With the fortress secured, Irineus wasted no time. At dawn the next day, orders were issued.

  Repair teams were formed, tasks assigned, and by midday, the once-slumbering ruin buzzed with the clamor of hammers, axes, and shouted commands. Broken carts were repurposed into wheelbarrows. The unusable furniture—splintered benches, collapsed shelves, shattered bedposts—was dragged to the fire pits and burned for warmth. Waste nothing. That became the rule.

  Loggers worked in two rotating shifts, felling trees from the forest to the east, sawing and shaping timber on-site. Smoke curled from their camps, mingling with the fog, while the echo of axes rang against the silent woods.

  “We’ll need more saws soon,” Alexios noted grimly as he scribbled in his ledger. “What we have won’t last the month.”

  “We may not last the month,” Martin replied, wiping sap from his gloves. “But we’ll fight to see the next.”

  ...

  Each day, Martin led patrols beyond the walls—mapping the woods, watching for threats, and hunting what game they could. Sometimes they returned with rabbits or birds. Once, a patrol brought back a buck—lean, but meat nonetheless.

  But salt—salt was what they lacked.

  “We cannot preserve it,” Martin reported during the evening council, a faint weariness in his voice. “Without salt, every kill is temporary. We need to find a source—or a trade.”

  Lucius looked up from a parchment. “Salt mines are weeks away, across unfriendly ground. No caravan will come this far. Not anymore.”

  “Then we take it,” said Irineus. “Or make it.”

  ...

  One evening, just after sunset, a patrol returned early, their horses lathered, their eyes wary. Martin approached Irineus directly.

  “We heard something in the woods—north of the main gate. Strange cries. Not animal, not man. Something between.”

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  Irineus straightened. “Did you see anything?”

  “No,” Martin said. “But we found signs—bedding, straw. A campfire, still warm. Someone’s living close. Watching, maybe.”

  “Barbarians?”

  “Unlikely. No tribal markings. And the fire was too carefully set. This was someone trained—or very desperate.”

  That night, Martin laid a trap. He doubled the perimeter guard, positioned his best bowmen in the trees, and set watchers near the trail leading into the forest. Bait was laid—dried meat, cracked grain, and a carefully placed sack of firewood.

  The next night, the trap was sprung.

  The moon was low when they saw him.

  A solitary figure stumbled from the trees—tall, bloodied, wrapped in patchwork furs. He carried a wild rabbit slung over one shoulder, and a knife strapped to his thigh. His face was bearded, gaunt, pale. A fresh wound glistened on his brow.

  Martin gave a silent signal. His men moved like shadows.

  The man turned as he heard the rustling. He froze. Martin stepped forward, sword drawn but low.

  “Name,” he said.

  The stranger hesitated, then spoke. His voice was hoarse but clear.

  “Theodore. I mean no harm.”

  They disarmed him quickly but without cruelty. He offered no resistance. Inside the fortress, warm and fed, he told his tale.

  His village had been razed by bandits. His wife and daughter slaughtered. He had been hunting when they came, and returned to smoke and silence. Since then, he had lived alone—moving nightly, scavenging by day.

  “I saw your fires,” he said, looking into the council chamber flames. “I thought you might be raiders. But you burned wood, not homes.”

  Lucius questioned him for hours, probing for truth. The story held. No contradictions. Martin, ever watchful, said only: “He survived alone in these woods. That counts for something.”

  Later that night, Irineus summoned the inner circle to the high chamber.

  Lucius, Martin, Alexios, and two junior officers stood before the flickering fire as Irineus spoke.

  “This Theodore—he is but one man. But he is a sign. These woods are not empty.”

  “Bandits,” Alexios said. “Or worse.”

  Martin nodded. “If they find us, they will not wait. They will come in force, and this time they will not spare the children.”

  Irineus was silent a moment, staring out through the narrow window, into the night-shadowed forest.

  “Then we strike first.”

  There was a long pause.

  Lucius cleared his throat. “You would send men into the dark after ghosts?”

  “I would send men to kill them before they become more than ghosts,” Irineus replied. “We rebuild this fortress for a future—not to wait in fear for death to come again.”

  Martin stepped forward. “Then give the order. I will lead them.”

  And so, beneath the vaults of a crumbling fortress, the fate of that hidden valley shifted once more—from survival to resistance.

  The shadow of empire had not yet vanished. It flickered now, in firelight and whispered plans, in steel drawn not in fear—but in vengeance.