The drums never truly stopped—they only changed.
What had been a slow, threatening rhythm turned into a rapid surge, boots pounding beneath the thunder as men poured out of the forest. Torchlight cut through the darkness in tight, deliberate lines.
The Warguard was attacking.
From the wall, Ridgebrook looked fragile. Below me, faces were pale with exhaustion and fear. Children clutched blankets. Men with callused hands gripped spears as if wood alone could keep death away. Lira's knuckles were white as she held the ladder.
The Summoner's Ledger buzzed at the back of my skull.
[ENEMY ATTACK: IMMINENT — EASTERN FLANK]
[ESTIMATED FORCE: 80–120]
[RANKS DETECTED: UP TO RANK 2]
[DAYS UNTIL NEXT SUMMON: 10]
My face must have drained of color.
Orin glanced at me. "You've gone pale. Thinking again?"
"Yeah," I lied.
They accepted it—their chief thinking too hard. None of them knew what I was really seeing. To them, I just looked tired.
The attack began with smell before sound—tar, smoke, burning rope. Warguard soldiers burst from the trees carrying ladders, torches, and long poles wrapped in flaming rags. The plan was old and brutal: burn the palisade, hook ladders, flood the walls.
With our creek reduced to a joke, the thought of fire touching dry wood made my lungs tighten.
"Archers!" Orin shouted. "Left flank! Aim for ladders and torch carriers—don't waste arrows!"
Vlad moved without a word.
One moment he was beside the Riverbend riders. The next, he was gone—slipping off the wall and into the attackers like a shadow. A grappling hook flew. A ladder slammed into the palisade. Someone screamed as fire licked the wood.
Vlad's presence cut through the chaos.
A hand on a throat. A shoulder crushed into a chest. A body dragged behind a crate. Warguard soldiers fell with necks snapped or throats crushed—clean, fast, merciless. No wasted motion.
But they had numbers.
A battering ram slammed against the gate while ladders went up along the wall. One leaned into place. A soldier started climbing.
I didn't charge.
I shouted.
"HEY!" My voice cracked through the night. "Stupid boy! Try breathing through your skull—maybe it'll help you think!"
The climber froze, one foot mid-step, confusion breaking his rhythm.
An archer above him loosed.
The body fell limp, crashing into the dirt below. The ladder shook. Panic spread among the men beneath it.
It wasn't magic. It was timing. Breaking momentum mattered.
On the eastern flank, flaming poles were pressed against the palisade. Sparks flew. Straw caught fire. Flames crawled up the gate.
Buckets were thrown—half empty, desperate. Our water was a thread.
"Boiling oil!" someone shouted.
We didn't have oil. We had a half-pot of hot broth.
Lira helped lift it, her face smeared with soot, eyes hard with resolve. Together, they tipped it over the wall just as a man hauled himself up.
The liquid spilled.
Screams tore through the night. Flesh burned. Smoke made men gag. Several attackers collapsed, writhing.
Still, ladders kept coming.
Another squad rushed the gate hinges.
Vlad reappeared behind a fallen horse, tearing a rusted pike from the dirt. He used it like a spear, knocking two soldiers off their feet with brutal precision. Blood sprayed. Bodies hit the ground.
A man lunged at him with a knife.
Vlad pivoted, shifted his weight, and the attacker's leg snapped under clean pressure. No flair. Just efficiency.
Then a shout rose from behind us.
"AMBUSH! THEY'RE GOING FOR THE MILL-RUN!"
A smaller unit had slipped toward our food stores.
Borrik and three others ran. I ran with them.
The Ledger whispered strategy—not words, just instinct—and I acted as if it were my own thought.
We met the attackers in a narrow lane where numbers meant nothing.
Orin moved like a blade, cutting clean lines. Borrik's spear took a throat. A Warguard captain tried to rally his men and was slammed face-first into a cartwheel, skull cracking with a sound I would never forget.
I tasted bile.
Necessary.
By the time the gate was reinforced again—burning beams wedged in place—the eastern flank was chaos. Broken ladders. Dead and dying men. Torches hissed as blood, broth, and sweat soaked them.
The survivors fled, dragging what they could back into the trees.
Lira knelt beside a young villager who'd taken a spear to the ribs. Her hands were muddy and red as she worked, pressing, stitching, fighting to keep him breathing.
He coughed weakly.
He would live.
But there would be scars.
We paid for holding the wall.
A dozen villagers lay wounded in the square. Two were dead—a blacksmith's apprentice and a fisherman. Their families screamed in grief sharp enough to cut the air.
This victory was serrated.
Vlad returned as the Warguard retreated, wiping his blade on a fallen cloak. He studied the treeline.
"They test," he said. "They learn. They will return."
The Ledger glowed faintly.
[ENEMY MORALE: SHAKEN]
[RIDGEBROOK DAMAGE: MODERATE]
[DAYS UNTIL NEXT SUMMON: 10]
I walked the square, meeting soot-streaked faces filled with exhaustion and defiance. Lira caught my eye—fear, pain, and something dangerously close to needing comfort.
Not now.
We buried the dead by torchlight. The words we spoke tasted like gravel.
When the last enemy torch vanished, the village breathed—not relief, just a pause.
Vantor hadn't broken the gate. But he'd taken lives. He'd burned our nerves. He'd forced us to bleed.
That was his goal.
But we learned too.
Their tactics were blunt. Predictable. Strategy could slow them. Grit could stop them.
The Ledger hummed at my temple—promise and threat entwined.
That night, Vlad sat in the shadow of the longhouse, calmly cleaning a blade. He looked up once, met my gaze, and made a simple gesture:
Survive. Then strike.
I believed him.
I had to.
Ten days remained.
Ten days until the next summon.
Ten days until the world could change again.
But for now—
Ridgebrook had held.
And for tonight, that was enough.