- - - > oxx • xxo < - - -

Skeerus hugged himself, but the dampness wormed its way deeper, turning his skin to chilled flesh. The forest floor, washed in the kindling Light of dawn, offered no warmth. Beside him, his companion’s breath hitched – a tiny sound that echoed his own racing heart. The gurgling river nearby seemed to mock the unnatural stillness of the trees, even the occasional sharp chirp of a bird tightening the knot in his chest.

A twig snapped. Then a strangled screech split the silence. His hand flew to the hilt of his dagger, knuckles aching as his grip tightened.

He spotted a deepening shadow in the undergrowth, a void that devoured light. A glint of something flickered within—

A blade appeared as if from thin air, and his companion crumpled. His cry died in his throat. He barely had time to draw his own weapon before a searing pain exploded in his side, the world tilting as he crashed to the ground.

A figure peeled itself from the trees, its armor like polished obsidian reflecting the faint Light. But it was the beastly visages etched into the metal that stole his breath – snarling faces and gnashing teeth, rendered in glowing gold that seemed to burn like hot coals against his eyes.

Another figure solidified beside the first, its mouth splitting into a grin that was all teeth, sharp and predatory, like a kleubiast about to feed.

“Kleinnard, don’t fail this time,” the armored figure grated, each word like a blade scraping bone. “Or I’ll make your last moments an eternity.”

“As you command, my lord.”

His blood ran cold. Kleinnard? Lord?

The armored figure pointed a gauntleted hand at him. “Leave that one alive. But barely.”

And then it was gone. Melted back into the shadows between the trees as if it had never been there at all.

Black metal... Beast… Dizen Knight… Fort… faces swimming before his eyes... Captain… They’ll all be slaughtered… Must… survive…

He strained to speak, but his jaw remained locked. Even raising a hand to the searing wound in his side seemed like an impossible feat, like trying to heave a boulder. Everything was blurring at the edges, the forest floor tilting beneath him. Cold… wetness against his cheek… Must… remember… Dizen… Kleinnard… warn…

Through the pain, a dark figure swam into view. The screech of energy, sharp and bright, sliced through the haze. His gaze was drawn to the figure’s mouth, a gash of a smile revealing a single sharp fang…

“Ah, relax yer guts…” the voice grated like a rusty hinge. “One bite is all it takes…”

Darkness pressed in from all sides, pulling him down, down, down…

- - - > xxx •D• xxx < - - -

Waxing Light slanted through the office window, catching the steam rising from Captain’s ever-present teacup. Deynfif stood beside his brothers, chest tight. Would he ever breathe the same air as Einntyr again? Today, his brother was to leave for Luzterria.

"When you get to Dallsbury," Captain’s voice, rough as granite, broke through his thoughts. "Visit my wife, Sterika." A colorful arrangement of stones, an Eardian trinket, was pressed into Einntyr’s palm. "Give it to her, will ya?”

"Aye, Captain." Einntyr's smile was strained, a tight line that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You can count on me!”

Captain's hand landed on Einntyr's shoulder, a clap that made his brother stiffen. "Time's a wastin', lad,” Captain rumbled. "Get goin'.”

Each step towards the door was a stone added to the cairn of his grief, heavy and growing with each pace. Luzterria—a distant point on a map, a necessary journey for his brother... He'd drilled that logic into his own skull a hundred times. But his fingers twitched with the urge to grip Einntyr's arm, to hold him back, consequences be damned.

Just as his hand neared the handle, the door splintered inwards. He flinched back, the wind from the gauntleted fist that slammed into the wall ruffling his hair.

"Captain! Urgent report!" Siebea rushed in so quickly she hadn't even removed her goggles, the lenses catching the Light from the window and casting twin circles of reflection on the wall above the Captain's head.

"Imperial reinforcements—estimated at five thousand.” She unfurled a tightly rolled parchment, snapping it down on the table to reveal a hastily drawn map. “Their camp; they're exhibiting signs of heightened activity, suggesting imminent movement."

The map crackled as the Captain's fingers clenched around the edge of the table. His gaze, a moment ago warm, turned sharp as flint. "Five thousand." The Captain's voice was deceptively calm, but the way his hand tightened on the table betrayed a growing tension. "Just like the lass revealed." He laughed, a short, humorless bark. "Though they're a tad early for my liking."

Dofydd reached the door, chest heaving. "Captain, orders?"

"What of the Fruman reinforcements?" Captain barked.

"They march, but won't reach us before dimlight." Dofydd answered. "Should a rider be sent, Captain? To urge them faster?"

"Aye, and choose a shrewd one. Let them know every extra step could buy a life." The Captain strode to the window, his gaze sharp and lingering on each section of Kachwyn Forest. "They may outnumber us," he growled, "But they'll bleed for every inch of this ground."

"They won't break through before the next shine of Light, Captain," Dofydd reported, though his voice wavered slightly on the last word. "The Fruman Kingdom’s reinforcements..." He cleared his throat, squaring his shoulders as if steeling himself. "They will arrive in time, Captain. We will hold.”

"They better," A sharp crack cut through the tense silence as Captain gripped the windowsill. "Or we'll be fighting for every brick."

A sudden stillness descended, thick and heavy, suffocating the room. His own breath caught in his chest. The room felt like the space between a lightning strike and the thunder – anticipation thick enough to taste.

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His gaze flickered between the Captain's rigid back and Einntyr, a new equation forming with too many unknowns. His brother’s departure, once a simple line on the map of their day, now sprouted branches of possibilities, each more tangled than the last.

"C'mon." Hirua’s hand clapped on his back, a rough gesture that was more urging than comfort. "No time to waste.”

He lingered a beat too long before joining his brothers, the stone floor crunching under his reluctant steps. They walked side by side, though his heart felt a world away, their path a straight line towards the looming arch of the gate.

"Brothers," Einntyr began, his voice tight, "I... I can't leave now."

"You sure ‘bout that, Einntyr?" Hirua asked.

"Yes." Einntyr's hand clenched around the strap of his pack, knuckles bone-white. "Leaving while you guys risk your lives defending this fort... I'd worry myself sick. But... what use am I here?"

His brother’s words were a physical reprieve. He hadn't noticed the weight in his shoulders until it began to ease, a slow lift that brought a choked grin to his lips. But no, this wasn't the time to celebrate. Not yet. He squeezed Einntyr's shoulder, a touch meant to steady them both.

"Don't stress it, Einntyr. Every variable has its role. Your abilities will be of great help." The words felt right, a way to offer comfort without betraying the hope unfurling in his chest. "Let's go prepare. We have work to do."

< < < < xxxxxxxxx > > > >

Zenith Light, harsh and unforgiving, pierced the canopy of Kachwyn Forest, igniting the leaves in a blaze of emerald fire. Vadorecht surveyed the scene, his face an emotionless mask. Only the barest twitch of his lips hinted at the carnage unfolding before him. A stray projectile, a barbed wood thick as a man's arm, whistled past his head, its tip grazing the air where his face had been a heartbeat before.

A barely audible sigh escaped him, a sound heavy with resignation and perhaps a hint of disappointment. He gestured, a curt flick of his wrist, and the Imperial advance resumed.

Rank upon rank of Imperial soldiers pressed forward, a tide of elemenium and energy crashing against the forest’s defenses. The earth, no longer passive beneath their feet, turned traitor. Metal-shod boots sank into grasping mud, the desperate struggles of those swallowed whole abruptly silenced. A rain of razor-sharp thorns, propelled by unseen hands, ripped through the air, finding the chinks in armor.

Screams, sharp and sudden, pierced the air, quickly choked off, replaced by the guttural snarls of close-quarters combat. Elemenium met bone with a wet, sickening crack. The mercenaries, wraiths wreathed in shadow and veiled by foliage, lashed out with the ferocity of cornered predators.

An Imperial soldier roared, his ice axe a white blur. The mercenary boy countered with a desperate cry, earth erupting in a cage of spikes around the Imperial's legs. Daggers flashed, ice shattered. The Imperial crumpled, cry choked off, rock spikes piercing across his breastplate as life fled. But victory rang hollow. The mercenary boy lay limp, a gash marring the youth of his chest, eyes stark with a terror even death couldn't erase.

The ranks of Miers pressed forward, a tide of ice and metal energies.

Nearby, the forest itself joined the fray. Vines, thick as a man's torso, whipped out at the behest of a mercenary wood mage. They snaked around armored limbs, a living net seeking to bind and break. Elemenium flashed, a blast of raw metal energy severing the tendrils. The mage, with a flick of his wrist, sent a fallen branch whipping towards the Imperial. Wood screeched against metal as the blow was intercepted. In a blink, the mage was gone, one with the trees.

Crimson stained the earth with each agonizing step forward. Every inch of the forest had become a weapon in the mercenaries’ hands, but the Imperials were relentless, their advance a symphony of clashing weapons and guttural roars. The forest, now a battleground, echoed with the grim determination of both sides, a struggle for survival where surrender was not an option.

Vadorecht, a study in stillness amidst the chaos, observed the battle unfold. The carnage spreading before him did little to impress him, yet the tenacity of the defenders gave him pause. They were clearly outmatched, their numbers dwindling with each passing moment, yet they fought with a desperate, almost feral, energy. Their tactics, while borne of desperation, spoke of a cunning intellect at work.

With a chilling cry, he raised his shield, the ice-wrought surface reflecting the carnage like a distorted mirror.

“Let them learn,” he snarled, voice roughened by battle-lust, “that cunning is no shield against true power."

He slammed the shield into the earth, unleashing a shockwave of pure frost. Trees exploded in showers of icy splinters as the forest floor before him transformed, hardened into a sheet of jagged ice. His advance was inexorable, each step cracking the frozen earth, eyes blazing with icy wrath. Behind him, the Miers soldiers roared their approval, surging forward in his wake, hacking a path through the chaos. The tide of the battle was turning, its fury echoing even from this distance.

- - - > xxx •D• xxx < - - -

The distant rumble, like mountains grinding against bedrock, resonated through the stone beneath Deynfif's palms. Even the rough granite of the battlement couldn't entirely mute the chaotic symphony of the fight: the clang of metal, the screams, and, most unsettling of all, the sharp crackle of ice on leaves.

Beside him, the Captain's voice was a rasped blade cutting through the din, each order delivered with a snap of his wrist, a rigid set to his shoulders.

He committed it all to memory: the nuances of command, the way calm defiance could be a weapon itself.

The rumble became a tremor that ran up his legs, through the stone itself. Not fear. No, this was different: a cold, constricting band around his ribs, squeezing the air from his lungs with each pulse. He could almost calculate it – the mercenaries' skill, the forest's angles of defense – yet this advancing force… It was like watching an equation tip towards an inevitable, disastrous sum.

"Keep it up, lads!" Captain’s laughter, sharp and jagged like broken glass, cut through the clash of weapons. "Taste the salt in their wounds!"

His gaze snapped to the battlement steps as Dofydd took them two at a time. Dofydd wouldn't move like that unless…

"Captain!" Dofydd's shouted. "River scouts… attacked! One survivor… badly hurt."

Captain’s bushy eyebrows drew together, a furrow appearing above his nose deep enough to shade his eyes. "River scouts? What in Solus’ name… speak, Dofydd!"

Dofydd took a shuddering breath. "He saw them... a small group, slipping south along the river. And Captain..." his voice dropped to a horrified whisper, "He recognized them. Kleinnard Argus was one. And… Acermanus Diakrius himself.”

"H…Here?" Captain flinched, his voice cracked. "But..." A bead of sweat trickled down Captain’s temple, even amidst the chill breeze.

The name echoed in his thoughts, sharp and unfamiliar, like a jagged shard of obsidian. Acermanus. Kyura's report flashed in his mind—troop reinforcements, supply lines. No mention of this 'Acermanus.' What were they plotting… Wait…

"How long ago?" Captain demanded, grasping for any semblance of control.

Dofydd swallowed hard. "Before kindling Light of dawn, Captain."

"South along the river..." Captain's voice trailed off, his usual booming confidence replaced by a strained quiet.

The blood pounded in his ears, the Captain's words barely registering. His hand flew to his scarf, twisting the fabric as a cold dread gripped him. Acermanus. The name echoed in his mind, sharp and unfamiliar, yet it snagged on something deep inside him, the charred remains of that hamlet. The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils, but beneath it, he swore he could smell damp cobblestones and burning wood. South along the river…

"Eard..." The name ripped from his throat, a strangled gasp that tasted of fear.

His fingers tightened on his scarf, the fibers groaning in protest as his hold intensified.