Morning arrived like a firm handshake. The forge cleared its throat with a single ring; the watchtower creaked agreeably; Thorn sat in her shed like a cat that had decided not to hunt today—yet. The wind came from the west, smelling of resin and the faint, stubborn sulk of West Hollow.
Aiden stood at the half-gate-that-wanted-to-be and watched Novaterra wake itself. Hadrik's fire breathed; Ansel cursed angles into submission; Venn counted at crates until the crates felt organized. Elara crossed the training oval with a spear and the walk of a woman who knew how to turn fear into formation.
"Today," Aiden said, as much to the dirt as to anyone, "we write a book."
Elara arched a brow. "A thin one. Soldiers don't read thick."
"Primer," Aiden agreed. "Open-field. For us. For Silverbrook. For the road."
Her mouth tilted the way it did when approval tried not to be obvious. "Good."
He opened the [System] and pinned a fresh page. Letters tall, lines simple. He spoke, and the pane wrote.
[Open-Field Muster — Primer v1.0] Purpose: Break goblin momentum in the open WITHOUT inviting a rout. Signals: (horn) • 1 long — form wall • 2 short — polite retreat • 3 sharp — impolite retreat • 4 broken — shaman/drum sighted • 5 rising — cavalry screen left/right (called by direction) Formation: • Center: Shield Wall (Guards) 3 ranks, anchors in stakes/ground marks • Rear: Scorpion "Thorn" 30m behind center; do NOT advance unsignaled • Wings: Light Cavalry (screen/harry), NEVER crash charge • Skirmishers: Sling/archer screen; priority targets: drums, banners, shamans Ground: • Caltrop belts 10–15m ahead of wall, staggered • Rope trip-lines marked by low flags (our colors) Reserve: • Veterans/NCOs hold second line; counterpunch only on signal Rules: • Don't chase • Don't chase • Seriously: Don't chase
Jory leaned over his shoulder and breathed "oooooh" like a boy at a fair. "Can I add pictures?"
"Yes," Aiden said gravely. "But not of you being heroic."
Jory, chastened and delighted, ran for charcoal. 🫡
"Spears first," Elara said. "We can't write a formation into legs without blisters."
They walked into the square of dirt that had become Cadre Alpha's classroom. Shields thumped ground. Rank leaders barked names. The sound of people deciding to become a wall rolled out like a low drum you could trust.
Elara raised a hand. "New work," she called. "Open-field. You will want to run forward when things break. You will not. You will want to chase. You will not. You will want to be heroes. You will be alive instead." 😑
A chuckle fell across the ranks, nervous and sincere.
"Center," she continued, "learn to be boring and unhungry." She stabbed a line in the dirt. "You stand here and become a miserable truth the enemy cannot argue with."
"Wings," she pointed at a cluster of riders. "You're screens, not lances. Make noise and dust. Bite only when the line tells you there is a mouth to bite."
Aiden opened the Animals pane and smiled at the old purchase that suddenly meant something new. Fifty horses flickered as an icon; in the pen, fifty pairs of ears flicked as if they'd heard themselves counted.
"Cavalry muster," he said. "Volunteers who have actually sat on a horse for longer than a story."
Ten hands went up; another ten went up slower; five more climbed up when their owners realized embarrassment was a weaker pain than ambition. Elara walked among them, eyes measuring hips, shoulders, and the kind of posture that doesn't throw a horse into opinions.
"Bryn," she said, tapping the forester's scarred brow. "You'll lead screen right. You move like you can listen to ground."
Bryn gave one of her almost-smiles. "Horses gossip too," she said. "If you listen." 🐎
Aiden slid the primer's cavalry notes under the larger text.
[Light Cavalry — Screen] • Don't crash. Harass. • Throw dust. Throw javelins/slings. Leave. • Screen the flanks; show up where drums are. • If shamans raise hands, you lower them (arrows). • If wall retreats, you make it *look* like we chose that.
"Thorn," Elara called, and Rinna answered from the shed with a crisp "Aye!" that made Tam beam. "You do not advance unless called," Elara went on. "You do not get clever. You make dots into periods at my word."
"Thorn punctuates," Rinna intoned solemnly. Tam whispered, "Good girl," to the stock. 😌
Hadrik's forge spat the first spearhead batch into Venn's tidy world. Hinges followed, because doors still mattered. The Wall — Corner I accepted another bite of stone, rubble settling with the satisfied sigh of a belly after stew. The mine bell thumped normal (thank the ward), and the first cart rolled in: iron 100, coal 200, stone 200, magic crystal 1—do not lick, the pouch warned Tam specifically.
Mara stalked the perimeter with a ladle like a sceptre and a new sign in her neat, furious hand: No Heroics Before Lunch. Someone laughed; someone else saluted the ladle.
"Copies," Aiden told Venn, pushing the primer pane to share. "For Dace at Silverbrook. For Riversong. For our own rank leaders. Large letters; simple edges."
Venn sniffed. "I live to condescend to bad eyesight," he said, entirely pleased. 🖊️
Elara took the center to slow, then quicken, the wall's pulse; Dace's second sent a runner to say "Primer received. Horn calls clear. We will practice 'don't chase' until my legs understand it." The [System] approved of explicit stupidity-prevention:
[Doctrine Shared] • Allies (Silverbrook, Riversong) gain +5% reaction speed in open field • Novaterra Units gain +1 Formation Discipline while within horn-net
"Good," Elara said, like the taste of the word suited.
A forester runner loped in from the west: no new charms hung, just birds indifferent to goblins and very interested in grain. "Gossip, not murder," Bryn translated, pleased. 🐦
Aiden sent back dried fish to the forester hut with a note: Bribe the gossip. Gossip warns.
The charm net they'd set two nights ago decided to justify itself just after noon.
Bryn's soft whistle floated across the west line. Hale's answering click snapped the air. Elara turned her head a millimeter, and people moved the way they had been taught—quiet, precise, indifferent as cats pretending not to notice prey.
A thin man with careful boots and an unremarkable face ghosted along the outer caltrop edge, eyes on the trees, not the ground. He reached for a notch where a charm had hung before Calder's small, tidy fire turned it into three tears. His hand found nothing. His other hand reached up higher—new perch?—and brushed Bryn's snare line.
The line whispered; the bush sighed; the man tried to go down and found going up was faster. Hale stepped out of nobody with a spear presented pleasantly at stomach level. Rinna didn't bring Thorn; she brought her voice, which could injure all on its own. Tam looked disappointed there'd be no thwack, then remembered he was supposed to be invisible and succeeded admirably. 😶
"Hello," Elara said, as if greeting a neighbor at market. "Looking for beads?"
The man did not panic. He did not smirk. He calculated the angles of yes and no and chose a shrug that tried to be both.
"Walk," Elara said. "Tea first. Then answers."
Calder poured something that made cowards confess and heroes cry. The man sipped, grimaced, and found honesty less painful than the drink.
"I don't sell to your people," he said, which was an answer to a question they hadn't asked yet. "I hang beads on trees near folk who'll pay to keep wolves off chicken pens."
"Those beads," Aiden said mildly, "bring wolves."
"People think they keep them out," the man said, with the sadness of someone who knew what bread cost. "And hungry people pay for thinking."
Elara's jaw ticked. "Who pays you?"
"A letter," he said. "A mark—" He made a moth with two fingers. "I pick up a pouch at a rock with a crack that looks like a smile. I hang what's in it where men get scared and women have no time to pull weeds."
"Do you meet the moth?" Venn asked, clinical. "Or does the moth prefer ink to faces?"
"Ink," the man said. "Always ink."
"Name?" Aiden asked.
"Ras," he said, and met Aiden's eyes with an exhausted sort of truth. "I'd rather hang rope than beads if rope paid."
Aiden glanced at Elara. She saw it the same way he did: use the hand, break the habit.
"Rope, then," Aiden said. "You'll string lines for us. You'll show us the places you would hang fear if you had to feed a bag. You'll burn what you'd hang. In return, you'll eat and your boots won't make liars of your feet."
Ras blinked as if gratitude had rust on it. "And if I run?"
Elara's smile was small and lethal. "Then the next person we catch will have less tea and more rope."
"Tea it is," Ras said, almost laughing through a wince. 😬
The [System] liked practical redemption:
[Specialist Hired: Ras (Charm-Runner, Human)] • Skill: Knows likely charm-perches, routes, and "fear geometry" • Effect: Charm spawn chance –20% in patrolled radius; Perch prediction unlocked
"Grey Moth?" Aiden asked.
Ras's mouth twisted. "Not a moth. A man who likes moths. Writes neat. Smells like starch and coin."
"Foxes eat moths," Elara murmured, and Aiden couldn't help the half-smile that escaped.
Afternoon warmed. The Primer gained pictures—Jory's stick-figures showing don't chase with an X through an overexcited little man, and a proud stick-Thorn that looked vaguely like a beetle with opinions. Venn sighed but admitted clarity where art failed.
"Send to Dace," Aiden said. "And Sera. And Lia. And Lucien, even—bridges hold better when both banks know which plank to step on." He almost added and Renard, then didn't.
Ras walked the west with Bryn and pointed to harmless branches that weren't, fence corners that collected fear, ground low points where caltrops would be poetry. Calder burned a bead he found tangled in a blackberry vine; it cracked into three tears right on cue. Aiden hated that he expected it. 😑
At the Wall, Ansel squared a course and declared it flat enough to eat soup on. Mara declared herself unconvinced and poured a little stew on it; it didn't run. She grunted approval, which in her language meant good job, keep breathing.
Hadrik delivered a tidy stack of javelin heads and a short lecture on not using them as pry-bars. The cavalry tried them at a walk—throw, retrieve, throw—and discovered that horses had opinions about sharp metal attached to strong arms. Bryn soothed; horses listened; opinions softened.
"Screen drill," Elara called. "Dust without lunacy. Harass without getting bit." The riders made loops, some graceful, some comic, all earnest. One horse sneezed mightily at a caltrop flag and tried to kick the idea of geometry to death. The idea won.
The [System] hummed:
[Unit Progress] • Light Cav (Screen): +1 Maneuver • Cadre Alpha: +1 Formation Discipline (open-field) • Thorn Crew: Reload Speed +1 (timed)
"Good," Elara said again, as if the day were behaving to spec.
**
Toward evening, Dace's runner arrived with dust to his eyebrows and a grin that didn't apologize.
[Field Report — Silverbrook Road] • Primer applied. 'Don't chase' prevented two idiot choices (my own). • Red Hal's lot tried to lure us into brush: caltrops + rope said no. • One more charm vendor spotted—moth mark on a letter, neat hand, fled. • Lia says thank you. Sera copied horn-calls to children (they remember). • Request: two more cavalry for a day to teach screen; one scorpion bolt crate (empty) for morale. — Dace
Aiden barked a laugh. "Send them an empty crate," he told Venn. "Paint 'Thorn Was Here' on the lid."
"Childish," Venn said, already writing THORN WAS HERE in careful block letters. 😌
"Two riders?" Elara considered. "Hale and Bryn will hate leaving the line. Perfect." She lifted her chin. "Bryn. Hale. Sing your horse gossip in the east for one day; return without becoming friends with every child."
Bryn looked pained. "No promises." Hale grinned with all his teeth.
They left at twilight with a clatter that sounded like confidence rather than noise. Jory played two short in a jaunty key that wasn't a signal but felt like a spelled blessing.
Aiden turned west once more, to the line where the night would come asking questions.
"Same drill," he said. "No heroics. Burn beads. If the bush has eyes, give it a bath."
Ras snorted tea out his nose at that. Elara pretended not to notice and then handed him a rag.
The test came with farce first: two goblins tripped the moved caltrops and made the kind of sounds that make children giggle and soldiers feel better about physics. Then came the small, mean truth: a drum beating alone, trying to start a song. Thorn answered once. Thwack. Period.
No casualties. One sprain. A new recruit learned the difference between hold and hunch and decided hunching was for tomorrow when laundry existed.
The [System] purred at them:
[Evening Summary — Novaterra] • Primer v1.0 published (allies synced) • Charm-runner Ras integrated; perch prediction active • West Hollow: Pressure eased; totems destroyed (3) • Wall Corner I: 15% → 20% • Forge: Javelin heads (batch #1), Hinges (batch #2) • Cavalry Screen: First drills complete • Silverbrook: Primer effective; caltrops + rope success • Morale: Steady → Confident 🙂
Aiden leaned on the idea of a gate and looked up at a sky that refused stars but did a decent job with not-dark. He thought of Grey Moth and ink that smelled like starch. He thought of Lucien and bridges with fox tracks on them. He thought of open fields and dust and a wall that wanted to become a city.
Elara came to stand beside him with the kind of tired that earned a chair. "Primer's a start," she said.
"Next version gets pictures of 'don't chase' drawn directly on people's boots," he said.
She almost laughed; then her eyes cut west, sharp. "Soon," she said. "Not yet."
"Soon," he agreed. "When the field is right and the wind is ours." He looked toward the user of fate he couldn't name and added, a little lower: "When our reader of stories tells us how the ground lies." 😉
Elara didn't ask what that meant; she'd learned he sometimes spoke to a sky that listened. "Rest," she ordered. "We'll be boring and dangerous again tomorrow."
"Novaterra," Aiden told the hum of the town, "we wrote a thin book today. Tomorrow we make it thick with blisters."
The wind had the audacity to approve. The watchtower horn stayed politely quiet. Somewhere beyond the caltrops, a drum tried to practice and discovered it had a headache.