Watch Captain Brydor had not had a good day. First, the embarrassing incident when he had almost taken a thrice-damned scion into custody. And it hadn’t been just any scion either. No, that would been too much of a mercy for the day he had been having. It had been one belonging to the Archducal House Blacksword. One of the most powerful, most violent high imperial noble houses in this sector of the Empire, even if it had been facing a surge of challenges this past decade and a half. Thank the Seven that the young lord had been satisfied when his bodyguard had gotten him passage into Thorn’s Rest.

No, right after that incident, a scout of the Legion, half dead and near out of his mind with pain, had shown up at his gate a mere hour before he was supposed to hand over his shift. It had taken a good two hours before the scout had been able to talk, as dehydrated and tired as he was, but his counterpart, Watch Captain Thredor had gleefully left the whole problem in his ‘capable hands’ to go report in with the Legion itself once the scout was able to share what was going on.

And it was bad too, which is why, rather than head home for a well-deserved night’s sleep after his brush with the high imperial nobility, he was now climbing to the top of the damned walls to keep an eye on the forest. The only balm to his exhaustion was the fact that he was climbing the stone stairs alone. The words he was growling to himself were not what he would want the rank and file to hear.

He glanced behind him, back down the stairs. Already he could see some figures in familiar armor moving his way. Based on the quickly increasing numbers, the rest of the Watch would be joining him soon. And the detachment of the Thirteenth Verdant Legion would likely be mobilizing as well.

If Storm Wolves were really on their way to Thorn’s Reach, they would need every blade.

What felt like hours later, but his tired mind insistent had only been a handful of minutes, the Watch Captain reached the top of the wall. A handful of the Watch hurried up behind him, spears clattering against stone stairs and armored shoulders both as they took up station on the wall. Brydor ignored them, confident that the drills had prepared them to take up the proper spacing on the wall. Instead, he made his way over to the Western Tower.

Groaning, he climbed one last set of steps. Like every time he had climbed them before, he counted them. Fifty-three all told, and a half-broken one at the top. One day it would be fixed, he had been told. That was what they had been saying for six months now.

He hoped he would be told the same again tomorrow.

Brydor came to the sealed, heavily warded steel-oak door at the top of the stairs. Knocking out the quick series of raps that was his personal code to get access, the door quickly swung inward. Stepping quickly over the threshold, it was slammed back closed behind him.

While the top of the tower was fortified against attack, what with the warded door of steel-oak, its primary purpose was to serve as an early warning system in case of attack or, the Seven forbid, a Beastwave. The errant thought dosed him in ice. If the coming Storm Wolves were the crest of a Beastwave, very few of them would live to greet the morning. Banishing the depressing thought, he forced himself to focus on what he could currently do.

“Report,” he commanded as the six Watchmen in the room came to sharp attention.

“Nothing yet, Captain,” one said. Walton he thought his name was. “Just the same small movements deeper in the shadows of the trees. I think the scout maybe got spooked by some normal wolves and ran himself near to death to get back behind the wolves.”

“He’s a scout in the Fourteenth Verdant, Walton,” Brydor said grimly. “I wish, by the Seven I wish, he was just another incompetent greenhorn.”

“But we all know the training that Legion’s General puts them through, especially those stationed out here near the border,” Walton said when the Watch Captain left the thought unsaid. Silence greeted his words. Everyone in the Watch knew how hard the Fourteenth Legion trained.

The training for the scouts was particularly brutal and relentless, designed to push even the most promising recruits to their limits. Each day they worked on their endurance, stealth, and tradecraft. The best of them had enough stats from their levels to move silently across the rustling leaves and tangled roots of the forest. Rumors had it that one of the Scout-Captains could snatch the wings clear off a Tiger Moth, only to release them and let the wings fly away by themselves.

No, if one of the Fourteenth’s scouts said Storm Wolves were coming, then all they could do was prepare and hope there were only a few of them.

“Alright everyone,” Brydor said with a nod. “Stay on your guard. Tonight is going to be a long night.”

The Watchmen all saluted and then returned to their positions, observing the forest from various vantage points. Hopefully, his men would be able to spot the Storm Wolves before they were able to get near the wall. That would give him time to signal to reinforce the spots on the wall where they were attacking. With his eyes not being what they once were, he found an empty chair along one wall. He would leave it up to younger men tonight.

Brydor idly tapped his thumb against the sheathed sword at his side. Storm Wolves were vicious creatures, as large as horses and more than capable of tactics in their hunts. If a pack were large enough or desperate enough, they’d been known to attack Legion patrols and even settlements. Even with the height of the walls around Thorn’s Reach, Brydor did not think they would be safe from attack.

He stopped tapping on the hilt and instead reached down to grasp it. Having checked it was not stuck in his scabbard; he released it. For some time now the Watch had been hearing concerns about the detachments of the Legion posted to Thorn’s Reach. They trained hard, but so did all of the Legions. It was what they did when they weren’t training that was the issue, or in this case what they did not do. Regular patrols.

Cursing under his breath, he shifted in the chair, trying to get more comfortable. Whispers had reached him the past few weeks that the number of regular patrols had been cut down for some reason. Circumspect inquiries on his part to his superiors in the local Council had been met with reminders of his position, and that there were several potential replacements should his position need to be filled. He had taken the hint and quickly dropped the matter.

A soft howling sound seemed to echo from deeper in the forest, but one none of his subordinates reacted, Brydor put it down to nerves. No, he had no proof, but if Storm Wolves ended up attacking Thorn’s Reach tonight in force, he wouldn’t need any. As a matter of course, the Capital on Verdant IV would have to investigate. Then, and only then, would he file a formal complaint.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

If he survived the night.

As if to match his mood, the weather started to turn as the evening settled in fully. Dark clouds moved in, and the wind began to pick up. A storm was threatening, and part of him hoped it would be enough to deter any attack that night. The other part knew that a storm like this wouldn’t have any impact on the Storm Wolves.

“Sir!”

The urgency in Walton’s voice caused Brydor to shoot to his feet. Stepping quickly to the Watchman’s side, he demanded, “Where?”

“There, sir!” Walton pointed a slightly shaking finger off to one side of the road, deeper into the forest.

Squinting, Brydor leaned over, staring in the direction the Watchman was pointing. The wind began to pick up outside the tower, carrying with it the barest scent of rain and something else. A low rumble echoed into the distance, and his hand again drifted down to the hilt of his sword. His free hand gripped the stone parapet tightly as he leaned out, staring into the deepening night. He couldn’t see anything. Another low rumble came, though a bit louder than before. A massive flash of lightning lit up the trees before the wall. As one, the Watchmen and their Captain froze.

The great bolt came not from the sky but from the ground.

Another crackling, jagged bolt followed the first, arcing up into the air in the direction of the main gate into Thorn’s Reach. Illuminated behind the bolt were scattered the members of a Storm Wolves pack. As he watched, the Storm Wolves near the front, closest to the walls, took off in a run. Sleek, black fur rippled with intermittent arcs of electricity as they came. Each moved with lethal grace, their blue, glowing eyes fixed on the walls of the settlement.

“Bows!” Brydor screamed, leaning out further to call down the right sound of the wall. His cry was soon echoed by those experienced Sergeants of the Watch who had taken their own positions on the wall among their men. Their cries grew increasingly frantic as the number of Storm Wolves charging from the darkened edges of the forest continued to increase. Too many for a single pack.

As the first arrows began to land among their charging forms, their howls rose as one to pierce the air, thunderous and sharp, sending jolts of adrenaline through all those on the walls. As one, they began to glow with a bluish-white light that rippled over their fur. The Watch Captain rushed to get a count.

Brydor’s heart dropped into his boots. With how many Storm Wolves there were, Thorn’s Reach was looking at an assault by several packs that had combined under a single Alpha. As the Storm Wolves surged closer, the leading edge loosed a volley of lightning bolts at the walls, sending showers of stone and sparks flying into the air. A portion of the leading edge of the charge collapsed into a tight group, rushing to the gate.

“Emperor protect us,” he swore, backing away from the edge. Seeing the Watchmen in the tower with him staring in horror out at the rushing pack, Brydor rushed to the pull rope that hung in the center of the room. Cursing his subordinates for not taking the obvious action, he gripped it tightly, then yanked it as hard as he could to sound the alarm.

The deep ringing of the bells brought the Watchmen back into focus. As one, they turned to Brydor for orders.

“Bows!” Brydor barked again, stepping over to the nearby wall to grab a spare one. “Evey Storm Wolf you kill from a distance is one our brothers and sisters won’t have to fight in close!”

His men scrambled around him, grabbing bows and piling quivers of arrows within easy reach. With this not being an armored line charging at the wall, but rather scattered monstrous creatures the size of horses, they simply loosed their arrows at the closest targets as quickly as they could. An arrow struck here and there, taking down the occasional Storm Wolf with a yelp. But the speed they were moving, and the relatively few number of archers hitting their targets, meant that they would soon be at the base of the walls.

Tearing his gaze from the doomed effort, he rushed to the observation window that looked back over Thorn’s Reach. Sticking his head out, he sought someone, anyone. As he expected, the blasts of lightning against the wall, and now the main gate, were casting bursts of light into the settlement and some of the people who lived nearby had begun opening doors and windows to find out what was going on. Into that confused babble, Brydor put his entire breath into a shout.

“Storm Wolves at the wall! Someone fetch the Militia!” The blasting increased in brightness and intensity behind him. The first cries of injured Watchmen began to reach his ears. “Fetch the Legion! Hurry!”

As he hoped, a number of women and women, the flight of feet, took off in a sprint deeper into the settlement. The older people who had come out to see what was going on began to herd children and families into houses. No complaints were made, or questions asked, they all just began moving. In short order, doors were slammed shut and windows were barred. If there was something everyone who lived on the edge of Imperial territory learned from an early age, it was how to quickly secure a home against monsters and invaders. Deeper into Thorn’s Reach, he thought he could hear the warning being spread. Some of the stress began to leave him. Hopefully, it would be enough.

A burst of light partially blinded him as the main gate burst inward, but ot so much that he couldn’t make out three Storm Wolves still crackling with the aftercharge of their lightning pressing inside. As if sensing his attention on them, they turned in his direction to charge, howling. More Storm Wolves began to enter behind them. Rather than all hitting the walls from behind, some began to make their way deeper into the streets. Some were already attacking nearby houses.

“They’re too fast,” he muttered in horror, weights settling into his gut as the Storm Wolves advanced at unnatural speed into Thorn’s Reach. Tearing his eyes away from approaching death, he called out orders as fast as he could.

“Storm Wolves past the gate! Archers to the rear! Spears to the stairs to hold them!” Most of the Watch reacted quickly to his orders, being well drilled for a scenario like this, but some few were not moving as quickly as he would like. “Move it! Last one into position spends the next two weeks’ worth of nights on the wall! Move!”

Having done all he could, Brydor raised the bow he had been holding, then cursed. He hadn’t grabbed a spare quiver. He rushed to the nearest available one, ducking around his men, half of whom had shifted to find targets now inside the walls. The screams outside were becoming louder.

Just as he seized a quiver, the warded door to the observation tower heaved as some massive force slammed into it. Cursing again, he tossed the now worthless bow and quiver aside. He grabbed a spare spear just as the warded door heaved again, though this time a distinct cracking sound was heard.

“Spears!” Brydor yelled, but it was necessary. Bows were dropped all at once as everyone else in the tower rushed to get armed with spears. The Watch Captain felt some small measure of pride that they all were able to get one, and take position in two ranks by the warded door before a third, louder crash rang out. They could all see the cracks now.

“Hold your positions!” Brydor roared, bracing his spear, tip pointed at the coming threat. Another crack, and they could see the bloodshot, menacing eye of a Storm Wolf pressed to it. Without thinking, Walton thrust forward, driving the tip of his spear into the center, drawing a whimpering squeal as the Storm Wolf threw itself backward out of sight. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

“When they come, we charge,” Brydor calmly ordered the men around him. “No hesitation.”

Despite grimaces, groans, and in one case a moan of fear, each of the Watch gripped their spears tightly and prepared to sell their lives dearly. The people of Thorn’s Breach were theirs to protect, and protect them they would. To the last.

For a long, almost silent moment, they hovered over the door. Hoping, dreading, that the Storm Wolves had gone to seek easier prey.

The warded, steel-oak door burst inward.

Watch Captain Brydor led the charge into lightning and death. Three words ripped from his throat, which briefly overpowered the howls of his foes. Survivors of the Watch would later swear they echoed all over the wall.

“For the Empire!!!”