The capital did not wake so much as it lurched upright and ran.
Before dawn, smoke already hung low over the outer wards, a haze of forge-breath and boiled pitch. Cobblestones thudded under boots, wheels, and dragging sleds. From the high west wall, the whole machine of the city could be seen at work: lines of soldiers jogging toward the gates with shields on their backs; carpenters carrying beams on shoulders; runners weaving through it all with message slats clacking against their belts.
Zed stood on the battlements and mapped it with his eyes. South of the main gate, they had raised a ridge of earth and set two palisade faces to form a V that pointed at the forest—the first choke point. Behind it, a kill lane ran straight to the gatehouse, narrow and clean, flanked by knee-high wagons loaded with rubble and stakes that could be kicked over to seal the path in moments. To the east, alleys had been blocked with cart wheels, furniture, even doorframes stolen from empty houses—makeshift walls with slit gaps left at archer height. Above those, ladders leaned to rooflines where bowmen lay flat on tile, faces blackened with soot. On the west side, where the ground rose toward the river bend, tar pits had been dug and covered with reed mats and dust, their edges chalked with faint marks only their own could see.
Signals first. He walked the parapet, checking the horn posts. Three short blasts for "scouts," one long for "left breach," two for "right," and four for "fall back to line B." The beacon braziers were set on towers—dry pine kindling under a net of oil-soaked rope. All stood ready. Zed had made the signal crews drill until their lips bled and their hands shook. No fog of battle could be allowed to swallow a simple order.
Beneath him, life surged.
A healer jogged past a file of spearmen below—an older woman in ash-gray robes with a green sash crossed tight over her chest, sleeves pinned back with bone pins. Her hair, shot with silver, was bound high in a knot by a plain wooden stick. She carried a copper basin full of steaming cloths with one hand and a leather kit with the other, its flap open to show bone needles, silk thread, tiny clay jars. "Move, move," she barked, voice rough as gravel. The spearmen stepped aside without looking; even hard men gave way to her. A boy in the same gray loped at her heels, arms full of clean bandages, eyes too big and too tired for someone so young.
Past them clattered a soldier—a broad man with a chipped tower shield strapped to his back and a dented helm tucked under his arm. His left glove was missing, so he'd wrapped the bare hand in a strip of blue cloth. His mail shirt hung loose, patched with leather. A small carved wolf tooth dangled at his throat. He stopped only long enough to glance up at Zed on the wall and then shouldered on, muttering, "Young master says brace low—brace low it is."
Across the yard, a girl in a faded brown dress tottered under a crate of vegetables. Turnips and cabbages knocked together in the box, a few leaves shaking loose with each step. A second girl—older, sleeves rolled high—ran beside her with a basket of flat bread. Both disappeared through a doorway where steam and heat roared out; the kitchen hall hammered like a forge in its own right. Inside, cooks in stained white wraps stirred vats of stew, the air thick with the fat smell of bone broth and sliced onion. Knives clacked. Ladles thumped. A woman with flour on her cheek shouted for more salt, more wood, more hands.
At the courtyard's far edge, three men dragged a sled by ropes across the stones. The thing on the sled was a tusk-boar carcass, almost as long as a cart, its hide scored with old wounds and new. A bald, barrel-chested man at the front leaned back into the rope, vest dark with sweat, canvas belt bristling with meat hooks and a long skinning knife. His trousers were torn at one knee. He spat, grinned, and kept hauling. Two boys behind him pushed and laughed between gasps like fools too tired to be afraid. "Make way!" they sang. "Coming through!"
Beyond them, a pair of porters strained against a low wagon loaded with bundled javelins. No horse pulled it—their best mounts were for messengers and elite riders now—so the porters wore rope sashes drawn across their chests and leaned into the load with their whole weight, feet sliding, faces flat with effort. A quartermaster in a brown coat walked beside them, tally stick in hand, making neat notches as each bundle went past.
On the inner side of the courtyard, they had raised three tents marked with green pennants—the triage line. A stretcher team carried a man in, boot leather scraping stone. His thigh was swaddled in bloody cloth, and his head rocked with the sway. A healer cut away the bandage with a knife in one clean draw. "You—hold him," she said to the boy. "You—boil more water." She turned her head and blew a wisp of hair off her forehead and then bent to her task. All around her, the air buzzed with quick orders, quick hands, quick breathing.
Zed took all of it in and forced the map to sharpen in his mind. Choke points here, here, and here. Lines of retreat painted in pale ash on the cobbles—arrows that any soldier could follow at night. Rope ladders coiled near the inner wall, hooked to iron spikes ready to bite in if the order came to fall back. On the roof of the granary—a good high point—two signal boys waited with flags and a spare horn. On the north tower, they had stacked water jars and sand buckets near the braziers to keep fire from racing back into the city if the wind swung wrong.
"Your plan is wearing skin now," said a voice at his back.
Fuine stood there, violet sash neat, long black hair bound with a green cloth that matched the one he had seen in the cave. Up close, Zed saw what others missed when they stared only at her face—how she watched everything, not just him. Her gaze touched the horn posts, the ladders, the chalk arrows on the stones, the way the archers lay prone to hide their number. It slid to the kitchen door and the speed of the girls. It noted the placement of the triage tents so wounded could be pulled off the line without crossing the kill lanes. She was not only beautiful. She was dangerous in a quieter way.
"You made them listen," she said.
"I made them practice," he said. "Listening will come or break."
She did not smile but her eyes did. "And your… ally?" Her tone made the word careful.
"Reconnaissance for now," Zed said. "At night."
As if the word had called it, a brief chill brushed the back of his neck. In his dantian, something amused and eager flexed and then stilled. The Vampire's mind was sharper than before, a blade honed against death. It wanted to hunt. He would let it—but when and where he chose.
Horns sounded once, twice—"scouts"—from the south tower. The line on the wall stiffened, men leaning forward to see.
Shapes moved at the forest edge. First one, then seven, then more—tusk-boars again, smaller than the sled beast but fast, shoulders rolling under bristled hide. Between their legs loped the many-eyed hounds, heads low, noses cutting the air. Above them flapped carrion crows with bald heads and hooked beaks, turning in slow circles to watch.
Zed raised a hand. "Archers—hold until they commit," he said, voice even. "Pikes—set knees, keep your feet. No hero lunges. Break the lead pair and the rest will pile."
"Break the lead pair," the captains echoed down the line. "Hold—hold—"
The boars crossed the trampled grass between forest and field and hit the outer ditch without breaking stride. Dirt flew as the first wave cleared it in clumsy bounds. Their line dipped toward the V of the palisade. Exactly where he wanted them.
Zed drew a breath. "Now."
The first volley went with a hiss, a dark sheet that crossed the bright air and fell like rain into hide and eyes and joints. Hounds tumbled, legs flailing. A boar took three shafts to the face, squealed, and veered left, smashing into the palisade. The palisade didn't care. It was a wall of wood and will—braced, lashed, anchored. The animal slid and toppled in a thrashing heap. The boar behind it tripped on its body. The one behind that slammed into both.
"Second rank—fast!" Zed called. "Aim low. Tusks and knees!"
Arrows took the front legs out from under the two biggest and their charge became a pileup. Behind the barricade, pikes came up and forward as one, tips biting under ribs, thrust, twist, recover. The men kept their feet. They did not chase. They were scared and they did not run. That was all Zed asked.
Eyes—watch the flanks. The hounds were clever. He saw them split, skirting for gaps.
"Left gap!" a horn cut the air—one long note.
"Left!" Zed snapped. He didn't think about the next steps—they lived in his bones now. He stepped to the parapet edge, called the Shadow, and the world folded. He reappeared five paces down in a blur, boots hitting stone, and then he was over, dropping the last distance to land in a crouch behind the left barricade. Men there were turning too slow, watching the pileup in the center. They didn't see the hounds loping in from the side, too many eyes catching every opening.
Zed moved. The staff cracked a skull, then another. He spun it low to sweep paws off the ground and stomped a throat flat. A hound leapt for his face. He stepped through the Shadow again, reappearing behind it, and drove the staff butt into its spine. Another arrow hissed past his cheek and took a third in the mouth. The gap closed. The men saw what to do and did it—shields hooked together, pikes down, no single heroics.
On the far side, a shieldman went down with a boar's tusk in his thigh. Zed pointed. "You—two—drag! Gray-sash!" He didn't know the healer's name. She didn't need hers called to know the pattern. She was already running with the boy and a stretcher team.
All at once, the first wave broke. The ones that could run did. The rest lay heaving and screaming until arrows found their throats. The crows wheeled once more, then fled back toward the trees.
"Hold!" Zed raised a palm. "No pursuit." He turned to the archers. "Recover arrows. Only the heads lost—we remake shafts tonight. Save your arms." He pointed to the dead. "Strip tusks. Glands behind the jaw—bag them for alchemists. Hides to the tannery team. If you're not bleeding, you're working."
Men moved. Not quick at first. Then faster as the rhythm took them. Arrow boys climbed the palisade with coils of thin rope to lower bundles of recovered shafts. A butcher's crew came at a jog with knives and hooks, sleeves already red. The bald man with the canvas belt whistled through his teeth as he slipped a blade under hide and pulled with long, smooth strokes. "Good fat on this one," he told no one and everyone. "Render it, and we won't taste smoke all week."
On the kitchens' side, the door swung wide and steam belched. The girl with the turnips came out again, empty crate banging her knees, hair stuck to her temples. She glanced at the field, face gone small for a breath, then pushed on toward the carts where more crates waited. No one told her she was brave. No one needed to.
At the triage tents, the gray-sashed healer tied off a bandage and thumped her patient's shoulder. "You'll limp and complain and live," she said. She looked up, saw Zed, and snorted. "Good order. Keep it so."
He nodded. That was higher praise than most gilded words.
By noon, the courtyard smelled like blood, tar, cabbage, and sweat. The sun climbed and beat light off helms and spear points. The forest edge kept its distance, dark and close despite the day. The horns were silent.
Zed walked. He traced the second line—Line B—set behind the first: another V of stakes, sturdier and thicker, with waist-high wagons ready to roll and lock it tight. Behind that, an open space wide enough to let a formation pivot without tripping over itself, chalk arrows pointing inward toward a third line if they had to fall back again. The escape routes were chalked inside alleys too, arrows pointing away from the kill lanes so stretcher teams would never run face-first into a charge.
The men saw him checking and straightened. A young spearman tried to hide a shake in his knees by adjusting his belt. Zed stopped by him and thumbed the spear butt down a fraction. "Knees soft," he said. "Let the weight sink. It keeps the point still."
"Yes, young master," the boy said, eyes fixed somewhere near Zed's shoulder.
A captain strode up with a grim set to his mouth. "We held," he said. It should have sounded like pride. It sounded like worry to a man not used to it.
"We did," Zed said. "And we'll hold again. No celebrating between waves. Eat. Drink. Rotate your first line out for stew and replace them with the second. Don't let anyone stand in the sun and shake."
"Aye."
He turned, and Fuine was there again, watching him as if she were a ledger and he the sum. "You do not waste motion," she said.
"We can't afford to," he said.
She looked toward the forest. "It is… quieter than it should be."
"They're measuring us," Zed said. "They'll send something clever next. Burrowers, or a rush at dusk to blind the archers. We counter with height. Rope ladders to the roof. Oil jars only when they commit—no early fire. And we keep the horns honest. The worst enemy is wrong noise."
Her eyes warmed a fraction. "You sound like someone who has done this before."
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. The Vampire stirred again, and this time he let a thread loose. A shadow peeled off the shadow he stood in, thin as breath and darker than the shade around it. It drew away along the wall and vanished over the edge like ink poured into the air.
"Scouts," he said.
"I thought as much," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "You will live a long time, or not at all."
He almost smiled. "That's everyone."
Dusk came with a change in the air—the way it always did when something mean decided to move. The light thickened. Heat slid off the street and left a bone-deep cool behind. The birds that had dared chirp at noon went silent. On the edge of hearing, something large rolled a growl through the trees.
The horns spoke once: "scouts." Twice. Four times. The last note lengthened—"right breach."
"Positions!" Zed called.
This time, the first things out of the dark were not boars but long-legged shapes like birds built wrong—razorbeaks, their necks kinked, beaks saw-edged, legs a blur. They came low and fast and tried to vault the palisade, claws scraping for purchase. Behind them, the ground bulged in two places as something tunneled shallow—burrowers. Clever. The hounds rushed the left not to break it but to keep eyes there while the right was tested hard.
"Right—nets!" Zed shouted.
Coiled lines snapped; weighted nets flared, caught razorbeaks mid-leap, and slammed them to the dirt. Pikes pinned them. Men with short blades waded in and did the ugly, fast work. On the right, the earth cracked, and a smooth head with blind eyes and too many teeth pushed up, then another. Tar-pit covers collapsed with a wet sucking sound. The first burrower slid forward by pure habit and fell, hissing as black pitch took it. Arrows found the second's open mouth, then a spear rooted it to the ground for the axe to finish.
A razorbeak made the top of the palisade on the left and dropped into the line. Men balked and then tightened up again—shields closed, a spearhead sank into thin breastbone, a second and third following. A hound zipped through a gap low—Zed stepped, Shadow took him, and he hammered the hound out of the air with the staff, turning its leap into a tumble that ended under a boot.
"Hold! Don't chase!" He kept that drumbeat steady. "Break the head, then the neck!"
The horns blew a single long note—"left breach"—and then ceased. A boy on the granary roof raised flags: two red, one white. The signal crew on the far wall answered with a flash of mirror—seen and set.
Zed felt it then like a draft in a sealed room. The Vampire slid back into him, and with it impressions not words: no alpha in this wave, no true mind pushing it, only the pressure of numbers. He breathed once slow. Good. He'd rather fight a blunt tide than a single sharp mind he could not see.
When it ended, it ended the way all honest fights did—messy. The last razorbeak went down under three men who pinned its wings and hacked its head off with a knife that should never have been asked to do that work. Sweat ran in black lines down faces. Men laughed too hard. Others shook.
"Recover," Zed said, voice steady, the same words and tone every time. Rhythm was safety. "Arrows, hides, tusks, glands. You—pull the nets and reset. You—water to the archers first, then the line. You and you—help the triage run. If you can stand, you can carry."
He walked to the right side where the tar pit smoked and watched a man scrape sand over the bubbling black surface to calm it. The bald butcher rolled a burrower's head with his boot and squinted at the teeth. "This one's glands will burn hot," he said, almost cheerful. "Alchemists'll sing."
The gray-sashed healer brushed past Zed with a basin and bumped his arm. She didn't apologize. He didn't expect her to. "Hold still," she said to the man she knelt by. Her hands moved like she'd done this from birth.
The kitchen girls pushed out with a new crate—roasted roots and thick stew in covered pans. Steam wrapped the line in a blanket of salt and fat and warmth. A boy with a split lip took a bowl, blinked tears out of his eyes from the heat, and ate so fast he coughed.
Night took the last light. Torches guttered on the walls. The forest crouched and listened.
Zed stood again on the battlements and let the city fill him. He smelled smoke and broth and blood. He heard the steady thump of mallets where carpenters fixed a loosened brace, the clank of armor on a man too tired to care that he was loud, the hiss of a quench at some forge that hadn't slept all day. He saw a woman below settle her child on her hip—a round-faced boy who stared at the wall with the solemn look only children have when they know the world is bigger than they are. The woman's dress was patched at the elbows. She joined a line at a side door where a clerk with a ledger checked off names, and then she slipped through into a dormitory the clan had opened within the inner ring—Zed's order made real. Safety first. Then rebuilding.
Fuine came to stand beside him again, quiet as a cat. "They follow you," she said.
"They follow the work," he said.
"That is the best kind of following," she said softly.
He didn't look at her. He didn't need to. "When it breaks," he said, "it will do it at once. We hold them here or we drown."
"We won't drown," she said.
"Because?"
"Because you have already decided we won't," she said, and then, after a beat, "and because I have work to do as well."
He glanced at her. "What work?"
She nodded toward the triage line where a young healer fumbled thread and needle and the gray-sashed woman's mouth tried not to snap. "Teaching people to stitch without turning a man into a pincushion," she said dryly, and stepped away.
Zed almost laughed. Almost.
He walked the wall one last time, touched the warm iron of a brazier, checked the lashings on a ladder, adjusted a rope coil by habit, and then sat on the stone with his back to the crenelation. He let his head rest for a breath against rough granite.
In the dark under his ribs, the Vampire whispered hunger, not for food but for the clean certainty of a fight. He sent back a picture: a roofline, a horn, a child asleep under a wool blanket, a gray-sashed hand tying off a knot with sure fingers. Not now, he told it. When it matters.
It subsided, amused and loyal, an old friend wearing a new face.
A runner came up the steps at a panting trot and thrust a slate into his hands. The chalked note was simple: "Varros scouts counted twenty-six packs veering south at dusk. Two larger signatures west."
He wiped the slate clean with his thumb and handed it back. "Keep watching," he said. "If they go for the river, we meet them at the ford. If they test the west, we light braziers three and five and pull to Line B. No one moves without the horn."
The runner nodded and fled.
Zed looked out into the night where the forest crouched. He could not see it, but he could feel the shape of the next days. Press. Hold. Press. Hold. Then the thing from the northwest would come, the old weight in the world that hated balances shifting. He would be there when it did.
Below, the kitchen hall roared again as a fresh batch of bread hit the stones. The triage tent lanterns threw narrow cones of light that gleamed on needles and blood. The bald butcher's laugh rolled over the yard like a drum. A child cried once and then went quiet. A signal boy dozed by his horn and jerked awake, guilty.
"Sleep if you can, eat if you can, drink if you can," Zed told the night, and the night took the order with the rest.
The capital did not rest. It held.
And in the holding, it began to believe.