Chapter 214: Retreat
Helmar abandoned the eastern barracks before Rod attacked it.
At dawn, Renn’s forces found its doors barred and its firing positions occupied by wooden figures wearing spare helmets. The deception bought Helmar less than an hour. Dirk’s scouts noticed that none of the shapes moved when sunlight crossed their faces.
The defenders had withdrawn toward the central building and mine.
Rod did not rush after them. The empty barracks might contain traps, concealed soldiers, or records worth preserving. Ward specialists entered first while Dain’s formation protected the approaches.
They found two delayed fire runes beneath the records room.
One had already begun heating. The specialists disabled it before the stored documents ignited. The other was attached to a support column and would have brought part of the building down upon anyone trying to save the files.
"Helmar wants evidence destroyed more than he wants this position held." Renn said.
Korran opened the first cabinet. Employee lists, equipment assignments, and payment ledgers remained inside. "Then we keep everything he failed to burn."
The documents would later matter in Ironcloud. For now, Rod assigned guards to the building and continued toward the center.
The remaining defense followed a narrower perimeter. Metal barriers sealed alleys between workshops. Archers occupied the central roof, while shielded soldiers stood before the mine entrance. Helmar’s family colors had disappeared. His personal emblem replaced them.
Renn walked forward beneath the Ruskell banner with Korran and Rod beside him.
"Blackwater Reach belongs to the Ruskell family." Renn called. "Not to Helmar alone. The council has recognized me as family head. Anyone who surrenders now will be judged for his own actions, not Helmar’s."
A voice from the roof shouted that Renn brought immortal foreign thieves.
Korran answered. "Then come down and stand beside your family instead of a wanted murderer."
The first soldier left through a side door ten minutes later. He carried no weapon and held both hands above his head. Two more followed. By the time Rod ordered the advance, eighteen defenders had surrendered.
Helmar responded by activating the inner wards.
Lines of red light crossed the compound. Metal shutters dropped over doors, separating the defenders into protected sections. The mine barrier brightened until the stone around it hummed.
Lana divided the mages between three anchors. Valewick joined the group targeting the central roof.
"Disrupt their protection." She told him. "Do not collapse the building."
"The cleanest method requires simultaneous pressure on four points."
"You have three mages and one minute."
Valewick began assigning positions. When the fourth point remained uncovered, he altered the spell instead of demanding another caster. The resulting discharge peeled the roof ward away in uneven strips.
Dirk’s archers fired through the gaps.
The defenders abandoned the roof.
Rod’s front line struck the barriers while the southern group entered a workshop passage found on Lucian’s copied map. Helmar had reinforced its far door but left the connecting rooms lightly defended. Dain led the breach from the opposite side.
Fighting spread through the central building.
Rod encountered Helmar’s household guards in a stone receiving room. They wore better armor than the outer soldiers and carried weapons marked with enchantments. None accepted Renn’s surrender terms.
Their captain attacked Rod directly.
The dwarf’s hammer struck hard enough to crack the floor. Rod caught the second blow against his axe and allowed it to slide past rather than trying to stop the full force. Dain blocked two guards attempting to flank him.
Rod drove his shoulder into the captain, forced him against a column, and struck the joint beneath his raised arm. The captain’s armor split. A second axe blow ended the fight.
The remaining household guards withdrew toward the mine.
Nessa’s healers followed the advance. They treated surrendered soldiers and Rod’s wounded, then marked cleared rooms so later groups did not waste time searching them again.
In Helmar’s office, Renn found cabinets emptied and maps torn from the walls. The desk remained because it had been bolted to the floor.
Korran discovered a ledger hidden behind a metal panel. It recorded slave purchases through companies connected to the ship Five Knots had destroyed. Numbers replaced names. Delivery totals ended at Blackwater, while supply orders continued for work areas below the known mine.
"Keep it." Renn said.
"I had not planned to return it to him." Korran said with a roll of his eyes. Of course he was going to secure the ledger.
The sound of fighting moved closer to the mine entrance.
Helmar stood beyond its inner barrier with Brogan, engineers, and fewer than forty elite guards. Crates of supplies had already been taken below. Captive workers carried the last loads under guard.
Brogan examined the barrier controls. "It will hold for twenty minutes after we leave."
"Make it thirty."
"Then we lose another ten men keeping the anchors active."
Helmar looked at the guards assigned to the task. "They know what failure costs."
Brogan did not argue.
Helmar entered the mine.
Behind him, the remaining surface defenders heard Renn’s offer repeated through the central building. Some continued fighting. Others discovered Helmar had taken the supplies and strongest guards while leaving them to delay his pursuers.
The defense fractured.
One unit opened a side door and surrendered together. Another killed its officer after he attempted to trigger a fire rune in the workers’ quarters. Rod’s southern group reached the inner yard without resistance.
The final organized defense held around the mine barrier.
Smashing the anchors might collapse part of the entrance. Lana and the ward specialists studied the controls while archers suppressed the remaining guards.
"The barrier draws from three stations." One specialist said. "Two are inside the protected area."
"The third?"
He pointed toward the central building. "Below Helmar’s office."
Renn knew the family construction better than the newer ward system. He found an old service stair behind the records cabinet. Korran and six adventurers followed him beneath the office.
The stair ended at a chamber containing the third anchor and four defenders.
Korran addressed them by name. Two were distant relatives. The others had served Blackwater before Helmar moved his household there.
"The property has fallen." Korran said. "Helmar left you to hold a device while he fled below."
The senior guard looked at Renn. "Are the council papers genuine?"
Renn handed him the sealed copy without approaching close enough to appear threatening.
The guard read it. "Helmar said the council never ruled."
"He received the summons and refused to attend."
The guard lowered his weapon. The others followed.
Renn deactivated the anchor.
The mine barrier weakened. Lana’s specialists broke the remaining stations without collapsing the entrance, and Dain’s fighters overwhelmed the guards who continued resisting.
Blackwater Reach belonged to Renn in more than a council record.
Before organizing the pursuit, Renn crossed the central yard with Korran and the relatives who had followed behind the assault. Blackwater’s surviving soldiers assembled without weapons near the captured barracks. Some watched Renn with open resentment. Others appeared relieved that the fighting had ended.
Renn climbed the steps of the central building and replaced Helmar’s personal emblem with the Ruskell banner. He did not give a victory speech.
"The council recognized me as head of this family." He said. "I will not punish anyone merely for receiving wages from Blackwater. Officers who participated in slavery, murder, or the destruction of evidence will answer for what they did. Everyone else will be given the choice to remain under lawful command or leave after the property is secured."
One guard asked whether Helmar was still family.
"Blood does not disappear because the council issued a ruling." Renn answered. "Neither do his crimes."
That response disappointed people hoping for hatred and reassured those expecting a purge.
Korran called forward the senior surrendered officers one at a time. They identified their units, reported remaining weapons, and named the locations Helmar had ordered trapped. Renn made no attempt to remember every face while the battle still continued below. He relied upon Korran to organize the information and upon Ironcloud to judge evidence later.
The exchange established the first shape of Renn’s authority. Helmar had demanded loyalty to himself. Renn expected obedience to rules that also limited what Renn could do.
The victory created immediate problems. Hundreds of surrendered soldiers needed to be disarmed and separated from officers implicated in Helmar’s crimes. Buildings required searches for traps and evidence. The airships that withdrew might return with reinforcements. No one knew whether Helmar had prepared charges beneath the compound.
Rod refused to take the entire force underground.
"We won the property." He told the group leaders. "Keep it won."
He assigned most adventurers to secure the perimeter, search buildings, and supervise surrenders. Nessa established a central treatment area with healers who would remain above. Ruskell relatives began identifying soldiers and workers.
Korran moved between every problem without needing Renn to direct him. He found keys for locked stores, assigned trustworthy guards to the records, and stopped two adventurers from claiming Helmar’s weapons as personal loot.
Renn noticed.
"I need you here." He said.
Korran looked toward the mine. "You are going below."
"Helmar took the ring’s answer with him. He also took slaves."
"Then leave someone capable of speaking for you above."
Renn handed him a second copy of the council authorization. "Blackwater is yours until I return."
Korran accepted it. "Blackwater remains yours. I will manage it."
Before Rod selected the group that would enter the mine, every adventurer transferred their resurrection point to Blackwater Reach’s local graveyard. The graveyard had been neglected while Helmar controlled the property, but its connection to Corathen’s resurrection system still functioned. One by one, the adventurers confirmed the change and checked that they possessed enough dungeon coins to return immediately. Anyone killed below would now revive at Blackwater instead of a distant settlement, allowing them to replace their equipment and rejoin the operation without spending hours traveling back across Corathen.
Rod ordered fresh weapons, armor, potions, and lamps placed beside the graveyard before anyone entered the mine. He then selected twenty adventurers to accompany his party and Renn into the mine. The group included two additional healers, three ward specialists, scouts, and fighters experienced underground. Valewick joined the mages assigned to the pursuit.
Lana examined Valewick for injuries before looking over the damage to his equipment. "You have already done more than enough to satisfy any Academy field requirement. No one could accuse you of abandoning the mission if you remained here with the wounded."
Valewick looked toward the mine entrance. "Helmar still has captives underground. I did not volunteer merely to earn credit from the Academy and leave as soon as the requirement was fulfilled."
"I was not telling you to leave." Lana said. "I needed to know whether you were continuing because you chose to or because you thought withdrawing would make you look like a coward."
"I have enough mana to continue, and none of my injuries will prevent me from casting." Valewick opened his supply pouch and counted the potions and mana stones that remained. "My reserves are lower than I would prefer, but I can still maintain barriers for the group."
"Then stay close and tell me before your mana becomes a problem." Lana said. "We are going underground to rescue those captives. This is not the time to conceal a weakness for the sake of pride."
Valewick secured the pouch at his side. "You will know the moment I can no longer perform my role. Until then, I am continuing with you."
They replaced damaged equipment and gathered food, rope, lamps, healing supplies, and tools from Blackwater’s stores. Lucian had warned them that the available maps ended far above Helmar’s true objective. They prepared for a prolonged descent rather than a short pursuit.
Dirk spread the most detailed underground map across a supply crate. "Helmar controlled Blackwater Reach for years, so we have to assume he knows every route shown here."
"He knows far more than that." Renn said. "These maps record the sections operated as ordinary mines. Whatever Helmar found below them was kept out of the family archives."
Dirk traced the lowest marked tunnel with one finger. "Then this is probably where the reliable information ends. Once we pass this point, we will be entering passages Helmar understands and we do not."
"Lucian found supply records for areas deeper in the mine." Rod said. "That proves Helmar established a route, even if we do not know where it begins."
"He will expect us to follow him." Dirk replied. "Any obvious path leading below the mapped tunnels should be treated as trapped until I confirm otherwise. He may also collapse passages behind his own force to keep us from reaching him."
Dain looked toward the workers dismantling the last pieces of the barrier. "Can you find the traps quickly enough to keep us from falling too far behind?"
"I can find most traps if everyone gives me time to work." Dirk said. "What I cannot do is scout properly while half the group crowds behind me and argues about every delay."
Rod looked around at the others. "Once we enter the mine, Dirk leads unless we are already in a fight. No one passes him without permission, and no one touches a door, lever, abandoned pack, or convenient pile of supplies until he checks it."
Valewick studied the lines branching away from the main shaft. "If Helmar prepared the route in advance, he may use magical wards as well as mechanical traps."
"That is why we are coming." Lana said. "Dirk will identify anything physical. You and I will examine the magic. If either of you has doubts about a passage, we stop until we understand what is waiting for us."
Renn looked toward the unmarked space beneath the map. "Every delay gives Helmar more time to reach whatever he has hidden below."
"Rushing into the trap he left for us will give him even more time." Rod said. "We will move as quickly as Dirk and the mages consider safe. Helmar cannot use the ring without taking it from you, so he still needs us to reach him."
Nessa joined them after appointing another healer to manage the surface station. "The wounded are stable, and the replacement healer knows where every supply is stored. I am going below with the pursuit group."
Rod glanced toward the station. "Are you certain they can manage without you?"
"They have enough healers to hold the surface." Nessa replied. "You are about to enter an unmapped mine filled with traps, armed guards, and captives who may need immediate treatment. My place is with your group."
Dain finished checking the last shield and handed it to one of the adventurers accompanying them. "Our equipment is ready. We should decide the marching order before we enter."
"Dirk takes the lead." Rod said. "Dain follows close enough to protect him. Lana and Valewick remain behind them so they can inspect wards without blocking the passage. Renn stays in the center with Nessa, and I will cover the rear with the remaining adventurers."
Renn folded the map and placed it inside a protected case. "Then we are as prepared as we can be without knowing what waits below."
Rod watched the workers drag the final section of the disabled barrier away from the mine entrance. "We will learn soon enough. Everyone should check their equipment one last time before we descend."
The air emerging from below carried dust, metal, and the faint sound of distant machinery.
Renn touched the ring beneath his armor.
He had reclaimed his family’s property. He still had no idea why Helmar considered it worth murdering them.
Rod lifted his axe and entered the mine.
The others followed in their assigned order. Dirk and two scouts took the lead, with Rod and Dain close enough to reinforce them. Renn traveled between Lana and Korran’s chosen guard, protected without being prevented from seeing what Helmar had done below.