The knowledge that Marius's scouts were watching changed the very air in Avalon. Every action, from drawing water from the well to drilling with spears, felt like a performance for a hidden, critical audience. Rex leaned into the deception, but the strain of maintaining the charade was immense. They were building a stage, and the first act of the real drama was imminent.
It began with the weather. A bitter cold snap descended, a premature taste of the harsh winter to come. The stream, their primary water source, developed a skin of thin ice at its edges. It was a vulnerability, and Rex knew their observers would see it too.
Three days into the freeze, the attack came. But it was not from the Brutes, and it was not a direct assault.
Just before dawn, a cry echoed from the northern section of the wall, where a makeshift watchtower overlooked the stream's entry point. Rex, who slept in his clothes with his sword at his side, was on the ramparts in moments.
In the grey pre-dawn light, he saw them. Not a horde, but a single, focused team from Marius's group. They were not trying to scale the walls. They were methodically dismantling the ancient water gate—the heavy, rusted iron grate that regulated the stream's flow into the castle's moat and cisterns. If they breached it, they could divert the water, or worse, use it as an entry point.
This was the test. A probe of their defenses, their response time, and their resolve.
Rex didn't hesitate. "Militia to the north wall! Crossbows!" he roared, his voice cutting through the morning chill. "Kaelen! With me!"
He and Kaelen pounded down the stone steps and across the inner bailey. At the base of the north wall, a small postern gate, hidden by overgrowth, led to the stream's edge. It was their only way to counter-attack quickly.
"Are you ready?" Rex asked Kaelen, his hand on the bolt.
Her answer was to heft the long, single-edged blade she had forged for herself. It was a brutal, beautiful weapon she called a "falchion." Her eyes were alight with a cold fire. "Let's see how their steel holds up."
Rex threw open the postern gate. The five men at the water gate, armed with crowbars and sledgehammers, froze in surprise. They had expected arrows from the walls, not a sally from a door they didn't know existed.
The fight was short, sharp, and brutal. Rex moved with the fluid precision of his training, his longsword a blur of deflecting blows and precise, disabling strikes. He broke a man's arm with the pommel, disarmed another with a twist of his blade. He fought not to kill, but to incapacitate and terrify.
Kaelen was his shadow and his hammer. Where he was precise, she was overwhelming. She parried a sledgehammer swing with her falchion, the force of the blow ringing up her arm, and responded with a devastating cut that cleaved through the man's leather armor and sent him stumbling back, bleeding and shocked. She was a force of nature, her every movement shouting that this was her home, her forge, and they were defiling it.
In less than a minute, it was over. Two of the attackers were down, groaning. The other three, including their leader, dropped their tools and fled into the woods, leaving their comrades behind.
Rex stood panting, the cold air burning his lungs. He looked at Kaelen. A thin line of blood welled on her cheek from a flying chip of stone, but her grin was fierce and triumphant.
From the walls, a ragged cheer went up from the militia and the watching settlers. They had seen their Lord and their Blacksmith not just defend, but attack. They had seen them win.
Rex looked down at the two captured men, then out towards the woods where the scouts were undoubtedly still watching.
The message had been sent, and this time, it was written in the language of broken bones and shattered confidence. The scalpel had been met by the hammer. Avalon was not just a fortress to be besieged. It was a beast with sharp teeth, and it knew how to bite.