Two weeks had passed since the banners of Zhong were torn from the walls. Bastion Vrael stood black and brutal in the southern frostwinds, its towers reinforced and watchfires burning without rest. But Altan's eyes were fixed far to the northwest, where the land narrowed into the Kaldoran Isthmus.
The isthmus was the only road the Dazhum Empire could use to cross into the northern continent. A narrow land bridge, flanked by ocean and ice. A natural choke point.
Altan would fortify it. Not with a wall.
With a fortress.
His orders were dispatched swiftly. Two Stormguard legions were redeployed, escorted by siege engineers, earth mages, and his allies: the Skarnulf Clans and Dark Elf war-weavers. Together, they marched northwest across the spine of the continent.
By decree, they began construction of a fortress to block the Dazhum Empire's passage: Gravemarch Bastion.
The site was barren, windswept, and treacherous. But perfect for what Altan intended. Foundations were dug by earth elementalists, who reshaped frozen stone and packed volcanic soil into walls thicker than siege towers. Dark Elves inscribed runes for silence, strength, and sleep-break detection. The Skarnulf hauled ironwood timbers from their highlands to frame the barracks and kill-gates.
A central citadel rose over two weeks, bristling with war-casters and harpoon ballistae. The stone was blackened, jagged, and gleamed like obsidian under the pale sun.
Supply roads were widened behind it. Magelights lined the cliffs. Gravemarch Bastion stood like a blade lodged between empires.
But Altan's plans weren't finished.
A Vahir hawk was released from Bastion Vrael, carrying a message written in Altan's hand:
Come to Bastion Vrael. I have a small project for you. —A.
Daalo arrived four days later, mud-caked and grim-faced. The long road south had done nothing to blunt his temper. He was escorted into the high chamber above Bastion Vrael's central keep, where Altan stood over a long table of opened scrolls.
Blueprints. Maps. Excavation plans. Drafted sigil layouts. Canal depth measures.
Daalo stopped at the threshold and exploded.
"This is your small project!?"
Altan didn't glance up. "Daalo. You've aged poorly."
Daalo marched to the table and slammed a calloused hand on the plans. "You want to carve a canal from the steppe to the sea, and that's your idea of small!?"
Altan smiled faintly. "There's no delay when money greases things."
"This will take years," Daalo snapped. "I'll need a thousand workers. More. Entire mage-guilds to shape rock. Storm-blasted shapers. Are you funding a city or a war machine?"
"You'll have your full budget," Altan said calmly. "Hire thousands. Pay them double if needed. Get the best elementalists. War-forgers. Shapers. Quiet ones."
Daalo grumbled, scratching his beard. "If you're paying, I'll build it. But this is lunacy."
"Not yet," Altan replied. "Before we begin the canal, I need you to build something else. Something below."
"Below?"
Altan's voice dropped a notch. "Secret chambers beneath Bastion Vrael. Same as what we did under Gale Citadel. Quiet. Deep. Secure."
Daalo's eyebrows rose. "You want me to hollow out the mountain under your feet?"
Altan nodded. "And no one outside the inner ring knows."
Daalo paused, then nodded slowly. "I won't question your secrets. But I'll need mages who can whisper to stone. Earth-shapers. And a cover crew."
"You'll have both," Altan said. "You begin tonight."
The chambers were carved within a week. Hidden beneath Bastion Vrael's bedrock, supported by darksteel braces, reinforced with quake wards. None but the Stormguard inner circle knew. No record. No sigil trail. Laborers thought they were expanding a water cistern, until the chambers became too deep, too precise.
From the surface, no sign betrayed what lay below.
On the seventh night, when the last brace was sealed, Altan descended alone into the lower chamber.
For three days, he worked without witness.
He carved ancient runes into the obsidian walls — glyphs long forbidden, sigils etched from memory older than any city that still stood. Smoke coiled from burning sage. Crushed bone, copper, and ash were mixed with oil and pressed into each groove. Not even Daalo was summoned.
He worked in silence. He spoke only once.
When the last rune was placed, Altan pressed his palm to the center of the iron door and whispered the activation.
The glyphs flared white. The walls pulsed. Then the air split with a sound like wind being exhaled backward.
The door opened.
Not into stone — but into another chamber, vast and silent, carved in the same ancient geometry. Thousands of miles away. Beneath the Gate Citadel.
The Gate had been reconnected.
A figure emerged. Silent. Cloaked. Draped in silver-stitched robes that shimmered like starlight.
The Steward.
He did not bow. He only waited.
Altan stepped forward.
"Are the budgets prepared?" he asked.
The Steward inclined his head. "Yes. As you instructed. The Avatars have begun preparation."
Altan nodded once, his voice cold and steady. "Then construction begins at dawn."
Then came the third phase. The most ambitious of all.
Altan's grand design: a water canal that would connect the steppe's Tempest Lake, beside the border of the Gale Nation, to Bastion Vrael, then continue to the Western Sea. It would bypass the slow overland supply routes and create a lifeline of trade and troop movement.
At present, crossing that distance by horse took one month. With the canal, barges and supply ships could cut the time to three days.
The canal would be wide enough to carry four triremes abreast. It would circle Bastion Vrael in a wide defensive moat, before cutting west through the mountain gorges.
All excavated earth was to be hauled west — not discarded, but reforged.
Two new artificial islands were being constructed off the western coast. Massive dredge-haulers and stonebinders layered the soil into platforms. The islands would be separated by tidal channels, deep enough for warships to pass, and connected by arched stone bridges.
One island would host a trade port. The other, a military dock. Both would fly the Stormguard banner.
Hundreds of earth-shapers and elemental mages were brought in from across the Free Cities League and beyond. With them came engineers from the Gale, dwarven stone-scribes from the south, and dozens of merchant lords offering coin for trade access.
On the ground, the construction was a controlled chaos of movement and magic.
Massive trenches were opened by arcane drilling engines powered by aether batteries. Rune-guided sledges pulled out slabs of granite. Stormwalkers, hulking golems of steel and lightning, hauled stone dredgers across miles of churned earth.
Daalo barked orders daily, smoke rising from his pipe, his voice echoing like a warhorn. Workers toiled in shifts day and night, lit by magelamps. Tempers flared. Accidents happened. But progress never slowed.
In the Free Cities League, word spread faster than the water would.
Prime Minister Qiu sat in silence as the latest missives were laid before him. Not from spies, but from trade agents. Coin traffic. Mage labor purchases. Grain stocks rising around Bastion Vrael.
He could not speak against it. Not openly. Altan had the Stormguard. The black banners flew over the north. What could the League do?
And besides, Qiu's own pockets had grown heavier.
Altan had paid in gold, grain, and favors. Compensation was given to every village or farm affected by the canal's widening path. Landholders were rewarded. Water rights negotiated. Not with threats, but with contracts.
Even the ones who grumbled still took the coin.
They no longer grumbled. Their purses were full.
One councilor from Erhuin whispered, "He buys us like sheep, and we bleat for more."
In the city of Veyra, Governor Talen shook his head as he read a new trade proposal offering direct barge access to the western coast.
"He's not just building a canal," he said. "He's building a throne."
Common folk watched rivers change course. Crops flooded. Then drained. New canals opened water to the farmlands that had long suffered drought. Stormguard workers brought supplies, and Gale grain was distributed before winter struck.
"Stormlord builds for war," one old woman said. "But war brings roads. And roads bring markets."
By month's end, the region's future had changed.
Barges were already being shaped. Caravans gathered near Tempest Lake, drawn by rumor and promise. Traders, engineers, guild mages, and river-folk saw what was coming.
A canal would transform the north. Goods from the western sea could now reach the Gale steppe in days, bypassing the harsh mountain roads. Bastion Vrael would become a trade hub, not just a fortress.
A city of iron and coin.
And behind its walls, Altan watched it all unfold.
Stone by stone. River by river. Plan by plan.
The war had not yet begun.
But Altan was already winning it.
Dema squinted against the sun.
Mud soaked her boots. Her back screamed from lifting rune-stamped stone all day. Still, she couldn't help staring at what they were making.
The Tempest Canal shimmered like a silver blade across the earth.
She watched mages chant above the flow, reshaping the clay banks into layered terraces. Skarnulf engineers hammered beams into supply docks. Gale riverfolk guided barges down the early routes, testing the flow and current. Floating cranes hauled timber and stone across the span of the moat, setting piers at even intervals for future watchtowers.
Merchants had already begun to whisper.
"Three days from the steppe to the sea," they said. "A floating highway."
Towns were already springing up along the early stretches of the canal. Trade houses. Caravan restocks. Food stalls and steel depots. Bastion Vrael was becoming more than a fortress. It was becoming a hub.
On the fourteenth night, Daalo stood again with Altan on the northern tower of Bastion Vrael, staring down at the silver ribbon of water that wrapped around their walls.
"I'll admit," Daalo said, arms folded, "it's impressive. Even beautiful. If not for the backbreaking labor and the fifty mages fainting each day."
Altan said nothing at first. His eyes were fixed toward the south.
"Beauty is a weapon too," he murmured. "And this one will never rust."