The sun had barely crested the horizon when the horns blew.
Not loud, not in alarm. Just three long notes—drawn, steady, exact.
A signal.
Drill commencement.
The courtyard of Northreach Bastion had changed. Gone was the clutter, the slouching lines, the muttered doubts. What remained now was cohesion—still raw, still jagged, but forged in Renard's tempo. Ghosts in training.
Renard stood atop the old stone watchtower, cloak fluttering in the wind. Below, the soldiers moved in interlocking lines, sweeping through mock terrain. He watched with narrowed eyes, but said nothing.
He didn't have to.
"Step into the cut!"
Sorell's voice cracked across the field as Alpha tightened their wall. Their shield phalanx moved in perfect timing with C-Team's illusion bursts, briefly mimicking a double-line formation to bait out feints.
Across the field, Omega struck from the flanks—Kael leading a wave of chaotic footwork and blade feints, throwing dust to break formation. Silva lobbed a smoldering arc of flame over the simulated battlefield—distracting just enough for Thorn's warhound to barrel through a weak link in the line.
From the outer ridge, Phantom Squad vanished and reappeared at intervals, simulating shadow assassinations.
Every movement matched what Renard had calculated.
But it wasn't perfect.
Not yet.
Inside the strategy hall, Renard paced before a sprawling map.
Nyra and Elric watched as he shifted tokens into new arcs.
"You're rotating the attack vectors," Elric said. "Moving Omega into Alpha's forward push."
"They've stopped thinking of themselves as separate squads," Renard said. "Time to see if they act like one."
Maera entered with fresh logistics scrolls—requisitions and adjusted rations. She raised an eyebrow.
"Still drilling them into ash?"
"They have three days. War won't wait for breath."
She smirked faintly. "And when do you breathe?"
Renard paused. Then offered a shrug. "After."
That evening, the Warden's keep echoed with sparring blades. Not the structured cadence of formation drills—this was different. This was stress relief, soldiers pushing each other harder than any commander dared to.
Renard stood outside, watching from the shadows of the archway.
A young soldier from Bastion, Dain Marrow, had just disarmed a senior Alpha trooper. He looked shocked at himself.
Across the yard, one of the C-Team medics laughed as she dropped Kael with a perfectly placed sweep.
Respect was shifting.
It no longer clung to rank or title—it followed outcome. And every outcome here, these past days, bore Renard's fingerprints.
Later that night, Veyran found Renard in the war chamber. The maps were cleared. Only one sheet remained—an old charcoal sketch of Caerenhold's eastern flank.
Renard barely looked up.
"They'll move sooner than we think."
"You said three days," Veyran replied.
"I still believe that. But they'll test us early."
Veyran approached the table, folded his arms.
"The Black Sigil has served three monarchs. I've watched nobles posture over tactics they barely understand, and warlords burn out chasing glory. I've never seen a man turn doctrine into instinct the way you do."
Renard didn't respond.
Veyran went on. "You don't just lead them. You tune them. Like an instrument."
"I don't want loyalty," Renard said quietly. "I want resonance."
The words hung there.
Then Veyran said, "You have it."
A beat.
"Commander."
The next morning, an envoy arrived from the capital.
One rider, royal seal burned into his armor, dismounted at the Bastion gates.
He handed the scroll directly to Renard without a word.
He read it once.
And said nothing.
Only his eyes tightened—fractionally.
Later, inside the keep, he gathered Kael, Sorell, Maera, Nyra, and Veyran once more.
"They're readying the Black March," he said.
A beat of silence.
"That's a myth," Kael muttered.
"No," Nyra said. "It's doctrine. Classified."
"The Caerenhold army will strike Northreach as their first move," Renard said. "We are the outer flame."
"And when they come?"
Renard looked across the room.
"We don't hold."
They blinked.
He continued.
"We bleed them."
He pointed to the map, to the kill zones, to the red threads he'd marked in invisible chalk.
"We make them pay for every tile of land, until the only word they remember from this place… is fear."