The map in Emil's cellar had grown crowded.
Where once a single village had been circled in charcoal, now a whole province's worth of dots glowed with faint candlelight. Red wax markers indicated musket caches. Blue ones, schools. Gold — the rarest — meant full conversion: cells trained, coordinated, and loyal.
And nearly every one of them was within the Baron's reach.
The Tipping Point
Baron Rask— the "Hound of the Lowlands" — had ruled this stretch of land for nearly three decades. The people once feared his name more than winter. Now, they mocked it in secret verses taught to their children by Emil's teachers.
The villages of Greymarsh, Solen's Ridge, Oakwain, Fenrest, and Hallowstead had all joined the Union.
Some willingly, others quietly — after a few of Emil's trusted operatives exposed their village headmen for corruption or cruelty. A handful resisted, but hunger, education, and fairness won more battles than blades ever could.
His methods worked.
Each village was given:
A rotating instructor for reading and writing.
A single blueprint for musket repair.
One coded message a week from Emil's "Courier Cell."
And a small, hidden box with a handwritten phrase:"The land belongs to those who till it — not to those who ride over it."
The Barons Orders
Baron Rask had not been blind. The silence from his taxmen. The missing scouts. The subtle shift in the villagers' eyes — not afraid, not servile — watchful.
And so, at last, he moved.
Not subtly. Not with spies or informants. But with steel and fire.
He sent knights and retainers to reassert control. Garrisons were ordered to host training drills near rebellious towns. In Solen's Ridge, a dozen schoolbooks were burned, and a teacher named Mira was taken — never seen again.
But the effect was not what Rask had expected.
The Fire Backfires
The people did not scatter.
In fact, for the first time in living memory, the surrounding villages began to send aid to one another. Underground networks were established. One village would hide weapons. Another would host a printing press in an old barn. Roads were watched. Messengers were protected.
Emil's movement had changed from a whisper to an underground current, steady and unbroken.
They stopped fearing death. Because they had tasted dignity.
A New Step Forward
Seeing the tightening noose, Emil decided it was time to centralize.
He called it The Gathering — the first meeting of Union Cell Leaders.
Under the full moon, beneath a ruined shrine in the forest, over twenty individuals — peasants, teachers, smiths, hunters, even a former village bailiff — gathered to hear Emil speak.
He didn't speak with fire. He wasn't a prophet or a general. He stood with dirt on his hands, a rolled map under one arm, and said simply:
"This isn't mine. It's yours. This land, this future. I started it, but I will not be its king. If we are to win… we must build together. Not with blades alone. But with schools, and books, and the courage to say no."
They raised their fists in quiet agreement.
The Union was no longer just an idea.
It was becoming a shadow government.
On a ridge overlooking the Baron's estate, Doren handed Emil a spyglass.
Below, the Baron's patrols were nervous. Some checkpoints were abandoned. Farmhands walked in groups now, not alone. Musket barrels gleamed faintly in hidden sheds.
"That place," Doren said, "used to rule everything we knew. Now… he's sitting in a fortress, and the villages around him are all yours."
Emil didn't smile. He simply nodded.
"Not mine, Doren. Theirs."
And then, as clouds passed before the moon, he added:
"But we'll take that fortress, too. Not with a siege… but by making it irrelevant."