The morning after the siege was a grim mirror to the battle itself. The field below the fortress was a wasteland of broken siege engines, scattered corpses, and discarded weapons. The Vexin, their faces a mixture of exhaustion and relief, were tending to their wounded and burying their dead. The victory, though total, had come at a heavy cost.
In the fortress's great hall, a small group of people gathered. Damon, his arm wrapped in a crude bandage, sat with a mug of wine in his hand, a silent, weary king. Isolde, her face still pale with fear and exhaustion, sat beside him, her hand on his. Arion, his armor still stained with the dust of his hard ride, stood with Lysa, whose relief for her brother's safe return was a fragile, trembling thing.
"The siege is over," Lysa said, her voice filled with a quiet awe. "We are safe."
"We are," Damon replied, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "But we are not unbroken."
A captain, a grim-faced veteran, came forward with the casualty reports. "My Lord, of the two hundred and fifty men who defended the fortress, we have lost sixty-seven. One hundred and twenty-three are wounded, some gravely. We have lost a quarter of our garrison."
A heavy silence fell over the room. The men had fought with a courage that would be remembered in songs, but their sacrifice was a sobering reality.
"And your forces, brother?" Damon asked, his eyes on Arion. "What was the cost of your campaign?"
"In the hit-and-run campaign," Arion replied, his voice filled with a grim pride, "we lost only twenty men. The foreign army, however, lost hundreds. But… they had a chance to breathe. They have moved to the low pass, the place they wanted to be all along. They are now a unified, powerful force."
The room fell silent once more. The victory at the fortress was a great one, but it had come at a terrible price, both in men and in strategy. Damon's decision to call Arion back had saved his family, but it had handed a tactical victory to their enemy.
Isolde, seeing the weight of the moment, spoke with her usual clear-eyed logic. "The King's Guard is defeated. The foreign army is a threat, yes, but they are far from invincible. They have been demoralized by our hit-and-run campaign and by the death of their commander's greatest ally. We have proven that our tactics work, and we have proven that this fortress will not fall."
Damon nodded, his gaze hardening with a new resolve. "She is right. We have won the battle, but the war has just begun. Now, we must prepare for the next phase. The King will be enraged, and he will send a new army, a larger one. This time, we will be ready."
He looked at his brother and his wife, a sense of unity a palpable thing in the room. They had survived. They had won. Now, they would face whatever came next, together.