Chapter 154 - Preparation Phase

Meanwhile Redcrag village had become a camp of purpose overnight. Where smoke once rose from family hearths and children chased one another between stalls, now voices barked in clipped cadence. Crates of supplies filled courtyards. Rutted lanes were lined with stacked shields and neat bundles of arrows. Nearly a thousand soldiers moved through the village in a rough, relentless tide—sharpening handaxes, re-stitching cracked leather, hammering new iron bands onto splintered shields. Women and men with callused claws worked like any wartime quartermaster, mending mail, boiling hides, braiding bowstrings. The air smelled of oil and boiled grain, of hard labor and colder things.