"This isn't a grove," someone muttered. "It's a fucking forest."
The voice came from a grizzled veteran in the XIV Legion, his voice barely audible beneath the hiss of frostbitten wind. The four vanguard legions of the Dazhum Empire—a vast imperial force with intricate traditions and rigid hierarchy—marched in column. IX Dazara, XIV Gildan, XX Ashir, and II Kovarn. Armored, disciplined, cold. Their crimson and gold banners cracked above them like brittle bone in the winter air. Beneath their boots, the path narrowed into a slit of mud and gravel that weaved through a graveyard of ice-covered trees. Mist clung to everything. It crept over pauldrons, slithered under helmets, filled lungs like a drowning cloth.
No birds. No sound but footsteps and the occasional grunt of a mule.
When the last ranks entered the Misty Grove, the air seemed to hold its breath.
It began with silence.
Then: thunk.
A black-fletched arrow slammed into the throat of Legate Varun of the IX Legion. He gurgled once and toppled from his saddle, blood splattering his cloak.
"Shields! SHIELDS!"
The second volley struck before the order finished echoing. Officers fell screaming. Signal-bearers dropped where they stood. Arrows punched through iron. One man collapsed with three bolts buried in his chest, twitching.
"AMBUSH! Form testudo! Form—"
Another scream as a centurion lost his jaw to a curved blade.
From the trees, they came.
Painted men, faces marked in red and ash, poured from the frozen undergrowth with howls like wolves. One barbarian leapt onto a startled legionary, driving a hook-blade into his eye. Another tackled a standard-bearer and hacked his arms off before seizing the imperial dragon banner and flinging it into the mud.
"Cohort Seven! Fall back! HOLD THE LINE!"
But there was no line. There was only blood.
The XIV Legion tried to reform ranks, shields locking shoulder to shoulder, but the mist made ghosts of them all. Screams burst from every direction. You couldn't tell if it came from ten feet away or a mile.
Berserkers smashed into the flanks, snarling, swinging axes the size of shovels. One tore through three soldiers with a single sweep. Another was set on fire and kept charging.
"Gods! Pull back! We can't see!"
"Form up, damn you!" Centurion Almed shouted, face streaked with blood. "Hold formation or die like cattle!"
A wall of arrows hissed through the mist. Dozens fell. Screams, gurgling, metal clashing. A legionary stumbled back with a spear jammed through his stomach, intestines trailing like a butchered pig.
Then came the shadows.
Dark shapes flickering between trees—tall, swift, silent.
"What the hell is that?!"
They moved like liquid. Black cloaks, armor that shimmered in the fog. Blades thin as whispers slit throats and vanished before anyone could react. One soldier turned just in time to see a figure in midnight armor glide past him—and then realized his hand was no longer attached.
"Dark elves!" someone screamed.
Then they saw more figures emerging from the mist ahead.
Men in armor, but unlike any legionary.
They came in silence, marching with perfect precision. Full-plate helms forged of darksteel and aurichalcum alloy concealed every trace of humanity. Their visors had only narrow slits for eyes and mouths—expressionless and cruel. No skin showed. No sigils. No voices. From afar, they resembled war-golems, relics of some ancient nightmare.
They didn't run. They didn't scream. They simply advanced, step by step.
Like statues that had decided to kill.
Each one bore a dark round shield, reinforced at the edges, and wielded a long spear in their right hand. At their sides hung short leaf-shaped swords, forged for stabbing in close quarters. They made no noise, not even the clatter of armor.
The first line struck.
One drove his shield into the face of a Dazhum soldier, breaking teeth and jaw before running him through with the spear. Another parried a sword blow, rotated smoothly, and stabbed under the ribs. It was not rage. It was not hatred. It was a rhythm—an execution.
A Stormguard impaled one man through the throat, then kicked another down and crushed his skull under a plated boot. Two more locked shields together and pushed through a formation, splitting the line before striking with their leaf-blades.
The Stormguard had arrived.
They fell upon the vanguard legions like wolves among sheep. A Dazhum officer screamed a command before a spear burst through his chest and pinned him to a tree. The line collapsed. Soldiers tried to run, but the mist made every direction look the same—and none were safe.
A Stormguard grabbed a soldier by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and slammed him down onto a rock, neck breaking with a wet crunch. Another stabbed clean through a man's shield and breastplate in one thrust.
Panic tore through the surviving cohorts.
"Fall back! FALL BACK!"
"We're surrounded!"
"Who are they?!" someone wailed.
No answer came.
Only death.
Corpses littered the grove, crimson soaking into frostbitten earth. The mud was ankle-deep in gore. A soldier clutched his own severed arm and wailed. Another staggered, eyes pecked out by crows that had come from nowhere. One man sobbed openly, crawling over bodies, whispering for his wife. Another fell to his knees and prayed, but the gods were silent.
A dying officer grabbed a torch and swung it wildly. "Burn the trees! Burn everything!"
A flicker of flame caught. Fire lit up the mist, briefly.
Then an arrow pinned his throat to a tree.
Up on the ridge, the Fifth Legion watched.
The screams echoed.
"Heaven's fire..." whispered Tribune Kareth.
He turned to his men. "Form up! Fifth Legion, by columns of ten! We move to reinforce the grove!"
Drums beat once. Soldiers tightened their grip. One vomited from the sound alone. Another whimpered, clutching a talisman to his chest.
Then the earth cracked.
With a thunderous roar, the ground beneath them split apart. A great trench, unnatural, opened like a wound between them and the Misty Grove. Trees toppled into it. The path was gone.
"ENGINEERS! Bring ropes! Ladders! Now!"
They tried. Gods, they tried.
But no bridge could be built in time. The trench widened, frozen soil sliding into the depths.
Then, from the grove, a figure emerged.
A legionary, stumbling, bloodied, half-dead. His eyes wild, shield broken, chest heaving.
"Help... they're... still fighting..." he rasped.
A second shape followed.
It moved with terrifying calm. Cloaked in black, wearing winter-fur trimmed armor of obsidian. A helmet with narrow eye-slits concealed the face.
The legionary didn't see him.
A blur.
The blade swept across his hamstring. The man fell, screaming.
The dark elf grasped his hair.
A quick slit across the throat.
Blood steamed on the snow.
The elf turned his helmeted gaze to the ridge.
For a heartbeat, the Fifth Legion stared into something ancient and cold.
Then he vanished.
Back into the Misty Grove.
And the screams resumed.