The clash between the King’s soldiers and the men of the mountain raged on, filling the narrow pass with a discordant symphony. The air was choked with the stench of sweat and blood, mingling with the smoke of charred flesh and scorched earth.

Weapons clashed and shattered, echoing off the narrow stone walls, while shouts of pain and fury reverberated like an ancient unforgiving dirge. The mountain men fought with a ferocity that crossed well beyond madness, eyes wild, faces streaked with dirt and blood, muscles quivering from the relentless strain.

Above, vultures circled, dark specks against the sky, awaiting their feast. And below, the dead lay scattered—warriors who, moments before, had been men filled with purpose and defiance, now reduced to bloodied remnants of their former selves.

Amongst it all, Daine's greatsword cut through the attackers like a living extension of her fury. Her muscles throbbed, every sinew straining under the relentless rhythm of battle, but pain had long since dulled to a distant memory, a ghost barely worth heeding. There was no space left for hesitation, no margin for thought—only the fierce, primal drive to cleave through the bodies before her, one after another.

The ground beneath her feet had turned treacherous with blood and shattered bone, each step a squelching nightmare. Her arms felt like lead, heavy with exhaustion and yet she pressed forward, unrelenting, carving a space for the beleaguered defenders.

Beside her, Donal wielded his twin axes with almost elegance, each swing a moment of violence that cut far deeper than the frantic, desperate blows of their opponents. His every movement displayed an unsettling relish for the fight. When Daine glanced over his way, she caught sight of his face, stretched in a wild, manic grin—a grin that spoke to a primal exhilaration, the joy that only came in the heart of combat.

There had been a time when Donal’s grin had been reserved for biting humour, his enjoyment of life’s smaller pleasures worn lightly and without this gleam of bloodlust. She had preferred him then, in that easy, sardonic shape.

Now, watching him revel in this savage dance, she wondered at the cost of his many transformations.

Kirstin stood a few paces behind, Shadowstrike a dark blur in her hands as she unleashed a torrent of arrows into the oncoming horde. Each arrow left her bow with a preternatural speed, her movements impossibly fluid, one draw blending seamlessly into the next. Enhanced by her Celestial Harbinger Class, her onslaught outmatched any counterattack, the arrows a relentless rain of death falling among the mountain men, thinning their numbers with each strike

It was as if the mountain itself poured forth these attackers, endless and unyielding. No matter how many they felled, there were always more surging toward her comrades, always more to cut down.

Above it all, Eliud floated effortlessly, his eyes glowing purple as he summoned torrents of raw, unbridled power. Bolts of lightning crackled through the air, shattering groups of mountain men with ease. Bodies turned to ash in an instant. Nothing more than kindling in a bonfire.

"Will you stop with all the indiscriminate blasting?" Donal yelled as a bolt of lightning singed the ground beside them.

"You just don’t appreciate the beauty of my attacks,” Eliud called down. “This is called a shock and awe strategy. You wouldn’t understand."

"Strategy?” Donal snorted. “If I wanted a strategy, I’d ask for something that didn’t involve turning everything into a burnt-out crater." He swung his axes again, decapitating another attacker. "You’re wasting all your good lightning on these chumps. I’d save it for those who’re actually a threat."

"Oh, don’t worry," Eliud said, “I have plenty to spare.” His hands weaved through the air as another blast of arcane power decimated a charging group. "I can keep this up all day."

"Focus, both of you," Daine yelled. "They’re not breaking!”

And was that not the truth?

Daine scanned the line, her gaze sweeping over the twisted, blood-soaked stretch of ground they’d been defending. She had fought in countless battles, stood against armies and horrors most could hardly imagine, but she could not recall another clash where the enemy took such a brutal beating and simply kept coming.

“Can you see what’s driving them onwards?” she shouted up to Eliud.

The Pendragon paused mid-incantation, the flare of magic in his hands momentarily dimming. He squinted down the mountain pass, his expression darkening as he took in the endless line of attackers winding up from the valley below. “No idea,” he called back. “There’s more of them as far as I can see—thousands, stretching like ants up the pass. This many… I didn’t even think the Bloodspires had a population capable of raising an army of this size.”

Daine wiped the sweat and grime from her face, a rare flicker of unease running through her. “They’re being forced to fight?”

Donal eyeed the horde as it continued to press forward. "I’ve been thinking the same thing. If they don’t rout now, they never will."

Daine cast a glance at the advancing mountain men, catching glimpses of terror flaring in their eyes, masked only thinly by the veil of bloodlust that drove them forward. There was a desperation there, as if each strike they delivered was intended as much to stave off something unseen behind them as to bring her and her comrades down.

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But she pushed aside any impulse to consider it further. No time to dwell on that.

“Eliud, Donal, and I can hold them here. Go—you know Taelsin will need a shadow with some weight to it if he’s to sway Mayor Talsoon.”

The Pendragon’s eyes held a strange light, flickering somewhere between reluctance and amusement, as though the notion of his mythic presence reduced to mere backdrop was both a thorn and a jest. For a heartbeat, he looked ready to protest, to let that legendary temper of his spark into an argument.

But Daine’s glare . . .

No. No argument toda. He nodded, resigned yet resolute, and turned, his form a blur of dark robes as he banked sharply away, descending the mountain in smooth arcs like a hawk abandoning a carcass to wolves.

“Major, your men may fall back,” Daine said to the commander behind her. “You have done more than your duty this day.” His words were final, the kind that left no room for hesitation.

With that, Daine surged forward, her sword cutting through the mass of bodies. Donal followed, the two of them cutting a swath through the enemy ranks, a wall of destruction that left nothing in its wake but blood and death.

*

Degralk’s eyes widened at the dismissal, and he watched agog as Daine and the oddly familiar stranger—wielding two axes with an ease that would have made a lesser man baulk—cut through the mountain men as though they were nothing more than weeds before a scythe.

The force of their combined might, the way they moved with such effortless ferocity, made the blood-streaked battle before him feel almost... insignificant. He and his remaining soldiers had fought for hours, step by bloody step, each moment gained at the cost of yet another life. And now these two stood, side by side, facing down the enemy with an ease that mocked the sweat and suffering of those who had bled on this cursed mountain path.

"How can we ever compete with that?" Degralk said to the man next to him, exhaustion and frustration pressing down on his chest. He had seen his soldiers crumble, one by one, until only a handful remained. He could hear the haunting echo of their deaths, each of them taken not by the sheer force of the enemy, but by the relentless attrition that had ground them into the dust.

And now these two were doing – in moments - more than all of their combined efforts could achieve.

Cattle slapped him on the back with a force that made him stumble. The man grinned at him, his face smeared with the dirt and grime of the fight, but his eyes carried something else—something close to amusement. "We don’t need to compete with them," he said. "Just be glad we’re on the same side."

Degralk looked back toward Daine and the stranger—it was Donal was it not?—and felt something shift within him. "Aye," Degralk said. "I suppose that’s all we can do."

His eyes lingered on the figures of Daine and the stranger, their blades flashing like some primal force of nature. They weren’t just holding the line. They were rewriting what was possible in this fight.

The mountain path beneath them led to the last of the refugees. He glanced at the others, nodded to Cattle, and moved forward to join there. There role in this battle was over.

*

Kirstin's arms moved with relentless precision as she nocked, drew, and loosed arrow after arrow from Shadowstrike.

The weight of the longbow should have strained her small frame, but there was something almost supernatural in the way her muscles absorbed and channelled its power. Each pull of the string was a dance of tension and release, a fluid movement honed by muscle memory and instinct.

She felt every fibre of her body aligning, her stance shifting subtly as she adjusted for wind, trajectory, and distance. Arrow after arrow shot into the stalled advance of the mountain men, each one finding a mark with unerring speed.

Her fingers burned with the constant friction of the draw, but the pain grounded her, driving her focus deeper. She barely noticed the runes along Shadowstrike beginning to pulse in time with her heartbeat, a dull glow rising with every shot. Her hand moved in a blur, almost faster than she could see—draw, release, draw, release—her breathing steady, heart a metronome guiding the relentless tempo.

Then she caught it—the entire length of the bow was glowing, a shimmer of runes that pulsed like a living thing. Her mind raced, fragments of Eliud’s words echoing faintly, reminding her that the bow held potential she had not yet tapped, a threshold that, once reached, could unleash devastating power. She barely had time to think.

The next arrow she drew seemed to hum, vibrating in her grip. The runes along Shadowstrike burned, each line glowing like a vein of molten metal, and before she could consciously decide, her fingers released the string.

The arrow streaked forward, a flash of silver-white light trailing behind it, and then—impact.

An explosion of energy erupted in the centre of the mountain men, a blast so fierce it seemed to warp the air itself. The ground shuddered as a wave of force rippled outward, obliterating everything in its path. The mountain men were vaporised, their screams lost in the roar of the blast, and for a moment, the battlefield was bathed in a terrible, brilliant light.

Kirstin staggered, her vision swimming as the shockwave hit her.

She hadn’t meant to unleash such power, hadn’t anticipated the devastation it would bring. Her hands trembled as she lowered the bow, the runes fading back to their dormant state. The silence that followed was absolute, the charred remains of the mountain men a testament to Shadowstrike’s true potential.

She swallowed, heart still pounding, as the echoes of Eliud's words settled into her mind. She had just wielded power beyond anything she had imagined. And though she could hardly believe what she had done, she knew one thing with certainty—this battle was over.

*

Daine and Donal both staggered as the wave of power rippled through them, their ears ringing, the ground beneath them scorched.

The attackers—scores of mountain men who had seemed relentless only moments before—were simply gone, vaporised as if they'd never existed. Daine instinctively turned, ready to berate Eliud for yet again ignoring orders and unleashing some new, extravagant form of devastation.

But instead of the smug, overpowered Mage, she saw only Kirstin, her frame dwarfed by the enormous bow she held, its faintly glowing runes fading back into silence. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with the same shock that was mirrored on Daine’s own.

Daine looked to Donal, who let out a long, low whistle, arching an eyebrow as he took in the scene. “Remind me never to insult your taste in archers,” he muttered, nudging Daine with an elbow. “I mean, I thought you said she was a nice girl, not a walking siege weapon.”

He glanced at Kirstin, adding with a wry smile, “So… next time, we’ll just send you in to negotiate, shall we?”