Panic was a luxury Kaelen couldn't afford.
The urgent ringing of the bell sent a wave of fear through the village. Doors were barred, and the sounds of crying children echoed in the twilight.
In the castle bailey, chaos reigned. The newly-formed militia, hearing the alarm, had begun to assemble.
They were a disorganized mob of blacksmiths, farmers, and carpenters, clutching their long pikes with a mixture of determination and raw terror. They were strong, yes, but they were not soldiers.
"Form up! Ranks of three!" Seraphina was shouting, her voice cutting through the noise. Her five professional guards were moving among the militia, trying to impose some semblance of the order they had practiced.
It wasn't working. The men were too panicked, their formations sloppy and full of gaps.
Kaelen stood on the steps of the keep, watching the scene, his mind a whirlwind of calculations.
Threat assessment: Thirty bandits. Likely experienced fighters, opportunistic. Objective: Plunder. Morale: High.
Defensive assets: One 1-Star Knight. Five guards. Approximately fifty untrained militiamen with pikes. Defensive position: Strong, but our forces are green.
Probability of victory in a straight-up fight... low.
"My Lord, what are your orders?" Seraphina called out, jogging over to him. Her face was grim. "We can meet them at the gate, but the militia will break. We should pull everyone inside the castle walls and prepare for a siege."
"No," Kaelen said instantly.
Seraphina stared at him. "No? My Lord, it's the only logical option!"
"It's the losing option," Kaelen countered, his voice sharp and fast. "We have no significant food stores inside the castle yet.
They'll burn the village, destroy the turnip field—our entire winter supply—and then just wait for us to starve. We can't let them get that far."
He looked past her, at the roaring glow of the forge. At the half-finished frames of the new houses. At the piles of lumber and stone.
The barony wasn't a fortress. It was a construction site.
And a construction site was a deathtrap for an attacking force, if you knew how to use it.
A wild, desperate plan began to form in his mind. It was reckless. It was improvised. But it was better than hiding behind a wall and waiting to die.
"We're not going to fight them at the gate," Kaelen said, his eyes scanning the layout of the village with the precision of an architect.
"We are going to fight them in the streets. We're going to turn the entire village into a kill box."
Seraphina's eyes widened. "Street fighting? With untrained men? They'll be slaughtered in close quarters!"
"They won't be fighting in close quarters," Kaelen said, a manic gleam in his eye. "They'll be the walls of the trap. You, Captain, will be the bait. And I... will be the trigger."
He began barking orders, his voice cutting through the panic with an unshakeable authority.
"Borin!" he bellowed.
The blacksmith, who had come running with a massive war hammer in his hands, looked to him.
"Get your strongest men! I need every heavy cart, every pile of lumber, every barrel you can find! We're building barricades!"
"Seraphina! Take your five guards. You will meet the bandits on the main road, just outside the village.
Engage them. Taunt them. Act like you're the only defense we have.
I need you to draw them in. Make them angry. Make them reckless. Make them chase you."
"Chase me?" she repeated, incredulous. "Into the village?"
"Straight down the main street," Kaelen confirmed. "Do not let them catch you. You are the cheese in the mousetrap. Your job is to lead the mice in."
"And the militia?" she asked, her mind struggling to keep up with his insane plan.
"The militia," Kaelen said, turning to the nervous crowd of men, "will not be fighting. They will be hiding."
✧✧✧
Twenty minutes later, the village was transformed.
Under Kaelen's frantic direction, the main street had become an obstacle course of makeshift barricades. Carts were overturned. Piles of lumber were dragged into the road, creating narrow, twisting channels.
The fifty militiamen were not formed up in ranks. Instead, they were hidden.
They lay in ambush in the half-finished houses, in the dark alleyways, and on the low rooftops, their sixteen-foot pikes held ready.
Their orders were simple: stay hidden, and on the signal, thrust their pikes out into the main street, creating an impenetrable wall of steel tips.
They were not soldiers. They were porcupines, waiting to extend their quills.
Kaelen himself was positioned on the second story of what would one day be the village tavern, overlooking the main street.
Beside him were several large clay pots, hastily filled with the foul-smelling, flammable oil Borin used to quench his steel.
And in his hand, he held a single, precious item: a tinderbox.
He watched as Seraphina and her five guards rode out, their armor glinting in the moonlight. They were the bait. The brave, foolish few, sent out to face thirty bandits.
The minutes stretched into an eternity. The only sound was the wind and the distant, rhythmic thump-thump of the water-powered forge, which no one had thought to shut down.
Then, he heard it. The sound of shouting. The clash of steel.
From his vantage point, he saw the fight begin. Seraphina and her guards were a tiny island of steel against a wave of ragged bandits.
She was magnificent, a blur of motion, her mana-infused blade cutting down two men who got too close. But they were hopelessly outnumbered.
Just as planned, after a brief, fierce skirmish, she gave the order.
"Fall back! To the village!"
She and her guards turned and galloped back down the main road. The bandits, howling in triumph and smelling an easy victory, gave chase.
They poured into the village, their greed making them blind to the strange, cluttered layout of the street.
They were in the trap.
Seraphina and her men raced past Kaelen's position, heading for the safety of the castle gate at the far end of the village.
The leader of the bandits, a huge brute with a scarred face, roared with laughter as he charged down the narrow channel. "Nowhere to run, little lady!"
He was right in the center of the kill zone.
Kaelen took a deep breath. It was time.
He stood up and let out a piercing whistle—the signal.
From every doorway, every alley, every window, the pikes emerged.
Not thrusting to kill, but extending, their steel tips locking together to form two solid, impenetrable walls on either side of the narrow street.
The bandits, charging at full tilt, had no time to react. They slammed into a sudden forest of steel. Horses screamed and fell.
Men were impaled or crushed in the sudden, chaotic stop. The ones in the back, blind to the danger, piled into the ones in the front.
Their reckless charge had become their tomb.
The bandit leader, his horse having been one of the first to fall, staggered to his feet, dazed and furious. He was trapped. He looked up, searching for the source of the signal.
His eyes met Kaelen's.
Kaelen gave him a cold, predatory smile.
Then, he tipped over the first pot of oil. A black, viscous stream rained down on the chaos below, drenching the trapped, panicked bandits.
He tipped the second. And the third.
Then, he opened his tinderbox, struck the flint against the steel, and dropped the resulting spark into the street below.
For the second time in as many weeks, the world erupted in fire.