# **Book I — The Lion of Roderan**
## **Chapter II — The Baron's Shadow**
Dawn crept over the valley in streaks of pale gold, cutting through the mist that clung to Roderan's walls.
The castle breathed again—slowly, uncertainly—like a wounded beast testing its limbs.
Aldric stood in the courtyard, cloak drawn tight, watching forty men form a crooked line before him.
They were his "soldiers": farmers in dented mail, a few veterans with scarred faces, a handful of boys too thin to lift a sword properly.
Still, they had come. That alone was a beginning.
"Straighten the ranks," he said.
His voice carried across the cold stone. The men scrambled into order.
Tavren, the steward, hovered near the steps, wringing his hands. "My lord, most of them haven't held steel in months. Perhaps—"
"Then they will learn."
Aldric drew his sword—not for show, but to measure weight and balance. The blade was old, the edge worn. He turned it once in the light.
"Discipline before strength," he said. "Courage before pride. You will not fight as mobs. You will move as one body, breathe as one heart."
Blank stares met him.
He sighed, dropped the sword point to the ground, and began again, slower this time, walking the line.
"Raise shields. Left foot forward. Keep your weight low. A blade is useless if the arm behind it trembles."
He corrected grips, shifted stances, forced their shoulders square.
Hours passed beneath the gray sky until the first true formation held steady.
Sweat darkened tunics, breath misted in the cold.
"Better," Aldric said at last. "Tomorrow we do it again. And the day after that—until the ground itself learns your names."
When he dismissed them, exhaustion had replaced their doubt. That, too, was progress.
---
Later, in the war-room—a circular chamber lit by a single hearth—Tavren placed parchment after parchment on the table.
"Reports from the villages, my lord. Grain stocks are low. We've barley enough to last the month."
Aldric studied the rough maps, inked by uncertain hands. "What of trade with Holmfirth to the east?"
"Cut off. The bridge collapsed last winter. The Duke of Merrand never repaired it."
Aldric traced the line of the river with one finger. "Convenient. It keeps us starved."
He looked up. "Then we rebuild the bridge ourselves. Use stone from the southern quarry. Pay the masons double rations."
Tavren blinked. "We can't afford that."
"We can't afford not to," Aldric replied. "Without trade, Roderan dies. With it, we breathe again."
He gathered the parchments into a pile. "Send word to every craftsman still loyal. Anyone who refuses will pay tax in labor."
The steward hesitated, then bowed. "As you command."
When the door closed, Aldric leaned over the map, thinking.
Food, walls, soldiers—each was a front in the same war. And beneath all of it, the Hollow pulsed unseen.
---
That evening, he walked through the village at the foot of the castle.
The people watched him with wary eyes—some curious, others fearful. Their "baron" had been a recluse before the accident; now he strode among them like a man reborn.
He stopped beside an old blacksmith hammering horseshoes.
"Good iron?" Aldric asked.
The man squinted at him, then nodded. "Aye, my lord. What little ore we get from the hills."
"How many forges in the valley still burn?"
"Three. Maybe four, if the wind favors."
Aldric looked around the soot-stained workshop—the cracked anvil, the boy pumping the bellows. "I'll see them supplied with coal and ore. In return, you'll craft not trinkets, but arms. Short swords, spears, nails, hinges. Everything the castle needs."
The blacksmith stared. "Forgive me, my lord, but who'll pay for it?"
Aldric smiled faintly. "I will. In food, when the bridge is built. In protection, when the bandits come."
He set a silver coin on the anvil. "Consider this an oath between us."
The man bowed low. "Then we'll work till the smoke hides the sun."
As Aldric walked away, the rhythm of the hammer began anew—steadier this time.
---
Night deepened.
In his study, the candles burned low as he penned orders—lists of tools, grain, timber.
Each task led to another: forge the weapons, train the men, feed the people, rebuild the bridge, reopen trade.
Small steps, invisible to the great lords, but together they formed the spine of something greater.
A knock sounded.
"Enter," Aldric said without looking up.
A young woman stepped in—slender, pale, dressed in a healer's apron. "My lord, the steward said you requested me?"
He set the quill aside. "You tend the sick in the lower quarter?"
"Yes, my lord. The fever spreads again. We lack herbs."
He rose, walked to the window, and stared out at the sleeping village. "I'll send guards with you tomorrow. Take whatever you need from the stores."
Her eyes widened. "The stores? But that's for the garrison—"
"The garrison eats after the people," Aldric said. "If they starve, no sword in the world will save this land."
She bowed deeply. "Thank you, my lord."
When she was gone, Aldric let out a slow breath.
He remembered field hospitals in another life—men dying not from bullets but from neglect.
Not again. Not under his watch.
---
Two weeks later, Tavren entered the training yard as the sun climbed above the ramparts.
The men stood in tighter ranks now, shields locked, sweat gleaming on their foreheads.
Aldric moved among them like a ghost, correcting, striking, testing.
"They're improving," Tavren admitted.
"They're beginning," Aldric corrected. "Soon we'll need riders. Scouts. And a different kind of soldier—one unseen."
"Unseen, my lord?"
Aldric watched a young recruit disarm his partner with surprising speed. "Every light casts a shadow, Tavren. While the knights train beneath the sun, others must learn to walk in darkness."
The steward frowned. "Assassins?"
"Eyes and ears," Aldric said. "Nothing more. For now."
He turned away, concealing the thought already forming: a second order, hidden, trained apart—the **Veilborn**.
The bell rang from the gatehouse—three slow tolls.
A messenger rode in, cloak drenched, bearing the crest of the Duke of Merrand.
"My lord Baron," he called, "by decree of His Grace, tribute is demanded at month's end: ten carts of grain and five of iron."
Tavren paled. "That's half our supply!"
Aldric stepped forward. "Tell your duke the grain will come when his men rebuild the bridge they left to rot."
The messenger stiffened. "My lord, refusal may be taken as rebellion."
Aldric's eyes hardened. "Then let him take it as he will."
The man hesitated, then bowed sharply and rode off.
When the sound of hooves faded, Tavren whispered, "You've just angered the most powerful lord in the province."
Aldric looked toward the horizon where storm clouds gathered.
"He was already angry. Now he'll have reason."
He sheathed his sword and turned back to his men. "Double the watch. Train through the night. The lion's den must be ready before the wolves arrive."
The first drops of rain began to fall again, soft and cold, hissing on steel.
Far beneath the castle, in the forgotten Hollow, something stirred in answer—one slow heartbeat, deep as the earth itself.
---
*End of Chapter II — The Baron's Shadow*