Chapter 213 — Three Forts II
"Greybridge Fort. It sits on the stone bridge — the only crossing that takes heavy wagons and cavalry in strength. While Baldwin holds it, his reinforcements flow north whenever he likes, and mine can’t move south at all.
"Redfield Depot. Food, weapons, medicine — the stockpile feeding his whole northern advance. Every day it stands, his push gets cheaper and mine gets hungrier.
"Highwatch Bastion." His finger rested on the third. "Magical artillery. Being assembled and consecrated as we speak. My scouts say days from readiness — and when it’s ready, it ranges on my outer districts. On the refugee camps, if his gunners are feeling lawful."
He straightened.
"Three positions, mutually supporting. I move a real force against any one, the other two reinforce it — or strike this city while my strength is committed. I leave them alone, the fist closes at his pace while the monsters eat my frontier from behind. That’s the problem on my table."
"You can’t assault these," Finn said. "Not with what you’ve shown us you can spare."
"I can’t. And if I could take them, I couldn’t hold them — every man I put on those walls is a man off mine." Raymond’s eyes came up. "So I don’t want them taken. I want them broken."
He touched the markers again, one by one.
"Greybridge — the crossing runs through the fort’s own gatehouse. Drop the drawspan and that road closes to wagons and cavalry for a season. Redfield — carry off what medicine you can move, and burn the rest of his stockpile where it stands. Highwatch — kill that artillery before it ever speaks." He straightened. "I don’t need three flags changed. I need my brother’s northern operation to stop working."
"Sabotage," James said.
"Soldiering, done with the army I actually have."
He laid out what he could give. Basic maps of each fort — walls, known entrances, defensive works. Garrison estimates, honest about their age. And signal flares.
"One flare over each position when its work is done. My wall-watchers will be looking south all night." He closed a fist, opened it. "The hour the third flare goes up, I start moving companies off the southern wall and north to the frontier. Not one hour before."
"Why us?" Ronan asked it flat. "You met us an hour ago. This operation decides your war."
Raymond didn’t dress it up, which was the first thing he’d done that earned him something from all five of them.
"Because you shattered a monster band that had overwhelmed a protected convoy, five against sixty, without losing anyone. Because you’re unexpected — my brother’s commanders have files on every officer I have, and none on you. Because whatever that magic was on the valley road, neither army has an answer for it drilled." He paused. "And because if you fail, I’ve lost five foreigners I met an hour ago. Not the soldiers holding my frontier. You’re the one weapon in this city I can afford to spend."
Silence.
"There it is," Cillian said mildly.
"You asked why. Would you rather I’d lied?"
"No," James said. "That answer’s the first reason to trust you I’ve heard tonight."
The uncomfortable truth settled over the five of them, and each carried it differently. Finn respected the logic and disliked living inside it, and both showed on his face. Ronan was already looking past it — at the grey-flagged villages, at the arithmetic of how many soldiers three broken forts would free for the north. Maeve was watching a different battlefield entirely: the moment five Challengers stormed a Crown fort on a live stream, they stopped being monster-hunters in the world’s eyes and became combatants in a human civil war, clipped and quoted forever.
And Cillian looked at the garrison estimates and did the one sum nobody was saying: the men on those walls thought they were defending their lawful king.
The chat had done all the same math, louder.
[FrontierWife]: BREAK THEM. the gun is pointed at refugee TENTS
[CrownLoyal_Kev]: saboteurs for a rebel now. cool. very heroic
[user48291]: wait there’s THREE forts??
[WicklowClimber]: forget the politics, the artillery ranges on civilian camps in days. that’s the whole argument
[FinnsAxes]: greybridge first. no redfield. no wait
[MOD]: Slow mode enabled.
Team Zero ignored all of it, and the Tower chose that moment to stop being quiet.
[FLOOR 21 — THE BROKEN CROWN]
[FACTION MISSION RECEIVED]
[CRIPPLE THE THREE CROWN POSITIONS]
[TARGET ONE: GREYBRIDGE FORT]
[OBJECTIVE: DISABLE THE CROSSING]
[TARGET TWO: REDFIELD DEPOT]
[OBJECTIVE: DESTROY THE SUPPLY STOCKPILE]
[TARGET THREE: HIGHWATCH BASTION]
[OBJECTIVE: DESTROY THE MAGICAL ARTILLERY]
[TIME LIMIT: 6 HOURS]
[PARTY ANNIHILATION WILL RESULT IN MISSION FAILURE]
"Six hours," Maeve said, very quietly, so only the team heard.
The timer was already falling.
James pulled the fort maps toward him and started with distances, because distances were the enemy nobody could fight.
The three positions were spread across Dunadd’s southern approaches with deliberate spacing — far enough apart that riding between them ate real time. Sequential assaults meant hours spent on roads, and every hour after the first attack was an hour the remaining garrisons spent barring gates and stringing bows.
Greybridge lay nearest. But Greybridge was the door for Crown reinforcements — hit it first and fail to seal it fast, and the alarm might bring fresh troops across that bridge into the middle of their own operation.
Redfield sat in the centre, holding everything Dunadd was starving for. Centre position meant both other garrisons could converge on it. Probable largest garrison, too — stockpiles get guards.
Highwatch’s artillery wasn’t active yet. Yet was doing heavy lifting in that sentence. Once it spoke, it could reach Dunadd’s outer districts — and possibly reach anyone assaulting the other two positions, if the emplacements traversed.
"Together or split," Finn said, already turning the problem. "That’s the first fork. Five of us at each wall in turn, or—"
"No." Ronan didn’t even let it finish. "Split five people across three fortified positions and every group is weak everywhere. One wall with all of us is a battle. Three walls with fragments of us is three chances to die alone."
"Then order matters more than anything," Maeve said. She was tracing roads with a fingertip. "And signals. Each of these will have a beacon tower and riders in the stable — the moment we hit the first fort, a fire goes up or a horse goes out, and the other two start barring gates. First job at every wall is the beacon and the stables."
"Small mercy in the mission, at least," Cillian said. "Breaking things is five-man work. Holding three walls was never going to be."
James stared at the maps and wanted, more than anything, one more day of scouting — patrol schedules, watch rotations, the garrison commanders’ names. The want was useless. The timer was falling, and every Raymond estimate on these pages aged by the minute; the moment some Crown commander heard five foreigners and valley road in the same report, the garrisons would change their own numbers.
Raymond had one of his aides show them to a preparation room off the hall — a stone chamber with a broad table, lamps, and quiet.
He didn’t follow them in. He didn’t suggest an attack order.
"The operation is yours from here," was all he said at the threshold. "Flares when they’re broken. Try not to make me famous for wasting you."
On the way out of the hall, James’s eye caught the big campaign map one last time, and one last detail went through him like cold water.
The grey-flagged northern settlements — Ronan’s evacuation list. Beside three of the names, an officer had chalked fresh annotations. Estimated time to contact.
All three estimates were shorter than six hours.
Villages would start falling before the mission clock ran out — unless the forts fell first, and the soldiers watching Dunadd’s southern wall were freed to go north. It was all one problem. The politics and the monsters were the same clock wearing two faces.
The preparation room. Three maps spread under lamplight. Five people around them.
Greybridge, holding the door for Baldwin’s army. Redfield, holding the food and medicine. Highwatch, holding a gun days away from pointing at refugee tents.
Hit any one of them first, and the other two would know, and harden, and wait.
James looked at the three walled positions, at the beacon tower marked on each map, and understood the real shape of the job.
It wasn’t three battles. It was one race against three signal fires — because the moment the first fort was hit, every beacon and every rider they failed to stop would decide how hard the next two walls became.
Six hours. The clock had already eaten three minutes of it.
[TIME REMAINING: 05:57:42]