Lord Cassian woke before dawn, not to the sound of trumpets, but to the rhythmic, distant pounding of hammers. The sound was ragged, uncoordinated—the labor of medieval craftsmen, not soldiers. It was a useful reminder of the disparity he faced.
He quickly dressed and moved to the Castellan's Office. The wooden chest he had requested from the cellar was there. He dismissed Elara and used the small, sturdy dagger he carried (a trophy from a previous battle, now conveniently part of Lord Cassian's belongings) to pry the ancient iron bindings open.
Inside, beneath layers of dried leather and moldy parchment, he found junk: rusting pieces of armor, a chipped shield boss, and a handful of oddly uniform, dark metal balls. They looked like old cannonballs, but their size was inconsistent with the known medieval artillery.
He picked one up. It was heavy, precisely cast, and perfectly spherical. He knew them instantly. Not cannonballs, but pre-Civil War smoothbore ammunition—relics from some bygone age of this world. Useless for the current war, but the precision casting was a flicker of hope that, somewhere in Oakhaven, a facility existed or had existed that could shape metal with accuracy.
He locked the chest, adding a layer of mystery to his morning. The real work was outside.
The Southern Wall: Engineering an Advantage
Deacon rode out to the southern wall on a stocky, borrowed horse, making a deliberately public show of inspecting the fortifications.
The scene at the river gate was chaotic. Laborers, poorly supervised by the Master Mason Tarl, were haphazardly slathering a weak lime mixture onto the loose stone. The scent of fresh manure—the component he had requested for the earthen berm—was overwhelming and highly offensive to the laborers.
Deacon spotted his target immediately. Corporal First Class Miller (the former wall sweeper), easily identifiable in his new, grubby leather tunic, was hauling a cart of dirt with a powerful, economical effort that made the other laborers look like children.
Miller saw the Castellan approach. He immediately ceased working, snapped into a rigid military attention only a career soldier would recognize, and then, remembering his cover, executed a smooth, deep bow.
"Castellan," Miller said, his voice flat. "We are moving the material as requested."
"Miller," Deacon replied, using the civilian name of the man Miller was impersonating. "The Master Mason's work is unacceptable. The mortar will not hold. I require a crew of strong, reliable men—you among them—to begin collecting the ingredients for the hydraulic cement I instructed Tarl to prepare. Focus on finding fired clay bricks and charcoal ash."
This was Miller's S-7 covert order: take command of the engineering project.
"Sir," Miller replied, his eyes quickly scanning the area for listening ears. "The clay is soft here. The furnaces rarely get hot enough to properly vitrify the bricks."
Deacon leaned closer, speaking low. "Then we improvise, Miller. I need a temporary kiln. We will use the town's refuse—fat, bones, dried waste—mixed with charcoal dust as fuel to achieve a hotter burn. I need a powder of crushed, fired clay that can pass through a silk sieve. I need precision, Miller. Can you deliver precision with charcoal and a shovel?"
"SFC Hayes," Miller whispered, his respect for the hidden rank overriding his fear of the Lord. "I can calculate tensile strength with a piece of string and some goat droppings, sir. I'll run a crew."
"Good. Your focus is the wall base and the mortar. No one sees the new mortar mix until it's finished. Report through established channels only."
Miller bowed, a fierce, professional look in his eyes that was a world away from the shuffling sweeper. Deacon had his engineer.
The Logistics of Pitch
Deacon spent the next hour working with Miller, pointing out critical structural deficiencies and using the authority of his Lordship to intimidate the Master Mason into allowing Miller's 'peculiar' methods. He then rode to the town market, his next target: Specialist Ruiz (Brandt).
The market was grim. Vendors haggled over scraps of dried meat and withered vegetables. Ruíz was ostentatiously sorting bags of oats, looking every inch the weary merchant.
Deacon dismounted, approaching the cart. "Brandt! A word. Your latest delivery of feed had traces of mildew. If you risk the Castellan's livestock, I will risk your freedom."
The public dressing-down was brutal, ensuring all onlookers remembered the Castellan's recent harshness.
Ruíz went pale and bowed low, his posture still rigid. "Forgive me, My Lord. I will rectify it."
Deacon moved closer, his back to the onlookers. "You have a new mission, Ruiz. S-4 is go. We need heavy oil and pitch for the ramparts, but we must not buy it openly—it will signal our weakness. I also need every piece of strong cordage, hide, and scrap metal you can acquire without using Castellan funds. This is a Field Acquisition mission."
Ruíz absorbed the task, his logistics training kicking in immediately. "Pitch is rendered from pine, My Lord. It's too slow to collect enough. The Imperial garrisons used a crude coal tar, but that source is far south."
"Then we improvise, Ruiz. I need something sticky and flammable. Fat, oil, rendered bone marrow—anything that can make a projectile fire. I need fifty gallons of it by tomorrow night. And the cordage is for Field Expedient Explosives—we need to create the maximum amount of chaos with minimum resources."
Deacon knew he couldn't explain the concept of a Molotov cocktail or a hand grenade, but Ruiz knew the materials. Cordage, hide, and metal scraps could form the casing and fuse for primitive incendiaries.
"Understood, SFC Hayes," Ruíz whispered, his eyes flashing with the excitement of the challenge. "I will run the acquisition. It will cost the Castellan nothing, but it may cost Brandt a few favors. I'll use the town's black market debt to secure the materials, then report the acquisition point and time back to you."
"No direct reports," Deacon countered immediately. "Too risky. Find the Town Crier who works the East Gate. I need a signal. When you have the materials ready, I want the Crier to announce that a black cat has been seen near the Old Brewery, and the Castellan will pay a silver coin for its capture. This will be the code."
Ruíz nodded, the complexity of the non-digital communication system already second nature to his training. "A black cat for a silver coin. I'll have the delivery point secured by midnight."
Deacon slapped him on the back, a gesture of public forgiveness. "See that you do, Brandt. Or the next delivery will be to my dungeons."
Interlude: The Weight of Command
Deacon rode back to the Hold, the scent of burning clay and damp manure already starting to drift across the city from the southern wall—a strange, unpleasant smell of progress.
He had successfully activated his two key support commands: S-4 (Logistics) and S-7 (Engineering). The unit was mobilizing, even without knowing the full plan.
He entered the Castellan's Hold and found Elara sorting scrolls.
"My Lord," she said, looking concerned. "You work harder in two days than your father did in two years. And the smell from the wall… it is unholy."
"Necessity, Elara. We are building a defense that will not fail." He looked at the mess of documents. "Did Major Kiley—Dr. Kelly—send any urgent word?"
"Only a note regarding the patient 'Timon.' He says the boy is responding well to mandatory quiet rest and that the Castellan should consider placing all high-risk patients on a restricted diet—mostly soups and light gruel. He also requested an inordinate amount of fine paper, citing the need to catalog symptoms precisely."
Mandatory quiet rest = Isolation is working.
Restricted diet = Rationing the last of the medicinal/nutritious resources.
Fine paper = Major Kiley is trying to establish a dead drop system or encrypted written communications.
Deacon felt a wave of grim satisfaction. His entire command chain was now operating under the pressure of the upcoming siege, forced to use arcane medieval tools to communicate modern strategies.
He walked to the window, the sun now high. Somewhere out there, Major Kiley was using the language of medicine to communicate military logistics. The command was stabilizing. Now, he just needed to find the S-2/S-6 (Intelligence/Comms) to decode the Major's desperate request for paper, and the S-3 (Operations) to whip the pathetic militia into fighting shape.
He picked up a clean piece of vellum and a quill, preparing to write his own coded request to the Steward for "special paper" and "detailed maps of the Blackwood trails" under the guise of noble cartography.
The smell of burnt earth was the scent of war, and Deacon Hayes, the Castellan of Oakhaven, was ready to lead his lily pad unit into battle.