The world appeared harmless from the hilltop.
Morning mist settled in the dips of the fields, softening edges and blurring the line between Ashford-on-Lea and the dark silhouette of trees beyond. Birds traced little arcs through the chilly air. William's breath puffed out like smoke as his horse snorted, hooves shifting in the wet ground.
"See anything?" Hobb asked.
There were six riders in total—Colonel Reeve, two scouts, Hobb, William, and another trooper. They had left the village at dawn, circling wide through the fields to approach the woods from the west, where the land rose in a low, elongated ridge.
"Looks the same as last night," one scout muttered. "Quiet."
"Quiet is a liar," Reeve said. "We wait."
They did.
The sun burned away some of the mist. Shapes sharpened. The tree line transformed from a smudge to sharp black teeth. William narrowed his eyes, letting his gaze follow the edge where forest met field.
At first, he saw nothing.
Then—movement.
A flicker between trunks. A darker line against shadows. Another. Another.
"Riders," he said. "There."
Reeve followed his gesture. His jaw clenched.
"Scouts," the colonel said. "They're not even trying to hide from this angle."
As if on cue, one of the distant riders turned. William caught the gleam of a helmet catching the sunlight. The rider raised his arm. A narrow pennon snapped on his lance—black with what looked like red slashes.
"Are they...?" William began.
"Don't say that word yet," Reeve cut him off. "Could be mercenaries copying the colors."
The scouts shifted uneasily in their saddles.
From deeper in the trees, a faint sound grew—initially soft, then swelling.
Drums.
Not chaotic. Not wild. A steady, layered beat—men moving in unison.
The mist thinned further, as if the sound pushed it back.
Along the forest edge, lines started to form.
At first, William thought his eyes deceived him. Then the shapes coalesced—rows of shields, points of spears, the gleam of metal helmets. Flags fluttered.
One banner unfurled as the wind caught it fully.
A black field. A twin-headed eagle in red, wings spread wide, claws clutching a broken sun.
His mouth went dry.
"Germania," he whispered.
No one flinched at the word as close as it was. Hobb cursed softly under his breath. One of the scouts made a warding sign with two fingers.
Reeve remained silent for a moment.
Then, very quietly: "Count."
William tried.
He watched as more ranks emerged from the trees. Not just single lines, but columns spilling into the fields and spreading out.
"Left to right, they're forming three blocks," he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Each... five, six hundred wide? Deep... gods..." He swallowed hard. "I can't see the back ranks from here. At least two thousand. Probably more."
"Three," Reeve said flatly. "Maybe some baggage behind. Maybe cavalry we can't see yet."
The drums kept pounding. The columns moved like ink spreading across the landscape.
"What are they doing this far from the River?" Hobb muttered. "Supposed to be forty miles of Britannian security between here and a legion."
"Apparently someone forgot to tell them," Reeve said. He turned his horse. "We're done here. Head back to the village. Now."
They rode hard.
No words on the way back. Ashford-on-Lea appeared around the bend of the river—small, fragile, smoke rising from morning fires into the clean sky.
It looked like it could be trampled into mud by a boot.
The hall felt too small once Reeve started speaking.
Reddan, the reeve, sat pale-faced at the table. Several of the older villagers stood behind him. Hobb and three sergeants flanked Reeve. William took a place to the side, hands flat on the rough wood.
"Three thousand?" Reddan repeated, voice trembling. "You're sure?"
"I've been counting men trying to kill me for twenty years," Reeve said. "I know what a legion looks like when I see one."
Reddan swallowed hard. "But why here? We have no armory—"
"Because your village is on this side of the river and someone in Germania decided to be bold," Reeve snapped. "Maybe they want to test us. Maybe they're the vanguard of something worse. Either way, they're more than this detachment can handle."
"How many men do you have?" a sergeant asked.
"One hundred and twenty," Reeve replied. "Including cooks and the boy who polishes armor."
William flinched at how small that number sounded against three thousand.
"What do we do?" Reddan whispered. "We can... fortify the palisade, maybe—"
"No. You can't," Reeve said bluntly. "Wooden walls and farm spears won't stop a legion. They'll be through in an hour."
Reddan's fingers dug into the table. "So—what? We run?"
Reeve's jaw clenched. "We can't move everyone fast enough. Not on the roads we have. If we try to march the whole village out with us, we slow, they catch us in the fields, and both my men and your people die. Plus, the War Office needs this detachment elsewhere."
William stared. "So you're planning to abandon them."
Reeve's eyes met his, calm and without flinching. "My plan is to keep a hundred and twenty trained soldiers here so we can bring back three thousand more. To hold the River. To keep Albion from becoming Ashford-on-Lea."
"And the people here?" William demanded. "The children? Hara has already buried one boy. Do you want her to watch the rest burn while you ride away to file a report?"
"Careful, boy," a sergeant growled.
"No," Reeve said quietly. "Let him speak. He's nobility. Never had to count losses like I have."
He gestured at Reddan and the villagers. "You think I want to leave them? You think the men outside came here because they enjoy hate? We're here because commands are thin and fronts are weaker. I have one detachment, a day's lead, and a legion on my doorstep. If I stay, I die. We die. Germania walks not just through Ashford but through every village between here and the capital before anyone even believes they've moved."
William's chest burned.
"So their lives are acceptable losses," he said. "Because they're small. Because they're not on maps with fancy names."
"War is nothing but unacceptable losses," Reeve snapped. "Every choice I make results in someone's death. That's command. Choosing where people die to minimize ruin. If you can't stomach that, you shouldn't wear a cloak."
The words hit him, but they also slid off something hard inside William.
"What about a rearguard?" he said. "We fortify. We don't try to win. We hold long enough for your detachment to reach safety. Send a rider. Light the beacons. Whatever it takes."
"And what do you think three thousand trained killers will do while you 'hold'?" Reeve shot back. "Wait politely outside while you give a speech? They'll envelop, flank, and grind you into the mud. You don't buy hours with a wooden wall—you buy minutes with your body."
"Maybe minutes are enough," William said. "If the beacon's close. If the message gets through. If—"
"'If' is not a plan," Reeve said. "It's a prayer."
Silence fell like a stone.
Reddan's knuckles turned white on the table.
"Colonel," he said softly. "These are our homes. If there's any chance—any—"
Reeve closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, the decision was made—hard as iron.
"I will leave a small force," he said. "Token, for honor's sake." He jerked his head at a sergeant. "You and twenty men will stay and organize what defenses you can and show that Britannia did not run without leaving a blade. You'll buy us as much time as you can. The rest ride within the hour."
William's mouth opened before he could stop it. "Twenty men against three thousand is suicide."
"Forty against three thousand is also suicide," Reeve replied. "There's no number under five hundred where that doesn't apply. The question is how useful your sacrifice is."
He looked at William for a long, measured moment.
"I won't waste trained men so a noble boy can feel brave on his first patrol."
Everyone else averted their eyes, giving them a little space.
William's heart hammered. His throat tightened. He remembered Princess Elizabeth's voice in the corridor: I just wish this had been my choice. Or his.
Here it was.
"The War Office sent a Lockhart to 'observe,'" he said sourly. "To wear a clean cloak and write a tidy report. They didn't send me to watch villagers burn. If my first lesson in command is 'abandon the people who need you,' you can keep it."
Reeve's eyes hardened. "Listen to yourself. You think this is a story. It's not. It's mud, screams, and bodies you won't have time to bury."
"Then I'll stand in the mud with them," William said. "Not on the road running away."
Reddan stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
"Lord Lockhart..." he began.
"This is mutiny," one of the sergeants said in a dangerous tone. "You defy the colonel's order, you're no better than the men we're here to fight."
William met Reeve's gaze. "I'm not ordering you to stay, sir," he said. "I'm saying I won't go. I'll take volunteers. I'll hold the village as long as I can. When you get to a stronghold, tell them there are souls worth the ride back."
Reeve's jaw clenched so hard the muscles twitched.
"Do you understand," he said coldly, "that if you do this, you're stepping outside the chain of command? If we both live, I'll have to note your disobedience."
William swallowed. "Yes," he said. "Better that than watching three hundred civilians die from a safe distance."
A heavy silence settled.
Hobb broke it.
"I'll stay," he said.
Everyone looked at him.
The sergeant shrugged. "With respect, sir, someone has to stop this idiot from tripping over his heroism. And I'm too old to outrun a legion anyway."
Reeve's eyes flashed. "Hobb—"
"I know the risk," Hobb said. "I'm not doing it for him." He nodded at Reddan. "I grew up in a village like this. Saw one burned when I was a boy. Took ten years to stop hearing it. If I can give these people just one more hour to get their children in cellars, that's worth more than dying later."
Another soldier cleared his throat. "I'll stay too. Someone needs to fix that north wall properly. The last patch job was a joke."
"Me as well," said another. "My sister's got three kids in a hamlet not far from here. It feels wrong to ride off and leave someone else to defend them."
Within a minute, ten men had stepped forward. Hobb, the carpenter-soldier, a bowman with a scar down his face, a quiet man who hadn't spoken much since Albion, and six others—none new to battle.
Reeve looked like he wanted to skull them all.
"You realize," he said slowly, "this isn't some heroic stand that'll be sung about in the cathedral. No bards. No statues. At best, you buy us a little time and die ugly. At worst, you die for nothing because the legion doesn't consider you worth more than a few volleys and walks right past."
"That's war," Hobb said. "Dying ugly and hoping it mattered."
"Sir," William said, "if you can't keep them with an order..."
Reeve turned sharply. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. You don't get to hide behind my honor just because you lit a fire under them."
William met his gaze, throat dry. "I'm not hiding. I'll be on the wall, same as them."
Reeve stared at him intensely. Finally, he exhaled through his nose, a mixture of smoke and resignation.
"Fine," he said hoarsely. "I won't waste more time threatening to drag you away in chains. I won't outline the articles I'll have to file if you live. You know the stakes. All of you."
He swept his gaze over the ten men.
"Hold as long as you can," he ordered. "Dig in. Make them hesitate for a moment. Make them slow down. Every minute you steal, I will try to use well."
He moved closer to William, voice softening.
"And if I find out you threw your life away for drama when you could have organized an orderly retreat," he murmured, "I will climb out of whatever grave I have and drag you back into it myself. Understood?"
William's mouth twitched despite the knots of fear inside.
"Understood, sir," he said.
Reeve suddenly clasped his forearm, firm.
"Don't mistake this for approval," he said. "But... if you're going to be a Lockhart in this war, learn your heart's shape now."
He released him, turned, and rode for the door.
"Mount up!" he bellowed. "We ride in thirty! I want every man ready to move the moment I give the word!"
The hall erupted into action.
Outside, the village turned into chaos.
Soldiers packed gear, cinched saddles, and checked straps. Villagers shouted in panic.
"You're leaving? They're leaving?!"
"What about my mother—"
"—my little one can't walk that far—"
Reeve and his sergeants shouted orders, trying to establish some control amid the panic.
William stepped out amid the chaos and was immediately grabbed by someone's sleeve.
It was Hara—thin, eyes red-rimmed, jaw clenched. The woman who'd lost her ten-year-old boy in the last raid.
"You're staying?" she demanded. "Reddan says you're staying."
"Yes," William said. "We're fortifying. Getting as many people under cover as we can. There's a chance—"
"Don't you dare lie to me," she cut him off. Her voice was calm but sharp. "You saw them in the fields."
He hesitated. "Three thousand, maybe more."
Her mouth trembled. She forced it to stay still.
"All right," she said. "Then tell me straight, Lord William. What are we buying with this? My boy's already gone. I won't throw the rest of my children away for some noble's conscience if it's just theater."
His first instinct was hope, to talk of duty and light like his tutors at Albion.
But the reality of Ashford was mud, smoke, and fear.
"We're buying time," he said. "Hobb and I—we'll try to slow them down. Throw obstacles. Force them to deploy instead of rushing straight through. If we're lucky, we get hours. If not, minutes."
She looked at him, eyes fierce.
"And in those minutes?" she asked.
"In those minutes," he said, "you get your children into cellars, among the reeds, anywhere they can hide while the first wave hits the walls instead of the houses. You move food, water, blankets. Warn the old and sick. Decide who can run and who must hunker down. You do everything you can while we do what we can."
He swallowed hard.
"I can't promise we'll all live. I can't promise we'll stop them all. But I can promise we won't ride away while you stand alone."
Hara's eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away.
"All right," she said softly. "All right."
She straightened, pulling her shawl tight.
"You heard him!" she shouted to the villagers. "We've got minutes or hours, not miracles! Move! Get the children into the cellars! Fill every bucket and pot! If you can lift a spear, you're on the walls or in the alleys—we make it cost them!"
The villagers surged around her, fear transforming into frantic action.
Reddan grabbed William's arm. "What do you need?" he asked. "Tell me plain."
William took a breath.
"Carpenters," he said. "Anyone who can swing a hammer. We need to reinforce the north palisade and set barricades in the east lane to slow their advance. I want overturned carts, piled furniture, and spikes to make them think twice."
"Can we make caltrops? Spikes?" he asked, motioning to the smith.
"I can make nails and scatter them, but proper greaves won't stop boots," she said. "But we've got old plow blades, broken fence posts. We sharpen and sink them into the mud. Anyone running without watching their feet will remember us."
"Good," William said. "Hobb!"
The sergeant appeared. "Thought you forgot me, lordling."
"Never," William replied. "Take three men and find your best archers. Put them on the north wall with as many arrows as you can get from the smithy. I want eyes on the fields all day. If they move, I want to know how and where. We're not stopping them. We're just making them nervous."
Hobb's grin was thin. "Now you're talking like someone who's seen a real fight."
He clapped William's shoulder and jogged off, barking orders.
The village turned into a swarm of activity.
Carts rolled, doors ripped off to make shields, stones piled on rooftops for dropping. Old men who'd fought in distant skirmishes dug up spears wrapped in oilcloth from under floorboards.
Reeve's men finished mounting.
The colonel rode past William one last time at the gate.
"Lord Lockhart," he said gruffly. "I left you twenty extra quivers, half our spare water, and three of our best shield-men. That's more than I should give. Try not to regret it."
"I'll make them work for every step," William said.
Reeve nodded once.
"And William," he said, the first time he used William's first name. "If you—when—you write the report, don't make me a villain. I have enough nightmares."
"I won't," William promised.
The colonel looked at him for a moment longer, then touched two fingers to his temple in a rough salute and turned his horse.
"Detachment! Move out!" he roared.
The gate swung open. The column thundered out, hooves kicking up dirt. Villagers watched in a mix of betrayal and hope.
At the back of the column, Hobb's replacement raised a hand to William.
"Try not to die too heroic, Unlit!" he called. "I'd like to beat you at dice someday!"
William wanted to joke back but couldn't quite manage it. He raised his hand instead.
Then they were gone, leaving Ashford-on-Lea smaller and somehow louder without them.
The gates shut with a heavy thud.
William turned back to the chaos.
"Back to work!" he shouted. "You heard Hara! You heard Reddan! We've got maybe half a day before they decide we're worth crushing. Let's make it the longest half-day of their lives!"
By noon, the village looked different.
The north palisade was lined with hastily nailed boards, extra crossbeams, and sharpened stakes sticking out at odd angles. The east and west lanes had become mazes of overturned wagons, barrels, and furniture, with narrow winding paths left for defenders. Buckets of sand and water stood ready below thatch-heavy roofs.
Children and elders had been hidden in root cellars and storage pits, instructed to stay silent if strangers' voices sounded overhead. The smith set up a second forge in the square to hammer out nails and blades until her arms ached.
William hadn't stopped moving.
Every time he turned around, someone needed a decision—who to the wall, who to stay in the square, which families could hold a spear, and who needed to go underground.
He made mistakes. He knew it.
Forgot to restock a barrel line until Hobb barked at him. Put a boy on the wall whose hands trembled too much to notch an arrow until Hara slapped him and swapped him for a steadier cousin.
But people listened.
Maybe because he wore a crest. Maybe because he was the only one shouting with a plan.
On the wall, the archers watched.
"Movement!" one called mid-afternoon. "They're on the ridge!"
William hurried up the ladder, breath tight.
From the top of the palisade, he could see the low hill where they'd been that morning.
It was full now.
Lines of black and red. The legion had crested the rise and was pouring down in ordered waves. From here, the individual soldiers were just smudges, but the mass looked like a moving storm.
He counted standards. One, two, three... five.
"Center, left, right blocks," Hobb said beside him. "Looks like screening skirmishers and maybe some artillery back there. No sign of cavalry yet."
"That's... a lot," one of the younger archers whispered.
"Good eye," Hobb said. "Your reward is that you get to shoot at them later."
William's hands clenched tight on the palisade top until splinters pricked his palms.
"Time?" he asked.
Hobb squinted at the sun. "If they march straight and stay in formation, two hours. If they're cautious..." He scoffed. "They've got three thousand men and no idea what's waiting. They'll be cautious. Call it three or four hours."
"Not enough," William said.
"Never is," Hobb answered.
A horn sounded from the ridge, not the high blast of raiders but a long, rising note—signals passing along lines.
Down below, people paused, looking up. Babies cried. Someone dropped a bucket.
William forced his voice steady.
"Back to work!" he shouted. "This is what we've been preparing for! They still have to cross the fields, set ladders, and break down walls! Every moment they march, we dig!"
He turned to Hobb. "We need more traps. Anything."
"We're out of usable wood," Hobb said. "But we still have... huh."
He squinted toward the river.
"What?" William asked.
"Ditch," Hobb said. "You, Lockhart, ever read about how your grandfather held the Southford Crossing?"
"Only every winter," William said. "Flooded the low ground, trapped the enemy on a narrow causeway, and raked them with arrows and fire."
"Right," Hobb said. "We don't have the time, men, or walls like that. But we have a river, shovels, and a lot of scared people who'll dig if it means not dying."
William looked toward the fields. The north slopes gently down from the palisade. If they dug a shallow trench and broke a small section of the riverbank at the right spot...
"We can't flood it enough to drown them," William said.
"Don't need to," Hobb said. "Just enough to slow their advance—mud up to their ankles, ladders sinking, shields slipping. It's arrow work."
William's pulse quickened.
"Reddan!" he shouted.
The reeve appeared beneath the wall.
"Take everyone who isn't on the walls or a child to the north fields!" William called down. "We're digging a trench in front of the palisade and a channel from the river. Hobb will mark the lines. Move!"
Reddan didn't waste time asking why.
Within minutes, the fields filled with digging villagers, hacking at earth with shovels and spades, furious.
"You realize," Hobb said softly, "this won't stop three thousand men."
William nodded. "I know."
"We're not winning," Hobb said.
"I know," William repeated. He stared at the rising dark mass—still forming.
"But maybe we make them hate this village forever," he said. "Maybe they remember that crossing Britannia cost more than they thought. Maybe Reeve gets enough time to bring down a real garrison."
Hobb grunted. "That's the spirit, Unlit."
William kept watching the legion, waiting.
Somewhere behind those dark waves of red and black, Reeve was riding hard, mud flying, bringing news that the war had fractured somewhere new.
Down at the edge of the north field, Hara drove her spade into the earth like she was burying her grief. The smith swung her pick with brutal precision. Children ran back and forth with buckets, already sticky with mud.
Time felt thin—like grains of sand between his fingers.
He stepped down from the wall, heart pounding.
"All right," he called to no one and everyone. "Let's see if an Unlit heir and forty stubborn fools can make a legion late for its war."
By late afternoon, the ditch was a jagged slash across the north field, half flooded from the river—ugly, shallow, but shiny with mud that clung like glue.
Villagers staggered back into the square, soaked, trembling, blistered. William sent them to water, food, and rest in shifts. Every able-bodied person had a place—on walls, in alleys, in houses ready to turn into kill zones if the enemy broke through.
He had walked the routes himself with Hobb—memorizing every turn.
"This is insane," he muttered once, leaning against a wall, catching his breath.
"Welcome to war," Hobb said. "Thought it'd look like cathedral murals?"
William thought of those murals—Sun-Knight shining with Light, spear in hand, enemies breaking like waves around him.
He pictured instead an Unlit boy ankle-deep in mud, hands raw from hauling wood, a sword at his hip that no one had sung about yet.
"I hoped," he said.
Hobb clapped his shoulder. "You can punch a mural, but it won't punch back. I prefer this to a story any day."
Horns sounded on the wall.
William's head shot up.
"They're moving!" an archer shouted. "Forming lines!"
He ran for the ladder.
From the top of the palisade, the sight took his breath away.
The legion had spread across the fields. Lines had formed into rows, deep and dark. The banners—double-eagles—rose like bloodied crows. The drums shifted from a march to a heavier, slower beat—a rhythm for killing.
"They're not stopping to camp," Hobb said. "No siege equipment I can see. This isn't a siege—it's a smash."
William swallowed.
"Then we make their smash last as long as possible," he said.
As if the legion heard him, horns answered.
A ripple moved through the front ranks.
Shields raised. Spears poised forward.
They advanced—slow, deliberate, like a tide.
Down in the village, people clutched their belongings—some wept silently, some whispered prayers, some stood frozen, faces carved from stone.
Reddan climbed to the wall beside William, chest heaving.
"They're really coming," he whispered, half in disbelief.
William's hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.
"Yes," he said. "They are."
The drums grew louder. The ground seemed to thrum beneath the weight of thousands of boots.
He looked at the sky once.
No divine light or blazing sign answered his fear.
Just gray clouds, cold winds.
"Fine," William muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "We'll do it without miracles."
He took a deep breath, summoning his courage.
"Archers!" he commanded. "Wait for my signal! Don't waste arrows on shields! Aim for gaps, banners, officers! Make them duck!"
He looked down into the village.
"Everyone else—this is it! You're fighting for your homes! Your wells! The faces you know!"
His voice cracked but he kept going.
"They think we're nothing! They think we're just a line on a map! Make them remember Ashford-on-Lea!"
A ragged cheer responded—not loud, but real.
The legion led the charge.
Forty defenders on the wall and in the streets faced three thousand.
Time was gone.
Choice was gone.
All that remained was what they did in these last moments before impact.
William drew his sword.
The steel felt heavy and real.
"On my count," he whispered. "Three... two..."
The drums roared.
"...one," he finished.