The silence from the kingdom was, to me, more terrifying than any open threat. For two months, we heard nothing. It was an unnatural quiet, the stillness of the air before a hurricane. But we were not idle. My Ashen Rangers, under the brilliant leadership of Kai, became our ears. They were a network of ghosts, flitting across the vast desert, their movements unseen, their observations meticulous. And the news they began to bring back confirmed my worst fears.
"They are mustering at the capital," Kai reported during a late-night war council, his face grim in the lamplight. "Not one army, but three. Ten thousand men, at least. The markets are being stripped of grain, the forges are burning day and night. They are building a war machine of a scale we cannot comprehend."
Grak slammed his fist on the table. "Ten thousand? Let them come! We will fight them in the canyons and the hills!"
"They will not fight us in the canyons," I said quietly, my eyes fixed on the map where Kai was now placing new markers. "They will try to avoid our strengths. They know we expect them from the east."
Anya, who had traveled from her tribe to be present for the council, traced the southern edge of the map with a long, wrinkled finger. "General Kaelen commands them," she said, her voice low. "I know his name. The old stories call him 'The Patient Vulture'. He does not strike until his prey is exhausted and trapped. He will not take the obvious path."
Her wisdom, combined with my system-driven strategic analysis, painted a grim but clear picture. The army at the Dragon's Tooth Pass was a feint, a massive distraction. The real threat would come from the south.
"This is where our war will be won or lost," I said, my finger tapping the vast, empty expanse of the Southern Wastes. "Not at our walls, but out there. We cannot stop his army. But we can bleed it. We can starve it. We can make every league of its march a trial of agony."
Our Asymmetric Warfare Doctrine was now put to its ultimate test. The Confederacy shifted from defense to a grand campaign of strategic denial.
I dispatched our new Sapper units, led by Ulf. Armed with my engineering knowledge, they did not build forts; they un-built the desert. They traveled to the few known oases and water sources along the southern route and, using a combination of salt from the flats and carefully placed poisons from desert plants, they contaminated them. They left a few sources clean but marked them with signs of disease, a subtle act of psychological warfare.
I sent our Rangers on long-range missions to harass the kingdom's foraging parties. They would not engage in pitched battles, but in lightning raids, stampeding supply animals, setting fire to fodder stores, and then disappearing back into the desert like mirages.
Our greatest project was the creation of a network of hidden supply caches throughout the entire desert. We used our Freighters to transport and bury thousands of sealed clay jars filled with water, hardtack, and arrows at strategic, pre-mapped locations. While the Royal Army would have to drag its ponderous supply train with it, my forces could live off the land, resupplying on the move, striking and fading with a mobility the legion could never match.
Oakhaven itself was transformed into a military-industrial complex. The forges ran continuously, churning out arrowheads. The fields were harvested, the grain immediately transported to the hidden granaries. The city became a fortress, but one whose walls were not stone, but the hundreds of leagues of hostile desert surrounding it.
The system rewarded this new phase of proactive, strategic warfare.
[MILITARY DOCTRINE IMPLEMENTED: ASYMMETRIC WARFARE - PHASE II (Strategic Denial).][EFFECTIVENESS RATING: 78%. Enemy logistical strength is being actively degraded before the primary engagement.][NEW UNIT ABILITY UNLOCKED: Rangers can now conduct 'Scorched Earth' missions. Sappers can now construct 'False Wells' and other traps.]
I stood with my commanders around the great map in the Market Hall. It was no longer a simple map of our valley. It was a vast strategic diagram of the entire region, covered in markers indicating our hidden caches, the contaminated water sources, the planned ambush sites, and the latest intelligence on the movements of the King's three legions.
"They believe they are marching on a single city," I said, my voice quiet but filled with a cold confidence. "They are wrong. They are marching on the desert itself. And the desert is now our ally. It will be their prison, and we will be its wardens."
The reports continued to flow in. The First Legion was making slow, arduous progress clearing the Grey Pass. And far to the south, the Second and Third Legions, under General Kaelen himself, had begun their great, terrible march. They were moving into our territory. Into our trap.
The waiting was over. The great game had begun.