For a heartbeat, the courtyard was frozen in disbelief. Open the gate? To the Vanguard? It felt like inviting a wolf into the sheepfold to escape a bear.
"Now!" Rex's command shattered the paralysis. He was already moving down the stone steps, Kaelen and Jean a step behind, their protests dying unspoken in the face of his absolute certainty.
"Felix!" Rex yelled. "Get your wardens to the gate! Form a receiving line. No hostility, but be ready for anything. Elara, set up a triage station in the bailey. They'll have wounded."
The orders flew, a frantic ballet of preparation. The massive iron-banded oak of the main gate groaned as the mechanism, recently oiled and strengthened, began to turn.
From the wall, Rex watched the final moments of the Vanguard's flight. The armored convoy had halted just outside effective bowshot, a silent, menacing presence. They were herding the Vanguard towards Avalon, like beaters driving game. It was a test. They wanted to see what the castle would do.
Marius, seeing the gate open, redoubled his efforts. "To the castle! Move!" he bellowed, his voice raw. His people surged forward, a desperate flood of humanity—fighters helping the wounded, mothers clutching children, all streaming through the gate into the sanctuary of Avalon's courtyard.
The last few Vanguard soldiers backed through the gate, their weapons pointed outwards, forming a rearguard with Felix's wardens. The two groups, who had been trying to kill each other weeks before, now stood shoulder-to-shoulder, united by a common, terrifying foe.
The gate slammed shut with a final, thunderous boom that echoed the closing of one era and the violent opening of another.
The courtyard was a scene of controlled chaos. Vanguard soldiers collapsed, gasping. Children cried. Elara and her team moved among them, assessing wounds. Rex's people handed out waterskins and blankets, their faces a mix of fear, suspicion, and a reluctant, burgeoning pity.
Marius strode up to Rex, his face etched with exhaustion and defeat. "They call themselves the 'Remnant'," he said without preamble, his voice low and urgent. "They appeared two days ago. They have tech we haven't seen. They're not scavengers. They're conquerors. They want the quarry, the people, everything."
Before Rex could respond, a new sound cut through the air—a amplified, robotic voice from outside the walls.
"ATTENTION, OCCUPANTS OF THE STRUCTURE. YOU ARE NOW UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE FEDERAL REMNANT. SURRENDER THE SETTLEMENT. DISARM AND ASSEMBLE OUTSIDE THE WALLS. YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO COMPLY."
The voice was flat, devoid of humanity. It was the voice of the old world, but twisted, stripped of mercy.
Silence fell over the entire castle, a silence so profound they could hear the wind whistling through the arrow slits.
Every eye—Avalon native, Newcomer, and Vanguard refugee—turned to Rex.
He stood, a solitary figure amidst the crowd, the weight of hundreds of lives pressing down on him. He looked at Marius, then at the faces of his own people, at Elara's steady gaze, Kaelen's fierce readiness, and Liana's silent, terrified hope.
He climbed onto a cart so all could see him.
"They think we are a problem to be managed," Rex's voice rang out, clear and sharp, carrying over the crowd. "They think their technology and their titles give them the right to what we have built with our hands and our blood. They are wrong."
He let his gaze sweep over the mixed assembly—his citizens and his new, unexpected allies.
"They have given us an hour," he continued, his voice dropping to a conversational tone that was somehow more threatening than a shout. "We will use it. Jean, fortify the gate. Kaelen, get every crossbow and every pot of oil on the walls. Marius, your people will fight under my command. We will show this 'Remnant' what happens when you threaten our home."
He wasn't just giving orders. He was forging a new nation, right there, in the face of annihilation.
"The time for hiding is over," Rex declared, his final words falling like a judge's gavel. "Today, we stop surviving. Today, we go to war."