Chapter 55: Seventy-Two Hours [ 3 ]
Instead of one continuous trench, the defensive line was broken deliberately into sections, leaving two broad corridors leading toward the most reinforced portions of the outer wall.
Sharpened timber stakes were driven into the trenches at angles designed to catch charging beasts, while heavy piles of earth were raised behind certain sections to further disrupt momentum.
Civilians watched the Knights work with a mixture of awe and terror as men capable of killing Bronze Magic Beasts spent hourssmashing frozen ground apart faster than ordinary labor teams could remove it.
The carpenters worked almost as aggressively. Abandoned sheds, collapsed houses, broken carts, and useless fencing were stripped for timber.
Elevated platforms rose behind the northern wall and along several inner streets, simple structures reinforced more for stability than appearance.
Hunters climbed them as soon as they were finished, testing angles and identifying blind spots. Wooden barricades were assembled on heavy frames fitted with ropes so small teams could drag them across streets at predetermined moments.
Old wagons were filled with stone and positioned at secondary intersections, ready to become instant walls if the outer defenses collapsed.
The blacksmiths barely left the forge.
Smoke poured continuously from the chimney while hammers rang day and night. Spearheads were sharpened.
Broken swords were repaired. Nails and iron brackets were produced as quickly as the limited metal supply allowed. Raymond ordered every usable weapon in the castle vault inspected, including ceremonial spears that hadn’t been touched in decades.
Anything capable of stabbing, cutting, or launching a projectile was distributed according to Boris’s approval rather than dumped randomly into civilian hands.
Raymond also approved a limited number of fire defenses, but he refused every suggestion that involved turning the northern half of the settlement into a giant bonfire.
Clay pots were filled with lamp oil and animal fat, then positioned near the outer kill corridorswhere they could be thrown or ignited if tightly packed beasts became impossible to contain. Buckets of sand, water barrels, wet blankets, and dedicated fire-control teams were stationed behind every area where flame might be used.
When one enthusiastic hunter suggested pouring oil across an entire street, Raymond looked at him for several seconds before replying, "We are trying to burn the beasts, not Althoff. If your battle plan ends with all of us standing in the snow watching the town become charcoal, it’s a bad battle plan."
The hunter had immediately abandoned the idea.
Inside the settlement, the changes were just as extensive. Families living nearest the northern wall were relocated into deeper longhouses regardless of how much they complained about leaving their homes.
The elderly, young children, severely injured refugees, and people with limited mobility were moved toward the castle district.
The largest stone servant hall became a medical station, with rows of simple beds, stacks of cloth, boiled tools, buckets, herbs, and clean water prepared under Marianne’s supervision.
The two herbalists from Marden worked alongside Althoff’s local healers, organizing supplies by purpose so nobody would waste time searching through sacks while someone bled beside them.
Food stations were established behind each major defensive layer. Huge cooking pots were moved away from the main kitchen and placed inside reinforced structures where grain porridge, meat broth, and hot water could be produced continuously.
Lily personally inspected every distribution point despite the cold, walking around with a ledger nearly as large as her torso while shouting at grownadults whenever they put supplies in the wrong place.
Raymond passed one station in the afternoon and found a forty-year-old laborer being lectured by the ten-year-old girl because he had stacked firewood too close to a water barrel.
Raymond kept walking. He had no intention of rescuing the man.
The livestock presented another challenge. Raymond refused to leave the animals scattered across several outer pens where frightened Magic Beasts could reach them easily, so the agricultural specialists consolidated everything into reinforced shelters around the lower castle grounds.
Feed reserves were moved alongside them, and temporary fencing was built to keep panicked animals from escaping if the fighting began.
The ten workhorses and six oxen remained available for transportation until the final hours, while the System-provided breeding stock wastreated as economic capital that needed to survive almost as badly as the people themselves.
By the end of the first day, Althoff looked nothing like the town it had been that morning.
Fresh trenches scarred the white ground beyond the northern wall. Timber stakes filled the approaches. Defensive platforms rose above rooftops.
Barricades waited inside streets that had been cleared of unnecessary wagons and furniture.
Armed hunters occupied elevated positions while guards drilled below them. Bronze Knights walked predetermined sectors, learning every fallback route.
Silver Knights moved between command posts measuring how quickly they could respond to breaches.
And the work did not stop when darkness arrived.
Torches appeared across the town. Teams rotated.
Those who had worked through daylight slept while fresh crews replaced them. Hot food moved constantly from the distribution stations. Smiths continued hammering.
Carpenters continued building. Knights continued digging and hauling.
Refugees who had entered Althoff believing they had reached somewhere safe now found themselves helping transform that safety into something capable of surviving what was coming.
Raymond slept for three hours, then he was back outside.
The second day focused on testing.
Boris deliberately sounded false alarms from different sectors to see how quickly guards responded. Tristan’s mobile team raced between the eastern and western lines, identifying routes blocked by cartsor civilian traffic.
Jonathan ordered Bronze Knights to simulate breaches at the northern wall so secondary defenders could practice sealing streets. Marianne ran evacuation drills inside the shelters.
Lily discovered that one food station couldn’t supply enough hot water during a full alert and had another boiler moved there before noon.
Every failure found during practice was one less failure Raymond wanted to discover during battle.
By the evening of the second day, scouts confirmed the Beast concentration was still moving south.
Distance had fallen dramatically. The estimates remained roughly on schedule.
Less than thirty hours. On the third morning, snowfall began again.
Fine white flakes drifted across the fortified town as Raymond climbed onto the northern wall and looked out over the defensive layers they had created in less than three days.
Boris stood beside him with a thick fur cloak thrown over his armor, while Jonathan waited slightly behind them. Beyond the wall, the trenches formed dark lines through the snow, their stake-filled interiors partially hidden beneath fresh powder.
The two deliberate corridors remained open between them, apparently inviting anything approaching from the north toward the strongest sections of Althoff’s defense.
Raymond didn’t feel confident enough to call the town impregnable.
That would have been stupid.
Thousands of Magic Beasts were still thousands of Magic Beasts but they were no longer waiting behind a weak wall and hoping the System saved them.
They had layers. Outer traps to break the charge. A first defensive perimeter to reduce numbers. Kill corridors to control movement.
Secondary streets prepared for fallback combat. Mobile Silver Knight strike teams.
Thirty-five Bronze Knights, thirteen Silver Knights. Hunters,civilian support, medical stations, food stations, emergency shelters.
And if everything still went catastrophically wrong, Raymond possessed twenty additional Summoning Tickets hidden inside his inventory.
He looked toward Boris. "Walk me through it one more time."
Boris pointed across the northern field. "The scouts remain outside until the final warning, then withdraw through the western corridor. Once the first major Beast groups appear, nobody fires until they’re within range. Hunters target eyes, legs, and weaker creatures. We let the outer trenches do the first work. If the central wall becomes unstable, Garret’s western group shifts inward while Jonathan keeps the main gate sealed. Tristan responds wherever a Silver-class Beast breaches."
Raymond nodded. "And if we lose the wall?"
"We retreat by sector, not all at once. Northern civilians are already evacuated. Guards fall back toward the first street barricades. Archers relocate to the second platforms. Bronze Knights cover the withdrawal."
"And if we lose the streets?"
Boris looked toward the castle hill. "Upper settlement."
Raymond nodded again. "And if we lose that?"
Boris glanced at him.
Raymond gave a humorless smile. "Then we’re having a very bad day."
A horn sounded from the distant northern watchtower.
A scout signal.
Everyone on the wall turned.
A Bronze Knight appeared far along the northern road, running toward town at a speed no ordinary horse could match. Snow exploded behind his boots as he crossed the final stretch of wasteland, and even from the wall Raymond could tell he wasn’t slowing down.
Boris’s posture changed immediately.
Raymond rested both hands against the cold stone parapet.
The seventy-two hours were almost over.