Chapter 920: The War Plan
When Roland sat down, every person in the hall sat down after him.
The light curtain at the far end of the room held the Taquila survivors — half-transparent, wavering slightly at the edges, their features legible but not quite solid, the way a reflection appears in moving water. Beyond them, through the high windows, the sky over Neverwinter was the flat white of early afternoon. No particular weather. No drama. Just the city, spread out to the horizon, waiting.
He had given lectures before — primary school, design clients, boardrooms full of people who needed to be persuaded. This was nothing like that. Those rooms had contained people listening. This room contained people preparing. The distinction was visible in their postures: backs straight, hands flat on the table’s edge, eyes fixed on him the way a soldier’s eyes fix on a map, not on the messenger. Three years ago the castle had held a handful of men who served him because they had no better option and a city of minor nobles who laughed at his projects behind their sleeves. He looked around the hall now — department heads, garrison officers, witch representatives, the Taquila survivors on the curtain at the far end — and felt the weight of it settle across his shoulders. Not a burden. Something more like ballast.
He went straight to the point.
“Neverwinter cannot allow demons to take root on the Fertile Plains — especially this close to our border.” He kept his voice even. “They came earlier than we planned for. We’ve also moved faster than we planned for. The lost regions are recovered. We can now direct everything we have toward a single objective.” He paused, looking across the room, holding it. “Our next goal is driving the demons from the Taquila ruins. We will do whatever it takes to achieve it. Questions?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
The response was unanimous — even Barov, who had spent most of the previous three years finding principled objections to military expenditure. Roland understood it. Barov had read the refugee reports as carefully as anyone. The Western Region’s growth ran on population: craftsmen, farmers, laborers, families who had walked here from the Eastern and Southern Regions because here was order and safety and a king who kept his word. Taquila under demon occupation meant harassment raids meant terror meant flight. Without bodies to fill the city, City Hall could sustain nothing.
Even Barov could do this arithmetic.
“Then let’s talk about wartime order and policy. Any department — share what you have.”
Barov was on his feet before anyone else. “Your Majesty. My first recommendation is to relocate the industries north of the city wall as quickly as possible.” He spoke with the careful precision of a man who had already run this argument several times in his head. “The people outside the wall face the greatest exposure to demon attack. Even after the new wall section is complete, the livestock herds — the sheep, the cattle — will obstruct troop movement in the northern approaches. We saw this during the alert.” He glanced toward Wendy. “The city gates remained closed. Wheat seeds and forest timber were blocked at the wall. City Hall did what it could to minimize the damage, but the disruption was real.”
Roland had read the reports. He found himself looking at Wendy anyway.
She met his gaze without flinching — settled, composed, showing nothing of whatever weight she had been carrying since the alert. I’ll take full responsibility. She’d said it and apparently meant it.
“Not everything in the north can be moved.” Roland brought his attention back to the map. “Paddle steamers can carry wheat seed, mushrooms, and other resources into the city via the Redwater River. The North Slope Mine is not moveable. Rebuilding the Furnace Area elsewhere would cost more than defending it in place.” He thought through the sequence. “Increase security around the mine. We need to be able to fight back when Devilbeasts attack, not just shelter in place. On the alert itself” — he paused — “when the city goes to martial law, idle personnel are cleared from the streets and markets. That part is correct. But every factory stays open. Full production, from today, until I give a new order.”
Barov’s posture shifted fractionally. He had arrived ready to press on Wendy’s failures; Roland had moved the ground under him. “Understood. I’ll compile a complete list of properties and operations that can be relocated and report back.”
“While you’re at it, include a land-use assessment.” Roland tapped the map at his back. “The threat from the Great Snow Mountain is gone. The entire western territory is now available to us.” His finger traced the shape of the Misty Forest — an inverted triangle, its apex at the snow mountains of the Western Region, one side following the Redwater River as it curved through the border land toward Neverwinter, the other angling northeast toward the Dragonspine range. The forest occupied nearly half the Barbarian Land. “With Leaf managing it, Misty Forest is a natural barrier on our left flank. It also gives the concrete boat platoons a protected corridor along the western Redwater for coal and timber transport.”
Barov accepted this without argument. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Your Majesty.” Wendy leaned forward slightly. “We need to tell the public about the demons — what they are, where they come from — before people encounter them without any frame for understanding. If they see demons first and learn later, the fear will be uncontrollable.” She said it plainly, the way she said most things she had already made her peace with. “Uncontrolled fear is a weapon the enemy can use without lifting a hand.”
“I agree.” Alethea’s voice came through the light curtain — dry, even, as though she were reading from a document she had studied many times. Her form shifted faintly, the curtain’s pale light catching the edge of her silhouette. “Common people have limited individual capacity. Together they constitute a force that shouldn’t be underestimated. Fear is a whip — by default it drives people toward disaster. But properly directed, it becomes something else.”
The early arrival of the demons had upended the propaganda schedule Roland had laid out — the plan contingent on Graycastle’s unification being complete, on an enthronization ceremony, on standing before a unified kingdom and announcing this together. That sequence was no longer available. He looked at Barov. “You decide the content and the method. The message needs three things: establish that demons are enemies of all humanity, make clear that Neverwinter fights them to the end, and demonstrate — with specifics, not assurances — that guns and cannons make demons no more survivable than demonic beasts, regardless of how they look.”
“As for rumor-mongers and those who would use the fear to cause deliberate harm—” Roland let his attention move to Vader and to Rene Medde, the two police chiefs. He did not complete the sentence.
They nodded at once. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
The room worked through wartime orders, supply protocols, communication procedures. Outside, the flat white sky had shifted almost imperceptibly toward grey — the afternoon doing what afternoons in Neverwinter did. Nobody in the room looked up. Then Pasha raised the question that had been sitting at the center of the room since they had gathered. “How do you intend to attack the demons at Taquila?”
“Artillery.” Roland measured distances against the map with one hand — roughly ten kilometers from any viable position to the ruins. “The Longsong Cannon reaches ten kilometers at its current configuration. After adjustment, further. The Red Mist supply equipment sustaining the demon occupation is vulnerable to direct bombardment. Destroy it, and the demons at the ruins die.”
He paused, then added the technical detail — not for effect, but because imprecision in this room would cost them later. “The first-generation Longsong Cannons were built for operational convenience and transport constraints. The caliber is smaller than ideal. But the configuration can be modified: enlarge the chamber, switch from fixed to separate-loading ammunition. Range increases substantially. The barrels and wheels stay as they are.”
“Understood.” Pasha’s expression did not shift. “The Taquila witches will fight this battle. We’ll take the lead — tell us when.”
The Taquila survivors had a particular quality when they spoke about fighting demons. Not bravado. Something harder and quieter — decades of war, of watching everything they had built be consumed — distilled into flat certainty. Roland had stopped trying to moderate it. It was not recklessness. It was memory.
“The plan is sound,” he said. “The obstacle is preparation. Without adequate staging, we can’t hold ground against a counter-push.” He withdrew his hand from the map and tapped the North Slope Mine. “The first problem to solve is transportation.”
He left it there. The next steps were already taking shape in his mind — rail, steam, the half-built experiment waiting in the ore yard — but that was work for the next conversation. Through the high windows the sky had gone fully grey, a uniform grey with nothing threatening in it, just the colour of a day that intended to be cold without committing to anything more dramatic.
The war was beginning. The planning was still catching up.