The new structure, visualized by Liana's chart, worked with a speed that stunned Rex. Authority, clearly defined and delegated, was a force multiplier. Monsieur Dubois, in his element, had the supply ledgers balanced and rationing optimized within two days. Madame Dubois had a census completed and housing disputes settled with a librarian's quiet efficiency.
This freed Rex, Kaelen, and Henrik to focus on their countermeasure to the Remnant's eyes in the sky.
Kaelen's forge was a hive of activity, the cling-clang of hammers now accompanied by the hiss of steam and the smell of boiling linseed oil. They were not crafting weapons, but simple, hemispherical iron pots with latched lids—the bodies of the smoke pots.
Henrik and his team, using knowledge from the Vanguard's old-world manuals, prepared the fillings. It was a foul-smelling alchemy: damp straw, pine pitch, and rags soaked in animal fat and oil. When ignited, it would produce a thick, greasy, persistent smoke.
The first test was conducted in the inner bailey. A single pot was lit. With a whump, a plume of acrid, black smoke billowed forth, catching on the wind and spreading a dark stain across the courtyard. It was effective, too effective. People coughed and their eyes watered.
"Needs refinement," Henrik coughed, waving a hand. "Less pitch, more green wood. We need coverage, not suffocation."
They adjusted the formula. Two days later, the Remnant returned.
This time, there was no warning drone, no amplified demand for surrender. Just the sudden, distant roar of engines before dawn. They had learned. They were coming for a swift, brutal assault.
Rex stood on the gatehouse, the newly forged smoke pots lined up along the battlements like iron mushrooms. He could see the shapes of two armored trucks and a larger troop carrier approaching through the pre-dawn gloom.
"All stations, ready," he said, his voice calm on the speaking tube they had rigged to key points on the wall. "Smoke teams, stand by."
The lead truck opened up with its mounted machine gun, tracer rounds stitching a line of fire across the stone face of the castle. The modern sound was terrifying, but the ancient stone held.
"Now!" Rex commanded.
Along the walls, teams tipped the prepared pots over the battlements. They shattered on the ground below, and immediately, thick, grey-white clouds of smoke erupted, whipped by the morning breeze into a dense, rolling fog bank. It blanketed the approach to the castle, swallowing the Remnant vehicles whole.
The machine gun fire ceased, replaced by confused shouts. The Remnant's advance, reliant on sight and coordination, faltered. Their technological advantage was neutralized.
From within the smoke, the sounds of chaos erupted. A truck, blinded, veered into a trench Lena's teams had dug. A squad of soldiers, disoriented, stumbled into a field of caltrops, their cries of pain sharp in the muffled air.
Rex's defenders, familiar with the land and fighting from fixed positions, needed no eyes. They fired crossbows and dropped stones into the smoke at the remembered coordinates of the traps, guided by sound alone.
The Remnant's assault disintegrated before it even reached the walls. After twenty minutes of blind, futile struggling in the choking fog, a whistle blew—the signal for retreat. The sounds of engines grumbled away, fading into the distance, leaving behind the thick, slowly dissipating smoke and the moans of their abandoned wounded.
Avalon had not drawn a single drop of its own blood.
As the sun rose, burning away the last of the man-made fog, a new kind of confidence settled over the castle. They had faced the future's terror not with greater technology, but with greater cleverness. They had turned the air itself into a weapon.
The first fog of war had been of their own making, and in it, they had found victory.