Maps covered the table like overlapping shields—leather scraps, wax boards, a linen sheet Damon had scrawled with irrigation ditches and grain belts. Candles bled tallow down their sides. Outside the tent the camp murmured: horses stamping, the forge's distant ring, the Cohort's low talk before sleep. Inside, Leonidas listened as his lieutenants argued the shape of tomorrow.
Theron tapped the linen with a charcoal stick. "Three targets within reach and time. Each gives a different spine to our wall."
The overlay painted them in faint light only Leonidas could see.
[Candidate A: Gytha (Coastal Hamlet)]
Population: 260 | Defense: 90 (fisher militia) | Cohesion: 52%
Rewards: Timber stocks, harbor site, "Shipwright Potential – Unknown."
Risks: Norse raiders proximity; requires learning sea war.
[Candidate B: Taygeton (Mountain Forge-Town)]
Population: 340 | Defense: 140 (miners and guards) | Cohesion: 60%
Rewards: Iron ore veins, charcoal terraces, "Master Metallurgist Potential – Rare."
Risks: Steep approaches; ambush terrain; higher initial losses.
[Candidate C: Eurotas Bend (River Market)]
Population: 500 | Defense: 180 (market guard) | Cohesion: 57%
Rewards: Granaries, tolls, "Logistics Planner Potential – Uncommon."
Risks: Council oversight stronger; political entanglements.
Doros leaned over the wax board and jabbed at Taygeton. "Ore. Give Lyra and Phokas a mountain to eat and our spearheads won't blunt for years. The road's ugly, but ugly we can handle."
Kyros shook his head, mouth twisting. "Ugly we can handle—starvation we can't. The Bend feeds three valleys. Take it and we march with full bellies while our enemies count sacks. Also, I like tolls." He flashed a grin.
Damon folded his arms. "The Bend gives grain, true, but it also gives council eyes. Take that market and the elders will sniff every sack we lift." His gaze slid to Leonidas. "You want growth, not leashes."
Eryx flicked the edge of the coastal map. "Gytha. We learned hooves; we can learn hulls. Norse prows will come whether we own the harbor or not. Better we own it and make the sea pay us tribute." He glanced toward the faint clang of the forge. "A harbor brings tar, rope, masts. Mobility. You talk of hammers—ships are hammers that float."
Lyra, arms dusted with soot, spoke without looking up from a sketch of a socketed spearhead. "Ore." One word, iron-hard. "Without steady ore, every victory eats our edge."
Phokas snorted. "And without timber and pitch your ore makes anchors, not blades. The coast gives wood and tar. The mountain gives metal. The Bend gives stomachs. Choose one, and you'll need the others soon."
The tent breathed quiet for a heartbeat. Leonidas let the arguments settle like silt and looked at the clock only he could see: [Second Wave: 21 months]. He pictured Evelyne's knights in mirror-bright ranks, Rome marching on stone, Persia's fear-perfume curling over a battlefield. Bread, iron, or water: which made his wall taller fastest without handing his enemies a rope to pull it down?
He traced the lines with a finger. "We take one now and set the next. Not just for gain—also to deny what our rivals need." He tapped the coastal scrap. "Erik's sea wolves will hunt these shores. A harbor gives them teeth near us. If they anchor here, every raid bleeds our fields. If we anchor here, their oars bite water to run." He moved to the mountain. "Taygeton turns sparks into spears. It also steepens every blade turned against us." His finger landed on the Bend. "The river is bread and coin—but also gossip and council hands. Too early, and we become a parade for elders to manage."
Theron nodded once. "You're thinking sequence."
Leonidas met each set of eyes in turn. "We cannot be everywhere. But we can choose ground that multiplies the rest. We choose Taygeton."
Kyros arched a brow. "Not the Bend? You'll make Damon cry."
Damon didn't smile, but he didn't argue. "Grain obeys seasons. Ore obeys will. With better arms and shield rims, fewer men die taking the Bend later. I can keep us fed lean in the meantime."
Eryx rolled his shoulder. "Mountain roads will hate hooves."
"Then you'll teach hooves to hate them back," Leonidas said. "We take the slopes slow and steady. Riders screen the flanks, cut ambushes before they bloom. Cohort anchors the climb. Lakonians hold and follow."
Lyra finally looked up, eyes bright as a furnace mouth. "Give me ore and I'll make their fear honest."
Phokas grunted approval. "We'll need bellows, carts, smelters. Charcoal teams. Don't take a mountain if you don't mean to mine it."
The overlay blinked acknowledgement:
[Target Locked: Taygeton]
Projected Resistance: Moderate-High
Estimated Time to Subjugate: 4–6 weeks
Projected Losses: Low-Moderate (if flanks controlled)
Conquest Bonus (hidden): "Forgeheart" — ?
Theron's stick traced the narrow passes. "Ambush here, here, and above the quarry. Expect rolling rocks, javelins from brush, and a last stand at the smelter ridge. Their cohesion is only sixty, but they know their ground. We'll bleed if we rush."
Leonidas nodded. "We won't rush." He looked to each leader. "Damon—prepare marching grain and dried meat for six weeks, plus reserve. I want rations that don't turn to rot at altitude."
Damon: "I'll kiln-dry and seal in clay. Mules carry better than carts on stone."
"Phokas, Lyra—travel forge. Portable anvils, repair kits, extra rims. Expect edge damage from rock."
Phokas: "We'll shoe hooves and men both." Lyra's mouth curved. "And sharpen gods."
"Eryx—ten riders forward in pairs. No hero charges. If the path smells wrong, it is wrong."
Eryx: "I'll break them into feelers. Hawks, not rams."
"Doros—Cohort takes point on the steep—slow steps, locked shields, no vanity."
Doros's grin was all teeth. "I like slow fights. They last longer."
"Kyros—reserve on the right. When a gap shows, you're the stitch."
Kyros twirled his spear and sobered at Theron's look. "A tidy stitch."
"Theron—scouts and counter-ambush. I want eyes on ridgelines at all times. Use locals if they'll talk. If they won't, listen to the ground instead."
Theron inclined his head. "I'll set ears where feet never go."
The tent's flap rustled; a runner ducked inside, breathless. "Captain—Sparta sent a messenger. The council requests… oversight. Two elders will 'observe' the campaign." He made the last word sound like a disease.
Silence thinned. The overlay chimed, dry as gravel.
[Council Interference: Confirmed]
[Risk: Delay, leaked routes, morale drain among Lakonian recruits (-3% if mismanaged).]
Kyros muttered, "They'll slow us and signal our path with their perfume." Doros growled something that wasn't quite words.
Leonidas let the grumbling run a heartbeat and then cut it. "We accept their eyes—and blind them." He looked to Theron. "Place them where they can't harm the line. Give them ground to watch that leads nowhere." To Damon: "Feed them well enough they think themselves important. Nothing loosens tongues like comfort." To Eryx: "Ride a false route at dawn each day with three men and too much dust." Eryx's grin returned. "Crows following crumbs." "Exactly."
He drew a last breath and felt the room align around the choice. The Cohort did not cheer; iron does not cheer for work. But shoulders settled, eyes sharpened. The wall had a direction.
They marched at first light. Cloaks snapped in the cold mountain wind; the road pitched upward, turning into a goat's idea of a path. Riders fanned ahead in quiet pairs; every so often one lifted a hand and the column's rhythm changed—sidestep a loose scree, hug a bluff, pause while Theron's scouts ghosted through scrub to pluck a sentry from a stone like a thorn. Twice rocks clattered down in ugly cascades and twice shield roofs rose like red-tiled houses, the impact bucking through arms and shoulders but breaking nothing.
By the third day the mountains opened into a high bowl where Taygeton's heart beat: slag heaps black against snow, a ribbon of smoke from a smelter ridge, stockades more stubborn than tall. Tiny figures moved along catwalks with the jerky confidence of men on their ground. The overlay washed the scene in numbers—cohesion at sixty, nerves at seventy, pride too high to measure.
Leonidas planted his spear in the cold earth. "We're here to take a forge," he said softly, mostly for himself. "So we'll fight like one. Heat, pressure, shape." He lifted his voice. "Camp on the lower shelf. No torches above waist. Riders—nets around the bowl. Scouts—learn their breathing. No heroics. We'll squeeze until they ask to be hammered."
The system answered with a whisper that tasted like iron filings.
[Conquest Chain Initiated: Taygeton]
[Objective I: Break the Ridge Pickets without triggering full retreat.]
[Objective II: Seize the Charcoal Terraces (supply choke).]
[Objective III: Force Smelter Surrender.]
[Bonus Objective: Discover 'Forgeheart'.]
Theron came to stand beside him, eyes on the smoke. "If we miss a step here, the Wave will find the crack."
Leonidas watched the valley breathe. He could feel the line behind him—Doros's steady bulk, Kyros's coiled impatience, Eryx's hawk calm, Lyra floating like heat above a crucible, Phokas already measuring beams for a traveling bellows, Damon counting sacks by sound. Above them, somewhere far beyond snow and ore, Evelyne's banner still burned in the sky.
"Then we won't miss," he said. "We don't bend. We shape."
He turned, and the wall moved with him.