Chapter 221 — Timber and Trap
Varik walked into the council hall with a steadiness that made the room breathe easier. No limp marked him now, no hollow-eyed shadow from the torture in his step — the healers had done their work, Azhara and the elven surgeons patching and weaving flesh with mana and skill until the scout looked like his old self, though the set of his jaw carried new quiet. He carried a leather satchel with maps and small notes, and when he set them on the table the sound seemed loud in the hush that fell.
The council gathered quickly: Thalos, Rogan, Fenrik, Saekaros the nomad—now a trusted voice—Druaka's brothers leaning on each other, and the elders who had watched the Hollow grow. Lyria sat with her bow across her knees, expression closed and alert. Kael arrived last, tired in a fashion that no blade could cut; he took the head place, but he let Varik have the floor.
Varik unrolled a map — charcoal lines showing the beaten paths, the low ridges, the marshes between the Hollow and the Iron Brand's known camps. He tapped a cluster of marks where scouts had last seen the slavers' patrols.
"They're organizing," Varik said. His voice was plain, the words measured. "Korrath's been consolidating bands. Garruk's hammer squads move like they expect a frontal fight. Meyra keeps a pair of scorched columns ready to burn a line and force us out. Drain is in his own circle — the torturers, the ones who break things for sport; he's keeping a reserve for prisoners and interrogations. They've built a supply route through the low marshes and are setting watch posts every league. They won't strike tonight — they're waiting until their numbers are right and their lines are shallow. But they will come."
A dozen eyes followed every mark he pointed to. Fenrik leaned forward, restless. "So they're ready to smash us. They want a siege."
"They want a spectacle," Saekaros corrected. "They want us in the open, to show what happens to people who defy the Brand."
Rogan's fingers drummed the table. "Let them come. We cut their heads off. We've been ready—"
"Ready for what?" Thalos asked. "Rogan, your anger is useful, but it's also the thing that lets them predict our moves. They baited us before. They'll bait us again if we act like brutes."
The debate hung: strike first and risk being trapped against numbers and supply lines, or hold and bleed them by attrition? Some spoke for a hurried strike to take advantage of the Brand's assumed overconfidence; others urged reinforcement, alarms and traps, and to avoid giving Korrath the battle he wanted.
Kael said nothing while the voices rose and dropped around the table. He watched them all: the hard lines around Rogan's mouth, Varik's controlled anger, Thalos' wary calm, Lyria's impassive face. He let them try their words on him, observe a dozen angles, consider a dozen fallbacks.
Finally the room stilled and all those present — present and not merely listening — looked at him. The weight settled like iron. Kael could have offered a plan in that moment, but he did not. Instead he shifted his gaze to Lyria.
"What do you see?" he asked, and the hall leaned into her.
Lyria's hand went to her bow as if to draw it even in thought. When she spoke, it was slowly, with the kinds of details only someone who had lived in the forest all her life could give.
"We do not meet them in open ground," she began. "They want to march on a target, make a show. We will make them pay for every step they take toward the Hollow."
She walked the map with her finger like a blade. "First: we deny them supplies and information. Varik's scouts will shadow the Brand's foragers and strike quietly — burn wagons, ambush single parties, tip over barrels in marshland so their water souces — the shallow streams — go foul. Make the terrain expensive. Every resupply becomes an operation that costs them men and time."
Rogan snorted. "So harry, not hit? I can do harry."
"Not only harry," Lyria said. Her eyes were bright now, hungry for the shape of strategy. "We will suture the forest to our advantage. The woods between us and the Brand are dense, with ridges and broken gullies. We will place our hunters in the trees — not simply as sentries, but as a phalanx of sharpshooters. Elven marksmen and wolfkin sentries hidden in the canopy; when Brand ranks try to form, the bows will speak. Kill the horses. Kill the scouts. Break their columns with shot before they can set order."
She tapped another point. "We will use guerrilla waves. Fenrik and Thalos take the first wave: light, mobile, hit and fall back. They are the teeth. Then we bring Rogan and his heavy units to hit a portion of the disordered enemy. Rogan's fury will make a hole. But don't send him to break the main army — send him to split them across a ridge where we've set the traps."
"What traps?" Kael prompted, because he knew her and knew her mind wanted the question asked.
Lyria's lips curved. "Simple things turned cruel. Logs rimmed with hooks, concealed pits lined with stakes, tar-laced tracks that set fire when struck. Mine the marsh crossings with collapsing bog traps: the Brand relies on wheeled wagons; send them into the marsh and they lose the wagons and animals. We'll lay false trails to lead their scouts into ambushes. We'll carve killing corridors through the trees where their columns must pass. We pull one flank, then the other. The whole aim is to lengthen, to thin, to exhaust them."
She paused, letting the image solidify. "Signal-wise: we'll use three tiers. First, the owl-call — the elven low-signal to the canopy. Second, the horn-snapters — ephemeral, small, but loud — for ground teams. Third, a mag-signal from Kael: brief, focused, designed to draw their attention and then vanish. A chaos flare here will make them think the Hollow is massing at a point, and that draws their reserves like wolves. Kael's flare can be the false target; Fenrik and Thalos will take advantage elsewhere."
Fenrik's eyes glittered. "You want him to play the bait?"
"Yes." Lyria's tone was flat as flint. "With a caveat: Kael's flare will be a show — quick, controlled, and never alone. Kael will not be out there to die; he will be the pivot while we close on the Brand's flanks. Me and Varik will coordinate the shooters from the trees. Saekaros and the nomads will cut their retreat if they try to run back to the marshes. Thalos and Rogan will be the hammer upon the anvil. Timing is everything."
Kael's mouth was tight as he absorbed each piece. He liked the clarity — and he suspected Lyria had thought of more than she had said.
"What of prisoners?" Saekaros asked. "If we capture any, how do we treat them? Honor or noose?"
Lyria's gaze slid to Kael before she answered. He could see the demand there — the question behind questions: are we what we said we would be? She let the room feel it.
"We take only what we can hold," she said. "And we expose them: capture their scouts, parley them to send a signed plea back to Korrath that the Iron Brand will collect their own if they persist. Let their men see the fate awaiting. But do not let hatred make us savage in ways that justify their claims. We will not sell prisoners into chains. If Drain or Garruk fall alive to our hands, they will be judged. But we should not take the path to their cruelty."
Rogan's fist tightened. "And if they bind our people, if they make slaves of our children—"
"Then no mercy remains for them," Kael said quietly. His voice carried like a steel breath. "But as commander of this Hollow I will hold us to standards, because our difference from them is worth more than the satisfaction of a single night's vengeance." He met Rogan's eyes for a long beat. "We fight to protect what we are, not to become what we hate."
Thalos looked at Lyria, then at Kael. "She's right. We make the Brand's march costly. We will make their supply lines a thing of danger. We will refuse them ability to mass here. Then when they reveal their knot, we cut them apart."
Varik, who had been silent for most of the plan, finally spoke. "I can get eyes deeper into their camps. I know places where the marsh wakes in fog and the Brand thinks it's safe to grow teeth. I'll go again — stay longer this time. Put my own traps along their secret paths. When they pull the route, they'll find no comfort."
Kael rose and walked to the map, his shadow long and thin over the charcoal. He traced Lyria's plan with his palm, letting each idea settle.
"Timing?" he asked.
"When the moon is low," Lyria answered. "Before they fully gather. When their arrogance is highest and their scouts are lax. Varik will show us the weak nights. We strike in waves: a harassment night, then a greater strike two nights after when their men are spread thinning. By the time their main force reaches our flank, they will be tired, animal-hungry, and disordered."
Kael inhaled. The design fit the land like a hand in a glove. It took the Hollow's strengths — the woods, the canopy, the hunters, the nomads — and made the Brand's strengths — numbers, brute force, wagons — meaningless.
He turned to the council, feeling the gravity of the moment, the lives that would ride each decision.
"We build the traps Lyria mentioned," he said. "We train the shooters to fire in synchronized volleys at a dozen rhythms. Fenrik, Thalos — rehearse the waves. Rogan, you take command of the heavy strike teams when the columns are broken. Varik, you get the access points and cutting traps. Saekaros, prepare your riders to cut their retreat if they try to flee. I will prepare the flare and a reserve to shore any collapse."
Rogan's grin was savage but channeled now into purpose. "A proper hunt."
Lyria let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "We must be precise. No panics. No wasted blood."
Kael nodded. He walked to where Lyria sat and it was a private motion in the public council: a small, brief touch to her forearm, a signal she read with a stiff incline of her head. He would be the bait — but only where the bait would not be swallowed. He would be the shadow to open the Brand's eyes to a false target while the Hollow's real teeth closed.
The council rose in a gravity that was almost religious in its focus. Hands clasped, plans set, responsibilities parceled.
When the hall emptied and the torches guttered low, Kael allowed a single, long exhale. The work had begun. Timber would be felled into pits, stakes sharpened, snares woven of magistone thread. The Hollow would become a living weapon.
Outside, the forest breathed cold and deep. The Iron Brand planned from malice and profit; the Hollow planned from necessity and from the desperate hunger to keep what was theirs.
They would meet in the trees and the marshes. One side wanted spectacle and slaves. The other wanted survival. Lyria's voice, steady and precise across the map, had given them a way to make the Brand pay for both.
Kael looked to the trees beyond the Hollow walls and felt the old ache tighten — grief, resolve, and a sharpening patience. The first move had been made. Now the Hollow would set the terms of the game.