Morning in the Laos fortress began not with the crowing of roosters, nor with church bells, but with the clang of hammers.
The clang rolled across the trenches like heartbeat, shaping earth and stone into defenses that were no longer makeshift. The trenches had deepened, reinforced with timber, their walls slick with tar to resist fire. Watchtowers, once crude scaffolds, now stood with proper platforms, braced with scavenged iron. The scent of pitch and smoke lingered in the air, mingling with the sour tang of sweat and the faint sweetness of bread pulled from makeshift ovens.
Among the workers, the refugees moved with practiced hands. Their fear had not vanished, but it had been reshaped, hammered into something useful. The fortress was no longer just a place of shelter; it was theirs.
Kleber strutted along one of the ramparts like a rooster in borrowed plumage. His armor hung open at the chest, sweat glistening across his skin as he barked half-orders and half-jests. "Oi, you there! No, no, put the stones tighter, tighter! If a crawler's mandibles fit between them, do you want to be the one explaining to Lord Logos why our wall has a hole?"
The mason muttered under his breath, but worked faster.
Kleber grinned, hands on his hips. "That's right. Quicker hands, quicker life!"
Further along, Masen leaned against a stacked barrel of powder, his hair greying at the temples but his eyes sharp. He watched the younger artillery crew test a swivel gun Logos had designed, their hands fumbling as they cranked the mechanism. With a gruff sigh, he stomped over, seizing the crank from one boy.
"You'll break the teeth before you fire it once," Masen growled. "Look. You need rhythm, not force." He demonstrated with deliberate movements, the gears sliding cleanly into place. "War's like a dance. If you try to stomp through it, you trip. You keep the beat steady, you live."
The boys nodded, wide-eyed, and Masen smirked faintly before handing the crank back. "Remember, lads. These guns are our song. Sing it well."
Bal, on the other hand, was among the soldiers drilling in the courtyard. He moved like a boulder with purpose, barking instructions that cracked like whips. His voice rose above the clash of practice spears. "Shields up! Hold! If you drop your guard in drill, you'll drop it when the Crawlers charge, and then you're not a soldier—you're supper!"
The men laughed nervously, but they obeyed, and Bal's looming presence kept them steady. To them, he was more than commander; he was a wall of flesh, a reminder that even against monsters, humans could stand.
Desax had chosen quieter work that morning. Seated at a rough-hewn table in one of the inner courtyards, he reviewed maps with two refugees who had once been hunters. They marked paths where Crawlers had been sighted, discussed the movement of rivers and game, and how best to smuggle families to safer burrows if the worst came. Desax's voice carried patience, but his eyes flicked often toward the horizon, as though expecting ghosts to rise from the distance.
Lucy, meanwhile, was nowhere near the training or drills. She had taken it upon herself to move among the people. She checked the infirmary, where women stirred herbs for poultices. She stopped at the kitchens, tasting broth and scolding one cook for watering it down too thin. She crouched to help a boy tie his boots, then straightened to silence two men bickering over rations. Her presence was not loud, not commanding, but it was steady. The fortress did not only run on steel and powder. It ran on the rhythm of her care.
And in the midst of it all, the common people lived. Children chased each other between the rows of tents, shrieking with laughter until a soldier chased them off with a smile. Men mended fishing nets in case the river was safe enough to cast into. Women patched torn clothes from scavenged cloth, their needles flickering in the dim light. The fortress was no longer just a bastion of survival. It had begun, against all odds, to resemble a community.
As the day wore on, the hammering slowed. The sun bent toward the horizon, staining the sky a molten red. Shadows stretched long across the trenches. Sentries lit their torches, the firelight catching on the fresh-carved timbers of the wall.
It was then that the horns sounded.
Not the frantic blare of attack, but the long, low call that signaled arrivals at the outer gate. The chatter of the fortress hushed at once. Work halted. Heads turned.
Refugees.
A cluster of figures stumbled into view, their clothes ragged, faces streaked with dirt and blood. They carried little—bundles tied with rope, a child clinging to a woman's arm, one man missing a boot. Their feet dragged, yet their eyes held the wild light of those who had outrun death.
The gates creaked open, soldiers ushering them inside.
Kleber was the first to stride forward, tossing his half-eaten apple aside. "More mouths, eh? Well, don't just stand there gawking, get them water!"
Bal appeared behind him, quieter but quicker to action. He lifted one of the women bodily from where she nearly collapsed, setting her down on a bench. Masen barked for the infirmary runners. Desax stood, folding his maps and moving to meet them, while Lucy already knelt beside a child, brushing hair from her dirt-caked face.
The leader of the group, an older man with a limp, lifted his head toward Desax. His voice was hoarse, cracked with dust. "We… we bring word."
"Speak," Desax said, steadying him with an arm.
"The knight," the man rasped. "The Red knight… Sous Angelus. He marches. Ten thousand… Armors, shining like gold." His eyes widened with remembered awe and terror. "He marches not against the Crawlers' tide, but toward the… the great one."
The words silenced the courtyard. Even the children stilled.
"The great one?" Masen asked sharply.
The man swallowed. "The sire. The thing the Crawlers follow. He goes to face it."
Kleber let out a low whistle, muttering, "The mad bastard."
Bal's brows knitted, his jaw tight. "Or the bravest man alive."
Desax said nothing, but his stomach sank. Sous. Marching toward the Sire itself. And if Logos' foresight had marked the paths true, then this was no mere gamble. This was stepping into the mouth of the abyss.
Lucy's hand clenched over the child's small fingers. She glanced up at the looming fortress walls, then toward the chamber where Logos worked in his silence and shadows.
Sous Angelus marched with ten thousand Armors. Logos sat within, preparing with his strange machines and stranger thoughts.
The dusk deepened, firelight flickering on steel. For the people of Laos, the fortress suddenly felt smaller.
A storm was coming.