The wind off the moor tasted like iron and regret. Edric stood alone on the southern wall, cloak drawn tight, eyes scanning the black smear still curling along the horizon. The fires Geldar had lit in the villages hadn't reached the keep, but their smoke had. Each thread of ash in the wind was a message: we know where you are. And Edric had answered, six flaming arrows fired into the dusk—but it hadn't stopped the dread coiling low in his gut.
Ashcoil slithered along the battlement, silent as shadow. Its scales were dull now, shimmer muted from hunger and overuse. It nuzzled his boot and made a low grinding sound, halfway between a hiss and a sigh. Edric crouched, resting a hand on the serpent's back, feeling the warmth still there.
"One more rune and you collapse," he murmured. "Same as me."
The serpent didn't reply, but its tail curled protectively around his foot, as if to say, Then we don't fall alone.
Down in the yard, Ronan was drilling three dozen villagers with shield-lines under torchlight. They weren't soldiers. Not yet. But they were learning to move as one. Even Will had stopped flinching when someone shouted too loud. Rafe barked logistics while Fiona ran between the smithy and the makeshift fletching station. Brynn's silhouette paced along the west tower, pausing every few minutes to peer through the spyglass.
Edric straightened, eyes fixed south. The fire had spread to a second farmstead now. Still no riders approaching—but that wouldn't last. Geldar didn't burn villages out of cruelty alone. They were testing morale. Pressuring the will to defend what little remained.
Bootsteps echoed behind him. Elena Rowe stood with arms folded, a letter in one hand and a curved dagger at her hip. Her cloak was ash-streaked, her braid loose. She looked tired and furious, which meant bad news.
"You smell like soot and stubbornness," she said. "Figures I'd find you up here."
"Have you ever tried being subtle?" he asked without turning.
"Subtlety's for courtiers and rats." She handed him the letter. It was sealed with cracked wax, no crest. He broke it, eyes scanning the lines. His face tightened.
"Spies confirm it?" he asked.
She nodded. "Geldar's warbands are thirty strong. Three groups. Lightly armored, fast. One was seen just east of Old Mill Bridge."
"That's inside our range."
"They're probing you, Edric. Soft walls, young lord. It's what they smell."
He folded the letter, slow. "Then they'll find we have teeth."
"And if they attack tonight?"
"Then they bleed before breakfast."
Her eyes searched his face, as if reading for doubt. Finding none, she relaxed slightly. "Ronan says the east wall's weakest."
"It is. Deliberately."
"You want to bait them."
"I want them to pick the fight we're ready for."
A pause stretched. Then: "You're gambling with lives."
"I'm gambling with time. If I wait, they hit where we're not ready. If I act, they come early and uncoordinated."
She nodded again, slow this time. "Then let me help set the trap."
They descended together. Orders rippled through the camp like cracks forming in ice. Brynn drilled the archers, Garrick marked kill-zones on the courtyard floor, Fiona dragged out four barrels of pitch, and even Rafe tied smoke signals to the top of the watchtower, grumbling about wasting cloth but double-knotting every banner.
Edric pulled Ronan aside beneath the east parapet. The captain's shield arm was still bandaged from the boar, but he didn't flinch. His new rune-arm—iron and leather, etched with a binding spiral—rested across his lap like a coiled weapon.
"I want you behind the line until they breach," Edric said.
"That's not where I belong."
"It's where you win. Your presence is a surprise now. Keep it that way until it counts."
Ronan grunted. "And if I disagree?"
"Then I'll make it an order. Captain."
Ronan held his stare for a long beat. Then smiled. "Didn't think you'd ever pull rank on me, Highness."
"I don't like it. But I'm learning."
That night, as moonlight bled across the yard and torches guttered low, a horn sounded from the south.
Short. Sharp. One blast.
A scout's call.
Everyone froze. Fiona dropped a hammer. Will dropped his jaw.
The second blast came half a minute later. Confirmed contact. Approaching fast.
Torches flared to life. Rafe ran for the tower with signal flags. Brynn shouted to the archers. Edric stood in the center of the yard, hand resting on the blood-bracer at his wrist, breath slow and even. He wasn't calm. He was focused.
"They're coming," he said. Not loudly, but everyone heard.
The east gate rattled. Not from impact, but from wind. They were close.
Then hooves. Thirty riders, just like the letter said, swept through the smoke. They weren't in formation—they didn't need to be. This wasn't a siege force. It was a raid meant to terrify, to scatter.
They expected a weak wall. What they got was a reinforced pincer gate with fresh arrow slits, one narrow gap, and three layers of staggered defense.
The first volley of arrows struck hard. Fiona's runed heads flared on contact—burning rope and vine, slicing through cheap armor. Horses screamed. Riders broke.
Then the gate opened.
Edric had ordered it.
A feint.
As the enemy surged forward, cheering for a rout, they fell into the courtyard kill zone—where pitch slicked the stones and a single torch lit the oil.
Flames bloomed. Screams followed.
Not enough to win. Just enough to panic.
The riders wheeled, trying to escape the trap—and that's when the hidden archers on the flanks fired again. Garrick's squad drove spears into exposed backs. Will and the shield-bearers held the mouth of the yard, trembling but unbroken.
From the watchtower, Wren's whistle shrieked.
A second Geldar group had circled north.
"Go!" Edric barked.
Ronan broke from cover, iron arm spinning. He led six runners to the north rampart. Edric followed, Ashcoil tight behind.
The north group wasn't riding. They were scaling. Hooks bit into stone. Ladders rose.
Edric grabbed a bow, notched a blunt arrow, and fired point-blank at the nearest climber's face. The man fell, screaming.
But more rose.
Ronan stepped forward, rune-arm blazing dull red. He slammed his palm into the wall—and a shockwave burst, flinging three men off.
"Still works," he growled.
Ashcoil hissed, arched, then struck. Its fangs didn't kill—but injected a fast-acting paralysis into the nearest soldier, who crumpled mid-ladder. The second wave stalled.
Edric drew a glyph in the air, fingers trembling. A Crown Rune.
Time Slow.
His blood bracer pulsed hot, then cold. The world snapped to half-speed for three long heartbeats.
In that moment, Edric marked every ladder, every weak point, every face. His eyes found the leader. A bearded man with red paint on his armor and a curved sword. A commander.
Time resumed.
He loosed a single arrow. It struck the man's leg. Not fatal. But enough to knock him off-balance—just as Ronan's thrown shield hit him square in the ribs and finished the fall.
The climb broke.
Enemy morale cracked.
The retreat wasn't graceful—it was frantic. The last Geldar riders pulled away as Wren and Cress shouted from above, sending flaming arrows to hurry them along.
It was over in thirty minutes.
Not a siege.
A test.
And they'd passed.
At dawn, Edric walked among the fallen. They'd lost two villagers. Five more wounded. One of them Fiona's cousin, who'd taken a lance to the gut. Still breathing, barely.
Ashcoil followed close. Its scales were glowing faintly again.
"So we bleed," Edric murmured. "But we don't break."
Behind him, Ronan approached, carrying the broken red-plumed helm of the commander they'd dropped.
"Next time, they send more," he said.
"Let them," Edric replied. "Now they know what waits."
Ronan offered the helm. Edric took it and placed it on the parapet wall, facing outward. A warning. A promise.
Elena joined them a minute later. Her eyes scanned the damage, then settled on Edric.
"You planned well."
"We survived. That's not always the same thing."
"Still. You're not who you were when I met you."
"I hope not."
She nodded once. Then said quietly, "They'll keep coming, Edric. And the next time, they'll bring fire you can't see coming."
"Then we'll invent water."
Her smile was thin. Tired. Real.
Below, the villagers began to sing. A chant more than a melody. Broken but defiant. Someone had carved a new rune on the wall beside the gate—three hooks crossed over a circle. Not from any book. A symbol born from victory.
Ashcoil coiled around Edric's boot again. The air smelled of smoke and blood. But the sun was rising.
And this time, the wind carried no ash.