All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 231: The Blockade Tightens

By dawn, three supply wagons waited outside the registry with their tarps still tied down, the drivers standing beside their animals instead of unloading anything.

Hajin saw the problem from the registry roof while Ash slept against his chest, one hand tangled in his coat as the forge crews fed charcoal into Ferra’s pit.

Marrick came up the roof stairs clutching a message tube against his ribs, "the southern wagons came back, they reached the Flint road post, then the captain stamped every permit and sent them home."

Hajin took the papers, finding three cargo passes marked with the same red seal across the center.

{Cargo restricted under emergency regional quarantine authority. Passage denied pending capital review.}

"What were they carrying?" He read the seal again while Ash shifted against his collar.

"Mostly refined coal, with the kiln brick and nails Ferra requested," Marrick rubbed ink from his thumb, "Seliza’s people paid before the Flint riders stopped the wagons."

The forge needed the coal more than it needed another speech about defiance, but the stamped papers gave the Patriarch a cleaner weapon than a sword. Juna joined him with her glaive across one shoulder, her ears turning toward the drivers gathered below.

"They put men on the road," she said, looking at the red wax, "so we find those men and remove them."

"If we cut down a road post first, they get the war they want," he replied, folding the papers into the message tube, "we need to know how much road they actually hold."

Vella followed with two mugs hooked between her fingers, "the drivers have been waiting since before sunrise, and one split his palm trying to unload alone after everyone else stopped him."

"Did any of them see the post?" He asked, taking the cup as the steam hit his face.

Vella passed him one mug, "horses, a barrier cart, and a Flint captain who read the same permit until they understood he would not move."

Marrick opened his ledger against the roof ledge, "the blockade was supposed to starve us slowly, but the forge schedule fails tomorrow if Ferra cannot get fuel."

Hajin looked toward the eastern sector where Ferra shouted at a pair of masons beside the ceramic basin.

"Tell her she gets local charcoal for one day," he handed Marrick the message tube, "then ask what she can make from mountain clay before noon."

"One day," Marrick copied the deadline beside the forge expenses, driving the nib through the page.

Ash woke when Juna reached for him, blinking up at her before he grabbed the strap on Hajin’s shoulder and refused to let go.

"Take him to Vella’s clinic," he told Juna, easing the child’s fingers loose one at a time, "I need to see the road before the Flint captain thinks his stamp settled anything."

Juna took Ash against her hip, "I am coming, and you can inspect riders without making it sound like a funeral."

Loccy climbed the last stair with her hammer balanced against her shoulder, "are we hitting the road, or am I carrying rocks again?"

"You can carry stone for the watchposts," he headed for the stairs, "if a rider attacks, show them what that hammer can do."

She followed him downstairs, already asking Marrick how many stones counted as a watchpost.

[ GoldRushGamer: ] Flint really stamped a trade permit and thought that was enough to stop a mountain full of gold

[ RationalSkeptic7: ] It is enough if Hajin attacks first, quarantine authority gives the Crown an excuse to call him the aggressor

[ Loccy_Defense_Squad: ] LET LOCCY BUILD THE WALL AND THEN LET HER TEST THE WALL

[ ashley (Mod): ] Keep the drivers and workers behind the town line, chat, this is exactly how raids start.

The mine road left town behind the clinic, winding east through pine cover before climbing toward the gold mountain.

Workers had cleared the roadside brush after Seliza’s engineers marked the route, but every man holding a shovel watched the trees more often than the ground.

Hajin walked ahead with Juna beside him while Loccy carried a stack of sharpened posts under one arm.

"Marrick sent us when he saw the returned wagons," Elise said, keeping her hand near the staff on her back, "the drivers said Flint riders checked every side trail on their way home."

"They did not need to check every trail unless they expect us to use one," Sable added, scanning the slope above the road, "a post works only while everyone believes there is no way around it."

Hajin stopped at a narrow turn caught between a steep drop and broken ground, "this is where we build first, Loccy, stack the loose rock waist-high, but leave one cart opening."

Loccy dropped the sharpened posts beside Juna before walking upslope, then carried back a block that three workers had failed to move.

"What is the opening for?" she carried the block back toward the road while dirt slid from its underside.

"So riders enter where we choose," he watched her place it, "then our people know where to stand."

Sable crouched near the edge, pressing two fingers into a shallow rut where wagon wheels had churned the ground.

"A small force can hold this bend if they have bows," she said, looking toward the trees, "but they can also come from the ridge and trap anyone standing below."

Juna lifted her head, drawing a slow breath through her nose before her eyes narrowed at the northern tree line.

"There are horses up there," she said, her voice lowering, "two, maybe three, and someone burned tobacco near the roots."

No rider showed himself, though a bridle clicked once before the sound pulled deeper into the trees.

"Elise, take the south trail and find where it meets the main road," he said, turning toward Sable, "you go north, mark any place a horse can cross without breaking its legs."

Elise looked toward the trees and then back at the returned wagon tracks, her fingers tightening around her staff.

"You want us that close to their patrol?" she asked, trying to keep the question steady while the riders stayed hidden above them.

"I want their numbers without trading either of you for them," he pointed toward the road behind him, "circle back within half an hour, and if one patrol changes direction, you leave."

Sable gave Elise a short nod, then drew her hood up before moving into the north trees without another word.

Elise followed the southern slope after checking the sun’s position, leaving Juna and Hajin beside Loccy’s half-built wall.

"You are letting them go alone," Juna said, holding Ash tighter when the child leaned toward the trees, "they are better, but the riders are not monsters."

"That is why this matters," he watched Loccy fit another block into place, "they need to learn how people move before they have to stop them."

Ash blink-stepped out of Juna’s arms before she could close her grip, appearing on top of the new wall with both feet planted wide.

He copied Loccy’s stance, stared at the ridge, then growled at the hidden horses.

One horse answered with a snort before its rider dragged it farther from the road.

Loccy turned to laugh and lost her grip on the block, forcing Hajin to catch it with Aegis before it crushed the wall beneath Ash.

"He scared them," Loccy took the stone back while Ash bared his small teeth at the ridge, "he is good at watchpost work."

"He is good at making problems shorter," he replied, lifting Ash down by the front of his coat, "which is different from guard duty."

The child objected by biting the air near Hajin’s wrist, then settled when Juna took him back and tucked his face against her shoulder. Sable returned before the half hour ended, carrying mud on both knees plus three iron caltrops wrapped inside her marked cloth.

"The northern route is closed," she unrolled the cloth across a flat rock, "the Flint patrol cut three trees across it and buried caltrops where anyone moving fast would step."

Hajin studied the cloth where Sable had marked the obstacles with charcoal, seeing the same careful shape repeated at every approach.

"They are not just blocking coal," he said, tracing the marked lines, "they are mapping how we answer."

Elise returned several minutes later with yellow clay up both legs, keeping below the wall until Juna confirmed no rider had followed.

"There is a kiln road below the ridge," she said, holding out a broken brick with a Flint seal pressed into its side, "the captain turned the wagons around, then sent riders to buy every load before it reached us."

The Flints had blocked the finished brick, bought the raw clay, and trapped the remaining paths before the forge reached its first burn.

Hajin took the brick, turning the red stamp beneath his thumb before passing it to Juna.

"They can buy roads and clay for now," he said, looking toward the ridge where the riders had disappeared, "we build with what they forgot to price."

Juna looked down at the half-finished wall, then toward the town where smoke already rose from Ferra’s pit.

"And when they come for that?" she asked, her hand closing around the stamped brick.

Hajin watched Loccy set the final block into place, leaving one cart opening exactly where he had asked.

"Then they find out why we built the wall first," he said, taking Ash from Juna before starting back toward the town.