The mountain breathed once, then swallowed them whole.
Mount Kestel Hollow was not built for beauty. It was built for Silver, Iron, Steel, and Sweat.
Snow drifted across the mountain peak, whispering over the rocky path where miner trudge the wind bit through the coats of the miners as the snow slashed down onto the stone path beneath their boots, on the mountain's crown, snow fell like ash over the ironstone, crunching beneath the boots of the silent miners.
The checkpoint bell rang once dull and heavy, like it resented from being woken. One by one, the miners passed under the iron arch, boots crunching snow and soot. A clerk behind a frosted glass stamped their name cards without looking up. No greetings. No words. Just the hiss of breath in the morning cold and the clunk of the punch machine.
"Next"
The line moved. Time didn't wait in Eisenreich, not even for the dying.
Beneath the arch, the mountain swallowed them in twos and threes. Helmets buckled. Pickaxes slung. No one spoke. Kestel Hollow didn't reward conversation it rewarded silence, sweat, and survival.
The tunnels were old. Reinforced with riveted steel ribs and rune-etched anchors, a compromise between Eisenreich's engineering and the grudging concessions made to mining safety regulations passed decades ago. The men didn't trust the runes. Not here. Not this deep.
An hour into the shift, the tremors began.
Faint at first like distant carts rolling over loose gravel. Then stronger. The rail line groaned. Loose bolts jittered in the wall. Some turned to look behind them, as if expecting to see a locomotive charging through the rock.
Instead, they saw light.
Violet. Wrong.
It poured from the end of Shaft Twelve like water from a shattered pipe, swallowing lamps, miners, metal, everything.
Then came the sound. A scream, not human, not stone something arcane and enraged.
The mountain breathed once, then held that breath forever.
The mountain was now rubble. What had once been Shaft Twelve was nothing more than a scar of blackened stone and twisted steel, choked in dust and silence. Rescue teams worked in shifts, digging with bare hands when the drills overheated, dragging out what they could boots, bones, helmets caved in by falling rock. Few bodies were whole. Most were not bodies at all.
And someone would pay.
"Who?" The Führer asked, reading the fifth page. His voice was calm, too calm. "Who pays for 400 bodies buried in their own workplace?".
"That is what we are trying to found out, mein Führer," The direktor of the Control Bureau replied, their hands shaking but voice steady.
The Führer put the papers down on his desk and clasped his hands, his expression calm yet grim.
"Direktor, I expect that these terrorist be apprehended without delay. The people here are not simply grieving they are furious, uncertain, and watching closely" his gazed locked on the Direktor
"Jawohl, mein Führer!" The direktor replied without hesitation, "I will notify General Brandt to seal our borders and double his men, they are trapped and we intend to keep it that way."
From the head of the table, the Führer looked up, met the Direktor's gaze, and gave a single nod.
"Dismissed."
The Direktor saluted, turned on his heel, and exited the office leaving the Führer alone with his thoughts.
'Their blood will mark the snow. Their corpses will feed the wolves and justice will be satisfied.'
The office fell into silence
Elsewhere, silence is a luxury.
Five mages, their robes tangled and ripped, tore through the trees, magic sputtering at their fingertips. They didn't know where they were going, only what they were running from.
In the distance, barking echoed through the forest. Sharp, fast, and closing in. Eisenreich's hounds were on the hunt.
"We can't outrun them forever!"
"Then stop talking and run faster!" Snapped the older one, blood frozen on her cloak. "Save your breath for spells, not whining!"
The sounds of barking were starting to get closer by the minute, they were running out of time and they knew it.
"Over there, on the left!" A hunter shouted, their voice echoing loudly.
CRACK
A bullet slammed the wood, splintering the bark beside them, missing by inches, then more and more bullets came.
BANG, POP
Bullets tore through the air, slamming into trees and the ground as more hunters emerged from the tree.
THAWCK
A bullet struck one of the fleeting mages shoulder, "Gah!", he clutched his shoulder, blood dripping down and marking the snow floor red but he managed to continue to run as bullets dodged over their head.
The barking grew louder, sharper, relentless, they were closing in and fast, the hunters have released their dogs.
Slipping through the snow, one of the mage's murmured a spell
"Delerego Striate!"
Their hands surged in a thick smoke trailing their fingertips before it exploded in a fog, covering the entire forest and everyone inside it.
The hunters coughed violently as the fog covers them and their hounds who are snarling and barking wildly, their senses overwhelmed by the sudden smoke.
"Spilt up! find them!" Barked one of the hunters, breath ragged. "They couldn't have gone that far! General Brandt has closed our borders, they have nowhere to run!"
"We have to Spilt up," one of them hissed, glancing back at the muffled barks behind them. "We'll cover more ground, lose them in the trees!"
"No," the leader snapped. "we swore under one name, one flame."
The group hesitated. Exhausted. Eyes wide. Snow melting on burning lungs.
"We don't leave each other, we don't abandon each other. Not now."
Overhead, the sky dimmed—storm clouds churning like ash above the trees. The air turned thick, humming with coming rain.
Their boots slammed over dirt and frost. No more words. Just the sound of breath, distant howls, and the rumble of something… wrong.
A glare cut through the trees—too sharp, too real.
"Wait—stop."
They skidded to a halt. The forest ended in a jagged fence of steel and barbed wire.
A convoy. Engines. Bright lights pierced the fog, catching all of them in cruel white.
One mage raised a hand as if to shield himself—but it was too late. Shadows stepped forward with rifle.
"Halt! Down on the ground!"
Voices barked in Raustich tongues. Dogs snarled. Hands grabbed robes. Knees struck frozen earth.
The leader said nothing as the shackles clicked shut.
Behind them, the forest swallowed their footprints.
Above them, the first snow began to fall again.
The great doors to the war room groaned open. Snow clung to the Direktor's shoulders as he stepped inside, boot heels clicking across polished black stone. The room was dim—lit only by the oil-lamp's flicker and the red glow from the hearth behind the Führer.
The Führer stood at the window, unmoving, his back to the door. He spoke before the Direktor could announce himself.
"They live, yes?"
"Yes, mein Führer," the Direktor replied, stopping a pace behind him. "Bound in iron and sorcery seals. My men are escorting the prisoners as we speak. They'll reach Eisenstadt by dusk tomorrow."
"Good."
The Führer turned, eyes sharp beneath the shadow of the black eagle emblem hanging behind his chair.
"Once they arrive, I will speak with them. I want to see what face arrogance wears after it has been dragged through the mud."
The Direktor nodded once, awaiting further orders.
"Then," the Führer continued, "you may begin. Your interrogators will have full access. But keep them alive. Bruised, broken, silenced—but breathing. The world wants a trial. Fine. We will give them one… but they will not stand tall when it comes."
The Direktor allowed himself the faintest smirk.
"Jawohl, mein Führer."
A pause. The Führer's gaze drifted toward the war map spread across the wall, tracing lines to the far-flung kingdoms and nations that still clung to their arcane traditions like a child clutching a dying flame.
"Send a messenger bird," he said at last. "One to each capital. Tell them I accept their precious invitation to the Grand Conclave of Azure Thrones."
"Primitive, yes," he muttered, almost to himself, "but symbolic. They value appearances more than action."
He turned back to the Direktor, voice like steel drawn from the scabbard.
"The message must be clear: Eisenreich will attend. We bring no sorcery. No illusion. Only truth, judgment… and memory."
"And what of the prisoners, mein Führer?" the Direktor asked.
"Label them clearly in the reports," the Führer replied. "Arcane Dissidents—not soldiers. Not citizens. Just cowards with spells and no spine."
"Understood."
The Führer's hand fell to the table beside him, fingers brushing the edge of a worn photograph—miners in heavy coats, standing proudly in front of Mount Kestel Hollow.
"Let them tremble," he said quietly, "for every man they buried beneath that mountain."
Five days passed beneath veils of snow and silence.
Now, beneath the crystalline domes of the Grand Conclave of Azure Thrones, eleven rulers sat in crescent formation, robes gleaming in ceremonial light, voices wrapped in honeyed diplomacy. Banners of gold and sapphire floated behind them, enchantments making them ripple despite still air.
At the far end of the table, beneath an iron standard bearing no sigils—only a single black eagle—sat the Führer of Eisenreich. Cloaked in coal-gray, hands folded, expression unreadable.
Queen Meridelle of the Azure Eye stood. "The council has reviewed Eisenreich's petition," she said, voice clear but tense. "And while the tragedy at Mount Kestel is… undeniable, the demands for public execution are denied."
Murmurs from the assembled delegates followed.
"Executions," she continued, "particularly public ones, are condemned under the Arcane Concord of Year 303. They are barbaric and reflect a bygone age."
The Führer said nothing. His stare was flat, glacial.
"In accordance with what we consider civilized justice," Meridelle went on, "the captured insurgents will serve life sentences in the Deep Cells beneath the lower levels of the Etherhall. No parole. No clemency."
Queen Meridelle stood tall in her flowing sapphire and silver robes, the glow of arcane runes softly pulsing around her collar. Her voice was steady, yet strained.
"Eisenreich seeks blood, not justice. We do not kill prisoners. No matter the crime."
The Führer sat unmoving, gloved fingers laced before him, voice calm — clinical.
"They killed 415 of mine. Wounded a thousand. Buried men alive beneath their tools. Their blood was not magical. It was mortal. Human. Do not speak to me of justice when yours has no spine."
She narrowed her eyes, stepping forward slightly.
"Justice is not cruelty. These prisoners-"
"Arcane Dissidents," the Führer corrected sharply. "Let us not elevate them with noble titles."
"They will be imprisoned for life," she continued, "stripped of their powers, sealed beneath Etherhall with chains that nullify even thought-casting. That is justice. That is mercy."
The Führer rose slowly, the scrape of his chair against the stone echoing like thunder.
"Mercy is not yours to give. You think gilded cells will atone for butchered workers? For fathers and brothers turned to ash beneath our mountains? While you sit on a throne warmed by flame and fantasy?"
Her jaw tightened. The other rulers shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
"If we stoop to executions," she said, "we return to the era of pogroms, inquisitions, of fire and gallows. The Conclave stands to prevent that."
The Führer tilted his head, eyes like black iron.
"Then the Conclave stands for rot. For endless meetings and excuses dressed in robes. You speak of ideals as if the dead will rise for them."
Meridelle stepped closer now, matching his tone.
"And what of your ideals, Führer? You hide behind order and steel, yet your men butcher in the dark. You execute in silence. You want the world to fear Eisenreich, not understand it."
"The world will understand us," he said coldly. "It will understand that we do not barter with arsonists. We do not cage beasts. We end them."
"You will start a war."
"You already did. The day your people buried mine."
A long silence.
Then—quiet, yet deliberate—the Führer turned to the Direktor beside him.
"Bring them in."
The Direktor nodded once.
The great doors opened.
Five prisoners were dragged forward by Eisenreichian soldiers clad in black and steel. The council recoiled. Each prisoner had a burlap sack over their head. Their robes were shredded, feet bare, faces unseen. Blood had dried beneath the cloth.
Gasps rippled through the council.
"What is the meaning of this?" snapped Grand Duchess Virelle An'Sira from the Mublausia regions
The Führer rose slowly, eyes sweeping across the chamber.
"These," he said coldly, "are the murderers of 415 of my countrymen. These are the ones your laws wish to coddle in stone halls and velvet shadows."
"Remove them immediately," Meridelle commanded, rising from her seat. "This is a diplomatic violation!"
The Führer didn't blink.
"No. This is justice."
He raised his gloved hand.
Five rifles were raised behind the prisoners.
"Stop this madness!" cried a representative from the Kingdom of Anhar. "This violates the Concord! This is tyranny!"
The Führer spoke again, voice low but resonant, "Your magic may build wonders and opportunities. My steel builds inventions and logic of this damned world. Let them see one more."
He dropped his hand.
The rifles fired in perfect unison.Five bodies crumpled to the floor, sacks still over their heads.
Blood seeped from beneath the burlap sacks, trailing in thin ribbons across the white floor—staining purity with consequence.
Silence fell like a guillotine.
The room was frozen in horror.
Even Meridelle stood speechless, eyes wide.
Princess Sylvaine clutched the edge of her chair with white knuckles.
The Führer turned and walked toward the doors without waiting for dismissal.
"Let history show," he said, "that when justice was denied, I delivered it."
The doors slammed shut behind him.