“Looks like the worst has arrived,” Delaia said, calm as frost settling on stone.

Lachesis offered no handholds, a pane of glass hung in the sky. No human could reach that fingernail of ledge at its crown.

Sprites could. Iling was a veteran hawk on a cliff wind; sharp sight and keen senses, clear as spring water, let her see everything.

The more she saw, the dimmer her heart grew, like dusk swallowing colors. The crowd still dreamed of tomorrow’s bread, like smoke over coals.

Soldiers only dared imagine life after Lachesis fell, like sailors praying past the reef. She and Delaia saw the deeper riptide beneath.

“Sometimes I wish I were ordinary,” Delaia said, eyes far as rain. “No storms in the head, just quiet fields. That’d be nice.”

Medith, bright as a struck flint, grinned. “Don’t lose heart. It’s just a bit over twenty thousand, mostly Mountain Bandits, straw over iron.”

“Regulars aren’t many,” she went on, voice like a drumbeat. “Their bite may not be as bad as we feared, just a painted tiger.”

“You,” Sais drawled, chin in palm, eyes warm as spring thaw. “Sometimes I wonder if war is your wine...” Last night had eased her knots.

Medith only smiled, a flower opening after rain, and didn’t bite. She flicked her hair, a dark ribbon, and turned to Delaia. “A map?”

Delaia, caught by Medith’s fire like kindling, pulled a map and spread it wide, parchment veins running like rivers under noon light.

After ten minutes’ thought, Medith closed her eyes. She etched the lines into her mind like a seal pressed in wax, steady as a bell.

She took each position apart with a surgeon’s care, mountains as chess pieces, roads like arteries, every ford a blade’s edge in the dark.

No one dared disturb. Delaia read a fresh troop report in silence, the ink still wet as rain, her face a shuttered window.

Erig sat in a tower on the wall, a lantern above stone. With him were a man in a black-and-gold pheasant plume, Skaro,

several lion-mask Mountain Bandits, guards, Sinis, and Powell, all seated in a tight ring, like wolves circling a fire in the wind.

Erig and the plume-wearing man kept their helmets on, faces hidden like moons behind clouds. Powell’s gaze drifted, deep as a well.

“How are preparations?” the pheasant-plume man asked, his rasp like gravel under a boot.

Sinis licked his tongue, savoring red like a dog remembering blood. “All as planned. The city’s food piles like a mountain you can’t stomach.”

“If I’d known, we wouldn’t have packed so much,” he added, voice thin as smoke. “We might’ve arrived days earlier. Powell never told me.”

Several razor glances flashed to Powell, cold as sleet. Cold sweat ran down Powell’s spine like a thaw.

“Didn’t my lord order the poison into the water?” Powell said, words tumbling like stones. “I did it. Nothing inside should be edible.”

“Did you actually poison it?” Skaro frowned, doubt sharp as flint. “Why no effect? I ate plenty. No one dropped dead.”

“Could be the rain,” Erig said, flat as steel. “We never counted on poison, like bait washed downstream.”

“Commander Erig, didn’t you say these people were mine?” Skaro bristled, a boar under a spear. “Why make them swear to your king now?”

“To break walls, break hearts first,” Erig said, a thin smile like a knife’s shine. “Don’t you want to see them tear each other apart?”

“You’ll get your people in time, as surely as dusk follows day,” he added, a tremor of hunger in his voice. “Didn’t I leave you women?”

“You’re not afraid they strike back?” Skaro asked, brow knotted like rope.

“Encircle points to crush relief,” Erig said, dismissive as dust. “They’re cut off, a lone island. Would you fear ants killing an elephant?”

“Who knows,” Skaro muttered, like thunder far away.

“Not your worry,” Erig snapped, heat like iron from the forge. “Do your part. Our moves aren’t yours to judge.”

Skaro and the other three chiefs swallowed their anger, bitterness like bile. Even together, they knew they couldn’t beat him.

“Lord Manto, how about an arrow rain from above Lachesis?” Erig turned to the black-and-gold man.

Manto was a mountain at 185, armor for bark, presence like a winter gale. Pale-blue eyes looked past men like mist.

“Lachesis completely blocks Impado,” he said, voice even as a plumb line. “Arrow rain would hit like one-tenth a drizzle. It wastes shafts,

and gifts them war materiel, like throwing logs to a rival fire. Their stores inside are thin; you can say empty, a dry granary.”

“Who told them to haul everything to the walls, like fools under the open sky?” he went on, tapping the table like a drum.

“Lachesis lasts seventy-two hours. It’s ten o’clock now. It deployed at half past midnight. Two days later near pre-dawn, it breaks like ice.”

“When it does, numbers grind them to meal, a millstone over grain. Snap the Royal right wing, and the first blow stuns like a hammer.”

“He can use that gap to do his work, right?” Manto’s tone was a shadow crossing snow.

“Mm. Until then, we just enjoy,” someone said, nods passing like ripples.

Manto tapped the table again, a woodpecker on bark. “I hear Medith is inside Lachesis.”

“Uh?” Sinis tilted his head, a hound pricking ears.

“Medith? Medith Waheit? From the Elven City?” Skaro blurted, the name a blade to bandit hearts.

“Someone tried to keep Medith in the Royal Capital,” Powell said, shaking his head like a willow in wind. “Looks like it failed.”

“What do we do?” Skaro’s words stumbled like hooves on scree. “Delaia’s war sense is sharp, and there’s a former Sea Guard Commander.”

“Now Medith too,” he finished, fear a cold river in his gut.

“Don’t panic, Chief,” Manto said, slow as snow. “Tactics can’t bridge a canyon in raw strength. You catch my drift?”

“No matter her tricks,” Erig said, disdain soft as ash, “three thousand won’t break twenty-three thousand. Not against our legion.”

“Relax. When Lachesis shatters, I’ll offer her to you,” he added, like a hunter promising a pelt.

Skaro’s eyes rolled, then he laughed, loud as a gong. “Rest easy, Commander. We’ll go through fire and flood without a blink.”

“Marquis Powell, did you drop the drug?” Manto asked. Powell frowned, a crease like a cut.

“I did,” he said, voice a dry leaf. “They seem untouched. Maybe it’s because of Sprites.”

“I see. Then no matter,” Erig said, staring like a snake. “When it’s done, Marquis, we’ll put you forward for prime minister and grant your wish.”

Powell nodded coolly, a mask over a storm. The meeting broke like surf. He returned to his manor, halls pale as bone.

The servants already knew. They said nothing, but their eyes were tangled vines, hard to read.

He climbed to his familiar bedroom. He scratched his head till his curls were a bird’s nest, misery fluttering like trapped wings.

He stared at the mirror, a still pond showing a stranger, and sudden disgust crawled up like ants under skin.

He drew out a sealed letter and held it over a candle, the flame a small sun. His eyes drifted like drifting ash.

His hand shook like a leaf. After a long breath, resolve settled like iron cooling.

In the study’s secret room, he found a carrier pigeon, bright-eyed as a bead. He tied the rolled paper to its leg, fingers steady now.

The pigeon tilted its head and cooed, a soft coo-coo like rain on eaves. Powell patted its head and let it go.

He watched it streak into the night like an arrow disappearing into ink. At last, Powell smiled from his heart, a dawn after storm.