The gates of Frosthaven shuddered with every strike. Duke Lionel swung his greatsword one last time, cleaving a rift-creature nearly in half, but for each that fell, three more pressed forward.
His men fought like wolves cornered, yet even their ferocity was beginning to falter.
Lionel planted himself before the breached wall, ready to die on the stones he swore to protect—
When suddenly—
A searing flash split the night.
A circle of arcane sigils spiraled open above the battlefield, blinding-white light erupting downward. The ground quaked as a storm of fire and lightning cascaded into the horde, vaporizing the front line of riftspawn in an instant.
The monsters reeled, hissing and shrieking, their formation broken for the first time.
Lionel blinked against the glare, his ears ringing—until he heard a cutting voice:
"Fall back! Hold your ground behind the wall!"
From the dissipating brilliance strode Kane, cloak whipping behind him, his eyes hard as tempered steel.
At his flanks, five battle-mages stood in formation, their staves thrumming with raw power. With a sweep of his arm, Kane signaled, and together they unleashed another wave—flame, stone, and arcane bolts ripping open the riftspawn ranks, buying precious ground.
"By the flame…" Lionel muttered, staggering back, relief mingled with pride.
Kane didn't waste a glance. With precise gestures, he and the mages raised shimmering barriers along the broken wall, translucent domes intercepting incoming rift-blasts that would have torn men apart.
But what Kane's eyes caught next made his blood run cold.
The creatures were regrouping—with order. The weaker spawn, snarling and shrieking, closed ranks around the more humanoid figures, shielding them from the barrage of magic.
One tall, frost-armored being barked guttural words, its voice carrying with the cadence of command. And behind its cover, Kane's sharp gaze caught another figure weaving threads of power—a riftspawn preparing a spell.
"Not on my watch," Kane growled.
His hand snapped forward, a spear of pure arcane force lancing out. It pierced the caster through the chest, collapsing the forming spell before it could be unleashed.
The riftspawn crumpled, its body evaporating into shards of frozen light.
Yet the sight twisted something in Kane's chest. His jaw clenched, a curse spat beneath his breath.
"This… this isn't right. Riftspawn don't fight like this."
Not in the previous timeline. Nor in the one before that. Never had he seen them guard each other, never had he seen them coordinate, sacrifice, or think.
They had always been feral storms of destruction. But this—this was strategy. This was war.
And for the first time since his rebirth, Kane felt the ground tilt beneath his certainty.
He steadied himself, fingers tightening on the hilt of his blade.
It was Arasha's decision to send him here instead of riding together, and now he understood why.
Without their timely arrival, Lionel and his garrison would have been annihilated before the night was through.
As his wards shuddered under another coordinated strike, Kane bared his teeth in a grim smile.
"Wise choice, Arasha. You always see one step further."
But deep within, a darker thought whispered: If the rifts themselves are changing… how long before even little foresight we have fails us?
****
The northern winds howled like wolves, biting at Arasha's face as she drove her horse harder across the frozen fields. Her cloak whipped behind her, crimson against the endless white.
The pounding of hooves echoed in unison with the desperate rhythm of her heart—she could already smell the stench of battle drifting on the wind, acrid smoke mixed with the iron tang of blood.
"Faster!" she shouted over her shoulder, her men spurring their mounts, their formation breaking into a hard gallop. The glow of spells lit the night ahead, bursts of fire and lightning against the shadowed horizon.
Frosthaven's walls loomed like jagged teeth, and beyond them, chaos raged.
Arasha did not wait for gates or ceremony. She vaulted from her horse the moment they neared the breach, her boots crunching into bloodied snow.
Her hand found her glaive in a heartbeat, this time she opted for a glaive than a sword as advised by Hiral, its steel singing as she leveled it at the battlefield.
"Support Duke Lionel's men! Form a wall and keep the horde back!" she barked, her voice cutting through the din like a warhorn. "The humanoid ones are mine."
Without hesitation, her soldiers surged to bolster the weary Frosthaven ranks, locking shields, blades flashing.
Arasha charged straight into the thickest press where the humanoid riftspawn moved like sinister generals amidst their feral kin.
The first clashed against her with unnerving precision—its blade cutting arcs too familiar, its stance like a trained knight. Steel rang as she deflected blow after blow, sparks flying.
Her gut twisted. They weren't just intelligent—they were mimicking.
Another pair flanked her, their movements coordinated, forcing her into a kill box. With a snarl, Arasha twisted her body, her glaive sweeping low in a lethal arc that cut through one's leg, sending it shrieking to the snow.
The other lunged, but she spun her weapon's shaft to intercept, thrusting its spearpoint through the creature's throat.
Her chest heaved, sweat stinging her eyes despite the cold. "You've learned… our formations," she muttered under her breath, fury rising.
Then she saw it. The humanoids were pulling their lesser kin into defensive walls—meat shields to soak her strikes, their shrieking bodies piling between her and her true targets.
And as she carved through them, she realized with a chill that it was a trap.
The instant she broke their line, a humanoid figure snapped its clawed hand forward. From above, a volley of darkened spears of energy rained toward her position.
Arasha grit her teeth and twisted her glaive in a sweeping arc, deflecting what she could, but the onslaught drove her back.
Still, she did not falter. Her voice roared above the clash:
"I will not let you mock humanity with your stolen tactics!"
Her glaive became a storm, cleaving, thrusting, cutting down shield and beast alike. Yet for every one she felled, another took its place, their numbers unrelenting.
Then—suddenly—a barrier of shimmering blue sprang up around her, intercepting the next volley of sharp claw-like projectiles.
Arasha glanced up, panting, as Kane strode into the fray, his cloak darkened with frost and blood, his hand still glowing from the barrier spell.
"You'd break yourself trying to face them alone," he said sharply, though his eyes burned with shared fury.
Arasha smirked grimly, relief threading through the exhaustion.
"Then let's break them together."
Back-to-back, the two commanders unleashed their fury. Kane's magic tore through shield-walls, unraveling the humanoids' careful lines, while Arasha pressed the opening with ferocious precision, her glaive finding throats, hearts, and heads.
Each time the enemy regrouped, the pair shattered their coordination—his spells fracturing formations, her strikes cutting off commanders before their orders could spread.
The battle dragged long into the night, grueling and merciless. Arasha's arms screamed with strain, her breath coming ragged, her armor scored with blood and rents. But finally, one last humanoid fell beneath her sweeping glaive, its body dissolving into the frost with an inhuman scream.
The horde broke without its leaders. The lesser beasts scattered, shrieking into the dark, leaving behind the stench of death and the blood-soaked snow.
Arasha dropped to one knee, pressing her glaive into the earth for support, her shoulders heaving. Kane lowered his hand, the last sparks of his magic fading, his expression grim.
They had won. But the battlefield whispered a darker truth—their enemies were far more dangerous than they estimated.
Now they're racing against time to improve before their enemies get the better of them.