Chapter 88: THE FALSE RETREAT

RAIGORO’S POV

North Spur was under attack.

For the first few hours, that was almost everything Raigoro knew.

The ward-signal chain could carry urgency quickly.

It could not tell him how many creatures had attacked, which wall was failing, who had been wounded, or whether North Spur required reinforcement badly enough to justify weakening West Rime.

West Rime’s enemy remained beyond the western markers, waiting.

Captain Arven looked toward them.

"Still no pursuit."

"No."

West Rime used the hours to repair what it could.

Holt kept the damaged anchor accessible.

Arven reset the infantry.

Veyr rotated one Dragon Host pair down and another up rather than exhaust both because North Spur might need them later.

Raigoro ate standing beside the command shelter because nobody had found a persuasive reason for him to sit.

The western creatures did not leave.

Their silhouettes appeared and disappeared between the dark rocks whenever the wind thinned the snow.

They remained close enough to watch but too far away to strike cheaply, reorganizing beyond bow range instead of scattering into the mountains.

The retreat was becoming less convincing by the hour.

The first detailed North Spur strip reached West Rime well after the original attack signal.

A relay rider brought it in on a horse that had not started the journey with him.

Raigoro broke the seal.

The report itself was already hours old.

North Spur’s hidden reinforcement had mattered.

The enemy had arrived expecting a position stripped of reserve wardstone and lightly supported.

Instead it found the reserve intact, additional archers inside the station, and infantry Raigoro had hidden nearby before leaving the Citadel.

The first assault had failed.

The second had cost Blackharrow men.

Captain Orsen had been killed near the outer stair.

Command of that section had passed down normally.

North Spur remained in Blackharrow hands.

The final line requested mobile support if available.

North Spur was asking for support, not evacuation or rescue.

Raigoro looked toward the central reserve.

"Send the eastern half of the mobile reserve."

Captain Arven looked at him.

"Not all?"

"No."

"North Spur has already taken casualties."

"So has West Rime."

Arven looked toward the western ridge.

The enemy there had not gone anywhere.

"What are you keeping the rest for?"

"The part of this battle I still cannot see."

Captain Veyr studied the aerial assignments.

"I can send one of the North Rise pairs east with the reserve."

"Do it."

"That leaves West Rime with one immediately available pair and Meris held mobile."

"Yes."

Veyr looked toward the eastern ridge.

"I can take Meris ahead of the reserve. One pass over North Spur would give us something newer than the report."

"No."

Veyr looked back at him.

"You have a reason."

"West Rime still has an enemy force sitting outside its markers. North Spur already has hidden infantry and its reserve wardstone intact, and I still have a third problem I cannot see."

Raigoro pointed to Meris’s marker.

"She is the one aerial asset at this position I can still move in any direction without first taking something away from another assignment."

Veyr considered the map.

"So I keep her until you know which direction matters."

"Yes."

Veyr clearly disliked it.

He kept Meris anyway.

"I can pull another team from the northern patrol sector."

"No."

Veyr looked at him.

"If this sabotage is designed around creating several weak places, I am not creating another one for them."

Veyr considered that.

Then nodded.

Dragon Host strength existed elsewhere in Blackharrow.

Every pair removed from another ward left something unguarded.

The eastern half of the reserve began moving.

West Rime reset defenses behind them.

Holt’s crews continued working at the damaged anchor.

Raigoro ordered local scouts along the western ridge and the lower roads near the outpost.

The Duchess had caught the forged order before the deception became physical reality.

That single obsolete code had preserved an entire defensive layer.

Raigoro thought briefly of the slate in her office and the words she had written before he left.

COME BACK.

A scout returned from the western ridge before the memory could hold him for long.

"The retreating group stopped."

"Where?"

"Beyond the third marker."

"Reforming?"

"Yes."

Of course.

Arven looked toward the western ridge.

The enemy was still there.

So was West Rime.

Neither needed another argument about the decision already made.

Later, the eastern tower pattern changed.

HEAVY PRESSURE.

The signal still did not report a breach, but neither did it tell Raigoro what the line looked like now.

Raigoro did not spend the remaining reserve.

The hours made waiting more expensive.

West Rime still needed shield sections moved in and out of the repair lane.

The enemy beyond the western markers remained close enough to force archers to stay ready.

North Spur was fighting somewhere beyond the mountain line, and every detailed report arrived describing a battlefield already older than the one that existed.

Raigoro already had forces moving, scouts searching, engineers repairing, and reserves available. He was not doing nothing.

He was refusing to commit the last reserve before he knew where it was actually needed.

Then another signal rose from the south instead of the east.

Three pale flashes climbed above the connecting ridge and repeated from the next tower.

Holt’s hand stopped over the map.

Raigoro looked at him.

"Meaning?"

"Engineering emergency."

"Attack?"

"No."

"Failure?"

"The signal does not say."

Holt looked toward the road leading between West Rime and North Spur.

"That is the junction inspection."

The inspection Raigoro had ordered before leaving the Citadel.

Something had been important enough for the local crew to stop using ordinary reporting and raise the emergency signal.

Captain Arven looked toward North Spur.

Then toward the southern road.

"Three problems."

"Yes."

"And one reserve."

Raigoro looked across the map at West Rime, North Spur, and the system between them. The western enemy had withdrawn without actually leaving, the eastern force had attacked a ward it expected to be weak, and now the infrastructure connecting both positions was signaling an emergency.

Raigoro kept the remaining reserve where it was because he wanted one more piece of information before spending it.