The Missing Patrol
? Ivy ?
The capital gates close behind us with a sound I feel beneath my ribs.
I look back once before the road bends away from the city.
The walls rise pale against the morning sky, high enough to hide Grant, Jace, and every person who finds danger easier to name when it belongs to someone else.
Then the ridge takes the capital from sight, and the North opens ahead of us in rough hills, bare trees, and stone fields pressed flat by winter wind.
Six wagons travel in a tight line beneath the gray sky.
They carry fever medicine, blankets, dried food, and water casks for Birch Hollow, while riders move along both sides with shields strapped high and bows within reach.
Nora rides near the second wagon with her medical bag tied behind her saddle.
Roman keeps near the front of the line, watching the road, the ridge, and the wolves around us with the same quiet attention.
I ride near the fifth wagon because Elden has already stopped twice to check the rear wheel.
He’s older than most of the drivers, with gray caught in his beard and a scar running over one knuckle. When we slow near a low bridge, he climbs down again and crouches beside the axle.
“Will it hold?” Roman asks.
Elden tests the wheel with both hands. “It’ll hold if the road behaves.”
“That road ever behaved for you?”
“No, Alpha.”
Roman’s mouth shifts slightly. “Then tell me before it decides not to.”
Elden glances at me, then looks back toward the wagon. “Luna should know that if this wheel breaks, Birch Hollow loses more than a few jars.”
I dismount before Roman can answer for me. “What else is in there?”
“Fever draught for the pups,” Elden says.
“Nora made a stronger batch because the usual one wasn’t working. It has to stay packed cold and steady, or it spoils before it reaches them.”
His hands settle against the wood of the wagon.
“There’s a boy named Milo who hasn’t kept broth down since yesterday, and his sister is worse. Their mother rode three miles to get the first message through.”
“I’ll help keep it moving,” I say.
He studies me for a moment, then nods and climbs back to the driver’s bench.
Nora rides over as I remount. “Please don’t apologize to the medicine.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were looking at it like you were considering it.”
Roman looks back at us. “She does that with people too.”
“I don’t.”
Nora gives me a dry look. “You absolutely do.”
For a few minutes, the road feels almost ordinary. The wagons creak. Horses breathe steam into the cold air. Drivers complain about frozen grease and loose straps while the guards trade quiet remarks about who’ll get the first hot meal when they reach Birch Hollow.
Then we reach the first patrol station.
Roman dismounts before anyone else. Dane is already at the low covered post, checking the slate where riders leave their route marks. The fire pit beside it is cold and scraped nearly clean. There’s no fresh ash, no rider’s note, and no sign that anyone has stood here since the morning before.
I pull Holt’s copied route sheets from my saddlebag. The patrol should’ve marked the slate at second watch, sent a rider to the ridge station at dusk, and left a beacon note before dawn.
The evening and dawn spaces are empty.
“Last mark was yesterday morning,” Dane says.
Roman takes the slate and turns it over. “Nothing from the ridge?”
“Nothing.”
A scout comes down the slope at a run, breathing hard. He holds out a strip of cut leather stamped with the Eastmere patrol mark.
“Found this ahead,” he says. “It came from a saddle.”
Dane runs his thumb over the edge. “This was cut.”
The convoy goes quiet behind us.
A young guard near the food wagons shifts closer to her horse. Elden reaches back to steady the nearest medicine case without taking his eyes from the road.
Roman looks toward the eastern ridge. “How far to the cut?”
“Less than an hour if the wagons keep pace,” Dane says. “The north-side scout still hasn’t returned.”
The missing patrol is no longer a late report or a broken bridge. Someone has taken wolves from this road, and they may still be waiting beyond the next rise. Roman turns toward me.
He doesn’t ask the question in front of everyone, but I know it’s there. The medicine. The missing patrol. The road ahead. Me.
I step closer. “What has to be true for us to go through?”
His eyes stay on mine for a moment before he answers.
“Both ridges must be checked before the first wagon enters. We keep shields beside the medicine line, no wolf travels alone, and no gap opens between teams. If Dane finds another clear sign that the pass is occupied, we turn back.”
Nora’s horse shifts beside us. “If we turn back now, Birch Hollow waits at least another day. If we take the cut and lose that wagon, they wait anyway.”
“I know,” Roman says.
Elden climbs down from his bench again. “Alpha.” Roman looks at him.
“The fifth wagon can make the cut if I keep the left wheel high,” Elden says. “It’ll scrape stone, but it won’t break unless the road gives under it.”
“Can you drive it under guard?”
“I can drive it if nobody panics my horses.”
Roman nods once, then turns to Dane. “Send two scouts up each ridge. Keep them below the skyline. If they find anything, they signal with cloth. Don’t light fires.”
Dane sends the scouts out without argument.
We wait while the wind moves through the bare trees above us.
Roman walks the convoy while we wait. He checks the medicine straps, moves two guards from the front to the rear, and speaks quietly with each driver. When the youngest guard admits she’s never ridden Eastmere before, he places her beside an older wolf instead of leaving her alone with her fear.
The court sees Roman as force. The North knows him as the man who checks a weak wheel before it breaks and asks a driver which horse will spook first.
When he comes back to me, his face is calm in the way it gets when he’s made every choice he can and is waiting for the road to make the next one for him.
“You hated this route before today,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Eastmere is narrow, and the ridge path should’ve been widened years ago.” His gaze moves toward the pass. “I asked twice for the work. Grant approved repairs to the capital gate instead.”
Of course he did. The road that carried medicine to sick children could wait because the city wanted cleaner stone where powerful people would see it.
“Fear can make us careful,” I say. “It can’t become the reason we leave them without help.”
Roman looks at me. “I know.”
“I’m not pretending I’m not afraid.”
“Good,” he says. “Only fools take Eastmere without fear.”
The first ridge scout returns with two fingers raised, the signal for a clear approach. The second comes down moments later and gives the same sign, but his face is tight when he reaches Dane.
“What did you find?” Roman asks.
“Old tracks near the upper stones,” the scout says. “There’s no fresh camp, no smoke, and no bodies.”
“The patrol could’ve been taken before it reached the cut,” Dane says.
“Or driven off the road,” Roman answers.
Nobody says their absence may have been meant to pull us forward.
Nora looks toward the wagons. “If we lose another hour here, we may still reach Birch Hollow by dark. If we take the western road, we won’t.”
Roman closes his eyes for one breath, then looks at me.
“We turn here if you want to turn,” he says quietly.
The decision is mine, but it isn’t mine alone. Birch Hollow is waiting for medicine. Elden is waiting beside a wheel that may not survive the pass. Guards are watching the road and pretending they aren’t afraid.
“I want to stay with the convoy,” I say.
He nods once and turns toward the line.
“Move out. Keep the formation tight. If the rear slows, the front slows. If the scouts signal, shields go up and the wagons stop where they stand.”
The order travels from guard to guard, and the line begins moving again.
Eastmere Cut rises ahead of us, dark stone closing around a road only wide enough for the wagons to pass one at a time. The first wagon enters beneath raised shields, then the second follows. The sound of hooves and wheels sharpens against the rock.
I ride beside Elden’s fifth wagon because he asked for a steady wolf near his left wheel. Roman rides ahead where he can see the first bend in the pass, and Dane holds the rear with six guards.
The third wagon disappears around the bend. Then the fourth. By the time Elden guides the fifth into the cut, the sixth wagon has already cleared the mouth of the pass behind us. We’re all inside. Elden swears.
The left rear wheel drops hard.
The wagon jerks sideways, and the medicine cases strike their straps as the horses scream. The line behind us stops too fast for the rear guard to spread cleanly.
Elden hauls on the reins. “That split wasn’t here last week.” I look down.
The road has opened beneath the wheel in a fresh, narrow crack. Its edges are pale and sharp, untouched by frost or weather, and it runs exactly where a loaded wagon has to pass. This isn’t a broken road.
Someone opened it for us.