The carpenter's name was Oswin.
He was sixty-three, missing two fingers on his left hand from an incident he declined to explain, and he looked at Kai's sketch with the expression of a man being asked to build something structurally offensive.
"You want it to collapse," Oswin said.
"On command."
"On command." He looked at the sketch again. "That's not how we build things."
"I know. That's why I need someone good."
Oswin was quiet for a moment. He had the manner of a craftsman weighing professional pride against common sense, and professional pride was winning by a narrow margin.
"How much timber?"
"Everything Brennan brings you. However much that is, it's not enough, so use it well."
Oswin looked at the sketch one more time, then folded it and put it in his pocket with the resigned air of a man who'd decided this was going to be an interesting problem whether he liked it or not.
"Three days," he said.
"Two."
"Three."
Kai looked at him.
Oswin looked back with the absolute confidence of a man who knew exactly how long wood took to cut and join and had no interest in pretending otherwise.
"Two and a half," Kai said.
"Three," Oswin said pleasantly, and walked away.
Kai watched him go.
Fine. Three.
The next two days ran on very little sleep.
Kai split his time between the bridge, the fortress walls, and the three villages, moving between them on horseback with Aldric keeping pace and saying less and less as the shape of the plan became clearer. The old knight had shifted into a different mode — less skeptical, more watchful, like a man recalibrating something he'd assumed was fixed.
The grain situation resolved itself quietly. Kai rode to the northern village, sat down with the headman — a weathered farmer named Calt who had the eyes of someone expecting punishment — and told him the underreporting was forgotten. In exchange he needed every ablebodied person who could carry supplies, move timber, or dig to show up at the bridge road by tomorrow morning.
Calt stared at him for a long moment.
"Your father would have fined us," he said.
"I know."
"Why aren't you?"
"Because I need you more than I need the coin." Kai stood. "And because they were your people's crops. I'd have hidden them too."
By the next morning he had sixty-one additional workers at the bridge.
Oswin, to his credit, did not say anything about having more hands than expected. He simply absorbed them into his operation and kept building.
Brennan found him on the afternoon of the second day, standing on the eastern bank watching Oswin's crew work.
"Arrows," Brennan said, pulling up beside him. "Four hundred and twelve. Bought out every fletcher in the province and two in the next valley over."
"Four hundred and twelve." Kai did the math. "Nine per man."
"Ten for the better shots. Less for the ones who'll waste them."
"Which ones will waste them?"
Brennan squinted at him. "You want me to rank the archers by accuracy."
"I want to know where to position them. Yes."
The old soldier was quiet for a moment. Then: "Give me this evening."
"You have it."
Brennan started to turn his horse, then stopped. "The structure Oswin's building." He nodded toward the bridgehead where the carpenter's crew was doing something complicated with interlocking beams. "I've never seen anything like it."
"You won't have. It's based on a design from a long way away." Specifically a Roman abatis variation adapted for a river crossing, but explaining that would take longer than we have. "Does it look like it'll hold?"
Brennan studied it for a moment with the eyes of a man who'd stood on enough battlefields to know the difference between things that looked sturdy and things that were.
"It looks like it'll hold," he said. "And then stop holding. Suddenly."
"Exactly."
Brennan rode off without another word.
Kai turned back to the river.
┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ BATTLEFIELD OVERLAY: ACTIVE │
│ │
│ Bridge chokepoint: CONFIRMED │
│ Cavalry utility: 0% │
│ Infantry approach width: 2 men │
│ Elevated position (east bank) │
│ Arrow range coverage: 85% │
│ Structure integrity: VARIABLE │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
Not bad. Not good enough yet. But not bad.
The variable on structure integrity was the thing that kept him up at night. Oswin's design was elegant — Kai had borrowed it from three different historical siegeworks and combined them into something this world had never seen. But elegant and reliable were different things, and the margin for error on a collapsible bridgehead was not forgiving.
He needed Harken to commit his infantry across the bridge before it gave way. Too early and the crossing would clear. Too late and Harken would see what was happening and pull back.
Timing, Kai thought. It always comes down to timing.
On the evening of the third day, Aldric came to find him in the corridor outside his room.
The old knight had something in his expression that Kai hadn't seen before — not quite worry, something more like calculation. The look of a man who'd decided he was going to say something he wasn't sure he should.
"Harken sent a rider," Aldric said.
Kai stopped. "When."
"An hour ago. I had him wait." Aldric paused. "He's carrying terms."
Terms. Kai leaned against the wall and thought about that for a moment. Terms meant Harken wasn't completely confident. A lord moving five hundred men against forty-three didn't send terms unless something had given him pause.
The scouts, Kai realised. They saw the construction and reported back.
"What are the terms?"
"Surrender of the province. Kai Voss to swear fealty to House Harken directly, bypassing the crown. Garrison to be absorbed into Harken's force." Aldric's voice was careful and neutral in the way of a man delivering information he had opinions about. "In exchange, no harm to the villages."
Kai was quiet for a moment.
In 1346, Philip VI of France had been offered terms at Crécy. He'd declined, confident in his numbers, and lost catastrophically to a smaller English force with better positioning and discipline. In 1415, Henry V had been offered terms at Agincourt — outnumbered five to one, exhausted, deep in enemy territory. He'd declined too, and won.
The difference wasn't the numbers. It was knowing what the terrain was worth.
"Tell the rider we'll have an answer by morning," Kai said.
Aldric raised an eyebrow. "Will we?"
"Yes." Kai pushed off the wall. "No."
"…Pardon?"
"Our answer is no. I just want him to ride back in the morning instead of tonight so Harken gets the refusal with less time to adjust his approach." Kai headed for his room. "Make sure the rider is fed well and sleeps comfortably. I want him grateful enough to move slowly."
Aldric stared after him.
"Also," Kai said without turning around, "tell Oswin I need the structure finished by dawn. Not midday. Dawn."
He went inside and sat down at the desk.
Three days left.
┌─────────────────────────┐
│ CURRENT STATS │
│ Command █████░ 15 │
│ Tactics ████░░ 18 │
│ Logistics ███░░░ 14 │
│ Intel ████░░ 17 │
│ Presence ███░░░ 12 │
│ Combat █░░░░░ 1 │
└─────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ✦ NEW QUEST │
│ The Refusal │
│ │
│ Send Harken's rider back with your answer │
│ and prepare for his response │
│ Time remaining: 3 days │
│ │
│ REWARDS │
│ +8 Presence │
│ Skill — READ ENEMY Lv.1 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Kai looked at the quest for a moment then dismissed it.
He already knew what Harken's response was going to be.
He was counting on it.