Not a signal. Just metal on stone. But my heart didn't get that memo for another three beats.

  Cornell and Wade were already on the remaining orcs. Cornell's blade work was brutal and efficient—no flourishes, just steel finding gaps. Wade had drawn his hunting knife after the missed shot, was inside the last orc's guard before it could bring its axe around. The knife went in under the jaw, angled up.

  Then silence. Just our breathing and one orc still twitching until it stopped.

  Forty seconds. Forty seconds where everything could've gone sideways because one arrow flew wide.

  My hands were shaking. Post-fight adrenaline. I forced them steady, scanning for more contacts. Nothing. Just six bodies and the smell of blood and burned ozone from Isaiah's shots.

  "Check them," I said. "Loot fast."

  Wade moved through the bodies with that hunter efficiency—quick checks, quicker loots. The orcs started dissolving as he touched them, that System thing where corpses faded into nothing once their stuff was claimed. Left behind a few crude weapons and some coins.

  No bodies to hide. No evidence except blood on the dirt and scuff marks from the fight.

  "They didn't get a warning off," I said.

  "Maybe," Emily said. "But thirty seconds of fighting isn't silent."

  Right on cue, a horn sounded from the south. Far off. Could've been related, could've been routine—they'd been doing signal calls every fifteen minutes.

  We mounted up and kept moving.

  Thirty minutes later, the fort came into view.

  My gut clenched.

  There it was. Texas 34 intersection. Stone walls catching the afternoon sun, right where they'd been two weeks ago when Henrik died. When burning pitch had torn the Iron Guard apart.

  The walls looked the same. Eight feet high, rough-hewn, screaming slave labor. The gatehouse still dominated the center, but something was different. New gates. The old ones had been splintering when the pitch came down—Henrik had been maybe two hits from breaking through. Now fresh timber stood in their place, reinforced with iron bands that caught the afternoon sun. Two weeks to undo everything thirty people died for.

  But we weren't spending ninety minutes arguing while orcs watched this time. We were gathering intelligence like we should have from the start.

  "This is as close as we get along the road," I said, studying the fort through my scope from maybe eight hundred yards out. Flat terrain meant nowhere to hide closer. "Find cover. Trees, ditches, anything."

  The team melted into concealment. I found a spot behind a fallen tree, brought the Sharps up, started counting.

  Maybe thirty guards visible on the walls, forty if I counted the ones moving between positions. Normal rotation stuff. But beyond the walls—more smoke than two weeks ago. Tents. Signs I couldn't ignore.

  Hanna had pulled out parchment and charcoal, sketching the position.

  "I've got it in the interface," I said, tapping my temple.

  "And if you get killed?" She didn't look up. "All that information dies with you. Someone needs a backup."

  I snorted. "Way to bury me before the orcs get a shot. Should I pick out a grave now?"

  Her lips twitched. "Plenty of room in the ditch over there. Try not to bleed on my map."

  She kept sketching—wall heights, approaches, positions. Smart redundancy from someone who'd seen plans fall apart because the wrong person died.

  "Can't get good numbers from here," I said after another minute. "We're only seeing one side."

  Emily shifted beside me. "East faces their settlement. Probably their main supply route."

  "Right. We're seeing what they expect us to see. But the west side..." I traced the line. "That's closer to where we think the dungeon is. We've been guessing."

  "You want to circle around." Not a question.

  "Thompson needs complete intelligence. Not half a picture."

  "There's a lot of open ground between here and there," Kyle pointed out, moving up. "We get spotted, we're done."

  "Yeah." I looked at the fort again. Six hundred orcs, maybe more, and us sneaking into their backyard. "But we can't plan an assault on guesses."

  I made the call.

  "Split the team. Kyle, Isaiah, Lira, Caleb, Matt, Cornell—you six hold here. Watch our backs. Be ready to run Hanna's sketches to Thompson if we don't make it."

  Hanna paused her sketching, tore a page from her parchment, and shoved it into Kyle's hands. "Don't lose it. Don't smudge the charcoal."

  Kyle leaned in, said something low that I didn't catch. Hanna's expression flickered—that crack in her usual armor—before she nodded once. Her hand found his jaw for half a second, rough and quick, like she was annoyed at herself for needing the contact.

  He folded the page carefully into his pack, then gave me that older-brother look—not quite approval, but not arguing. "One hour. You're not back, we haul this to Thompson."

  "If we're not back in an hour, don't come looking." I held up a hand before he could argue. "Get the intelligence to Thompson. That's what matters. He can't plan without it."

  Kyle's jaw went tight. His eyes flicked to Emily, then to Hanna, then back to me. I knew exactly what he wasn't saying—that I was asking him to abandon his sister and his girlfriend if things went wrong.

  "She'd tell you the same thing," I said quietly. "Mission first."

  Emily had moved up beside me, shoulder brushing mine. "He's right," she said to her brother. "Don't be stupid about it."

  Something passed between them—that sibling thing where a whole conversation happened in a look. Kyle's shoulders dropped half an inch. Not agreement. Acceptance.

  "One hour," he said again. Quieter. "Don't make it matter."

  I nodded. Couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound like goodbye.

  Wade was already scanning our route west. Hanna had her ka-bars loose, that patient stillness she got before things went sideways. Emily drew her rapier an inch, checked the blade, slid it back.

  Four of us against whatever was waiting past those walls.

  The fort sat there in the afternoon light. Stone and stakes and everything we didn't know yet. Somewhere inside, orcs were going about their day, confident their walls would hold.

  They didn't know about the cannon. Didn't know Thompson had unified command. Didn't know we'd learned from watching thirty people die.

  But they'd find out soon enough.

  "Move out," I said, and we slipped into the scrub to circle wide.

  * * *

  Circling wide felt like every stealth mission I'd ever screwed up in video games, except this time seven hundred people were betting their lives on me not fucking up the intelligence.

  No pressure.

  Hanna led, slipping through the brush like she was part of it. Hand signals, no words. Every step deliberate. We stuck to the treeline where we could, dropped into drainage ditches when the ground opened up. Once we passed the fort's southern edge, she started pointing out patrol signs—boot prints in the soft ground, broken branches where someone had pushed through in a hurry, a spot where orcs had stopped to piss. Regular traffic, but nothing permanent. They were watching this flank, not living on it.

  Wade brought up the rear, that hunter awareness tracking behind us. Emily and I moved between them, her hand near her rapier, me trying not to snap every twig in Texas.

  This wasn't neutral ground anymore. This was theirs.

  We reached Texas 34 west of the fort after what felt like forever but was probably twenty minutes. The Systemized road stretched toward the Trinity River, toward where we thought their dungeon was.

  The paving stones were clean, but the ground alongside told the story—trampled grass, spots where groups had stopped to rest, debris from hundreds of orcs who'd marched this way recently. Whatever had come through here, it wasn't small.

  "Up," Wade whispered, pointing at a big oak with good sight lines.

  Hanna climbed like gravity was optional. Twenty feet up, settling where she could see over the fort's western wall. I stayed on the ground, counting what I could see from here.

  Cook fires. Way too many cook fires. I tried to estimate from the smoke plumes—dozens, maybe hundreds of orcs. Fresh earthworks where they'd expanded, dirt piled high and deliberate. And latrines. Neat rows of freshly dug pits, orderly as a damn army camp. My gut twisted. Orcs digging latrines meant orcs thinking long-term. Running this place like a proper military operation.

  Wade was studying tracks near where we crouched. His face went tight.

  "Heavy traffic," he said quietly, finger tracing boot prints. "Recent. Day old, maybe two."

  "How many?"

  "Hundreds." He followed the trail back, looking southwest. "Coming from that direction. This wasn't gradual—it was all at once."

  Southwest. Trinity River direction. Where their dungeon was.

  Emily's eyes widened. "They reinforced from the dungeon."

  Above us, Hanna climbed down. Her face had that closed-off look that meant really bad news.

  "Dozens of tents inside the walls," she said quietly. "Way more than a normal garrison. And behind the fort—more camps. Fifty, sixty crude shelters strung along the ditch. Constant movement between everything. It's all one force."

  I let my interface run the math while my brain tried not to panic.

  "Garrison plus interior camps plus exterior camps..." I said slowly. "Six hundred orcs. Maybe seven. Minimum."

  The words hung there. Six to seven hundred. Double what we'd expected.

  Wade was still studying the ground alongside the road. "This many came from the southwest. From the dungeon direction." He looked up. "Why pull everything here?"

  "Maybe the dungeon's exposed now. They pulled everything here." Emily met my eyes.

  "Or they're making a stand," Hanna countered. "They know we're coming. This is where they want to stop us."

  Both could be true. The orcs had pulled everything to this position—left their dungeon exposed to stack overwhelming force at the fort. Either they were desperate, or they were betting we'd break against these walls like the Triumvirate had two weeks ago.

  Either way, Thompson needed to know.

  "Time to go," I said. "We've got what we came for."

  Getting back felt longer than it should have. My brain kept doing the math—at least six hundred orcs, maybe more, behind walls, organized defense, ready and waiting.

  Kyle saw our faces when we reached the others. "That bad?"

  "Thompson needs to hear this. Now."

  We rode hard until we hit the cavalry screen about three miles out. Twenty mounted fighters spread across the route. Baronet Beverly spotted us and waved us through, his horse falling in beside ours.

  "Taylor, you look like you've seen a ghost. What'd you find?"

  "Fort's worse than we thought. Thompson needs this now."

  Beverly's jaw tightened. "Ride with me."

  Thompson's command group was easy to spot—him riding near the front with Morris, Leander, and Dawson. Beverly cut through the column like his presence alone made people move.

  "Junior Commander Taylor," Thompson said as we approached. Not quite a question.

  "Found the fort, sir. We need to talk."

  He studied my face for two seconds. "Command group, with me. Column halts here."

  The order moved back through the column fast. No runners, no confusion. Everyone just... stopped. That was the difference unified command made.

  We dismounted beside a supply wagon. Hanna slapped her sketches down on the wagon bed—charcoal smudged, lines scratched deep. My interface was already feeding Thompson everything through the command link, but the other commanders couldn't see that.

  "The walls are the same," I started. "Eight feet of stone, same gatehouse. But they've replaced the gates—fresh timber, reinforced with iron bands. And they've got forty orcs walking the top in steady rotation. That's just what we could count."

  I tapped Hanna's sketch. "Inside, tents packed into the courtyard. Outside the walls—fifty, sixty shelters strung along the western ditch. Cook fires everywhere. Not campfires. Kitchens."

  I made myself say the number. "Put it together, we're looking at six hundred. Maybe seven hundred. All waiting for us."

  Morris swore quietly. "Double what we expected."

  Leander's face went carefully blank. "We can't assault that. Not without catastrophic losses."

  Beverly studied the sketches. "Even with artillery..."

  "We may need to reconsider," Dawson said.

  Thompson was quiet, looking at Hanna's work. Through the network, I felt his planning ability running—not panic, just working through options.

  Finally: "No. This is exactly what I needed to know."

  Everyone looked at him.

  "The warlord committed everything here." Thompson tapped the sketch. "He overcommitted. He's betting we'll break on these walls like the Triumvirate did."

  He looked up, meeting each commander's eyes. "But look what he's telling us. He stripped his dungeon to stack everything at this chokepoint."

  "Which means the dungeon is vulnerable," Morris said slowly.

  "Exactly." Thompson's command presence settled over the group. "We're not here to take and hold his fort. We're here to go through it."

  He started pointing at positions on the sketch. "Artillery hits the gatehouse at dawn. Three hundred yards, sustained fire. Mike Nelson has twenty rounds. That's enough to bring down those new gates."

  "Heavy infantry punches through the breach. We don't clear the fort—we push through. Drive them east toward their settlement while the main force flows west."

  "That's running a gauntlet," Leander said.

  "I want to use their mistake against them. They pulled everything here to stop us. We punch through fast enough, we're suddenly between them and the dungeon they left exposed."

  Morris nodded. "Bold. If we're fast enough."

  "Speed is everything," Beverly added. "Can't get bogged down in the breach."

  Thompson looked at me. "Caden, you'll take your ranging company and loop around the fort before dawn. Connect with Texas 34 west of here. If anything comes down that road—if you can take it out, do it. If you can't, report back. After we're through, you lead the advance to the dungeon."

  "Yes, sir."

  Thompson called Mike Nelson forward. The artillery guy studied Hanna's sketches of the gatehouse.

  "Can you bring it down?" Thompson asked.

  Mike's weathered face considered the details. "Stone gatehouse, wooden gates with iron reinforcement. Twenty rounds at three hundred mana each..." He trailed off, doing math I didn't envy. "Ninety minutes. Maybe two hours of constant channeling." He met Thompson's eyes straight on. "I'm not going to lie—that's going to empty me out completely. If something goes wrong after, I'm dead weight." A pause. "But I can do it. You'll have your breach."

  "Good enough."

  Thompson addressed the commanders again. "Rear guard. One hundred volunteers. Once the main force is through, you hold and delay. Fighting withdrawal. Make them pay for every yard, then break contact and follow."

  He paused. "You're buying time, not dying heroically. Clear?"

  When the call went out, volunteers stepped forward immediately. Iron Guard, Columbia guards, Croft Guard. Mix of everyone. They understood.

  "We camp here tonight," Thompson said. "Half mile from the fort. Bombardment at dawn. Everyone knows their role."

  Camp went up fast. Close enough to move at dawn, far enough that orc patrols couldn't hit us easily. Beverly's cavalry spread out on the perimeter while sentries got their rotation assignments.

  Around me, people were doing that pre-battle thing—checking gear they'd already checked twice, sharpening blades that were already sharp. Anything to keep their hands busy.

  Ten of us around a low fire. The ground was still soft from last week's rain. I kept my Sharps across my knees, thumb rubbing the stock like that would help.

  Kyle was adjusting Hanna's quiver straps, muttering about loose buckles. She let him—their version of comfort before a fight.

  Isaiah had his arrows out, mana flickering as he infused them one by one. Methodical. Calming himself down the only way he knew how.

  "You ever think about what happens if we actually win?" Wade asked. He was carving something small, not looking up.

  "Win what?" Lira said. "Tomorrow? The dungeon? All of it?"

  "All of it. Orcs gone. East Texas actually safe." He shrugged. "What do we even do then?"

  Cornell snorted. "Go back to delivering mail? Pretty sure my route doesn't exist anymore." He'd been a postal worker before—had a place over in Fort Point. Now he was cleaning a sword by firelight like that was normal.

  "I'm serious."

  "So am I." Cornell looked up. "Seven months ago I was worried about making rent. Now I'm sitting here because I can infuse a blade with mana and kill things that shouldn't exist. There's no going back. Back is gone."

  The fire popped. Somewhere out in the dark, one of Beverly's cavalry horses snorted.

  "I miss working the counter at the Grind," Lira said quietly. Coffee shop in town—I'd been there once with my mom. "Worst thing that happened was some asshole yelling about his latte. Now I can throw lightning and I'd give anything to have that asshole yelling at me again."

  "Mrs. Summers is pregnant," Emily said. She was pressed against my side, voice low. "Due in March, maybe. Her first kid. Even in the apocalypse, people get pregnant."

  "Means life keeps going," Matt said. He'd been a year ahead of me at school—felt like a lifetime ago. "Whether we're ready or not."

  "Until the next dungeon spawns," Lira muttered. The sparks between her fingers popped.

  "Then we clear that one too." Emily's jaw set. "We get stronger. Like now."

  Wade looked up from his carving. "You really believe that?"

  She didn't answer right away. "I'm trying to."

  I thought about Columbia's walls. The levy system that had people training instead of hiding. We'd built a barony with more than twenty settlements. It almost felt like civilization if civilization had blue boxes in your vision and a mana pool. All of it built on the assumption that tomorrow would come and be worth fighting for.

 

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