"If you do not open this gate," Roza spoke up, riding her mare forward until she was beside Casimir. Her voice was icy, precise, and carried the weight of the High Court. "You are in open rebellion against the Crown. The High Justiciar will not look kindly on treason."

  The woman on the wall stared at Roza. She looked at the Auditor's fine blue cloak, her clean ledger, her pen.

  Then she spat over the edge. The spittle froze in the air before it hit the frozen moat.

  "The High Justiciar is three hundred miles away in a castle with central heating," the woman said. "The Orcs are three miles away in the tree line. You tell me whose law matters out here, little scribe."

  Tension stretched the air tight. Kaelen’s hand was hovering over his sword hilt. Merrick’s twitch was vibrating his entire arm, his arrow rattling against his bow.

  Casimir knew that if one arrow flew, they were all dead. They couldn't storm these walls with eleven men.

  "We are not your enemy," Casimir said, lowering his voice, trying to speak not as a Lord, but as a survivor. "We just came through the Pines. You know what’s in there. We heard the whispers. If you leave us out here, the cold will take us by nightfall. Is that the hospitality of Blackwood? To let men die on your doorstep?"

  The woman with the axe held his gaze for a long, agonizing moment. She seemed to be weighing the threat he posed against the nuisance of killing him—or the guilt of letting the forest take them.

  Finally, she stepped back from the edge.

  "Open it," she commanded to someone unseen. "But keep nocked. If any of them twitch, put them down."

  The heavy oak gates groaned. Ice cracked along the hinges as they swung inward, revealing the settlement inside.

  Casimir let out a breath and nudged his horse forward. "Easy," he whispered to his men. "No sudden movements."

  He led the column through the gate tunnel and into the light of the settlement.

  Blackwood was stark.

  The cabins were sturdy, built of split logs and sod roofs, arranged in a defensive grid to force invaders into choke points. The paths were shoveled clear of snow with military precision. But there was no decoration. No comfort. No warmth.

  And there were no men.

  Every face they saw was female.

  Women splitting firewood with savage efficiency, their breath steaming in the air. Women sharpening spearheads on grinding stones, the sparks flying. Women hauling buckets of water from a central well.

  They stopped their work to watch the newcomers. Their expressions were uniformly hostile. Their eyes were hard as flint, assessing the "Broken Legion" with open disdain. They carried daggers at their belts and hatchets in their hands. Even the younger girls, barely ten or twelve, watched from the doorways clutching skinning knives.

  It wasn't a village. It was a barracks. And it was a barracks of widows.

  "By the Saints," Kaelen whispered, looking around. "Where are the husbands? The sons?"

  "Dead," Roza said softly, her eyes scanning the demographic anomaly. "Statistically... they must all be dead."

  The woman with the axe was waiting for them in the center square, flanked by four other guards who looked like they chewed iron for breakfast. Up close, she was even more imposing. She was nearly Casimir’s height, broad-shouldered and radiating a furious, contained energy. The scar on her face was livid against her pale skin, pulling her upper lip into a permanent snarl.

  Casimir dismounted. His men followed suit, huddling near the wagon, clearly uneasy under the collective glare of fifty armed women. Even Boras, usually unshakable, looked nervous.

  Casimir approached the leader. He didn't bow. He stood his ground.

  "I assume you are in command here."

  "I am Kasia," she said. She didn't offer a title. She didn't offer a hand. "I speak for Blackwood."

  "Where are the men, Kasia?" Casimir asked quietly, looking around the silent square.

  Kasia’s eyes narrowed. A flicker of profound, violent pain crossed her face before the mask slammed back down.

  "The Orcs of the Red-Hand tribe took the last of them three moons ago," she said flatly. "They ambushed the hunting party at the Whispering Ridge. Thirty good men. My husband. My son."

  She pointed toward the forest wall. "Butchered and eaten within sight of the walls. They threw the bones into the moat."

  A silence fell over the square, heavier than the snow. Even Kowalski, who had seen the horrors of the Salt-War, looked grim.

  She stepped closer to Casimir, her axe shifting slightly on her shoulder. The smell of woodsmoke, old blood, and unwashed wool clung to her.

  "Now they come back at night," Kasia continued, her voice rising so the other women could hear. "Not to kill. They hammer on the gates. They laugh. They tell us what they plan to do when the walls finally crack."

  She leaned in, her face inches from Casimir’s. Her eyes were burning with a hatred so pure it felt like heat.

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  "They don't want meat anymore, Lord Steward. They have plenty of meat."

  Her voice dropped to a whisper that was colder than the wind off the Frost-Gate.

  "They want breeders. They want to take us back to their caves and break us until we birth their abominations. They want to turn Blackwood into a brood-farm."

  She gestured around the square, at the grim-faced women clutching their weapons. At the teenage girls sharpening stakes.

  "That is why there are no men, little lord. And that is why every woman here—from the grandmother to the child—would rather open her own veins than open those gates to anyone who can't help us fight."

  Kasia looked past him, at the "Broken Legion." She looked at Krol’s hook. At Merrick’s twitch. At Davin’s fear.

  She sneered.

  "So tell me... is this your army? A cripple, a boy, and a shaker? Can you fight? Or are you just another mouth to feed before the end?"

  Casimir felt the weight of the moment. He could feel his men shrinking under her gaze. If he faltered now, he lost them. If he faltered now, Kasia would throw them back out into the snow.

  He stepped forward, invading her personal space. He let his cloak fall open to reveal the wolf-fur bandaged around his arm—the fresh blood still staining the gray hair.

  "We came through the Pines," Casimir said, his voice hard. "We crossed the Frost-Gate. We killed a pack of timber wolves to eat their meat and wear their skins. And we brought you something you don't have."

  He pointed to the wagon.

  "Kaelen. Pull the tarp."

  Kaelen stepped forward and yanked the canvas cover off the wagon.

  The gray light fell on the crates. The barrels of oil. The coils of heavy chain. And the crates stamped with the sigil of the Royal Mining Guild.

  "Explosives," Casimir said. "Oil. Iron. And a blacksmith who can forge you arrowheads that actually pierce Orc hide."

  He looked Kasia in the eye.

  "We may be broken, Kasia. But we are dangerous. You have the walls. We have the fire. You can throw us out, and die when your green wood runs out. Or you can let us in, and we can turn this village into a slaughterhouse for the Red-Hand tribe."

  Kasia looked at the wagon. She looked at the explosives. She looked at Kowalski, who was hefting his portable anvil like it was a toy.

  She looked back at Casimir. The contempt in her eyes didn't vanish, but it shifted. It became calculation.

  "You speak pretty words for a Southerner," Kasia grunted. "Put the wagon in the barn. But know this, Lord Kovac."

  She tapped the blade of her axe against his chest plate. Clink.

  "If you or your men touch one of my women without permission... if you steal one grain of wheat... I will not wait for the Orcs. I will mount your head on the gate myself."

  "Understood," Casimir said.

  Kasia turned to her guards. "Stand down! But keep the watch double. Open the keep for them. They can sleep in the Great Hall. It’s the only place with a roof that doesn't leak."

  As the women began to disperse, lowering their bows but keeping their eyes fixed on the men, Roza stepped up beside Casimir. She opened her ledger, her pen scratching loudly in the silence.

  "Asset verification," Roza muttered, though her hand was shaking slightly. "Population: Female, 100%. Hostility: High. Resources: Critical. Morale: ...Non-existent."

  She looked at Casimir.

  "You realize," she whispered, "that we have just walked into a prison."

  "No," Casimir said, watching Kasia march toward the wall, her bearskin cloak billowing like a storm cloud. "We walked into a weapon. We just have to figure out how to aim it."

  He turned his back on her retreating form and looked at his men.

  They were huddled near the wagon, looking like lost children. Davin was staring wide-eyed at a woman sharpening a skinning knife on a whetstone. Merrick was twitching, his hand gripping his bow so tight his knuckles were white. Even Kaelen, usually the rock of the group, looked unsettled by the sheer, silent hostility radiating from the locals.

  If Casimir let them freeze up now, they would never thaw. They would be guests in their own fortress, terrified of their hosts until the Orcs—or the women—killed them.

  "Eyes on me!" Casimir barked.

  The men jumped. They looked at him, startled out of their fear.

  "You heard the Lady," Casimir said, his voice projecting across the square, loud enough for the watching women to hear. "We are guests. But we are not tourists. And we are certainly not idle."

  He walked toward the wagon, stripping off his riding gloves.

  "Kaelen!"

  "My Lord?" The sergeant straightened.

  "Get the wagon to the barn. Post a double guard. Silas and Jarek. If anyone—man, woman, or ghost—comes within ten feet of those explosives without my order, you stop them. If they persist, you bleed them. Am I clear?"

  "Crystal, my Lord."

  Casimir turned to the giant blacksmith. "Kowalski."

  "Aye."

  "Find their forge," Casimir ordered. "Kasia said they have steel. I want to know if it’s good steel or scrap metal. Inspect their arrowheads. Check the hinges on the gate. If they’re fighting with rusted iron, we need to know before the Red-Hand tribe comes knocking."

  Kowalski grinned, shifting his portable anvil. "I’ll see if their metal is as sharp as their tongues."

  "Krol," Casimir pointed to the one-handed cook. "Find the larder. Don't steal a crumb, but I want a full inventory. Kasia said they’re rationing. Find out if we’re starving in a week or a month. Use your nose. If there’s rot, I want to know."

  "Consider it done, my Lord."

  Casimir turned to his fighters. "Boras. Merrick. Walk the perimeter. Stay off the walls—don't antagonize the archers—but walk the base. Look for rot in the timber. Look for blind spots in the firing lines. If you were an Orc, where would you breach? Find me the weak link."

  He looked at Davin, the terrified boy.

  "Davin," Casimir said, his voice softening just a fraction. "Take the horses. Groom them. Feed them. And keep your eyes open. You’re the smallest. People ignore the smallest. Listen to what the women are saying when they think you aren't listening."

  The men straightened. They weren't just a ragtag group of outcasts standing in the snow anymore; they were a unit with a mission. The fear in their eyes was replaced by purpose.

  "Move out!" Casimir ordered.

  The men scattered, moving with a sudden, professional urgency that seemed to surprise the watching women.

  Casimir turned back to Roza. She was already writing, her pen flying across the page.

  "And you, Auditor?" Casimir asked.

  "I will inspect the keep," Roza said, closing her ledger. "If we are sleeping in the Great Hall, I need to ensure the roof is sound. And... I intend to find the tax records. If they haven't paid the Crown in years, there must be a paper trail."

  "Careful, Roza," Casimir warned. "Kasia looks like she burns tax collectors for kindling."

  "Then she will find I am remarkably non-flammable," Roza said coolly. She turned and marched toward the stone keep, her head held high.

  Casimir stood alone in the center of the square for a moment. He looked up at the gray sky, then at the wooden walls that caged them in.

  He felt the eyes of fifty widows on his back. He felt the weight of the Orcs in the tree line.

  He smiled. It was a sharp, dangerous smile.

  Let them watch, he thought. Let them underestimate the broken things.

  He adjusted his sword belt and strode toward the keep. The game had begun.