While the provided bed was comfortable enough, sleep eluded me until dawn, when I decided I needed to get out and get some air. Not many people filled the halls and I thought I’d made a clean escape until the Count caught me trying to sneak out the front.

I turned the final corner before the enormous entrance-way and came to an abrupt halt as I spotted Orleander leaning against the timber wall just inside the doorway. The dim lighting tempted me to turn around and find another way out but Count Orleander turned to face me.

“Going somewhere?” asked Orleander.

The Count tagging along like a curious puppy was the last thing I wanted, but in the moment, I couldn’t think of a good excuse to ditch him.

“I just wanted to get out and look around. Spend too long caged up and man starts getting an itch, you know?”

“Excellent, I’ll have horses brought around.”

It wouldn’t kill me to let him tag along, but nothing good would come of it either. He didn’t have an eye for military matters, and I doubted he’d ever done anything more than cursory weapons training. I sighed and crossed my arms, keeping my mouth shut. Nothing good would come of shutting him out either.

We moved to the courtyard, where Kan’on sat where I’d left him the previous night, still as a statue. The meditation pose, pristine clothing, and the total unconcern for the world around him represented the exact image in my mind for how cultivators spent their days in their secluded cloisters. I almost walked up to him and poked him, but I doubted he would give me the fun I wanted out of bothering him.

The horses arrived, led by those I assumed were the Baron’s stablemen. I nodded my thanks as I took the reins and mounted. The count probably didn’t have a lot to contribute to the town’s defenses, however Kan’on likely had extensive training in strategy and tactics. Instead, I left him to his business of being a once in a generation martial genius and kicked my horse out the front gates, Orleander following close behind.

Overnight, the town had undergone a startling change. Those on the outskirts of town had been evacuated. Organized chaos filled the center of town as townsfolk lugged around the important items they could comfortably carry away from their homes, some uncomfortably, as they struggled to move oversized bundles and packs. As a result, the town center had turned into its own village. Despite the circumstances, it looked like a cozy, if chaotic, place to be and I wished I could strip off the armor and join them. Maybe with a drink or two.

Many shops had already opened for the day, but despite the enormous amount of foot traffic, it didn’t appear like the townsfolk were in a shopping mood. Along with the activity, the mood of the place had taken a turn. Concerned faces peaked out through windows as we rode by, those nearby shot furtive looks at us and moved away. Well, if there was one aspect of small-town life that would remain fully functional in the middle of a crisis, it would be the rumor mill, and judging by how many of the looks were pointed at me, my identity had been leaked.

The looks didn’t bother me. Yes, I was famous, but the stories about me that circulated throughout the kingdom were wrong or often grisly stories about other people that had somehow been attached to my name. If only they knew the real story.

Ms. Black had metalized somewhere along the route, reining in her animal to flank Orleander. She found us easily enough that I imagined she’d been tailing us from the start. I didn’t comment, but I got the feeling she didn’t trust me as far as she could throw me. Given her use of glyphs, that might have been further than I’d thought.

The nearer to the edge of town we rode, the fewer people we saw, up until we stumbled into an impromptu construction camp. The scent of sawdust permeated the morning air and I had to suppress a sneeze. Hundreds of people, presumably volunteers, split, sawed, chopped, and shaved lumber in various states of being broken down into spikes as long as I was tall. I hesitated to call them spears, they were much cruder than that, but what they lacked in refinement they made up for in sturdiness.

Clyde paced through the chaotic scene, trying to make himself look useful as he was the only person in sight without a tool in his hands. The volunteers tore apart the organized piles of lumber waiting to be floated down river, then chopped, split, and shaved them into caltrops of various sizes. Some only as high as my knees, while others stood well over my head. The point was to make it next to impossible for the Carvers to jump the barricade, or scurry through it, without the spiky contraptions slowing them down enough for the armsmen to make a real fight of it.

Good thing I’d not asked Clyde to do any of the construction himself. Left to him, the spikes would come out plated in gold, encrusted in powdered diamond, and tipped with deepsteel. There he stood, still wearing that depths cursed armor, blinding anybody within range with morning light glinting off its mirror finish.

“Your Grace, there are a few things we could do to increase the rate of production.” Orleander edged his horse up next to mine so he didn’t have to raise his voice over the noise.

I shot him a dirty look at the ‘Your Grace’ but didn’t bother correcting him again.

“Like what? Seems like it’s going fine to me.”

“To start, everyone is just focusing on doing all the jobs themselves. It would be more efficient to split them into teams, each focusing on a single job.”

Although the chaos could have been reined in some, the construction appeared to be progressing smoothly.

“It would go faster than this?” I asked, skeptical.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Efficiency, in this case, is speed. It would increase their efficiency, their familiarity with their assigned work, and therefore result in an overall faster completion rate.”

I thought about it for a second, but soon gave up. Logistics… efficiency… these weren’t my strong suit. I shrugged.

“If you think it will help, then do what you think you should,” I said.

Orleander bowed briefly before dismounting and after handing the reins of his animal to Ms. Black, strode off in Clyde’s direction. After a few minutes of discussion, the two of them starting splitting people off into teams, each team carrying similar tools, and organizing them into stations.

I sat on my horse, not interfering, as the work shuddered to a halt. Men picked up caltrops in various stages of completion and dumped them into similar piles. As the volunteers familiarized themselves with their new positions and, the work slowly started up again.

Orleander paced along the organized line of stations, observing for a while, before slowing making his way back in my direction. He took the reins from Ms. Black and mounted.

“I’ll admit, I can appreciate the change, but is this really going to make a difference at the end of the day?” I asked.

“If it were only a one or two hours, I doubt there would be a noticeable benefit. However, over the course of the entire day, I expect the difference in output to be significant. Wouldn’t you say that every little contribution matters?”

I wanted to argue with the man just of principal, but he had a point.

“Are you satisfied with the result then?” I asked Orleander as he fell in beside me.

“I think it has accomplished as much as it could, given the circumstances. Anything more would complicate matters too much.”

I grunted, observing the work. I turned toward him and gave him a small, firm nod, then turned my horse away and urged it toward the forest. The Baron’s men had already started trickling in and they gathered at the very edge of the north end of town, hopefully to intercept any attempts at scouting or attacks, but mainly to organize themselves.

A middle-aged man, who looked like he could chew chunks of iron into nails, had wrangled the Count’s guards and The Baron’s men at arms into squads, effectively integrating their forces. As more fighting men trickled in from town, they were assigned to a group, adding them to the existing structure. A group of men trickled out of the forest at different points, congregating around the Baron’s officer and reporting in. From the direction they arrived, they were non doubt the scouts that had been sent out.

“You good with this?” I asked the Count, waving my hand generally at the co-opting of his mean. “Your guys are guards, they didn’t sign up to be soldiers did they?”

He nodded in understanding. “Everyone here has volunteered. I will still pay them as well. I would not force them to take on additional duties, no need to worry.”

I grunted, satisfied. The officer had the situation well in hand, so I urged my horse forward until I reached the forest border, even then making sure to keep a fair distance from the edge. Orleander and Ms. Black had followed, but I waved them back as I closed my eyes.

Before the tragedy I hadn’t even been aware that the Flow existed. Later, I’d come to learn that most people weren’t aware that such a thing was possible, and even those that knew something was there could only interact with it indirectly. There were clues to be found in dusty old books and stories, of course, but I’d never met another living person that could see the Flow the way I did. Currents of ethereal light flowed from everything to everything else, ebbing and flowing in complex patterns.

I let my senses touch the Flow, allowing the currents to draw my senses away and diffuse into my surroundings. Vague impressions fed my senses; activity from the men at arms, the movement of the land and the trees, even some animals still darted through the forest, out of sight maybe, but not escaping my observation.

Taking deep breaths, I let my mind relax, like stretching a muscle after intense training, each breath extended my senses a little further, until I was fully submerged into the Flow. I kept only a sliver of awareness of my body. A deep thrum edged into my awareness, underlying all the noise the Flow fed me. The more I focused on it, the more it pressured my mind in turn.

Despite the pressure, it took all my focus to sense it at all, but I followed the faint signals with my mind until I faced north. So, they were out there, the Inculid if that’s who they were, doing something, but I couldn’t tell what.

While the currents were rivers of light to my senses, intent looked like wires of deepsteel that intertwined and shot through the currents, wrestling it to a new purpose. And that’s what I sensed, almost imperceptible little strands of intent snaking their way along the currents. Shocked at how thin they were, I tried to follow them, but their origin was beyond my ability to sense, though I had my suspicions.

One thing I knew for certain though, I couldn’t control anyone’s actions with intent alone, at least not directly. I could pull a few tricks out, like I had on Clyde, but that wasn’t the same as puppeteering the Carvers. The silk-thin strands of intent were likely the puppeteer’s strings.

I withdrew my senses, unnerved. Some people out there could affect the Flow with just sheer willpower, as Kan’on was learning to do, but it wasn’t the same as using the Flow. Being close to another that could use the Flow as I could, better even, placed me at an uncomfortable disadvantage.

I turned my horse back toward town, followed by a passive Ms. Black and a curious Count.

“I can feel them out there. I hate having to wait for them to come to us but charging into a fresh entrance with unknown numbers of hostile creatures is the worst idea. It just gives them more time to gather, and that pisses me off.”

“What does it feel like, their presence?” the Count asked.

“Like a deep thrumming in my chest that I can barely perceive. They’re use my tricks, probably better than I can. Maybe they’re their tricks, since they are Deep Ones. Either way, none of it bodes well for us.”

“Let us prepare as we planned. At the very least we should be capable of repelling Carvers. As for the rest, we can only wait and see.”

As we approached town, I reined my mount to walk at an even, slow pace through the middle of road. As much as it pained me to keep putting myself in the public eye, we needed to be seen as calm and confident. I’d learned that lesson, and others about the intangibles of leadership, from my father.

So, I rode through town slowly, making eye contact where I could, giving out reassuring nods, and generally appearing to be an imposing and confident leader. Appearances mattered. If it wasn’t for the people around me, Orleander, Ms. Black, the Baron, even Kan’on, I would be a nail-biting mess holed up somewhere dwelling on all of the things changing too rapidly.

Irony there, that I would be change averse when my life was comprised of nothing but changing scenery, people coming and going at the drop of a hat. Life was change, to me. Yet here I was, dreading the specific change in the curse that had allowed me to be here at all. Yes… it had allowed it. That thought terrified me more than anything else. I still hadn’t figured out what had changed, and until I did my suspicious would run rampant.

We arrived back at the estate, Kan’on in his now-customary position as wise martial sage in the corner of the courtyard. I let the help take the horses. The Baron had some good people working for him. He might be spineless, but he knew how to pick good people.

I sequestered myself in that same cozy room with the fireplace, alone with my thoughts, waiting for the hammer to drop.