Chapter 25: More Problems

The Great Hall of the castle was a massive room, but it was no longer large enough.

For the first few weeks of the winter, the roaring fire in the central hearth was a miracle. It was the only thing standing between the villagers and a freezing death. But as the first month of the siege slowly dragged on, the novelty of the warmth was completely gone.

Over forty people were living, sleeping, and eating inside the single room.

The sensory overload was absolute. The smell of unwashed bodies and boiling cabbage was thick in the air. The noise never truly stopped. A baby was always crying in a corner. An old man was always snoring loudly. The low murmur of dozens of private conversations was very chaotic.

Privacy was entirely non-existent.

The families had divided the floor of the Great Hall into small, imaginary territories using their meager belongings. A row of wooden stools was the border for the One family. A line of rolled-up blankets was the boundary for another.

Jack was standing on the second-floor interior balcony, looking down at the crowded floor. His brass-headed cane was in his hand.

He watched the people below. They were safe from the bandits and winter outside the walls, and the heavy torsion ballistas Barnaby and Giles were building were almost finished. But the physical cold and the bandits were not their only enemies. Cabin fever was setting in. The sheer mental strain of being trapped in a stone box with forty other terrified, exhausted people was tearing their patience apart.

A sudden, sharp crash echoed from the floor below.

Near the stone hearth, a fragile wooden drying rack was on its side. A young boy, no older than seven, was standing near it with wide, panicked eyes. The boy had tripped over a floorboard, knocking the rack over.

Two pairs of wet boots were originally on that rack. Now, those filthy boots were resting directly on top of a clean, dry sleeping blanket belonging to a different family.

“Hey!” a harsh, angry voice yelled.

A middle-aged man with a thick, unkempt beard jumped up from his spot. He was Thomas, a former miner with a famously short temper. He pointed a trembling finger at the boots on his bedding.

“Keep your brat’s filthy boots off my bedding!” Thomas roared, his face turning completely red. “We only have two dry blankets left! Do you know how long it took to dry those near the fire?”

The young boy’s father, a thin man named Elric, immediately stepped in front of his son. His own face was tense and defensive.

“He is just a boy, Thomas!” Elric shouted back, his voice cracking with stress. “It was an accident! He tripped!”

“An accident?” Thomas sneered, stepping closer. He kicked the fallen wooden rack out of the way. The wood splintered loudly against the stone floor. “Your boy is always running around! Tell him to sit down and stay quiet! This isn’t a playground!”

“Do not yell at my son!” Elric yelled, pushing Thomas forcefully in the chest. “You think we want to be crammed in this stone box with you? You snore like a dying bear all night! My wife hasn’t slept in a week!”

“If you don’t like it, take your family back to your freezing hut!” Thomas shouted, raising his fists.

The entire hall went silent. The tension was like a stretched bowstring, ready to snap. Several other men began to stand up, taking sides in the petty dispute. The stress of the siege was finally looking for a physical outlet.

Before a punch could be thrown, a figure pushed through the crowd.

Giles stepped directly between the two angry fathers. The big carpenter placed one hand on Thomas’s chest and the other on Elric’s shoulder, shoving them firmly apart.

“Enough!” Giles bellowed. “Put your hands down! Both of you!”

“He ruined my blanket, Giles!” Thomas spat, though he took a step back from the larger man.

“Then you will turn it over and use the other side!” Giles commanded harshly. “We are besieged! The bandits are still in the woods, and the Beast Tide is less than two months away. If I see any man raising a fist against his neighbor in this hall, I will personally throw him out the front gates into the snow! Are we clear?”

Thomas glared at Elric, his jaw tight, but he slowly nodded. Elric grabbed his son’s hand and pulled him back to their designated corner. The immediate threat of violence was over, but the toxic, suffocating atmosphere in the room remained.

Up on the balcony, Jack let out a heavy sigh.

Giles had stopped the fight, but a simple scolding was not a permanent solution. The villagers were at their breaking point.

Jack turned away from the balcony and hobbled down the stairs, heading toward the quieter kitchen corridor at the back of the hall. He needed a moment away from the noise and he was also hungry.

When he entered the narrow stone corridor, Karen was there. A large wooden basin of hot water was in front of her. She was scrubbing the porridge bowls from the morning meal.

But she was not alone. Old Martha, the village hedge-witch, was standing next to her.

Martha’s coat was wrapped tightly around her stooped shoulders. When Jack entered the corridor, the old woman did not bow or offer a polite greeting. Her dark, cynical eyes locked directly onto him. Her expression was incredibly grim.

“Lord Jack,” Martha said, her voice a low, raspy whisper. “We need to talk. Now.”

“What is it, Martha?” Jack asked, leaning on his cane.

Martha pointed a crooked finger back toward the archway that led to the Great Hall.

“Listen,” she commanded.

Jack frowned, tilting his head slightly to listen to the chaotic noise of the crowded room. Beneath the sound of crying babies and murmured conversations, a different sound was present.

Cough. Hack. Cough.

It was the sound of people coughing. Jack had heard it for days, but he had assumed it was simply the lingering effects of the winter chill.

“I hear coughing,” Jack said.

“Listen closer,” Martha insisted, her eyes narrowing. “It is not the dry, rattling cough of a simple winter cold. It is wet. It is heavy. It is deep in their chests.”

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Jack listened again. She was right. The coughs coming from the hall sounded thick and congested.

“Three children and two of the elders developed it this morning,” Martha explained, her voice entirely devoid of her usual sarcasm. “I gave them a steep brew of willow bark and pine needles, but it won’t be enough. It is the Stone-Sickness.”

“The Stone-Sickness?” Jack repeated, unfamiliar with the term.

“It happens when too many people breathe the same stale air in a sealed room,” Martha said. “The walls are thick. The windows are shuttered tight. The heat from your great hearth is a blessing, but forty humans sweating, breathing, and sleeping in one room turns the air into a humid swamp. The stone traps the moisture. It incubates the sickness.”

Karen stopped washing the bowls. Her hands were trembling in the soapy water. “Is it deadly, Martha?”

“It killed over a hundred of our people last winter alone,” Martha stated bluntly, her dark eyes flashing with a bitter memory. ” You don’t remember? Before your father passed away two years ago, Lord Jack, he had a fierce argument with a visiting officer from the Holy Church. He cursed them for hoarding the empire’s wealth while the north froze. Because of his pride, the Church punished us. They deliberately refused to send their healing mages to our valley last year. When the deep cold hit and the villagers crowded together just like this to share the meager warmth, the sickness spread. We buried over a hundred bodies in the frozen dirt before the spring thaw.”

Jack’s chest tightened.

Martha pointed a crooked finger back at the hall. “Right now, it is just five people. In three days, it will be fifteen. In a week, every single person in that hall will be drowning in their own lung fluid. If we do not spread these people out and give them fresh, clean air to breathe, half of them will be dead before the Beast Tide ever reaches our walls.”