Dawn put a clean edge on Neutral Knoll. Flags lifted without drama; carts lined the grass in patient rows; the soup tent breathed like a friendly animal. Oakwatch flashed a quiet wink upriver, and the horn cairns along Founders' Way hummed the same note when Jory tapped them—each a syllable in the language of ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Regional• Road Accord convocation at Neutral Knoll (Novaterra, Dominion of the Fox, Riversong, Silverbrook, Turnstone, Millcross)• Objective: Pact of Brooms — standard horns, shared patrols, road rules• Cordon: Riversong Fort arcs steady; spawn window 11–16 days (watch)• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Work-bright 🙂
Aiden stood on a plank table with the Bridge Law board behind him: No charms. No slaves. No trophies. Debt cannot seize tools. He set a second board beside it, chalk-clean.
"Law tells us who we are," he said. "Signals tell us how we move. Today we do both."
Lucien Duvall rode up like a pause placed on purpose. He dismounted with insulting grace and brushed invisible dust from his sleeve. Riversong's elder Marta came on a mule with dignity older than everybody. Ana of Silverbrook had ink on her fingers and a ledger in her head. Two hamlet reeves—Turnstone and Millcross—brought men with hands hard from seasons, not swords.
Elara stood where all could see and none could ignore. Jory leaned against the low watch scaffold, horn across his knees like a cat that might purr or bite. 🫡
"First: standard horns," Aiden said, chalking as he spoke.
1 long — Spine/Muster line
2 short — Make way/Polite compress
4 broken — Ambush/Drum
5 rising — Left/Right
7 steady — Stakes set/Hold
8 falling — NO chase/Refuse
"And bells remain inside," Elara added, tone flat as law. "No bell for war. Horns only."
Mara hung the Bell-Code plank for the visitors anyway: Smoke, Clinic, Muster, Drill. "Soup doesn't run," she said. 🍲😑
Lucien lifted a hand. "May I add a merchant's vanity?" He pointed his quill at the board. "Two short has saved more linen than my vault. I propose a courtesy addition: when horns run on a road, carts step out, no charge."
"Done," Aiden said. "Carts step out. No tolls for obeying manners."
Marta of Riversong, who did not smile much, smiled. "You'll be surprised how many men behave if you congratulate them for the easy thing."
Ana set a broom on the table. It was an ordinary broom: willow twigs, a straight stick, cinched twice with river cord. "This is our banner," she said. "We sweep the roads. We sweep the fear. We sweep the bead-charms into the fire. Call it the Pact of Brooms."
Everyone looked at the stick. It was ridiculous. It was perfect.
"Let the record show we carried a broom before we carried a banner," Venn said, satisfied by symbols that didn't ask to be fed.
— Accord — Pact of Brooms (Regional Road Pact)• Standardized horn lexicon adopted (1L/2S/4B/5R/7S/8F)• Bells: internal only (no external alarms)• Broom Patrols: mixed-settlement road sweeps (rotate weekly)• Courtesy: carts step out on 2 short; no tolls for compliance• Bridge Law appended to road posts (no charms/slaves/trophies)
Clove drifted at the edge with empty hands and pond eyes. "Sweeping is good business," he murmured. "Hard to sell fear on a clean road."
"Tell your employer to bring a broom next time," Mara said, and filled his bowl to the line anyway. 🍲🙂
They wrote assignments. Week One Patrol: Riversong and Novaterra—Bryn to lead, two of Lucien's fox riders as eyes, a wagon with spare mouthpieces, rope coils, sand, and a small firepan for bead-charms. Week Two: Silverbrook and Millcross. Week Three: Dominion and Turnstone.
Elara hung flag posts at the Knoll's corners: green (move), yellow (prepare), white (parley). "Horns talk first," she said. "Flags clarify politely."
Jory climbed the scaffold and kissed the mouthpiece. "We rehearse the song," he said. He tapped Cairn #1 with his heel out of habit. The stone hummed like a child quietly proud.
One long.
Aiden's horn at Oakwatch—faint with distance—answered one long. Cairn #8 flashed light — . (ready). Duvall's trumpeter Baptiste lifted his cornet at the far wagons and knitted a polite 2 short that made a pair of stubborn oxen step out like dancers. The line moved with manners.
"Four broken," Jory sent toward the west run. Bryn's Pathfinders echoed it once, to show they knew the word and would not waste it. The air folded it into memory.
"Eight falling," Jory tried, and you could feel hundreds of heels resist the itch to run. The sound put a leash on after.
"Five rising, green," he finished, and the light cavalry from both banks braided dust and then left it, as taught.
The Knoll breathed. The world looked a hair less interested in being cruel.
— Signal Net — Regional Rehearsal• Horns answered in sequence (10 nodes); drift corrected at two cairns• Round-trip echo: 62 seconds Knoll ↔ Oakwatch ↔ Knoll• Courtesy compliance: carts stepped out on 2 short, no tolls levied• Panic events: 0
The Pact needed ink. Venn produced sheets and a ridiculous pen. People signed with names and crafts: Aiden, lord; Elara, keeper of edges; Lucien Duvall, merchant-lord; Ana of Silverbrook, miller and scribe; Marta of Riversong, elder; Jory, horn; Bryn, eyes; Mara, soup; Hadrik, iron; Kessa, gear; Calder, steady hands. A broom was sketched at the bottom with Lia's cousin's careful pride. 🧹
"Now we sweep," Ana said, very pleased with her stick.
Broom Patrol One set off after noon with a small, useful pomp: eight foot, two riders (fox-serpentine types pretending they weren't vain), a broom lashed upright on each spear. Bryn walked with her easy, predatory patience; Hale adjusted gourds with a twist of wrist; Ras tucked spare mouthpieces in rock lips like a mother hiding sweets in sensible places.
"Eyes first," Bryn reminded quietly. "Knives last."
They reached Turnstone Bridge—planks honest, rail tied with a dirty charm string someone had been fool enough to leave. It wore beads like flies.
"Evidence," Ras said.
"Work," Bryn corrected. She untied the trash and dropped it into the firepan. The beads popped like small lies. The fox riders looked wrongly sentimental about the hiss and then tried to look un-sentimental and failed. 😌
At Millcross Rise, a cut-bank had grown back the habit of being smug—brush laid just so, a drum tucked as if it had found a new job. Bryn's fingers barely moved. The riders drifted to polite positions. Hale's whipline waited like a joke not told. They didn't spring it; they marked it—skull symbol, NOT SOUP in chalk—and planted a flag where a hurried man would see it and slow down on purpose.
"You don't pull every tooth," Bryn said to the fox lad at her right. "Sometimes you put a tongue where it will bite itself if it tries."
He nodded, enjoying learning something that made him feel clever without being stupid. "We'll put that in the serpentine drills," he promised.
They found a wedding-bead pedlar at the Knoll spur, tray under his cloak again, face arranged into helpless honesty.
"No charms," Elara had said to the world. Today, Bryn said it for her. "Bridge Law."
The man smiled with exactly three wrong teeth and tried a proverb about luck. Mara appeared behind Bryn with a rope and a pen. "We sell wedding knots," she said. "They don't break when you sweat." The pedlar looked at the rope like it had insulted his mother and her accountant. He left on a cart that suddenly had two short expressed at it until it decided to make way for the future.
— Broom Patrol Log (Day 1)• Charms removed: 3 (burned)• Cut-bank ambush: 1 (marked/denied)• Gourds tuned: 2; Mouthpiece caches: 2• Contacts: 1 bead pedlar (warned off); no raiders engaged
At the western shoulder, the patrol paused. Dust rose far off—thin, exploratory, not yet hungry. Bryn's head tilted. "Scouts," she said. "Not ours."
Jory, back at the Knoll, had been tuning his mouthpiece because men who love their instrument are boring in helpful ways. When the gourd at Cairn #5 purred—the little tell he'd taught it—he blew 2 short in a way that made the road both polite and ready.
On the far ridge, two riders under a cloth smear—no banner—stopped and listened to a world that knew its words. Heels turned. Dust chose a different day.
"Sometimes you win by making the air louder than you are," Aiden said softly, watching the specks go instead of seeing drama that wasn't needed.
Lucien, who had seen a lot of men choose the wrong stage, nodded, truly pleased. "Your horns are bad for business," he said in a tone that meant thank you.
Afternoon turned busy in the good way.
At Oakwatch, Kessa and Ansel slid the signal panes into their glazed cradle; Jory ticked the shelf marks; light hops — . (ready) became a pastime for children who were banned from the shelf and respected the ban 60% of the time. 😅
At Founders' Way, Mara hung a small road shrine—a peg for travelers to leave knitting, a cup for Night Soup, a chalk line where tired hands could write I came this far.
Calder scribed clinic rules on a neat board: wash, wait, tell truth about pain, and somehow made men obey because his eyes were gentle and his bandages were arrogant.
Venn hammered Pact planks at both ends of the Knoll: horns, brooms, Bridge Law, tolls that were not tolls (because courtesies don't collect coin).
Lucien's riders ran a serpentine class for the hamlet lads and did not gloat when a broom-on-a-spear wobbled through Gate Two. Renard clapped without acting. Ana of Silverbrook taught two carts how not to tip themselves when a horn asks them to dance. Marta of Riversong took three children aside and told them stories about why flags matter, and each child grew half an inch out of stubbornness. 🙂
Clove wrote nothing. He watched everything. Late, he left Aiden a small folded note like a leaf.
To the Lord Who Likes Brooms,You are making beads harder to sell and fear harder to rent.I approve, although my employer does not.
Advice, offered freely: Pacts rot if the first rain gets under them.Nail your boards.
— C.
Aiden tucked the note under the Pact board with a nail.
"Rain?" Elara asked.
"Storm practice," Aiden answered. "Tonight."
She grinned, very slightly. "Good arithmetic."
Dusk softened the Knoll to a good kind of quiet. Then practice happened.
Jory blew 4 broken—ambush echo—purely a drill. The air carried it to Cairn #6 and on to Oakwatch and back again. Flags yellow lifted on posts, then green dropped as 1 long laid the spine and 7 steady set imaginary stakes. 2 short rippled carts polite. There was no panic. There was music.
Lucien's trumpeter matched Jory so well the sound seemed to come from a single, larger town.
On the far rise, where today's scouts had paused, three Three Slashes riders sat their tired horses and listened. They were too far for faces. They were close enough for a reconsideration. One of them—small in the saddle—raised a hand, then let it fall. They turned away.
"Sound is cheap," Ana said, pleased. "We should buy more."
"We will," Venn promised, already budgeting mouthpieces like seed.
— Regional Trait — Pact of Brooms• Reaction speed +10% on marked road net• Market panic −10% when horns used for courtesy (not alarms)• Raider approach threshold increased (sound deterrence)
The Broom Patrol returned at lantern-light, bristles dirty, flag posts scuffed, faces smug in that way only people with blisters may be. Bryn handed Ana the bead ash tin. "Trash burned clean," she said. "Road looks like it belongs to us again."
"Then it does," Ana said. She set the tin under the road shrine and put a bit of ribbon over it the way some people put flowers on things that deserve better endings.
Mara rang 4 spaced (drill only), just because she liked how the sound made feet honest, and served Night Soup at the shrine for travelers and patrol in equal ladles. 🍲🙂
Aiden climbed the Knoll's watch, looked past Oakwatch at the low, rude line of Riversong Fort, and felt the ring of eyes tighten without cruelty. He did not spend After-Sight—the day had earned a rest from seeing teeth under leaves. The Fort's smoke tried to spell something and failed to be a word.
Elara bumped his shoulder with her gauntlet. "We'll get rain," she said.
"We nailed the boards," he answered.
"Good arithmetic," she said, which had become their blessing for things that should have been obvious and weren't until you did them.
"Novaterra," Aiden told the Knoll and the cairns and the river that had learned to carry light and sound like useful gossip, "we chose brooms over banners and made the road go quiet in the right way. We wrote rules that feed people and made the air louder than fear. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
The wind ran down a gourd and came out as two short—make way. Carts stepped out without being told; nobody charged them a coin for the courtesy. On the far ridge, dust that had thought it was a plan went home.
— Evening Summary — Neutral Knoll / Regional• Pact of Brooms signed (6 settlements) — horns standardized; broom patrols rotate• Rehearsal complete: 10 horns answered in 62s round-trip; carts complied on 2 short• Broom Patrol #1: charms burned (3); cut-bank denied; no raider contact• Deterrence observed: 3 riders withdrew at sound alone• Cordon: steady; Fort window 11–16 days; sally appetite low• Morale: Regionally steady-bright; pride with blisters 🙂