The drums changed.
What had been a slow, heavy doom... doom... doom out in the fields doubled—quick strokes stitched between the deep ones. The sound rolled across the mud like a second heartbeat.
On the north wall, William watched the cavalry pull back from the ruined ditch.
No more glorious charges. The surviving riders reformed on the flanks, lances upright, black cloaks snapping. Horses tossed their heads and stamped, skittish from the spike pit, but the line held—waiting for a weak point rather than dying in a straight line.
"They learned," Hobb said. "Good. Means they're human. Means they can be scared."
If the horsemen slowed, the infantry didn't.
Blocks of Germania soldiers stepped forward from the main body and flowed ahead. From afar, they looked like a dark smear; up close, William saw the details—flat-top and rounded helms, long kite shields painted with lions, wolves, double-headed eagles, mail shirts under ash-gray surcoats—a moving wall of dull metal and iron discipline.
They were coming faster now.
"Why are they speeding up?" a young archer whispered.
"Because we made them bleed," Hobb said. "They want our walls in range before we do it again."
William swallowed.
"Archers!" he yelled. "On the wall! Ready bows!"
Thirty shooters took their places—regular soldiers, village hunters, older boys, a handful of women whose hands shook less than most of the men's. Behind them, villagers loaded ladders with bundles of arrows, dumping them into rough piles before scrambling back down for more.
Out in the field, near the center of the line, Felix Blackwell rode in a black-and-gold plate, winged helm turned toward Ashford. He sat his horse like it was carved there. Even at this distance, William felt the man's gaze like a weight on his chest.
Hobb nudged him.
"Hey, kid."
William tore his eyes from the field. "What?"
Hobb rolled his shoulders; his joints popped like old branches. "You ever see something badass?"
"In training?" William said. "Sure, but—"
"Not drills," Hobb cut in. "Not nobles playing at war. I mean something so stupid and worth it that if you live, the ache reminds you every winter."
William frowned. "Hobb—"
"Let me show you something badass, kid."
He stepped forward, just behind the archers.
"All right, you lot!" he barked. "First volley's mine. You draw when I say, you fire when I say. If your head feels wrong, that's me. Don't fight it."
"What's 'wrong'?" someone croaked.
"You'll know," Hobb said. "Draw!"
Thirty bowstrings creaked.
Germania marched closer—shields overlapping, spears angled, boots grinding wet earth into trenches. Banners with the red double-eagle flicked above the line.
"Closer..." Hobb whispered. "Closer..."
William felt it when Hobb ignited.
The air around the older man tightened. Pressure slid along William's skin, settled behind his eyes. His breath, his heartbeat, his sight all talled into the same rhythm as thirty others on the wall.
Mind-Type Muti. Hobb's will brushes through each archer, snapping their focus into one shared groove.
Then aura surged through it.
Not a showy glow. A compact, vicious push, crammed down arms into wood and iron—years of muscle memory suddenly on fire.
"Duplication Muti..." Hobb growled, voice low and ragged. "Full Host."
He sucked in a breath as it hurt.
"Loose!"
Thirty arrows leapt from the strings.
Halfway through their arc, reality cracked.
Each shaft shuddered, then split—clean, complete. Aura peeled off, branching again and again; Psychic Muti stamped each new branch with the exact shape, weight, and spin of the original.
One arrow became ten.
Thirty became three hundred.
The sky over Ashford turned black.
Villagers on the wall flinched. A few ducked before their brains caught up and realized the storm was going out, not in. In the field, Germania soldiers looked up and saw a sky full of real, solid steel.
"Schilde hoch!" someone screamed in Germanian. "Shields!"
The front rank snapped their boards up.
Too slow.
The storm hit.
Three hundred arrows slammed into the first two ranks. Shields shuddered, splintered, snapped. Shafts punched straight through wood into the men behind. Others knifed into gaps—thighs, bellies, armpits, throats, the narrow strip between helm and cuirass.
An officer with a lion on his shield took four in the chest and fell backwards, armor ringing.
The neat line buckled. Men went down in tangled heaps. Others stumbled over the fallen, curses and screams ripping the drumbeat apart.
For a heartbeat, the advance stopped.
On the wall, William stared.
Three hundred arrows. Three hundred impacts. His heart hammered like it wanted to leap from his ribs.
"Hobb," he breathed.
The sergeant swayed.
Up close, William saw the fine tremor in his hands, the way new lines carved themselves into his face as if ten extra years had just been dropped on him.
"Refill!" Hobb rasped, voice shredded. "Move! Don't stand there like it's a play—get 'em more arrows!"
Behind them, villagers jolted into motion, shoving fresh shafts into empty hands. One boy spilled a bundle; Hara lunged, scooped them up, and slammed them into the nearest archer's grip.
"Save the staring for when we're not about to die!" she snapped. "Draw!"
William grabbed Hobb's elbow. "Are you all right?"
"Not really," Hobb said. "This is Association-grade nonsense on an old non-Seeker spine. They teach rich kids this with healers watching. I got one scribble of training twenty years ago and a bad habit of trying anyway."
He coughed a dry laugh.
"Can you do it again?" William asked.
Hobb's jaw clenched.
"Once," he said. "Then I'm cooked. After that, you can call me whatever you want, 'cause I won't remember 'Hobb'."
William looked down at the field.
The front ranks were butchered—bodies in the mud, shields at bad angles, wounded crawling and howling. The blocks behind them had slowed. Their perfect rhythm was broken.
It wasn't enough.
"Do it," William said. "If we don't spend everything now, there won't be a later for you to forget."
Hobb stared at him, then nodded once.
"You nobles," he muttered. "Born to talk people into bad ideas."
He straightened.
"Draw!" he barked.
Out in the field, Felix Blackwell watched the first multiplied volley with a faint tightening at the corner of his mouth.
Arrows hammered his front ranks by the hundreds. Men dropped in clumps. A shield exploded, its bearer crushed under collapsing wood and bodies. A whole file vanished into a screaming tangle.
"That's—" his adjutant started.
"Mind-Type and aura," Felix said. "Duplication. Every copy has mass. Old trick. Rare. Very hard on the user."
Another scream cut high as a man pitched forward with an arrow in his throat.
Felix's pale eyes traced the storm back to the wall.
"Whoever's doing it is burning himself," he went on. "No Soul Bloom discipline, no Association conditioning. You can see it in the spread. That's not clean drill, that's stubborn talent."
"Orders?" the adjutant asked, jaw tight.
"Forward elements, half pace," Felix said. "Widen your fronts. Tight clumps make happy targets for storms. No more marching in parade blocks for the boy on the wall."
The drums snapped a new pattern. Command rippled down the line.
The front ranks spread, keeping shields overlapping but giving each man more space.
"Let him try again," Felix murmured. "Then we see what's left of him."
"Loose!"
The second wave launched.
Again the air clenched around Hobb. William felt fingers pressing into the back of his skull from the inside. Arrows leapt and multiplied—one to ten, thirty to three hundred, black streaks ripping out over the mud.
Below, the Germania line was already braced.
Shields up. Files spread. Angles cleaner.
The storm hit.
Boards shook. Some cracked; some held. Arrows still found flesh—punching through thin spots, sliding in from the side—but not like before. The line sagged, absorbed, and kept moving.
On the wall, Hobb dropped to one knee, bow still in hand, breath sawing.
William caught him. "That's enough. No more."
"You're damn right 'no more'," Hobb wheezed. "If I try that again, healers'll be knitting my mind back together with string." He spat a thin streak of red. "This is why Seekers start at Soul Gate. Bodies and heads tuned from the ground up. Me? I'm just a stubborn bastard who saw a trick once and never forgot it."
He clung to the palisade, then forced himself upright by sheer spite.
"From here on," he said loud enough for every archer to hear, "we go old-fashioned. One arrow, one target. No more miracles. You want another sky like that, you live long enough to hire a Seeker."
A few strained laughs flickered along the line. It helped.
William stepped to the parapet.
The field in front of Ashford was scarred now—patches of churned bodies and shards where neat ranks had been. The advance had slowed. Fear had crept in.
Not enough.
"You saw that?" he shouted down into the village. "We did that! Hobb burned himself for those minutes. Don't waste them standing still! More arrows to the wall! Brace every gate and alley we marked! Move!"
The square exploded back into motion.
Fear didn't vanish, but it had a channel now—into lifting, hauling, hammering—instead of freezing.
On the wall, the young archer Hobb had yelled at earlier swallowed, nocked, and drew. His hands were still shaking, but his eyes were fixed on the field, not the terror inside his ribs.
"Good," Hobb muttered. "Now you're dangerous."
Down by the smithy, tar barrels were already rolling.
William pointed. "Those up here! North wall!"
"What for?!" one man gasped.
"You'll see when they're close," William said. "Just move!"
The Germania infantry reached the ditch.
They didn't rush it.
The cavalry corpses and the bobbing bodies in muddy red water were warning enough.
The front rank stopped a spear's length back from the edge.
A shieldman crouched and jabbed his spear down. The point hit something hard, grated, snapped. He hauled back a ruined haft. The tip was gone.
Another tossed a rock. It splashed and disappeared, never hitting bottom.
"Stakes," Hobb said. "Every broken fence and chair we sharpened last night."
The line wavered. Men behind leaned, momentum wanting forward. Men in front leaned back, survival wanting distance.
"Archers!" William called. "Anybody standing straight or bending over that moat—he's yours!"
They loosed.
Closer range now. Cleaner lines.
Arrows punched into exposed shoulders, necks, faces—men trying to shove planks forward, officers leaning out to shout, anyone who forgot the wall existed for half a heartbeat. A legionnaire took a shaft through the ribs and toppled screaming into the trench. Another got one through the eye-slit and dropped without a sound.
Bodies piled at the lip and in the water, jamming against stakes and each other.
Then the planks came.
Germania's third ranks shoved rough boards forward, sliding them over bodies, spikes, and muck. Men shuffled along them in a crouch, shields up—and became easy marks.
"There," Hobb said sharply. "Planks. They want bridges? Make them regret every step."
"Hit anyone on wood!" William yelled. "If he's crossing, he's a target!"
Arrows fell into the narrow spaces where men had to straighten or adjust footwork. A soldier balancing on a slick plank took a shaft through the knee, screamed, and fell sideways, dragging two comrades down. All three vanished into the moat, stakes and water swallowing their noise.
Another took an arrow in the side and clutched his gut; the plank tipped and dumped half a file into the trench. The men behind shoved new boards forward, but every crossing cost blood.
The ditch turned into hell—bodies jammed, planks slick with mud and gore, men trying to advance while others died beneath them.
"Good," Hobb said under his breath. "Make them think about their feet instead of our walls."
Felix Blackwell watched the crossing devolve into a slow-motion disaster.
Below, a junior officer tried to wave men left, then right, then forward over a single plank. An Ashford shaft took him in the throat mid-gesture.
Felix raised his compact crossbow, sighted past the chaos, and picked a sergeant halfway across—shield high, shouting, a hinge in the whole crossing.
He loosed.
The bolt arced gracefully and buried itself in the gap under the man's raised arm.
The sergeant stiffened, looked down, then toppled sideways, bowling men off the plank and back into the spike-filled soup.
The whole crossing shuddered.
"We're not losing to a ditch," an adjutant muttered.
"We're losing moments to fear and footing," Felix said. "So we fix both."
He lifted his hand.
"Shield walls," he ordered. "First rank to one knee, shields locked. Second rank over them. Third handles planks and bodies under cover. Archers behind—two ranks. Everyone knows Fire Muti? Good. Lace your arrows. We burn their wood and their nerve together."
All Germania troops learned at least one Muti. The archers didn't need to be geniuses—just drilled.
The drums snapped a new pattern. Banners dipped. Whistles shrilled.
Discipline rolled back through the front.
Shields slammed together.
The first rank dropped to one knee, boards biting into mud right at the ditch's edge. The second overlapped above them, forming a crude roof. Under that angled shell, third-rank soldiers moved like shadows—shoving planks into place, using corpses as ugly footholds, testing each step with spear butts and careful weight.
Behind them, archers and crossbowmen jogged forward.
Each man set an arrow, drew, and summoned just enough FLAME to wrap the head—basic Elemental Muti, the standard trick in any trained army. Thin orange tongues licked around iron tips, clinging without catching the shaft.
Felix watched.
"This volley," he said, "we teach them that wood is a poor shield."
On the wall, William saw the front tighten and change.
"What are they doing?" an archer asked.
"Getting serious," Hobb said. His eyes narrowed. "Down."
"Wh—"
"Down!" Hobb roared.
William dropped, yanking a shield up.
The first Germania volley hissed in.
Arrows and bolts slammed into the palisade. Some were plain, biting deep into logs, cracking the improvised doors and tables villagers had jammed into the gaps. Others trailed thin orange flames—Fire Muti hugging the heads like hungry tongues.
The normal shafts stuck and shivered. The fire-laced ones bit.
Where they struck dry wood, aura-flame clung, crawling along the grain. Tiny lines of ember raced, trying to find air and fuel. Not a raging blaze yet—just small, dangerous stars.
A man too slow to duck caught a bolt through the shoulder and went down screaming. Another arrow pinned a sleeve to the parapet; its flame chewed through cloth until someone slapped it out with a curse.
"Put those out!" William shouted. "Stamp, don't wave—don't feed the fire!"
Villagers batted at embers with rags and shields, hissed as they burned their hands. Hara grabbed a bucket from a runner and doused a glowing patch before it crawled any higher.
The volley ended.
"Up!" Hobb barked. "If you're breathing, you're fighting!"
William pushed himself up. A stray bolt thunked into his shield and vibrated.
Scorch marks dotted the wood along the wall. Not catastrophic, but bad.
"They all know Fire," William said. "Every archer."
"Basic Elemental's standard for armies," Hobb grunted. "Set arrows, set roofs, scare villagers. Rich version of a torch. Duck the next one or you're a story."
Tar barrels thumped onto the walkway, rolled there by swearing men.
"What now?" one panted. "You still want these up here?"
"Yes," William said. His mind jumped ahead, mapping distance, flame, panic. "We wait till they're at the base. We drown their feet, not ours."
"And the fire?" the man asked.
William looked from the faint burns on their wall to the glowing arrowheads reforming in the Germania ranks.
"They're bringing enough of it," he said. "Let them light it."
The second Germania volley came in harder.
More arrowheads laced in Fire Muti. Lines of orange streaked through the gray light.
Some shafts smacked into the palisade and stuck, flames chewing at old wood until villagers smothered or doused them. One arrow arced over the wall and stabbed into a thatched lean-to just inside the village; it went up with a hungry whuff.
"Roof!" someone screamed.
A group of villagers rushed in, dragging the burning thatch down and stamping and beating it until the fire choked.
On the wall, archers flinched as bolts passed close enough to tug hair.
"We can't keep this up," one whispered.
"We're not here to keep anything up," Hobb snapped. "We're here to make them regret every step. You want miracles, you should've been born with a Soul Bloom. Now shut up and aim."
Down at the ditch, the shield wall had moved onto solid ground.
Planks and bodies bridged the worst of the moat. The Germania front advanced under its angled shell—boots slipping, armor smeared with mud, blood, and streaks of tar from the barrels rolled earlier.
The gap between their spears and Ashford's wall shrank with each grinding step.
"Get those barrels to the parapet!" William shouted.
Men heaved. Thick black pitch sloshed under wooden lids.
"When they're under us," William said, breathing hard, "we roll them. Hobb, when they commit, I want our arrows over their shields—into their back ranks—make their archers look up, not at our walls."
"Oh good," Hobb muttered. "Tactics on top of heroism. You really are a Lockhart."
Felix Blackwell watched the distance close.
The ditch was behind them. The village was ahead.
"Shield line, ten more paces," he told the signalman. "Archers, focus fire on parapet joints and gate seams. If you see stored fuel—tar, carts, thatch—you light it."
All along the rear, bowmen drew, Fire Muti licking around their arrowheads in neat, practiced patterns. No fancy forms, just the standard burn they'd drilled since conscription.
Felix's gaze tracked up the wall.
He saw villagers slapping at small flames. He saw doors wedged into gaps. He saw two barrels being dragged onto the parapet.
He smiled, just a little beneath his helm.
"Let's see," he murmured, "if you can throw better than you dig."
"Now!" William shouted.
The first tar barrel tumbled over the parapet, spinning. For a heartbeat, it seemed to hang, then it crashed down just in front of the advancing shield wall, wood staving in. Thick pitch belched out, washing over boots and dropped planks, crawling up the edges of shields.
The second barrel followed, bursting slightly farther back. Tar spread across the ground like spilled shadow, soaking ladder frames, splashing cloaks, and greaves.
The front rank lurched, suddenly wading in something heavy and slick.
"Don't light it!" a villager screamed instinctively.
William didn't answer.
He couldn't have stopped it anyway.
Felix's hand dropped.
"Fire," he said.
Germania arrows sang.
Some thudded into Ashford's wall, flaring against wood villagers frantically beat down. Some flashed over, hunting for roofs and carts.
Two found the black pools around the shield wall's feet.
Tar smoked where Fire Muti-charged arrowheads buried themselves. For a heartbeat, it just glowed, orange veins crawling through black.
Then the whole sheet went up.
Flame raced across the slick surface, turning tar into roaring orange. Fire lunged up soaked cloaks and ladder rungs, kissed shield bottoms, licked at boots and greaves.
Men screamed.
The shield wall buckled as soldiers tried to backpedal, jammed by the ranks still pushing forward. A ladder frame went up like kindling; the man carrying it dropped it and slipped, landing hands-first in burning pitch. Another tried to hop clear, only to step down onto a half-submerged corpse and fall sideways, rolling through fire.
For a moment, the world below the wall was pure chaos—fire, mud, and bodies all trying to change places at once.
Heat hit William's face in a wave. He smelled burning leather, burning hair, burning people.
His stomach lurched. His grip tightened.
"Archers!" he shouted, voice cutting through crackle and screams. "Now! While they're bunched—over the shields! Hit anyone not on fire yet!"
They drew and loosed.
Arrows rained into the mess—into men fighting burning cloaks, into shield gaps where boards had dropped, into the backs of soldiers trying to drag comrades out of the tar. Every man who turned to run or tear gear off presented a target.
On the flanks, Germania archers answered, returning fire in ragged but deadly volleys. Fire-laced shafts hissed past William's ear, burned new scars into the palisade, punched into archers who popped up too long.
One Ashford shooter pitched backward with a bolt in his throat, blood misting his friends. Another went down clutching his eye.
"Rotate!" Hobb bellowed. "If you're hit, crawl! If the man next to you falls, you step into his spot and keep shooting!"
And they did.
Shaking, bleeding, half deaf—they did.
Felix watched from his saddle, jaw tightening.
He hadn't ordered the tar lit. The village boy had shoved the barrels and trusted his enemy's standard training to do the rest.
He's learning, Felix thought. In real time. That's dangerous.
He lifted his crossbow again, sighted along the burning line, and picked out a man trying to rally his section in the fire.
Felix loosed.
The bolt took the man cleanly, dropping him mid-shout. The panic there spread unchecked.
"Signal third rank, pull back three paces from the burn," Felix told the drummer. "Second rank holds shields. We clear the fire, then we go again. Step by step."
The drums spoke. Orders rippled.
Rear men dragged burning comrades back, stamping and smothering cloaks. Others shoved unburned planks over cleaner ground, re-establishing ugly, functional footing beyond the tar.
On the wall, William watched them reorganize even through the screaming and smoke.
"They're... reforming," the young archer said hoarsely. "After that?"
"Of course they are," Hobb said, breath harsh. "They're an army. We hurt them. They change shape. That's the game."
William's arms were shaking. His throat felt raw. Hobb looked like he might fall over if a gust hit him wrong. Villagers bled and panted all along the wall.
And still, beyond the fire and the bodies, Germania's armor glinted through smoke, shields lifting, Fire-tipped arrows gathering for the next exchange.
Ashford had made them pay for every step. Both sides had bled, countered, and adjusted.
No one was done.
William lifted his sword again, knuckles white.
"Then we change shape too," he said. "As long as we're still standing."
The drums thundered. Arrows hissed. The space between wall and shield line filled up with death again as both sides settled into the awful rhythm of real war—blow, answer, counter, bleed.