelen when we get back to the staging yard," Callis explained, chewing on his own piece of venison. "He held the line for me at the logging camp. Figure the squad should eat decently if we're going to keep running these deep perimeter patrols."
Rhett took a bite of the bread, the loud crunch of the crust echoing in the quiet woods. His pale eyes, inherited directly from his mother, tracked down Callis's frame.
"You're sharing this," Rhett murmured, more of a statement than a question. He took a bite of the venison, closing his eyes briefly as the premium spices hit his tongue. "You've been eating remarkably well lately, Vale. This bread came straight from Lysa’s personal hearth. And Pavel Morcant hasn't sold this cut of spiced venison to a walking mercenary in five years. You're outfitting the whole squad with it."
Callis kept his expression carefully neutral, tearing off a piece of his own bread. "I was just lucky at the market stalls this morning."
"Right. Market luck," Rhett muttered, chewing slowly. He leaned his head back against the oak bark. "Just like you were lucky that Yselle Harrow decided to hand-tool custom brass scabbard loops for your belt. And lucky that your undershirt is suddenly stitched with high-tensile silk thread that costs more than my spear."
Callis swallowed the venison, a sudden, cold knot forming in his stomach. "I paid a fair price for the gear maintenance."
"I'm sure you did," Rhett said. "You've been carrying yourself differently, too. You used to walk like a man expecting the ground to open up and swallow him. Now you walk like you actually own a piece of the mud. What did you do on your rest day to suddenly find your footing?"
Callis relaxed slightly, thinking the conversation was steering back toward the physical conditioning of the town.
"I took your advice," Callis replied casually, taking another bite of the savory meat. "I spent the entire afternoon at the geothermal hot springs working the ache out of my joints. The heat did wonders for the bruising."
Rhett stopped chewing.
The silence that fell over the small clearing was absolute. Rhett lowered his bread, his sharp, predatory eyes locking onto Callis with the chilling, calculating focus of a man who tracked monsters for a living.
"The hot springs," Rhett repeated, his voice dropping into a dangerously quiet register.
"Yes," Callis said, suddenly hyper-aware of the shift in the veteran's posture.
"Which afternoon?" Rhett asked softly.
"Three days ago," Callis answered, his grip tightening on the waxed parchment.
Rhett stared at him. The veteran tracker’s eyes moved from the premium bread in his own hand, to the custom brass loops on Callis's belt, to the perfectly oiled leather across his chest. The mental arithmetic was visible on Rhett's weathered face, the pieces snapping together with terrifying, undeniable precision.
"The public bathhouse was closed three days ago, Callis," Rhett stated flatly. "The Lantern Ward matriarchs booked the entire cavern for a private council session. No men were allowed past the oak doors."
Callis froze completely.
The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin as pale as the surrounding frost. He had made a catastrophic, amateur mistake. He hadn't bothered to check the public schedule before deploying his alibi, and now he was standing in the deep woods with the most lethal tracker in Hartsgate—who also happened to be eating the very bread baked by one of the women involved.
Rhett didn't blink. "Lysa the butcher. Gemma the dairy wife. Yselle the armorer. Matron Corin." Rhett’s voice grew colder with every name he listed off the roster. "And Sybil Hollow."
Callis slowly lowered his food, his heart beginning to hammer a frantic rhythm against his ribs. His fingers twitched instinctively toward the hilt of his boar-sword before he forced his hand completely still. He had promised to protect their secret, not fight his own squadmate, but he had just unspooled the entire web in front of Sybil’s own son.
"Rhett," Callis started, his aristocratic voice cracking entirely. "I swear to you, it isn't what you—"
"Do not insult my intelligence by lying to me in the mud, Vale!" Rhett barked, the sudden volume cutting through the freezing air like a whip.
Rhett pushed himself off the oak tree, taking a deliberate step into Callis's space. The veteran was shorter than Callis, but he carried the dense, immovable gravity of a man who had survived a hundred ambushes.
"I track beasts that hunt in packs," Rhett growled, keeping his hands away from his weapons but holding Callis perfectly pinned with his gaze. "You think I can't read the signs on a man standing three feet away from me? You smell like expensive oils beneath the forge smoke. Your gear is meticulously maintained by hands that don't belong to you. You're handing out private reserve meat to your squadmates out of the butcher's own larder."
Rhett took a slow, heavy breath, his pale eyes blazing. "And the matriarchs of this town suddenly stopped walking around looking like they were ready to march into the snow and freeze to death. You're servicing the council."
Callis stood his ground, his back hitting the freezing bark of the tree. The impulse to lie vanished under the crushing weight of the tracker's deduction. If he denied it now, he would just look like a coward.
"I swore a vow to them," Callis said, his voice dropping into a low, raw rasp. "I am their hearth fire. It is a sacred bond, Rhett. I protect them, and they protect me. They're funding our squad now, which is why you and Kaelen are eating like kings today."
Rhett stared at him for a long, agonizing minute. The tension in the air was so thick it threatened to snap the frozen branches above them. Callis waited for Rhett to fly into a rage over the sheer, unprecedented audacity of a runaway noble bedding the ruling class of the city, including his own mother.
Instead, Rhett threw his head back and let out a loud, breathless laugh.
The sound was sharp, completely stripped of malice, and laced with a profound, staggering disbelief. Rhett dragged a calloused hand down his soot-stained face, shaking his head as he looked at the young Vanguard.
"A sacred vow," Rhett chuckled, leaning back against the tree and crossing his arms. "By the Gods. Only a pampered, poetry-reading aristocrat from the inner provinces could turn fucking the entire town council into a holy crusade."
Callis blinked, completely derailed by the reaction. He stared at his patrol partner, the reality of the family tree finally catching up to his initial relief.
"You... you don't care?" Callis stammered, his brow furrowing as he struggled to find the appropriate diplomatic phrasing. "I mean... Rhett, she's your mother. I am... I'm..." He waved his hand vaguely, looking completely baffled. "I am servicing your mother. And you are just... completely alright with that?"
Rhett snorted loudly, tearing off another massive chunk of the fresh bread.
"Vale, trying to police my mother's bed would be the absolute last mistake I ever made," Rhett said flatly. "The woman is arguably the scariest person in Hartsgate. If I tried to tell Sybil Hollow who she could or couldn't take to her furs, she would drag me by the ear to Greenmarch Hall and spank me naked in front of the entire Guild."
Callis stared at him in horrified silence.
"And I am not exaggerating," Rhett added, pointing a finger at him for emphasis. "She has actually done that to grown men who messed with her trap lines. It is burned into my memory."
Rhett shook his head, looking completely unfazed. "I am a mercenary, Vale. We live in the mud. We bleed for copper. The men in this town are broken, dead, or drinking themselves into an early grave. Those women kept us all alive, and they got absolutely nothing in return. Do you have any idea how miserable this town is when those women are unhappy? My mother has been a nightmare for five winters. Last month she shot a man in the leg because he brought her a bad pelt."
Rhett paused, letting out a heavy, pragmatic sigh. "Yesterday, she actually smiled at me when I walked into the house. Smiled. It was terrifying, but it was peaceful. I will gladly take a smiling mother over a humiliated, naked ass in the public square any day of the week."
Callis let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, leaning the back of his head against the oak tree. The sheer absurdity of the situation finally caught up to him. He was a secret husband to the most powerful women in Hartsgate, outfitting his squad with their provisions, and his seasoned patrol partner had just explicitly sanctioned the arrangement for the sake of municipal peace and good jerky.
"I will keep the secret, Callis," Rhett promised, his tone suddenly dropping the humor to become dead serious. He leveled his pale eyes at the younger man. "The transient drifters in this town would ruin them if they knew. But you belong to the Ward now. You have skin in the game."
"I do," Callis agreed firmly, meeting the veteran's gaze without flinching.
"Good." Rhett pushed off the tree, gripping the shaft of his spear. "But if you ever break their hearts, or if you get sloppy and expose them to the Guild..."
Rhett didn't finish the threat with a raised voice. He didn't have to.
"I won't," Callis swore, packing the rest of the food away for Kaelen.
"See that you don't," Rhett grunted, turning his face toward the long, freezing path back to the March Gate. He took two heavy steps through the frozen sludge before suddenly pausing.
"Although," Rhett added, glancing back over his shoulder with a suspiciously calculating gleam returning to his pale eyes.
"What?" Callis asked, bracing himself again.
"Maeve," Rhett said flatly. "Did you manage to get any good rates with the sugar merchant's wife? The winter tariffs on imported cane are brutal this season. I haven't had a proper honey-cake or candied apple in over a month."
Callis stared at the hardened veteran tracker, a surprised, genuine laugh punching out of his chest. The sheer, shameless pragmatism of the frontier never failed to amaze him.
"I believe I can arrange a steady supply of sweets for the squad," Callis promised, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
Rhett nodded solemnly, tapping his spear against the dirt. "Good. Then you're officially worth keeping alive. Now keep your eyes on the tree line, husband of the council. You have a lot of women waiting on you to come back with all your limbs attached, and I am not dragging your half-eaten corpse back to my mother."