Alaric's Rally
They came first in trickles—two riders here, a caravan there. Broken banners and dusty cloaks, eyes wary but hopeful. By the third dusk, Ridgefall's gates stood open until midnight, and the road below burned with the steady tread of reinforcements long dormant.
Alaric stood atop the watchtower, cloak snapping in the high winds, arms folded across his chest. For a moment, he wasn't a warborn, or a reborn werewolf of the First Blood—he was the last son of a shattered kingdom, watching the world remember that it still had teeth.
He did not call for war.
He called for witness.
Runners had been dispatched weeks ago, long before Mira crossed into the Hollow Vale. Across the fractured dominions of the old kingdoms, to the sky-monks of Arion Vell, to the Crimson Wardens in the burned highlands, to even the Obsidian Courts of the old vampire kin. Letters sealed with the sigil of the Vigil: a wolf encircled by stars, its mouth open in warning.
Each missive read only:
"The gate breathes. Choose."
And now they came.
First were the Talon-Breakers, a band of mercenaries once feared in the War of Red Dawn, now fractured and weary. Their captain, a one-eyed woman named Serda, demanded nothing except proof—and Alaric gave it. He showed her the shard Mira brought back, let her hear the hum that only those touched by the veil could feel. Serda bowed without words. Her people stayed.
Then came Prince Halven of Tyrstone, a land thought lost beneath winter's curse. He rode with five-hundred silver-cloaked knights, bearing banners stitched from the burial shrouds of their ancestors. He asked no questions. His father had dreamt of this return before his mind burned away. They had been waiting.
Even the Silent Halls of Dornfell—ancient keepers of forgotten language—sent their monks. Though they could not speak, they wrote on the sky with fire and whispered to wolves in broken runes. Their presence alone unsettled many. But Alaric welcomed them with respect.
Still, not all allies came willing.
The Courts of Obsidian, once the rival lineage of Alaric's bloodline, answered the call only with shadows. Their envoy appeared in the Vigil chamber, no gate opened, no guard alerted. She wore a crown of thorns and teeth and spoke with the voice of three.
"Do you seek alliance or absolution?" she asked Alaric.
"I seek neither," he replied. "I offer a choice. Fight beside us, or die when the dark no longer knocks—but tears through."
She watched him long. Then vanished, leaving only one word carved into the stone floor: Soon.
Meanwhile, Mira worked alongside Caelen to bind the beacon's energy within protective rites. Scouts reported sky fractures across distant ranges—weak points where the First might step through if left unchecked.
And through it all, Alaric led.
Not with speeches. Not with banners. But with action.
He sparred with the young. Ate with the old. Consulted engineers building siege-wagons not of wood, but dream-hardened bone. He bled in training drills. He studied the old maps, tracing the fault-lines of ancient wars.
And every night, when silence fell, he walked alone to the eastern ridge and stared into the void where the stars now bled fire.
"Come then," he murmured. "Come see what we remember."
By week's end, over twelve thousand answered the call.
But only Alaric knew the truth.
It would not be enough.
Because war was not coming.
It had already begun.