“A bother, yes,” Teymour murmured, his gaze fixed on a shimmering patch of water near the reed beds. He ignored the mechanical drumming from the northern horizon, the way the turf shivered underfoot. “It’s almost late spring. The striped bass will be moving into the calmer waters to spawn. This noise, the vibrations… if the water level drops too much, it will disrupt their cycle entirely.” He frowned, pushing a stray lock of hair from his brow. “And then where will I find a decent catch?” Despina gaped, her hand still clutched around a heavy iron skillet. “My Lord, the blight! The world!” Garek, who had been frantically scanning the sky, snapped his head back. “He’s right, Your Highness! The river bass are a delicacy! A tragedy, truly!” He shot Teymour a look of profound reverence, though his eyes held a flicker of bewilderment. Inessa, however, stared with guarded scrutiny, her lips parted slightly. She watched him, not with the calculating assessment of an Inquisitor, but with the quiet intensity of someone seeing a hidden truth. Osenya, still slumped against the sod, managed a weak, rasping chuckle. “The river bass,” he wheezed, shaking his head. “Of course.” He coughed, a cloud of dark miasma escaping his lips, but his eyes held a surprising warmth as he looked at Teymour. “Such a god.” “Precisely,” Teymour said, nodding decisively. He stood, brushing imaginary dust from his trousers. “Right, then. We can’t have that. They’ll need to be stopped.” He glanced at the terrified faces around him, then back at the horizon. “It’s going to make my bobber hard to see, too. So much smoke.” Inessa pushed herself to her feet, her armor clanking softly. The dreadnought’s crash had dented one shoulder pauldron, but her posture remained rigid, her presence commanding. She walked toward Teymour, her boots sinking half an inch into the wet loam. Despina gripped her skillet tighter, ready to defend her Lord. Garek shifted, subtly placing a hand on the hilt of a hidden blade. Inessa stopped directly in front of Teymour, so close he could discern the faint, metallic scent of her armor, the subtle notes of ash and ozone that clung to her. Her eyes, usually sharp and cold, were unreadable now. She unhooked a small pouch at her belt, her movements spare and practiced. She pulled out a small, intricately carved silver insignia: the coiled serpent of the Trezantine Imperial Inquisition, its eyes tiny, cruel rubies. She held it out to him, her fingers brushing his calloused palm as she pressed it into his hand. “This,” she said, her voice a low murmur that barely carried above the distant thrum, “is my oath. My service. My loyalty.” She looked up, her gaze meeting his, and for the first time, Teymour noticed the defensive stiffness leave her shoulders. “I have seen enough blood, enough conquest. This place… this quiet. It is worth more than any empire. I prefer your still waters, Khadiv.” Teymour blinked, staring at the cold metal in his palm. He had no idea what it was, but it looked shiny. “Oh. Thank you, Inquisitor. It’s very… geometric. Is it a gift?” Inessa’s lips twitched, a fleeting, almost imperceptible smile. “Consider it a… change of allegiance.” She stepped back, her gaze lingering on his face for a moment longer than necessary, a silent pact made in the face of oblivion and spawning bass. “Tell me what needs to be done.” Teymour tucked the insignia into his pocket, still pondering its purpose. “Well, the main problem is the water level. If they keep draining it, the local stock will suffer. We need to keep the water in. A small dam, perhaps? Just something to slow the flow until they get bored and leave.” He gestured vaguely toward the horizon, where the approaching fleet’s rumble was now a deep, resonant growl. Despina and Garek exchanged startled glances. A dam. A *small* dam. To stop an industrial armada of dreadnoughts and boilers. Only the River God could propose such a thing. “A dam!” Despina exclaimed, her voice ringing with fervent conviction. “Of course! A bulwark against the darkness! We shall build a barrier to rival the Sky-Peaks themselves!” Garek, ever the pragmatist, but also a master of improvisation, immediately began surveying the surrounding terrain with feverish haste. “The Lord commands! A defensive bastion! We’ll need stone, and earth, and… where are the engineers? The architects?!” Inessa raised an eyebrow. “A small dam, he said.” “Small for *him*,” Garek hissed, already barking orders at the few bewildered refugees who had gathered. “Do you not understand? He moves mountains with a twitch! We must anticipate his divine will! If he wishes for a *small* dam, we shall provide a fortification that would make the Imperator weep!” Teymour, oblivious to the escalating interpretation of his simple request, strolled over to a cluster of massive, moss-covered monoliths that had lain undisturbed for millennia. They were the size of small cottages, deeply embedded in the earth. He squatted down, his fingers wedging beneath the granite base. With a soft grunt, he pulled. The ground groaned, a deep, grinding sound, as the slab ripped free from its ancient bedding, sending chunks of sod flying. He hoisted it onto his shoulder like a rolled tarp, heedless of the tonnage. “This ought to do for a start,” he mused, walking toward the lake’s edge, where the pumps had begun to hum once more. He dropped the crag into the water with a muted plop, sending concentric rings out toward the reeds. The stone settled with a dull thud, barely displacing a cupful of water. Despina stood frozen. Garek visibly swallowed. Inessa watched without blinking, her breath catching audibly. This was not a god who moved mountains; this was a god who treated mountains as building blocks. “Quickly!” Garek bellowed, gesturing toward the ridge. “He has shown us the way! Massive crags! We must follow his example! Gather the heaviest timber! The biggest slabs! Anything!” Chaos erupted. The refugees, spurred by Despina’s unwavering faith and Garek’s panicked zeal, began to work with a fervor born of desperation and awe. They dragged river cobbles, hewed birch poles, and dug at the clay, attempting to mimic Teymour’s unhurried labor. Teymour, meanwhile, continued his casual construction, plucking slabs from the earth and stacking them in a clean row along the lakeside, oblivious to the desperate scramblings of the refugees. He wanted only a tidy diversion, a soft curve that would shield the spawning run. Each 'plink' of a multi-ton rock landing in the water was followed by a gasp from the onlookers. Through the night, the Whispering Shallows transformed. Teymour worked with the steady rhythm of a man tending to his garden, fitting fieldstone with calm precision. Around him, Despina, Garek, and the refugees, fueled by fear and devotion, built not a dam, but a wall. An imposing, rampart-like barrier of earth, felled timber, and dry-stacked river rocks rose in towering tiers. They hauled what they could, but Teymour’s contributions were the true anchors, entire geological formations now forming the core of the defense. By dawn, where there had been an open riverbank, now stood a sprawling, impenetrable-looking fortification, studded with the mammoth blocks Teymour had set down, jutting out like the teeth of a petrified leviathan. Inessa had watched, her arms crossed, a strange expression on her face. She had tried to guide them, to tell them Teymour meant something smaller, but the fervor was too great. She had even found herself helping, using what little knowledge of siege engineering she possessed to shore up a particularly precarious section of the improvised wall. She glanced at Teymour, who was now meticulously arranging flat river pebbles along the top of a shelf, curating a quiet, stepped weir. The thrumming from the north swelled to a deafening roar. The air itself vibrated, a deep, resonant hum that spoke of unimaginable power and destruction. The sky, still clinging to the last vestiges of pre-dawn purple, began to glow with an ominous, industrial orange. Then, silence. An abrupt, terrifying cessation of all sound, save the steady lapping of the lake against the newly formed bulwark. And then, a sound like tearing fabric, impossibly loud, as the timberline to the north fractured and split. Trees snapped, groaned, and fell, creating a swathe of instant devastation. The very water at the edge of the lake, where the barricade now stood, began to violently boil, churning and frothing with an unnatural heat. Through the collapsing forest, a titanic silhouette emerged, an iron leviathan of unimaginable scale, bristling with smokestacks and cannon batteries, its prow cutting through the ruined landscape like a blade. The Grand Fleet’s flagship, the *Imperator’s Fist*, had arrived, its monstrous form blotting out the rising sun.

Building the Perfect Barricade