Chapter 12 — Teeth in the Dark
They buried the body at dawn.
Not the Graymarch man—his corpse remained where it had been left, spear still pinning it upright beyond the perimeter. No one touched it. Not out of fear, but intent.
The camp gathered for their own dead instead.
A shallow grave near the eastern rise. No priest. No banner. Just a few words spoken quietly by those who remembered the man who had slipped into the trench days before.
Freja closed his eyes with gentle fingers.
Mikkel stood back, hands clasped behind him, watching faces rather than the grave. Grief showed itself in many ways—tight jaws, unfocused stares, hands clenched until knuckles whitened.
This was the cost Graymarch wanted to multiply.
They would not get the chance.
By midmorning, Mikkel had already begun moving pieces.
Not soldiers.
People.
He walked the camp deliberately, stopping to speak with those who had been awake during the night—watchmen, parents, the exhausted and the angry. He listened more than he spoke, noting patterns.
Where arrows had fallen.
Which paths Graymarch favored.
Who froze—and who reacted.
By noon, he had what he needed.
He called Signe, Liv, Torben, Freja, and Elna together near the map scratched into the dirt. Commander Rasmus was not present.
This was not a garrison matter.
"This doesn't stop unless we change the cost," Mikkel said.
Signe crossed her arms. "You want to hit back."
"I want to shape them," Mikkel replied.
Liv crouched beside the map, already understanding. "You want to make the night uncomfortable."
"Yes."
Torben frowned. "With what forces? We can't chase shadows."
"We don't," Mikkel said. "We let them walk into effort."
He pointed to the ridgelines Liv had marked earlier.
"They move light. That's their strength," he continued. "So we don't fight them where speed matters."
Freja looked up sharply. "You're not planning an ambush near the camp."
"No," Mikkel said. "Too close. Too risky."
He shifted his finger farther out.
"Here," he said. "And here. Narrow ground. Broken stone. Places where fire doesn't spread well."
Liv nodded slowly. "Trip lines. Noise traps."
"Exactly."
Signe smiled—slow, sharp. "You're thinking like hunters."
Mikkel met her gaze. "I'm thinking like people who need sleep."
They worked through the afternoon.
No shouting. No speeches.
Just preparation.
Soldiers and villagers alike were assigned roles—some digging shallow pits just beyond the perimeter, others stringing wire scavenged from broken fences between stones, anchoring loose metal scraps that would clatter at the slightest touch.
Children were kept well back.
Freja insisted on that.
"If this goes wrong," she said quietly, "it will already hurt enough."
Mikkel didn't argue.
By nightfall, the camp looked unchanged.
That was the point.
The fires were kept low. Watch rotations doubled. The perimeter tightened, overlapping sightlines replacing raw vigilance.
Liv vanished into the dark with three volunteers—quiet men and women who knew how to move without drawing notice. They were not fighters.
They were listeners.
Graymarch came as expected.
The first arrow struck a shield just after midnight.
Then another.
Then the familiar crackle of fire as a torch arced through the air.
But this time, the torch never landed.
It caught on a suspended wire and spun wildly, clattering into the dirt where a waiting bucket smothered it instantly.
A surprised shout echoed from the darkness.
Then another sound joined it.
Metal scraping stone.
A clang.
A chorus of noise erupted as Graymarch scouts stumbled into the first line of traps. Nothing lethal. Nothing dramatic.
Just loud.
Torches flared instinctively as the raiders tried to regain footing—and that was when arrows flew.
Not volleys.
Single shots.
Precise.
Signe's soldiers fired from cover, aiming low—legs, arms, anything that slowed without killing.
A Graymarch man screamed as an arrow took him in the thigh.
Another tripped and fell hard into rubble.
Confusion spread.
"Fall back!" someone shouted in the dark.
Liv's team struck then—not charging, but throwing stones and smoke pots, filling the narrow ground with chaos and sound.
Graymarch scattered.
Not in panic.
In irritation.
They withdrew quickly, dragging wounded, torches extinguished.
The night went quiet again.
But it was a different quiet.
Mikkel stood at the edge of the perimeter, breath steady, listening.
No return fire came.
Signe joined him, grinning fiercely. "They hated that."
"Yes," Mikkel said. "Good."
Torben approached, eyes bright. "We didn't lose anyone."
"No," Mikkel agreed. "And we didn't kill anyone either."
Torben hesitated. "That… bothered some of the soldiers."
"It should," Mikkel replied. "Killing is easier."
Morning revealed the damage.
Blood trails beyond the perimeter. Broken arrows. One abandoned torch.
No bodies.
The camp woke cautiously—but with something new beneath the fear.
Confidence.
Not bravado.
Understanding.
"They can be stopped," a woman whispered.
"They can be managed," another corrected.
Freja found Mikkel near the care area.
"They didn't come close," she said. "The children slept."
He nodded. "That matters."
She studied him. "You didn't escalate."
"I refused to," he said. "That's different."
She smiled faintly.
Later that day, Commander Rasmus arrived.
He took in the camp—the organized perimeter, the intact supplies, the absence of panic—with a soldier's eye.
"You engaged," he said.
"Yes," Mikkel replied.
"And didn't pursue."
"No."
Rasmus exhaled slowly. "You frustrated them."
"That was the goal."
Rasmus studied him for a long moment.
"You're changing the rhythm," the commander said. "That makes you visible."
"Yes."
"And valuable," Rasmus added quietly. "To friends and enemies alike."
Mikkel did not reply.
That night, Graymarch did not attack.
The following night, they probed once—then withdrew before reaching the traps.
On the third night, horns sounded far to the west instead.
Not for them.
For something else.
Liv returned before dawn, face grim.
"They're shifting," she said. "Pulling scouts back."
"Why?" Signe asked.
Liv's eyes met Mikkel's.
"Because they're done playing," she said. "And now they're going to bring weight."
Mikkel closed his eyes briefly.
This was the cost of initiative.
Graymarch would not bleed themselves dry on irritation forever.
They would respond with force.
But when Mikkel looked around the camp—at the people who no longer scattered at noise, who checked traps without being told, who watched the night with steady eyes—he knew something irreversible had happened.
They had learned that the dark could be shaped.
And once people learned that—
They stopped waiting to be saved.
They started preparing to endure.
Beyond the hills, banners would soon rise.
But Ashenhold—though no one called it that yet—was no longer a place Graymarch could simply frighten into disappearing.
It had teeth now.
And it knew how to hide them.