Chapter Seventeen: The Ferryman and the Fist

The horn blared once—long and low.

It rolled over the water like thunder, echoed off the mountains, and sent the gulls shrieking into the grey sky. Urlock the ferryman looked up from the shore, squinting into the fog as ripples reached his boat, rocking it hard enough to spill his net of trout.

He spat into the loch and cursed.

“Damn them southbound devils. Damn their iron keels and coin-warped law.”

Out on the water, the haze began to part.

Black shapes surged forward—ships, low and sleek, not fishing vessels or tradeboats, but warcraft, their hulls painted dark with no crest to name them. The lead galley punched a wake before it, water foaming at its prow like a sword through cloth. Behind it came another, and then another, until five in total bore down on the mid-loch passage like a tide of iron.

The loch heaved, stirred from its ancient peace. Urlock felt it in his bones.

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The Southern Tide

From the bow of the foremost ship, a trumpet rang out again.

The flag unfurled, and with it, the truth: a clenched black fist on crimson field—the King’s banner, yes, but altered. Not the royal sun. Not the falcon of the old line. This was new. Meant for fear, not fealty.

The ships surged toward the Loch Gate—an ancient structure, part fortress, part canal, its iron-and-oak sluice rising from stone pillars that straddled the loch’s narrowing throat. Built long ago to keep pirates and Highland warbands at bay, the gate had stood sealed for years.

Today, it opened.

With groaning chains and a thunderous splash, the barrier split wide, and the King's ships pushed through, breaching the invisible line between southern dominion and Highland defiance.

Urlock stood at his ferry dock and crossed himself with lakewater.

“The mouth opens,” he muttered, “and the devil sails in.”

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The Village of Unease

Past the gate, the ships slid into harbor, mooring rough and fast. Soldiers spilled ashore—hundreds of them, steel-helmed, thin-eyed, and hardened from southern campaigns. Veterans of border wars. Mercenaries turned loyalists. Paid in silver and promised land.

Their boots hit stone with the rhythm of a funeral drum. They did not speak. They simply marched.

Some bore long black banners. Others, crates of weapons. Horses were led ashore, muscle-bound beasts that snorted steam and reeked of blood and oil.

“Professional men,” Urlock whispered. “Not conscripts. Not lads. Killers.”

The village by the loch—once sleepy, slow, and steady—groaned under the weight of the southern arrival. Taverns overflowed with shouting soldiers. Inns were bought out for weeks in coin thicker than most villagers saw in a season. Prices rose. Tempers frayed.

And eyes… eyes watched.

Local men kept their heads down, fists clenched behind backs. The older ones remembered. Remembered what it was like to see banners not their own flying over their hearths. They remembered how uprisings ended.

“First comes the march. Then comes the tax. Then the noose.”

So it was said. So it would be again.

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The Commander's Words

On the bluff above the docks, the southern commander surveyed the spread of his army. His name was Herrick, and his eyes were cold stone. He wore no plume, no shine—just hardened leather and mail that bore the marks of old fights.

“Secure the inns. Set the tents west of the village. Tell the blacksmith he works for us now,” he said, voice quiet but final. “Let them know the King’s will rides with steel.”

His captain shifted. “What if they resist?”

Herrick glanced at the loch, now still again, but tainted.

“Then we remind them. The gate’s open now. And it won’t close until this place kneels.”

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A Warning in the Wind

From atop the loch’s eastern rise, an old piper played a mournful tune into the wind. No one asked him to. No one stopped him. The sound drifted over the new camp, over the tents and campfires, and into the soldiers’ dreams that night.

It was an old song. A warning.

Of the highlands that do not yield.

Of hounds that walk through mist.

Of blood on the moss and stone.

Commander Herrick stared into the flames.

“Let them play,” he said. “Let them grieve. The King will not.”

Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3