The strategy room had grown familiar to Grub over the past few days.
He sat at the long table with his arms crossed, his enchanted notebook closed for once, listening as Morrigan and the senior Guardians worked through final adjustments to the defensive plan. Maps covered the table in overlapping layers, each one marked with colored pins, hand-drawn arrows, and Grub's own annotations from the trap network.
As the discussion carried on around him, Grub couldn't shake the peculiar feeling of being somewhere he didn't belong. A week ago these same Guardians had beaten him face-first into the dirt and dragged him to a cell. A little before that, Pazuzu had tried to kill him in his own room. And now he sat among them like a colleague, contributing to their war council as if none of it had happened. The absurdity of it all wasn't lost on him.
Luthiel sat beside him, El's bangs hiding her expression as always. Her presence at the table drew its own share of uncomfortable glances from a few of the Guardians, though none dared voice their objections. The last one who had tried was silenced by a single look from Morrigan that could have curdled milk. She was the chief's daughter, whether she claimed the title or not. And in this room, Morrigan's authority was absolute.
As for Grub, roughly half the Guardians had warmed to him over the preparation days. Watching him work himself ragged on fortifications, design trap systems that outperformed their own, and volunteer for the most tedious assignments without complaint had shifted opinions. The other half still regarded him with suspicion that bordered on hostility, but they followed Morrigan's lead and kept their mouths shut.
Progress, Grub supposed. Slow and begrudging, but progress.
The village itself had transformed over the past several days. Walls had been erected around the perimeter, constructed from timber, packed earth, and stone reinforcements. However, these weren't built from scratch. Anwansi had faced attacks before, from bandits, opportunistic warlords, and the occasional beast incursion. The infrastructure for defensive barriers already existed in pieces, foundations and support structures left over from previous sieges that simply needed to be rebuilt and expanded. What would have taken weeks from nothing took days with existing groundwork.
Morrigan was in the middle of reviewing patrol rotations when the door burst open.
A Guardian stumbled into the room, her breathing ragged and her eyes wild. She was younger than the others at the table, her vestments slightly different in cut, marking her as a lesser Guardian. More of a peacekeeping officer than a senior military figure, but a Guardian nonetheless.
Morrigan turned her head with deliberate slowness. "The fuck you want?"
The young Guardian dropped to one knee so fast her light armor clattered against the stone floor.
"GREAT SAGE! Oh Master! Oh Mistress! My Master Equal to Heaven-"
Morrigan pinched the bridge of her beak.
"Get on with it, Miuma."
Miuma scrambled off her knee, her words tumbling over each other in a breathless rush.
"They are close! The Lacert army is approaching from the eastern forest! Our scouts spotted their advance elements less than an hour's march from the outer perimeter!"
The room went still for exactly two seconds.
Then Pazuzu sighed and rose from his chair with a completely unhurried calmness. The horned Guardian appeared so uncaring about the news that it seemed he was mildly inconvenienced that it had finally arrived. He straightened his vestments, adjusted the bandages still wrapped around his head from his fight with Grub, and gave the boy a long, measured glance.
That glance had become a fixture of the past several days. Every meeting, every briefing, every time they occupied the same space, Pazuzu's black-sclera eyes would find Grub and hold him for a moment. Not threatening, exactly. No, it was more like the dubious look a predator who hadn't decided whether to eat its prey or respect it would give. Grub still wasn't sure what the man was thinking.
Pazuzu then bowed respectfully toward Morrigan. "I will begin evacuations into the shelters, then move to my assigned position."
With that, the horned Guardian walked out of the room. His footsteps were measured and steady, each one carrying the same unshakable calm his Forte imposed on everything around him.
Miuma looked at Morrigan with desperate expectation. The old kappa hadn't moved from her seat. Her jug sat on the table in front of her, half-empty, and her staff leaned against the wall behind her.
"Well then." Morrigan took a final drink, set the jug down with a thud, and stood. The water in her basin rippled as she rose. "I suppose I should go take care of this. Been a while since I've punched an army.
She grabbed her staff, glanced around the table at the remaining Guardians, and jerked her head toward the door.
"Move."
At he order they moved. Chairs scraped against stone as the Guardians rose and filed out in rapid succession, each one heading to their pre-assigned sector. Miuma bowed once more and followed them, her earlier panic settling into grim purpose.
Within seconds, the room was empty except for Grub and Luthiel.
El turned her hidden gaze toward him. "I suppose it has begun, Scribe."
Grub nodded and pushed back from the table. "Time for bloodshed."
He reached behind his shoulder and felt the morning star's weight against his back. The leather straps held firm, the spiked head resting just above his right shoulder blade.
"Let's head to our posts."
Swiftly, the pair of misfits walked out of the building and into controlled chaos.
The village had erupted into motion. Guardians sprinted between posts, barking orders at volunteers and directing traffic with practiced urgency. Villagers who had signed up to fight were gathering at their assigned wall sections, clutching swords, bows, and spears with varying degrees of confidence. Most of the weapons were simple Prosaic-grade equipment with no cores and no Anima properties. Functional steel and shaped wood, nothing more. Cores were too rare and too expensive for an entire village to arm itself with Anima-infused weaponry.
Civilians who couldn't fight were streaming toward the reinforced shelters scattered throughout the village. These underground bunkers had been repurposed from the Dundun Ile's rotating storage locations, the same hidden chambers protected by hand-recognition locks that Grub had discovered beneath the library weeks ago. Where the weapon itself currently sat, he had no idea. Morrigan had moved it again, and this time she hadn't told anyone.
Through the commotion, Grub spotted a few familiar faces. Nora hurried toward one of the shelter entrances, her three eyes darting nervously, as her eight arms clutching a stack of books she apparently refused to leave behind even during an invasion. Orobas walked beside her, his grey-skinned face calm but resigned. Despite being instrumental in planning the battle, the old Daemon's combat abilities were lacking, and both he and Morrigan had agreed his contribution was better spent helping organize the civilian evacuation.
Orobas caught Grub's eye across the crowd and gave him a single, solemn nod. Grub returned it.
Across the road, Grub saw volunteers forming into lines, their newly forged weapons gleaming under the afternoon light. Some looked determined while others looked terrified. While unfortunate few looked like they were reconsidering every life choice that had led them to this moment.
Grub and Luthiel climbed the wooden stairs to the top of the third wall, the innermost ring of the village's layered defense. Their assigned post was a small observation platform with a clear view over the outer two walls and the forest beyond.
The defensive structure was straightforward. Three concentric barriers surrounding the village, each one progressively stronger. The first wall was the outermost ring, lightly fortified and designed to absorb the initial wave. Morrigan had positioned herself there with a small unit of Guardians and volunteer fighters. If the first layer fell, defenders would retreat to the second wall, which was taller, thicker, and had more archer positions. The third wall was the last line.
Grub was stationed at the third layer with strict orders to hold position unless the first two walls were breached. The instruction frustrated him. Something in his chest, something that might have been the faint Nihil he still carried or might have been his own stubborn nature, pulled him toward the front line.
But orders were orders, and Morrigan's tactical reasoning was sound. Grub and Luthiel were among the strongest fighters in the village now, which meant they were too valuable to risk in the opening engagement. They were the reserve. The failsafe. The last wall's teeth.
Grub sat on the edge of the third wall, his legs dangling over the side, and surveyed the landscape ahead. The forest stretched out beyond the first wall in a sea of greens and browns that shifted with the Ceasus wind. The trap network was invisible from here, buried beneath leaves and moss and carefully arranged debris.
"There they are."
El's flat voice came from beside him. Grub turned and marveled briefly at the fact that she had spotted the enemy before him despite her bangs covering her eyes.
He squinted and scanned the tree line. At first he saw nothing but forest. Then movement caught his attention. Shadows that didn't belong between the trunks, flashes of scale and metal caught stray beams of light.
The first Lacert soldiers were emerging from the forest.
They came in loose formation, spread wide between the trees, their reptilian bodies low and cautious. Grub could make out the glint of weapons in their clawed hands, spears and blades mostly. Most wore a light plating he had seen on the Lacert he had followed through the wilderness. However several wore heavier armor plating across their chests and shoulders.
From the back of the first wall, Grub could see Morrigan standing perfectly still. Her staff was planted in the ground beside her and her basin sat undisturbed atop her head. She looked like she was waiting for a bus rather than an army.
Grub understood the reality of Anwansi's military strength better than most people in the village did. Morrigan had built this place as a refuge for the displaced and the desperate, not as a fortress manned by elite warriors.
The Guardians were villagers who had trained themselves to fight, driven by necessity rather than ambition. Most of them sat at Dormant Tier Three. A handful, like Pazuzu, had reached Dormant Tier One. As far as Grub could tell, none had crossed the threshold into Cultivator.
The village survived because of one terrifying old turtle and the village stood on the back of this one woman. From everything Grub had heard, Morrigan had repelled entire armies by herself in years past, her Equalization Maladroit turning every battle into a test of pure skill that she won through years of experience. She was the wall behind the walls. The reason Anwansi still existed.
But this village was not facing the full might of Varanus, the Lacert nation. This was a single encampment led by a single Colonel. A scouting force with ambitions above its station. If they could break this assault, it would likely convince the Lacert command that Anwansi wasn't worth the resources.
Victory was possible. Grub believed that with genuine confidence. And with him and Luthiel positioned at the final wall, both of them among the strongest fighters the village currently had, the odds tilted even further in their favor.
Grub watched the Lacert soldiers creep closer toward the first layer. Closer to the tree line, to the traps he had spent days building, and the killing ground he and Orobas had designed together.
A thrill ran through him. Part of it was just nerves the other was a giddy anticipation.
And buried beneath both, a darker feeling that he chose not to examine too closely.
"Here they come," he murmured.
Beside him, El nodded once.
The battle for Anwansi had begun.