The third wave fell upon Burnscar Gully like a living avalanche.
The beasts came harder, faster. Their roars cracked the sky, shaking loose clods of red earth. From the Mireholt lines, archers loosed volleys until their arms trembled; mages fired blazing arcs into the swarming masses. Yet still the tide came.
Rakan Ironspire was the first to meet them—a wall of muscle and will. His maul shattered the ribcage of a charging hornbeast, the impact jarring even him. Beside him, Saren Vok, grim-faced and tireless, fought with twin sabers that glinted under the blood-red sun. Saren moved like a storm—cutting, spinning, ripping through fur and bone alike.
Roul Skarn, battered and blood-smeared, smashed a jagged hammer into the jaw of a boulder-backed brute, sending its skull caving inward with a sickening crunch.
Weapons flew from warriors' grips all across the field—torn away by beastly blows, knocked loose by fatigue, or simply snapped by strain. There was no time to retrieve lost arms. Soldiers grabbed whatever they could find: broken swords, discarded axes, even the shaft of a shattered spear.
A blade in hand was survival. Empty hands meant death.
At the frontline, chaos reigned—but not disorder. Commands roared across the battlefield:
> "Hold the center!" "Reinforce left flank!" "Bury their dead where they fall! No trophies for the beasts!"
The soil itself seemed starved, drinking deep of the fallen's blood until it crusted black in the heat. Bodies—human and beast alike—piled high along the gully's ragged floor. Warriors from Mireholt carried their wounded back to the camp in bloody relays, moving swiftly between clash and scream. Healers worked under makeshift awnings, binding shattered limbs and stitching torn flesh with grim efficiency.
The scent of iron, burnt fur, and charred blood hung heavy in the air.
From the beasts' side, snarling commanders barked orders in guttural howls. Their own wounded were dragged away, some still growling, others already limp. Even the enemy, savage though they seemed, showed grim discipline in tending to their own.
Marcel fought through it all, the shard at his palm pulsing—quieter than before, as if waiting. Every movement he made felt heavier, slower, like he was sinking deeper into the true rhythm of war.
He struck with a borrowed blade, his own weapon lost to a beast's thrashing tail earlier. Tarin and Lira fought nearby, bloodied but unyielding. Veyla and Emberjaw carved flaming paths through enemy ranks, but even they were beginning to slow under the relentless tide.
Marcel felt it like a drumbeat behind his eyes: this was no ordinary battle. This was a test.
A test before the real war began.
The strongest warriors—the generals, the captains, the legendary A-ranks—still watched from the rear lines, assessing, preparing. Their moment had not yet come.
But when it did, the gully would not be wide enough to contain the fury. Or rather that's what we thought.
---
The third wave hadn't broken them—but it had bent them near to snapping.
Marcel dragged himself through the churned mud, blood caked along his arms and legs. His blade—no, someone else's blade—hung loose in his grip, barely sharp enough to tear cloth. His own weapon was long gone, lost in the chaos hours ago. He wasn't alone. Across the battlefield, warriors adapted desperately—picking up fallen axes, snapped spears, discarded hammers—to keep fighting.
Tarin fought nearby, wielding a twinblade that was dented and crooked, yet still deadly. Lira, arrows depleted, had taken to slashing with a broken sword, her movements brutal and short. Even Veyla, atop Emberjaw, showed signs of exhaustion—her beast's flanks heaving, smoke streaming from its nostrils in ragged puffs.
The battlefield was a nightmare stitched from blood and screams.
Dead bodies lay piled high, human and beast alike. Some areas of the ground were so saturated with gore that every step was a sickening squelch. Where the blood met the scorched, cracked earth, it dried almost instantly—leaving grotesque, black stains that spread like a creeping plague.
The once-green Burnscar Gully now lived up to its name. A land gasping in blood and ash.
Still, they fought.
"We can't stop," Marcel thought, forcing himself upright. "Mireholt depends on us."
Somewhere deeper in the melee, a human hammer struck a beast's skull with a sickening crunch. An archer—Jael Krinn, fierce even amid the chaos—fired a black-fletched arrow that pierced through three charging beasts in a single shot. Around them, other warriors adapted brutally: a twin-sword user whose right-hand blade snapped simply tossed the hilt aside and grabbed a fallen axe without pausing.
No room for hesitation. No time for mourning. Only survival.
---
Meanwhile, in Mireholt, tension wrapped the city like a choking fog.
Families gathered in temples, clutching hands, murmuring prayers to the Nine under trembling breath. Markets stood eerily silent; no traders hawked goods, no children raced through alleyways. Instead, groups clustered around fire pits and corners, staring at the smoke columns that curled ominously from beyond the city's southern horizon.
In the command towers, signal mirrors flashed coded messages—updates few could read but all feared.
"Hold the line," one read.
"Losses heavy but morale holding," read another.
Even the bravest civilians began quietly preparing for the worst—stacking barrels, reinforcing doors, fashioning crude weapons.
If the warriors failed, there would be no second chance.
---
At the battlefront, the strongest warriors gathered at the rear, watching with barely restrained fury.
General Caelis Blackmane rolled his massive shoulders, the obsidian-like plating of his armor clinking softly. "They are bleeding us dry," he growled.
Captain Velka Renn twirled her gleaming storm-spear in practiced arcs. Sparks leapt from the tip with each movement. "Permission to advance, sir?"
High Pyromancer Ellan Vest, his robes scorched and battered, added, "The lines will not hold much longer without us."
General Varek and Commander Halrix both nodded grimly.
Elder Vess, detached yet watchful, shook his head slightly.
"Not yet. Something stirs beneath the soil. Patience. If we act too soon, we may spring their trap."
The commandos stiffened, their instincts screaming to intervene, but Thorne's authority—and his wisdom—was not easily ignored.
Still... every second weighed like an iron chain on their souls.
---
Marcel stumbled again as the shard embedded in his palm pulsed violently.
Visions stabbed at the edges of his mind—flashes of fire, of broken thrones, of figures cloaked in chains and runes.
It was happening again.
Not new.
A terrible repeat—only more vivid this time.
He clenched his jaw, remembering the old warnings he'd shared with Tarin, Lira, and Veyla after previous visions. They hadn't seen what he saw—but they believed him.
Tarin noticed Marcel faltering and cursed under his breath. "Stay with us, brother."
Marcel nodded jerkily. He had to. Not just for them—for the city, for the truth clawing closer with every pulse of the shard.
"This isn't random," he realized, sweat dripping down his face. "Something buried is starting to wake up."
---
As the fourth wave gathered in the distance—far larger, far fiercer—a chilling wind swept across the battlefield.
Both armies paused momentarily, sensing it.
And then, there—atop a lonely hill beyond the far beast columns—stood a figure.
An old man, watching silently.
His eyes... blind yet blazing with terrible knowledge.
A ripple spread from his presence, brushing both armies like a foul breath.
---
Tarin shivered involuntarily.
Lira stiffened, hands tightening around her blade.
Veyla snarled, Emberjaw rumbling deep in its chest.
Across the lines, Rakan Ironspire—bloodied but unbowed—noticed it too.
So did Saren Vok, wielding his massive warblade with grim precision.
Roul Skarn paused in mid-swing, instincts prickling.
The ground itself seemed to tense—then sigh in agony.
And the beasts roared anew, a cry deeper and more frenzied than before. They weren't just fighting anymore—they were terrified by something.
Someone.
---
At the human command post, Captain Velka's spear snapped down into a ready position.
"We move, now!"
General Blackmane grunted approval, raising his axe. "Formations two and four—advance with me! Wedge break pattern!"
Elder Vess's eyes narrowed. "Watch the skies. Watch the ground."
The elite warriors—who had thus far waited in restraint—now surged forward like unleashed storms.
Steel screamed against scale. Magic thundered against bone.
---
But even as they pushed forward, the old man smiled coldly.
Behind him, within the roiling mists, shapes began to move.
Bigger shapes.
Older shapes.
A second army.
Perhaps a secret buried long ago.
The battlefield trembled not from marching feet—but from something else clawing up from beneath.
The true battle hadn't even begun yet.
And Mireholt's warriors, battered and weary, would soon find themselves not just fighting for victory...
but for survival itself.