The silence that followed Rhelas's revelation was heavy, but it was broken in an unexpected way. Before anyone could digest the horror of the "Chronicles of Hunger," a shout rang out from the guard post.

"Riders! From the north!"

All eyes turned to the pass. Two riders, covered in road dust and flying the Count's colors, were staggering through the illusions, gasping. Their mounts were lathered, muzzles foaming.

Maggie rushed to meet them, Tonar at her heels. The moment of metaphysical terror was swept away by the tangible urgency of the present.

"Report!" Maggie ordered, grabbing the bridle of the first horse.

The messenger, breathless, slid from the saddle. "Pilaf's scouts… they've forced the Karanor Pass. The enemy vanguard is deploying in the Halen plain. They'll be in sight within two days."

The news landed like a hammer blow. The war was no longer a distant threat; it was at their gates.

Rhelas, his expression once again a mask of strategic coldness, turned to Maggie. "Are your feelings about echoes of the past a luxury you can still afford, Captain?"

The implication was clear. Elisa and the black structure were a problem for later.

Maggie clenched her jaw. The fear for Elisa was still there, burning, but duty screamed louder. She nodded, a sharp, military gesture.

"You're right. Priorities have changed." She turned to Tonar. "Sound general quarters. I want the trenches widened and the anti-cavalry stakes positioned before dawn. Use the Awakened teams for the heavy work."

Then she looked at Rhelas. "Commander, your illusion specialists will be our eyes and our shadow. I want this position to look ten times more garrisoned than it is. And if they have mist or confusion spells, have them ready."

Rhelas sketched a faint smile, that of a craftsman finally being given the right task. "It will be done. The Sixth Squad will make this rock a nightmare for anyone who dares approach."

The order spread through the camp like wildfire. The atmosphere of supernatural tension mutated into a martial frenzy. The rumble of stone blocks being shifted by geomancy replaced the murmur of incantations. The soldiers, relieved to be facing an enemy of flesh and blood rather than a spectral horror, set to work with renewed energy.

Zirel gently pulled Elisa by the arm. "You heard. We fight first, philosophize about ancient monsters later." His voice was rough, but his gesture wasn't without a certain solicitude. He led her to the rear of the camp, near the healers' quarters, away from Rhelas's inquisitive gaze.

As night truly fell, fires were lit and messengers rode out in all directions to rally the scattered patrols. The bastion was no longer just an anchor point; it was becoming the pivot on which the entire first line of defense would rest.

A few hours later, Maggie and Rhelas stood side by side on the highest parapet, observing the swarming activity below.

"And her?" Rhelas finally asked, without even looking at Maggie.

"Elisa remains under my protection," she replied without hesitation. "If she is a vector, then she is also a weapon. And I will not let any weapon fall into enemy hands. We will watch her. But for now, she is just a soldier."

Rhelas did not argue. His eyes lost themselves towards the forest, beyond the illusions, where the black thing waited, silent.

"Let her remain so," he murmured. "Pilaf is an enemy we understand. Their coming is perhaps a blessing. It forces us to look at the real battle."

But as they descended to inspect the defenses, a shiver ran down Maggie's spine. She remembered Elisa's words: *"It's a mouth. And it's hungry."* And she couldn't help but think that the war arriving might be nothing more than an appetizer.

——

The night was advanced, but no eyes closed in the bastion. By the light of braziers and orbs of pure light conjured by the Awakened, the camp buzzed like a hive on high alert. Maggie's teams and the Sixth Squad now worked in a form of tense synergy, two beasts with different methods preparing the same bite.

It was in the hastily erected command post – a tent reinforced with stone by the geomancers – that the maps were unfurled. Maggie, Rhelas, Tonar, and the most experienced sergeants gathered around the worn parchment depicting the border region.

"Pilaf doesn't just want our blood, they want this land," Maggie began, her finger pointed at the Karanor Pass. "And not for prestige. The ruins scattered through these valleys hold artifacts, veins of crystallized essence. Resources that could fuel their war machines and their own Awakened for decades to come."

Tonar growled, his fists clenched on the table. "They take us for miners. They'll dig up our bones to extract power."

"That is precisely it," Rhelas confirmed, his calm voice contrasting with the sergeant's anger. "For Martissan, this war is a question of survival. If Pilaf consolidates its position here, it will control the northern passes and the essence deposits. Our nation would become a vassal state, stifled in less than a generation. We are not defending a border post, we are defending our right to exist as a sovereign power."

He let the scale of the stakes hang in the air for a moment before continuing, his gaze settling on Maggie. "The question, therefore, is not *if* we must fight, but *how*. And it is here that our doctrines, Captain, must find common ground."

Maggie plunged her gaze into Rhelas's. The tension between them was no longer personal; it had become tactical.

"My doctrine is simple, Commander," she said, tracing defensive lines on the map. "We anchor our defense on this bastion. We use the terrain. We let the enemy break upon our walls. Discipline, formation in depth, secure supply lines. We bleed them white until their advance becomes untenable. It's a war of attrition, the kind Martissan knows how to wage."

Rhelas let out a barely perceptible breath, a sign of polite disagreement. "A war of attrition assumes the enemy agrees to be worn down. Pilaf is sending its vanguard not to test, but to crush. They have numerical superiority and momentum. To hole up here is to offer ourselves as a target for their battering rams and their artillery. Your discipline will be magnificent to see, Captain, until the last rock is reduced to dust."

"And what is your proposal?" Maggie retorted, her tone a bit too sharp.

"Fear," Rhelas said simply. "We must not be a rock, but a mirage. A nightmare. My doctrine is to deny them the battle they anticipate."

He took a stylus in turn and drew on the map, not lines, but zones, circles spreading from the bastion like inkblots.

"We let your infantry hold the center, but as bait. Meanwhile, my Awakened will operate on the margins. Here, in the Twisted-Spine forest, we will deploy mobile illusions: noises of armies marching where there is no one, visions of reinforced flanks that don't exist. There, on the ridges, we will project the image of reinforcements arriving in number. We will use mist decoys to confuse their archers and disorient their cavalry."

Tonar sneered. "Phantoms and smoke. That won't kill a single soldier."

"No, Sergeant," Rhelas admitted with a cold smile. "But it will kill their morale. It will paralyze their commanders, who will no longer know where to strike. An army that doubts is an army that decomposes. We will force them to deploy in anticipation of attacks that will never come, to exhaust their soldiers marching towards shadows. And when they are disorganized, frustrated, exhausted... that is when we will strike. Not with a massive counter-attack, but with precision blows. An entire unit will collapse into a ravine because the bridge they saw was just an illusion. Their commander will be found with his throat slit in his tent, guarded by fifty men, without anyone seeing or hearing a thing. This is a war of the mind. We will not fight their swords, but their reason."

The silence in the tent was palpable. Maggie's sergeants, pragmatic soldiers, looked at Rhelas with a mixture of disbelief and dread. This was a form of warfare foreign to them, almost dishonorable.

Maggie studied the map, her face a mask of concentration. She saw the merit in the proposal. It was intelligent, diabolically effective. But it was also a huge gamble.

"You propose to make this bastion the center of a spider's web," she summarized. "We are the fly tied to the center, meant to attract the hornet. If your web tears, we will be overrun without ever having truly engaged in combat."

"Exactly," Rhelas admitted. "You must have absolute faith in the talent of my Awakened. And I must have absolute faith in the tenacity of your soldiers to hold under pressure. It's a risk. But the risk of a static defense is, in my opinion, a certainty of defeat."

The debate raged for an hour. Maggie argued for the reliability of proven formations, the strength of the Martissan shield. Rhelas extolled the virtues of controlled chaos, the disintegration of the enemy's will. It was a clash between two philosophies: one, anchored in matter, discipline, and brute force; the other, fluid, in the immaterial, perception, and fear.

Finally, exhausted by the days of marching and the growing pressure, Maggie conceded on a crucial point. She did not abandon her defense, but she agreed to make it the centerpiece of a vaster, more perverse plan.

"Alright, Rhelas. We play your game. But with my rules at its heart. The bastion will hold. Your 'spider's web' will deploy, but at the first breach in our walls, the first illusion that fails and allows the enemy to break through, I resume total command and we return to a conventional defense. Is that clear?"

Rhelas inclined his head slightly, a glint of victory in his cold eyes. "Perfectly clear, Captain."

The orders were given. The Sixth Squad dispersed into the night, silent shadows slipping out of the camp to weave their web of deadly illusions. Maggie and Tonar focused on reinforcing the parapets, supplying the archers, and setting up triage points.

As dawn broke, tinting the sky grey and orange, Elisa, stationed with the other non-awakened soldiers to reinforce the south palisade, looked up towards the forest. She no longer felt the call of the black structure, smothered as it was by the adrenaline and immediate fear of war. But she knew it was still there, lurking in the shadows, patient. She watched Zirel, who was inspecting the anti-cavalry stakes with lethal efficiency, and then Maggie, who paced the ramparts with a determined step.

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