Three weeks later, Desax returned to Laos.
The first sight of the fortress struck him harder than the long ride home. Where once trenches had been crude gouges in the earth, hastily dug and shored with planks, now they were reinforced, layered, engineered. The lines resembled not desperation but design. Earthen walls were banked with stone, drainage ditches lined with rough lime, wooden braces bound together with iron nails that gleamed in the sun.
And the mini-forts—those strange little blockhouses Logos had demanded—no longer looked temporary. They bristled with narrow slits and firing ports, each crowned with layered roofs that shed rain as though they had always been part of the landscape. Smoke rose from forges, steady and industrious, as though a small town had sprung into being under the banner of war.
It was unsettling, this air of permanence. Crawlers had always been an enemy of attrition—fight, fall back, burn what you must, retreat if you must, survive. Yet here, in Laos's frontier, it felt as though a people had chosen not merely to resist but to settle—to dig roots in the teeth of the storm.
Desax walked the outer trench line, boots crunching on gravel. He passed groups of refugees turned workers, their movements methodical. Some carried timber. Others bore stone on their backs in specially rigged frames. Even children moved in small groups, hauling buckets of water to the line. Not soldiers. Not slaves. But workers bound by the strange discipline Logos had imposed.
By the time Desax neared the main command tent, his thoughts had already begun to weigh heavy.
"You're late," a voice said behind him.
He turned. Kleber stood there, grinning like always, though his armor was scuffed in new places and his hands bore calluses darker than before.
Desax exhaled, almost smiling. "I had roads to ride. And a lord who wished to test me."
"How have things been here?" he asked as they fell in step.
"Improved from the start," another voice answered. Bal emerged from a side path, wiping his hands on a rag darkened with oil and soot. His shoulders were thick with labor, his face lined by both sun and smoke. "The refugees have become more in tune with the lands. Lord Logos has been introducing ever more bizarre things."
Desax arched a brow. "For instance?"
Kleber smirked, gesturing toward a squat tower behind them. "He made a cannon that can fire sixteen shells in a moment. I've seen it. A monster. Whole barrels rigged in a circle, rotated by crank. Fires faster than a man can curse."
Bal added, more grimly: "And a gas that dissolves flesh. A pale green cloud, he says, that eats at muscle like fire eats straw."
Desax slowed for a moment, his expression unreadable. He had expected strangeness. But each innovation moved further from what he thought of as war.
"What about casualties?" he asked finally.
Bal's voice softened. "None."
Kleber gave a quick nod. "Not one. Not a soul dead since the last skirmish weeks ago."
For a moment, the words hung in the air like a blessing, and yet they felt uncanny.
"So," Desax murmured, half to himself, "we are still the only ones without any casualties."
The thought should have comforted him. Instead, it unsettled him. War without casualties. A ledger without loss. Too clean. Too neat.
He glanced about. "By the way, where is Masen?"
"The old man is resting," Bal replied.
Kleber smirked. "Yeah, I think his age is finally approaching him."
"I am still in my forties, you rascal," came a gravelly voice.
Masen appeared from behind a tent post, cracking his neck with an audible pop. The old artillery commander looked as weathered as ever, his gray-flecked beard unkempt, but his eyes still sharp.
"Please," Kleber scoffed, "everyone knows you only look in your forties. Your actual age is over fifty. So drop the act."
Masen spat to the side, amused. "I may be old, but I can still swing."
"Swing what? A frying pan?" Kleber shot back.
Masen narrowed his eyes, lips curling. "Don't tempt me."
Bal sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Enough, you two. Let's not keep the kid waiting."
"You mean Lord," Kleber said with mock solemnity.
Bal shrugged. "Don't get me wrong. He is smart, no question. But at least in private, I'm still going to call him a kid. Because that's what he is."
Masen chuckled. "I don't know many children who think Crawlers taste good."
That silenced the group for a heartbeat. Even Kleber's grin faltered.
Desax blinked, turning his head. "Taste good?"
Masen nodded grimly, lowering his voice. "A week ago. He ordered some roasted. Claimed their meat had properties that might 'fortify' men. Some poor wretch volunteered—or was told to. Ate it and lived."
Kleber made a face. "Lived, yes. But he hasn't been quite the same. Quieter. Eyes a little too sharp in the dark."
Bal folded his arms. "Lord Logos says the meat is protein-rich. That it's wasteful to burn bodies when they can serve as food. To him, it's just logic."
The group walked in silence for a moment, the weight of those words heavy.
Desax's mind turned inward. He remembered Sous Angelus, firelit, speaking of valor, faith, the will of men to triumph. Then he thought of Logos: cold, methodical, bending even horror into function. Two visions of leadership. Two roads into the future.
Neither felt safe.
Finally, Masen broke the silence with a dry laugh. "Say what you will about him. Kid or not, mad or not. He keeps us alive. That counts for something."
They reached the edge of the command tent. Its canvas loomed like a monolith, stitched and patched but sturdy, with strange diagrams inked onto its outer flaps—circles, runes, measurements. Logos's work, no doubt.
The guards outside saluted stiffly. Within, the faint glow of lanterns flickered, shadows moving against canvas.
Bal gave a half-smile. "Well, Desax, you wanted to know how things have been. Now you'll see for yourself."
Desax drew a long breath. The fortress was alive, fortified, efficient. But the question gnawed at him: was this survival—or the birth of something stranger?
He stepped forward, pushing aside the flap.
Inside, Lord Logos awaited.