The war room of the Ash Company was quiet—but not with peace. The silence here was strategy. Anticipation. The kind of stillness that gathers before a storm, thick with gravity and consequence.
The table was a slab of stone harvested from the mines of the western ridge, etched with a map of the Southern March. Veins of silver inlay traced rivers and roads. Brass pegs marked city-garrisons. The room's only light came from vertical flame-lamps that painted everything in the gold-red hue of battle-readiness.
"So," Konos said, breaking the quiet, arms folded, his one good eye fixed on the map, "we're finally doing it."
"Yes," Fornos replied, standing across from him, gloved hands resting on the table's edge. "Now then—chief advisor, if you would, give a brief explanation. I want everyone in this room to know exactly who we are fighting."
Konos took a slow breath, then tapped the end of his iron rod against a jagged hill marker near the coast.
"The Southern Warking, Gratham Ornes. Controls the entire Southern March—six city-states under his banner. Not mere vassals, mind you—full client-states. Each city runs its own internal laws but is tied to Ornes for defense, resource handling, and high judicature."
The rod scraped eastward.
"He commands the most organized knight-militias east of the Mirror Sea. Trained from youth, drilled like clockwork. No nonsense, no weakness. Fanatics, the lot of them. Each squad comes with bonded golem pairs and codex-linked formation coordination."
A peg was removed and placed farther inland.
"His navy's negligible, and he knows it. But his land routes? Gold-veined—literally. He owns three of the five legal gold veins in the region. He doesn't trade with merchants. He feeds them. That keeps half the Eastern Trade Confederacy banks loyal, and those same banks…"
Konos glanced sideways at Fornos. "…they hate you."
"We'll starve them out," Fornos said, with a calm certainty. "No need to worry. Wraith—initiate the opening stages of the plan."
"Already underway," Wraith said, stepping forward. His cloak shifted slightly to reveal thin blade sleeves and a row of sealed tubes—codex cores for deployable Architects. "We're mapping supply convoys and trade routes. But Gratham's been adapting."
"Explain," Peter said, crossing his arms.
"He's pivoting," Wraith replied. "Taking old landowners—bitter ex-nobles, evicted tenants, relic claimants—and turning them into minor lords. He offers feudal status in exchange for loyalty and manpower. Calls it a revival of regional honor."
Peter frowned. "So he's raising a second wave without touching his trained elite."
"Exactly," Wraith said, tapping the red-crested hills on the map. "These two sites—Northfire Post and Duskhelm Ridge—appear to be garrison towers. But based on Architect reports, they're fortress-schools. Training camps for his next wave. If we let them stand through the first month, we'll be fighting commanders loyal from blood oath and ideology."
"Then they're the first to fall," Fornos said, "even before his main forces. If he loses the eggs, the nest rots slower."
"Agreed," Konos nodded. "But there's more. His biggest weapon isn't steel. It's belief."
"The Cult of the March," Roa muttered. "What is that?"
"A myth," Konos replied. "A long-seeded, well-fed myth. House Ornes didn't just claim the Southern March. They embedded themselves as divine stewards of it. Like the land itself made a pact with their bloodline. Every border town feeds on that lie like it's religion."
"Faith makes men bleed slower," Wraith added.
"Faith makes men fight after bleeding," Martin corrected. "So what about the army we're going to meet? What kind of metal are we actually facing on the ground?"
Konos didn't hesitate.
"Close-combat golems backed by precision-range squads. Their core heavy units are siege-tier, made of basalt frames, rune-coated. But the real threat? The Galahorns."
He tapped a red peg labeled 'C4-G'.
"Centaur golems," Konos explained. "Heavy plated. Shock-lancer artillery fitted in their mid-sections. Some of them function as cavalry—others, artillery-lancers. They'll break lines if we're not ready."
"Do we have an answer for that?" Fornos asked.
"Quite a lot," Konos said. "Our frame reworks give us superior response time. Park and Mark have been drilling our squads for direct engagement with hybrid units. Our new Anchored Lancers can go toe-to-toe."
"I'd like to see those specs later," Fornos said, then turned to Roa. "How are the personnel?"
Roa unfolded a side scroll and pinned it against the slate wall. "We're stable. Over ten thousand combatants, split into mobile divisions. Engineers at 1,200. Logistics support—almost two thousand."
Peter gave a low whistle. "We've come far."
"Too far to lose now," Fornos said. "I want all forward bases locked into Code Red status. No one moves without relay confirmation. No one assumes proximity unless layered with a triple-encoded codex ping."
Martin leaned forward. "Are we striking his supply routes before or after the training grounds?"
"Before," Fornos said. "Wraith will collapse his economic veins—hit trade routes, bribe the underworld cartels, and blackout his coin flow. Then we take the training posts. No commanders, no second wave."
Konos tapped the table once. "Then we isolate the cities. One by one."
"No siege?" Peter raised a brow.
"No," Fornos said. "We bleed them from the spine—not the skin."
A long pause followed.
Then Konos grinned. "Good. I hate sieges. They make my knees hurt."
Roa smirked. "You're just old."
"Old enough to see kids try and fail at strategy," Konos shot back. "Fornos, we've got momentum. Say the word."
Fornos looked at each of them in turn. His eyes sharp, but steady.
"Prepare the banners," he said. "The Ash Company marches in three days."
No cheers followed. Just nods.
In this room, victory was not celebrated before it was earned.