Read Storm Rising for Free Online

too, realized they might be grateful for such protection before long.
    But even if Tremane had not personally felt a need for this wall, he would have had the men out doing
something
constructive. The best way to keep them from getting into trouble was to keep them busy—too busy to make up rumors and spread them, too busy to think of anything other than the good, hot meal waiting for them at the end of the day, and the warm bed to follow that.
    The duties varied, and the men were rotated out through all of them unless their skills were particularly needed on one specific job. Those not actually laying bricks or making them were cutting stone, building molds, crushing stone, carrying bricks, or mixing cement and mortar.
    And when the wall was complete—which looked to be sooner than he had hoped, for the men worked with a will and a speed he had not expected—he would put them to building winter quarters as soon as the designwas determined. That could not come soon enough, and he hoped that somewhere among all of the books he had dragged with him on this journey there would
be
a design. Something that could concentrate and hold heat, something to take a winter a hundred times worse than any he had endured. He had to plan for the worst, then assume that his imagination was not up to the reality and add to his plans.
    Perhaps—I wonder if I can’t build the kitchens onto the barracks, and use the waste heat from the ovens and stoves to heat the barracks….
    The thin, gray light filtering through the clouds made everything look faded and washed out, as if all the life had been leeched out of the world. Although there was no wind, the air was chilly and damp, and he was glad of his uniform cape.
    There was a certain nervousness in the way the men moved, nervousness that had nothing to do with the inspection. Perhaps rumors were spreading about the newest monstrous creatures showing up in the countryside. If that happened to be the case—the men could be even more eager to see the wall completed than their commander was!
I would not be unhappy if they acquired a sense of urgency on their own. Fear is a powerful motivator, and the more motivation they have, the faster the walls will go up.
    He made a point of watching the men work at each section and complimenting the team leaders on their effort. At least the Hardornen rebels were no longer a factor. Where they had gone, Tremane had no firm answer, but he had some guesses and one of them was probably very close to being correct.
    The rebels were, in the main, Hardornen farmers; the rest were young hotheads playing at being virtuous heroes. The former had crops to get in, and the latter were not numerous enough to make a head-on attack on a fortified town.
    That was his optimistic guess. His pessimistic projection was far different, and he could not even begin to guess how probable it was.
    There might be something out there that had eludedhis own patrols; something that was concentrating on the Hardornens, who were not as well armed or armored, and not as accustomed to fighting eldritch creatures as the Imperial forces were. The Imperials were ensconced in one place, behind a wall; the Hardornen rebels had been in concealed camps scattered everywhere. It would be much easier for a clever, powerful creature to take men in a series of scattered camps than to pry the Imperials out of their protections.
    On one hand, even the pessimistic guess allowed for a certain relief. If mage-warped creatures were out there picking off the Hardornens, then neither the Hardornens nor the monsters were attacking
his
men. But if that
was
the case and it was not simply that now that the Imperials were bottled up in one place, soldiering farmers had gone back to their farms, then sooner or later Tremane and his men would have to deal with whatever it was that was giving the natives trouble.
    He hoped the reason for their current state of “peace” was just the harvest and the coming winter. He