I step forward, eyes scanning the approaches again, recalculating in real time.
“They’re not probing,” I say.
Kareth steps back beside me.
“No,” he replies. “They’re committing.”
That changes everything.
I look toward the road.
Too exposed.
The riverbank?—
Too unstable for a sustained hold.
The tree line?—
Too open if they break through fast enough.
I exhale slowly.
“Adjust,” I say.
Kareth turns toward me.
“How?”
“We don’t hold the outer barricade,” I reply, already moving as I speak.
His expression tightens as he falls into step beside me. “We just built that line.”
“And it will break,” I say, glancing at him. “So we use it to slow them, not stop them.”
He hesitates for half a second.
“Fall back positions?”
“Already in place,” I reply.
“They’re not ready.”
“They don’t need to be ready,” I say. “They need to exist.”
That lands.
He nods once.
“Understood.”
The first shapesappear at the edge of the tree line just as the last light fades, dark forms moving between shadows with a cohesion that makes my jaw tighten.
Too clean.
Too fast.
Krago’s.
