Wylis watched his face.
The rider said, "There is no request, ser."
Harlan looked up. "No. Men like you prefer to put a cup near a thirsty man and say you never told him to drink."
The rider's cheeks reddened.
"You want me to slow orders," Harlan said. "Miscount men. Delay escorts. Keep the Gate strong while the Eyrie weakens elsewhere. And later, if bronze men sit higher than falcon men, I am called wise instead of traitor."
The rider said nothing.
Wylis's hand moved toward his sword.
Harlan lifted one finger. Wylis stopped.
"Tell your masters something," Harlan said.
The rider straightened slightly.
Harlan leaned forward. "If they want the Bloody Gate, they may come ask it properly with banners, ladders, and enough dead men to fill the pass. If they want my loyalty, they may stop sending boys with letters that smell like clean treason."
The rider bowed his head.
"Will you hang me, ser?"
"Not tonight."
That surprised him.
Harlan folded the letter once. "You will sleep in the outer room. At first light, you go back down the road if it is open. If it is not, you stay where I put you and speak to no one. If I hear one whisper from you among my men, I will hang you from the murder holes and tell both sides you slipped."
The rider went pale. "Yes, ser."
Wylis took him away.
Dake waited until the door closed. "Will you burn it?"
Harlan looked at the letter.
He should burn it. A loyal man burned such things quickly and publicly, then wrote to the Eyrie before the ash cooled. But the Eyrie had asked for fifty men. The Eyrie had asked for twenty before that, and twelve before that, and scouts before that. The Eyrie wrote as if stone held itself and men grew in snowdrifts.
Harlan folded the letter again.
"No," he said.
Dake's eyes flickered.
Harlan saw and hated him for it a little.
"I may need proof," Harlan said.
"Proof of what, ser?"
"That everyone has gone mad except me."
He tucked the letter under the edge of the map, weighed it with a small stone, and stood.
...
That night, Harlan did not sleep early.
He climbed once more to the wall, against Wylis's advice and Marric's concern and Dake's silent wish that everyone would stop making decisions after dark. Snow fell thinly now, almost gently, as if the mountain had tired of rage and settled into patience.
The lower road vanished into blackness.
Somewhere beyond that blackness lay the river roads and the promised convoy. Grain, oats, salt meat, wool, medicine. Enough to feed men, tempt thieves, buy loyalty, and start arguments before a single sack was opened. Within a month, if the roads allowed, it would come crawling toward the Bloody Gate with mules, carts, drivers, guards, prayers, and probably coughs.
Then he was to give it fifty men.
Fifty.
Harlan rested his gloved hands on the stone.
The Bloody Gate had never fallen. He believed that as much as he believed in the cold beneath his boots. It was too strong, too narrow, too well-sited, too full of old deaths to be taken like some village tower.
But gates did not need to fall all at once.
Sometimes men took pieces from the hands that held them. Twenty swords sent down and never returned. Twelve reassigned. Eight archers gone to some tower that had better ravens than sense. Fifty more promised to a convoy not yet in sight. Sick men held in outer sheds. Boys guarding stores because men had become orders on other men's parchments.
A raven from the Eyrie.
A whisper from Runestone.
Snow above.
Hunger below.
The Gate still stood.
Ser Harlan Melcolm only wondered how much of him would be left standing with it.