They did not celebrate. Triumph, as it had been, was thick with smoke and wet earth; the dead were incinerated, the living shook, and every small comfort carried the flavor of ash. They had endured Lucian's fire and the ash-monsters; they had paid in muscle and blood. But survival was but prelude. Now was the time for discipline, for restraint and a chill of its own: preparation.
Their own current refuge was a cellar dug out of an old monastery on the city fringes stone walls, one high narrow window like an eye. Cold enough that breathed mists in the morning air for an instant. Provisions against one wall: boxes of rationed provisions, extra clothing, lamp oil, coils of rope, extra blades. A fresh map on the big table Lucian's territory at the center, red and black inked trails, familiar patrols circled, lines of possible infiltration sketched with a pencil.
Damian loomed over the map like a general on a battlefield, a mug of black coffee in one hand and a sharp knife at his hip. He looked like a man who would trust physical things, not words; his game was experience and brawn. Adriana stood in the doorway, rubbing the corner of a blister that refused to heal.
"Status," she said.
"Recon units report Lucian doubled patrols along the northern route," Damian replied. "Convoys of supplies are arriving nightly two routes one road, one river. He's amassing, preparing for siege or assault. He's waiting for us to weaken before we strike."
Adriana traced one of the pencil lines with her finger. "So we cut the convoys. Force a fork and force him to choose. Or divide his men and exploit."
Damian's gaze wandered back to her, his half-smile tightening. "You've been thinking," he said to her.
She could sense the sting of fatigue and the warmth of pride; they were both a positive thing. "I have to. If I'm putting my people into his heart, I make the map."
They spent the day calling on allies. The few who rallied to the cause of Damian were a mix: old mercs disgruntled by Lucian's concentration of authority, a merchant clan Ilana owed, a couple of hunters who had previously smuggled arms through Lucian's checkpoints. They met in cramped courtyards and the backrooms of taverns, each handshake hesitant and wary.
Victor floated between these conferences like an artful wind. He wasn't welcome, and yet he never missed an appearance with information for cash, or some vagrant tidbit overheard. He brought information and he brought a resistance to being pinioned. Damian eyed him cautiously; Adriana eyed him cautiously. He might swing the decision, or he might cut throats under cover of darkness.
We can't rely on him," Damian had said once, after the door closed and the map unfolded like a secret confession between them. "But we can manipulate him. We can provide him with misdirections and conceal the actual plan in secret.".
Adriana agreed. She would use Victor in the way he used others: as motion, not trust. "I'll draft the false routes, let him find the bait. He likes being useful. We'll turn that to advantage."
Elara's role shifted from prisoner to agent that day. Damian supervised her training with the same detached eye he used on novices: drilling in silent movement, rehearsing how to read a flash of light that might be a trap, memorizing codes for the group's warnings. Each time she did it correctly, the men who had spat on her before watched with ruffled interest. She did not seek their approval; she let the work speak.
When one of the elder scouts had proposed killing her quietly, so as not to betray, Adriana's voice echoed in the room.
"No," she insisted. "She saved lives. She can save more. She earns it with every step."
The shopping list of gear they required had become lengthy: grappling hooks and rope, lockpicks, a counterfeit set of identification, counterfeit insignia for Lucian's checkpoints, spangled nets under lanterns to stumpe patrol horses, oil-soaked cloths for diversions, and most importantly, a medic kit morphine, saline, stitched bandage kits. They commandeered a box of experimental light-emitters from Ilana's traders small devices which would blind monitors for the ten-second duration which could be the difference between life and death.
Adriana treated the feed of intelligence like a field commander. Julian labored frantically at his console, decrypting patrol rotas, radio traffic and the ledgers of the merchants. Each figure was a beat; each beat was a potential vulnerability in Lucian's defenses.
"We can take out the first convoy," Julian declared at mid-afternoon, holding a printout aloft. "River line, margins thin, guard changes at 02:30. If we lay the diversions along the eastern reed
And ride through the hire-road," Damian finished. "We can get a crew dig out the caches. Cut his supply, have him shift men to guard it."
Adriana nodded. "And at the same time we stage the dummy move from the west with Victor in the middle."
Julian's smile was tired but fierce. "If Victor believes he is going to take the prize, he'll shout it from the rooftops. Lucian shifts men. We adjust.".
Small things cut it close: who would break walls, who would be signal, who would cover. Jobs were assigned in stone, contingencies in ink. No plan ever lasts past the first contact with the enemy but complete contingencies kept them fight some chance.
Night fell on them in the chapel crypts, voices hushed beneath vaults. There was a tenderness in the way the men were getting ready to fight folding their scarves, sharpening knives, talking to specters in the dark before they slept. Adriana paced along the edges, restless; the map had become a talisman, something she reached for like scripture.
Damian found her at the far end of the room, where a hallowed statue of a saint stood with cracked eyes that appeared to watch them. The two of them crept nearer until the world was nothing but the sound of their breathing.
"You should not have ordered them to rescue Elara," Damian whispered.
"Don't suspect everyone, just your initial reaction," Adriana said. The air between them was easy and like a flame and dangerous, as well.
He grabbed her hand, the touch a question. "Do you think it will end once we take his stronghold?"
She looked at him for a second. His eyes were tired, but behind them burned a smoldering confidence that she had grown to depend upon above all else. She wanted to answer with something clear and unadulterated. All she could manage was to tell him, "I don't know where it ends. But I know why I struggle."
That's maybe more important." His thumb stroked the back of her hand. "You know I'd follow you into the smoke, don't you?
The almost-confession hung suspended between them, heavy and ready to explode. Adriana's throat tightened. She would have let herself say it if the world allowed her. She wanted to say it. But there was a job to do, men to get in place, and a city to trick. Words unspoken would have to suffice for now.
"Then we set out at sunrise," she told him, voice soothing as iron. "Every man knows his way. Let us, once, not be the prey."
He nodded. "Once."
They didn't kiss. They did better than that: they settled, side by side, flat palms pressed on the map, a shared vow to travel together.
At the drizzly dawn time, Victor had appeared at the chapel as effortlessly as a traveler by night rumor. He had with him a small crate.
"I have what you needed," he said, voice as casual as a man relinquishing a trifle. "A set of papers stolen from Lucian's quartermaster. Names of a few lieutenants. Enough to set your plan in motion." He smiled the kind that never reached his eyes.
Adriana read the papers, then refolded them and thrust a slim coin into Victor's hand without a look. "You knew this would help."
"Naturally," Victor replied. "Use it wisely." He stopped, then went on, his voice uninflected: "And if this doesn't work, don't forget: I choose the winning side."
Damian picked up the tone, the threat veiled in courtesy. He remained silent.
They were forced to pray that it would not faAs the initial pale light of dawn crept across the ravaged horizon, the unit proceeded like a shadowed arrow: an initial vanguard to prime the river raid, a second team to wreck the road convoy, the bulk force to secure extraction points, and a stealth unit the one Adriana would lead tasked with infiltrating Lucian's periphery and mark the weak seam of the fortress.
Adriana's heart thudded in the hollow space below her breast as they converged: ropes coiled, knives honed, faces set. She caught Damian's eye and exchanged a look that could convey a world: don't hold anything back, trust is our banner.
Elara came up with them at the front. She had been assigned the most hazardous task: to serve as a decoy inside the stronghold's perimeter if the invasion needed to include a feigned surrender. She had nodded in silence, eyes as hard as flint.
Julian rechecked his gear for the final time. "Once we cut the convoys, Lucian will redistribute. That will open up the throat we need," he whispered. "We have exactly six hours of leverage if we rush it."
Adriana breathed and nodded. The map of her mind matched the world outside: river reeds waving like the hands of the damned, the hire-road curving like a vein, the silhouette of the stronghold waiting like a crown of iron on the hill.
They burst forth as one small, suspicious army. The wind snapped at their cheeks. The Deadlands watched with a disinterest, and beyond that, in the black tower where Lucian's soldiers sealed their deals, something shifted a presence that relished the hunt.
When the chapel was a fading haze, and the initial blows of execution fell, Adriana allowed herself a single silent moment as she fell into the beat of march.
If we lose, we die.
If we win, perhaps one day we can talk about what comes next.
She brought that hope a gasp fragile and dangerous and cinched her grip on the rope slung over her shoulder.
They were going to the wolf's den.