Smoke still clung to Veridian like a memory that refused to leave. Market stalls leaned back into business with patched awnings; new timber framed rebuilt shopfronts whose shutters still carried the heat‑streaked scars of flame. Guards marched with the quiet something‑is‑coming discipline of people who had learned to expect catastrophe. From the iron‑balustraded balcony of his manor, Noah watched it all with the cool, patient attention of a man cataloguing weak points.
Down in the streets, an old woman swept ash into neat piles; a child chased a battered hoop. The city felt alive but tender, the way a wound might still be warm.
An Umbra Assassin moved up the steps and bowed so that the leather of his hood whispered. He never spoke with unnecessary flourish. "My lord," he said, calm as a blade, "the governor has gathered his forces. Eighty thousand men. Infantry, archers, cavalry—siege engines. They march confident, thinking the revolt left us weak."
Noah's half‑smile was small enough to be polite and wide enough to be dangerous. "Eighty thousand," he repeated, tasting the number. "Ambitious. How curious of him to count so loudly."
On the carved table between them, the summoning panel woke at Noah's touch — a lattice of light and runes that only he could read with ease. Lines of data shimmered up, clinical and indifferent.
[ASSASSIN REPORT — VERIFIED]
Infantry: 60,000
Archers: 15,000
Cavalry: 5,000
Siege engines: 200
Morale: Overconfident
Noah tapped the side of his chin, thinking in the way a player studies a chessboard. "And he wonders how we field Soul‑Forged Knights," he said, voice light. "We'll let him ask questions until his men are too hungry and afraid to hear the answers."
At that, the summoning panel accepted his quiet orders. Light braided and fell across the map as Noah moved his fingers with the intimacy of a conductor. He did not shout numbers into the hall like some vainglorious warlord. He clicked, he assigned, he hid.
[SECRET DEPLOYMENT — EXECUTED]
+1,500 Soul‑Forged Knights
+1,500 Umbra Assassins
+10,000 Basic Troops
SP spent: 1,600 — Remaining SP: 17820 SP
Noah slid the map aside. The new forces did not glitter on the city's defenses; they melted into stables and gullies and the backs of bleak hills, concealed under hay and rock and the visible world's indifference. Only Noah knew the true shape of the night to come.
When the knights assembled in the great hall later, their armor did not clang so much as whisper. Runes along breastplates breathed like coals, faint embers that answered the room's dim torchlight. They stood in precise rows: not men so much as living rules of war, trained to move as one thought.
Noah paced before them with a smirk that never reached his eyes. He enjoyed being the teacher of a dangerous lesson. "Gentlemen — and ladies," he said, deliberately casual, letting the words hang. "Governor Voss believes numbers win wars. He believes you are a novelty, something to be understood. He thinks that because there were riots, his march will be easy."
A tall knight tipped his helm. "And what do you have in mind, my lord?"
Noah's hand found the map again, this time pointing to ribboned lines of road and choked bridges. "We do not meet them on a field of honor. We make the field dishonorable. We turn their strengths against themselves."
He spoke fast then, the rhythm of a commander who trusts his men to carry the details. "First, the wagons. Archers and Umbra units will shadow the supply trains. Burn the wagons, scatter the horses, foul the wells. A soldier with a belly full of doubt is a slow soldier."
The knights listened like animals at the edge of a hunt.
"Second—ambush and attrition. Bridges, ravines, narrow passes. Send out dozens of small groups: twenty, thirty men. Hit fast, vanish into the wood. Soul‑Forged armor is not only for standing; it can move like a rumor. Make them doubt every shadow. Force them to move as if every hill contains a blade."
He lowered his voice and the room leaned with him. "When a column halts to check the trees, morale splits. Panic spreads in neat, sharp lines. That's where we take the rest."
"Strike and withdraw?" someone asked.
"No," Noah corrected gently. "Strike, mislead, deny. Make them chase ghosts. Let the governor think each loss a coincidence until he becomes clumsy. Then we take the prize: his confidence."
From a corner of the hall, an Umbra Assassin's voice, soft as silk and twice as cold, floated up. "And Aldren Voss himself?"
Noah's smile sharpened. "Let him chase answers. He will demand to know where Soul‑Forged Knights come from, why wagons burn. We will give him illusions and witnesses with broken memories. He will throw his weight after shadows, and when his columns are spread thin and his men are hungry, we close the net."
There was an energy in the hall like a held breath that would, very soon, be released as a scream or a cheer. The knights accepted the plan with the kind of quiet satisfaction born from doing something they had been trained for: making fear practical and efficient.
"All right," Noah said, clapping once. The sound cut through the hush. "You know your roles. Strike, vanish, confuse. Precision and patience. And—" he let the last word hang, half‑mischief, half‑danger, "—enjoy it. Eighty thousand men are about to learn the weight of ghosts."
Far to the north, Governor Aldren Voss rode with a confidence that suited his doublet and his medals. He had the map, the duke's reassurances, and the steady thrum of a force that believed itself destined for easy victory. Barn Hollow's banners snapped bright against the sky. Men joked; cooks sang; the army moved like a well‑oiled machine along the Old Road and across the Ravelin River Trail.
Then things went wrong in ways no one could explain at first. Wagons vanished between dawn and dusk. Patrols found nothing but emptied camps and scorch marks that glittered as if a sorcerer's temper had passed. Whispers uncoiled along the ranks: phantom strikes, men missing, columns dispersed.
Voss frowned at the first report and rubbed the rim of his helm with a gloved hand. "Hold fast," he ordered, too loudly, as if voice could press fear back into sober order. He sent scouts, tightened reinforcements around the wagons, and cursed at nothing that answered.
Back on his balcony, Noah watched the smoke roll on distant hills like a slow, pleased smile. The first stage of the guerrilla war had begun exactly as he had planned: friction where the enemy expected grease. He could see the governor's men scrabbling to fit tidy strategy around something untidy and animal.
A system readout blinked at Noah's wrist: [QUEST STATUS — DEFEND VERIDIAN] Progress: 0% — Enemy morale: wavering — Supply disruption: minimal (but increasing)
He chuckled, a dry, private sound. The numbers always lagged behind reality; they were blunt things to describe a living chaos. He let the sound go into the night, watched torches gutter in the valley like answering sparks, and felt, for a moment, the old thrill of a plan unfolding.
The city slept with one eye open. Noah closed his hand on the balcony rail and listened: the distant clang of armor, the nearer hiss of a street vendor sweeping hopes into a sack, the heartbeat of a place about to be defended by phantoms and steel. He pictured long columns of men halting in mud and rain, the smell of burnt leather rising, commanders biting their lips as orders failed to fix what fear had already started.
"He thinks he's counting soldiers," Noah murmured to himself. "But we count the moments between his breaths."
And in the dark, under hay and behind stone, the Soul‑Forged Knights breathed as one, prepared to turn those moments into the city's salvation.