Chương 35: Completing the Wall

Jack was standing in the snow, staring up at the newly built section of the palisade wall. It was a solid piece of work. The twenty pine logs his skeletons had dragged from the forest two nights ago were planted deep in the earth, standing ten feet high. The rough bark was packed tightly together, forming a reliable wooden shield. Giles walked up beside him, his breath pluming in the freezing morning air. The tall carpenter knocked his knuckles against the wood with a satisfied grin.

"It is a fine wall, Lord Jack," Giles said proudly.

"If the mages keep hauling the logs every few nights, we will have the entire village completely enclosed soon. I have lived in these mountains my whole life, and I know a dire wolf can leap eight feet in the air, maybe nine if it has a running sprint. But ten feet will stop them cold." Jack did not smile. He leaned on his cane and looked down at the snow gathered around his boots.

"The wall is indeed strong," Jack said quietly.

"And you are correct about their jumping limits on flat ground. But you are not looking at the environment." Giles blinked, looking confused. Jack pointed his cane at the ground near the base of the palisade.

"Look at the weather," Jack continued.

"We are nearing the peak of winter. The snow is already past our knees. In a few weeks, the wind will blow the snow against the outside of this wall, creating large, packed snowdrifts. If a snowdrift piles up four feet high against the wood, the wall effectively becomes only six feet tall. A desperate dire wolf will use the snow as a ramp and clear the wall easily." Giles's smile completely vanished.

He looked at the snow, imagining a pack of rabid beasts running up a frozen snowdrift to jump directly into the village. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck.

"By the gods," Giles whispered.

"You are right. The snow will betray us. What do we do? We cannot easily cut trees that are twenty feet tall, and my men cannot haul them even if we did."

"We will not build the wall higher," Jack said, his voice calm and pragmatic.

"We will make the ground lower. We are going to dig a trench." Jack used his cane to draw a wide line in the snow, parallel to the outside of the wooden palisade.

"A dry moat," Jack explained.

"We will dig a wide, deep trench completely surrounding the outside of the palisade line. When the beasts charge out of the woods, they will not hit the wall. They will fall into the pit. Even if they survive the fall, they will be trapped at the bottom, unable to get a running start to jump, and completely unable to reach the wooden walls."

"A trench," Giles repeated, nodding slowly as the military logic settled in. It was a brilliant, simple defense. But then, the reality of their environment hit him. Giles looked down at the snow and kicked it aside, revealing the hard, frozen earth beneath.

"Lord Jack, the ground is frozen solid," Giles said softly.

"The dirt is like iron right now. Digging a trench big enough to surround the entire village will take a lot of men."

"Gather the village," Jack said.

"Everyone who can hold a tool." An hour later, the entire village was gathered at the edge of the settlement. The men held iron pickaxes, while the women and older children held iron buckets and wooden shovels. Jack stood before them, bundled in his winter coat.

"Listen closely!" Jack called out, ensuring everyone could hear him over the wind.

"We are going to dig a defensive trench around the village. The ground is hard, so we will not waste our strength swinging blindly." Jack pointed to a group of men pulling a wooden sled loaded with scrap branches, leftover bark from the felled trees.

"We will lay small lines of fire directly over the path where the trench needs to be," Jack instructed.

"Let the fire burn for an hour. The intense heat will melt the ice trapped in the soil and soften the top layer of the earth. Once the ground is soft, you dig. When you hit the hard, frozen dirt underneath, you stop, move the fire, and repeat the process." The villagers murmured in understanding. It was a tedious and extremely slow method, but it was the only way to break the winter earth.

"And do not throw the dirt away," Jack added firmly.

"Take every bucket of dirt you pull from the trench and pile it up against the inside base of the wooden palisade. Stamp it down hard. We will use the excavated soil to reinforce the bottom of the wall, making it impossible for anything to dig under." The work began immediately. Small, smoky fires were lit in a line around the edges of the village. The villagers huddled near the flames to stay warm while they waited for the earth to thaw.

As soon as the dirt turned into dark, workable mud, the men moved in with their pickaxes. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. It was miserable work. The mud was freezing cold, and the men's arms ached from swinging the iron tools. But they did not complain. They had warm cabins to sleep in and hot porridge waiting for them. They knew this trench was the only thing that would keep their families from being eaten. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

As the villagers established their digging routine, Jack pulled Giles and Barnaby aside.

"If we dig a deep trench entirely around the village, we will trap ourselves inside," Jack said, looking at the carpenter and the blacksmith.

"We need a way in and out for the hunting parties and the loggers. We need a single, highly secure entrance." Jack sketched his design in the dirt with his cane.

"Giles, you will stop digging the trench at the main road," Jack directed.

"Instead, you will build a fixed wooden ramp spanning across the gap. Use the strongest logs you can find. Make it wide enough for a handcart, but narrow enough that a dozen men can block it with spears." Giles studied the drawing.

"A ramp is easy enough to build, Lord Jack. But if the ramp is fixed, the beasts will just run right over it."

"They will run over the ramp, and they will immediately hit the gate," Jack replied, pointing to the end of the drawing.

"You will build a gatehouse right at the end of the ramp. A solid door of layered pine, reinforced with iron." Jack turned to Barnaby.

"Barnaby, we will also be needing iron hinges. And I need a locking mechanism. But here is the most important part: the gate must only be operable from the inside." Barnaby rubbed his beard, his eyes narrowing in thought.

"You want a winch system. Iron chains attached to the wooden locking bar. We can route the chains through an iron ring set into the roof of the gatehouse, leading down to a turning crank."

"Exactly," Jack said.

"No handles on the outside. Nothing a beast could accidentally hit or push. When the men are inside, they turn the crank, the bar drops into place, and the gate becomes a solid wall. Once it is locked, absolutely nothing gets in." Barnaby nodded slowly.

"It will take a lot of coal to forge chains like that, My Lord. And the ratchet gears for the winch will take precise hammering."

"Use all the coal you need," Jack ordered.

"Without that gate, the trench is useless." For the next two weeks, the village entered a strict, exhausting rhythm. During the day, the human laborers pushed themselves to the limit. Giles took a small crew into the woods to fell the pine trees and strip the branches. The rest of the village stayed behind, burning the earth, swinging pickaxes, and slowly digging the wide trench. Because Jack spent all his energy commanding the undead during the dark hours, his schedule completely flipped.

He slept through the days, rarely visiting the village square anymore. To the peasants, their young lord had become a mysterious, secluded figure, resting in his tower while his 'hidden mages' did the impossible night after night. As the sun set and the freezing night took over, the human workers retreated to the bathhouse to wash the mud from their skin, and then to their cabins to sleep. That was when Jack's real work began. Every single night, Jack sat in the high-backed chair in his locked bedroom.

Karen would leave him a large cup of herbal tea to keep him awake. Jack would drink it, shudder at the taste, and push his mind down into the crypts. He awakened the Night Shift. His fifteen skeletons, disguised in their boots and ragged black cloaks, marched out into the silent, snowy night. Jack mentally guided them to the woods. They wrapped the iron chains around their ribcages, leaned forward, and dragged the freshly cut timber back to the village.

Jack had to coordinate the skeletons to drag the logs, lift them into the holes the humans had dug, and pack the dirt back in to secure them. By the fifth night, Jack's head constantly throbbed. The mental strain of controlling fifteen individual units doing complex physical labor for hours straight was immense. His Grey Core hummed with a fierce, irritating heat. By the tenth night, Jack was surviving on purely stubborn willpower.

He sat in his chair, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers gripping the armrests tightly as he forced his mind to keep the skeletons moving perfectly in sync. If he lost focus for even a second, a skeleton might drop a log and crush the palisade. Down in the village, the progress was undeniable. Every morning, the villagers woke up to find another section of the wall completed. The private mages were hailed as tireless heroes. Barnaby's forge rang out through the days.

He hammered the scrap iron into unbreakable chains and hinges. Giles and his carpentry crew assembled the wooden gate exactly to Jack's specifications. On the fourteenth night, the weather took a turn for the worse. The wind howled furiously, driving sheets of snow against the castle windows. Inside his room, Jack was trembling slightly. The fatigue was settled deep in his bones. He looked through the empty eye sockets of the lead skeleton down in the woods. There was only one log left.

"Pick it up," Jack commanded mentally. The skeletons grabbed the chains. They marched through the blinding blizzard. The snow was incredibly deep, but their skeletal legs pushed through it without tiring. They reached the final gap in the perimeter, right next to the newly installed wooden gate. The skeletons hoisted the long pine log into the air. They guided the base of the trunk into the deep hole in the earth. Thud. The log settled into place.

Four of the skeletons climbed down into the deep trench to kick the dirt around the base of the log and stamp it down flat, securing the wood. Jack sat in his chair and slowly exhaled. He looked at the village through the skeletons' vision. The palisade wall was completely finished. It was an unbroken ring of timber. Outside the wooden wall, a wide, deep trench completely surrounded the settlement.

The only way inside the village was over the solid ramp, leading directly to Barnaby and Giles's iron-reinforced gate, which was currently barred shut from the inside. The village was entirely enclosed. It was no longer an open settlement. It was a fortress.

"Return to the crypts," Jack whispered in his mind. Eleven of the skeletons, who were standing clear of the trench, turned and began to walk around the outer perimeter of the village, heading for the mountain path that led up to the castle. But the four skeletons who had climbed down to pack the dirt just stood there. They turned around to follow, and bumped directly into the wall of the trench. Jack groaned, rubbing his burning eyes. He had just trapped four of his own workers at the bottom of a trench.

"Climb," Jack ordered wearily. It was a pathetic sight. The four trapped skeletons had to awkwardly boost each other up the wall of the trench. Bony fingers slipped on the icy wall. Jack had to painstakingly micromanage them, making one skeleton act as a stepstool so the others could grab the upper lip of the earth and drag themselves out of the pit. They tumbled over the edge and into the deep snow on the forest side of the trench. Jack had to force the last one to jump and pull itself up by its elbows.

All this work made jack extremely tired.

"Just… bury yourselves," Jack sighed. The four skeletons obediently laid down and started pulling the deep snow over their themselves until they were completely hidden.

"Get back to the crypts already." The mental connection severed. The sudden release of pressure in his head made Jack dizzy. He didn't even bother getting on the bed properly. He simply tipped sideways, collapsed onto his mattress, and fell into a deep sleep.