CHAPTER 207: DRUMS OF WAR

The news swept through the corridors like a warm wind before the storm.

In the cramped room where they waited, Maggie and Élisa saw a messenger enter — breathless, yet radiating a nervous kind of energy. His words were simple, almost banal at first glance:

"He escaped the Death Net."

He didn’t need to say who. The two women froze, each struck by a very different current. Maggie felt her muscles loosen, as if an invisible weight had just slid from her shoulders. A dry, fleeting smile touched her lips — not pure joy, but calculated relief.

Dylan wasn’t just a pawn to be rescued; he was a point of connection, and losing him could greatly compromise their contract with their employer.

Élisa, however, didn’t move. Her fingers tightened around the table, betraying an unbroken tension. The Death Net was only one of the many ravenous beasts in this world, and she knew that escape didn’t mean safety. Dylan was still a hunted man — alone and weakened.

"He’s not out of danger," she said at last, her tone hard as stone.

"No," Maggie replied, "but he’s alive. And as long as he breathes, there’s still some hope."

She placed a light hand on Élisa’s forearm, as if to pin her into calm. Maggie’s eyes held that mix of authority and self-control that made her an anchor amid chaos.

Élisa inhaled, forcing her fingers to loosen. The message had done its job: soothing their minds enough to face the coming storm.

⸻

A few hours later, the breath of war had become tangible.

Orders fell like a cold rain: Martissant had crossed the line. A direct provocation, a bite Pilaf would never allow to heal on its own.

The long-awaited retaliation was now clear, brutal in its simplicity: war would be declared.

In the great map room, murmurs died as banners were raised along the walls. The names of the fronts were traced in black charcoal on parchment still damp from ink. Units, until then divided into three formations for covert operations, were to be redeployed. Discreet missions gave way to open confrontation.

Maggie watched the preparations like one reads a play already written: lines shifting, commanders moving from table to table, runners departing with their arms full of sealed orders. The war machine was stirring with frightening precision.

Count Martissant himself would lead his troops. Opposite him, Pilaf and his marshal would tread the mud of the front in person.

This was more than a war for territory — it was a duel of wills between two figures who never retreated.

In the reorganization, the original teams lost all importance. Maggie and Élisa found themselves in the same unit, but since Maggie was already accustomed to Zirel’s style of combat, she was naturally reassigned to his group. Zirel stood there like a wall, receiving instructions from an officer. His eyes briefly met Maggie’s — a barely perceptible nod, but enough to say: we meet again.

This time, the team had a new face. The former members had been scattered, sent where their talents would shine the most. In their place stood three new fighters.

There was Rony, a colossus with a scar slashing across his face, wielding a warhammer whose head looked too heavy for any ordinary man. Armin, a silent scout with a lean build and eyes that calculated every breath around him. And finally Inès, a woman in light armor with an arquebus slung over her shoulder, her ironic smile never leaving her lips, as if she found the battlefield more amusing than worrying.

"It’s going to get hot," she remarked when she saw Maggie. "Looks like the sky’s finally decided to fall on us."

Maggie only shrugged, her focus already on the map Zirel was pointing to.

She remained still for a moment, one hand resting on the table as if she could hold the world steady with just that pressure. Around them, the room breathed to the rhythm of orders; the distant sound of boots, horns, and bridled horses formed a low murmur against the vaulted ceilings. She savored that worked silence — the kind that comes before the blade.

Zirel finished his briefing with a sharp sentence that made the air shiver:

"We’re not going to war to pick flowers."

The words weren’t meant to reassure, only to set minds straight. Maggie felt her muscles tighten, not from fear, but from calculation. Every move now had to serve a precise purpose.

Her gaze shifted to Élisa. In the slow blink of Élisa’s eyes, Maggie saw the same mental count she herself was doing: contingencies, weak points, possible exits. Élisa wasn’t one to get carried away; she prepared to extinguish fires, not to dance in them. Maggie brushed her arm again, a small reminder of presence — and of chain.

"We’ll need to move fast," she finally said, her voice low, controlled. "Rony and Armin, reinforce the left. Inès, you cover any retreat — I don’t want lone heroics. Sire Zirel, we hold the center and you pull me out if the line breaks."

She dealt out her orders like a gambler deals cards: without display, but with the same cold precision of someone who knows the stakes are everything.

Inès gave a shrug, her ironic smile widening into a grin that admitted no doubt.

"If it goes bad, I’ll fire until the dead’s souls beg for silence."

Her joke rang like a threat, and everyone knew she wasn’t joking.

The night that followed was short. Dawn rose over a milky sky, dull, as if the light itself hesitated to pierce the air heavy with a metallic scent.

Banners snapped in the wind above the tents. Horses stamped the ground. In the distance, drums beat slowly, pounding into their chests the inevitability of the day.

Maggie walked to the front line. The ground was already trampled by hundreds of feet, turned into thick mud. Count Martissant stood there, an imposing man, his cape whipping against his boots. His hazel eyes swept over his troops with a gaze almost physical in weight.

Across from them, unseen but palpable, loomed Pilaf’s shadow. Everyone knew he was coming — his marshal preceded him, a tall, straight figure in matte armor, dark as a starless night.

Skirmishes would soon begin. Scouts returned in small groups, bringing fragments of information, sometimes a prisoner, sometimes a corpse.

Zirel gave the signal to his team. They broke away from the main force, skirting a grove to reach their assigned position. The air there was heavier, saturated with anticipation. Maggie felt each heartbeat like a lone drumbeat.

She thought briefly of Dylan, somewhere out there, still locked in his own flight. But here, on this line, his fate seemed distant, swallowed by something far larger.

War, at last, was beginning.