While the caldera became a grave in the north, another battle burned far to the south.
Tidescar, the western-facing coastal bastion of the Free Cities, stood defiant against the horizon. Its sea-walls were tall, braced with old warding stones and reinforced months earlier by Altan's orders. It was no longer a merchant port, but a citadel. The citizens had already been evacuated inland. Only the defenders remained.
At its head stood Supreme Warden Chaghan, commander of the Stormguards. Two full legions of Stormguards held the inner walls and gateyards. Alongside them, a thousand Stormguard Hospitaliers—warmages, elementalists, healers, and shamans—moved between towers and battlements, bolstering defenses. Two more legions of Free Cities regulars formed the second line, stationed behind inner walls and in alley chokepoints, ready to repel landfall.
Their enemy came with fire and steel.
Five Dazhum legions, ferried by warships, accompanied by two legions of Zhong exiles, sailed from the Western continent. Their ships were loaded with siege towers, catapults, and heavy infantry. They expected a swift burn.
Day One
The bombardment began at dawn.
Flaming projectiles screamed through the clouds, trailing smoke and ash. Pitch and burning oil soaked rooftops and outer watchposts. But Tidescar held. The sea-walls, strengthened by stonecraft and ritual wards, withstood the first volleys. Elementalists of the Fire Brigade summoned tidal waves from the sea itself, dousing flame with saltwater turned to steam. Shamans invoked windbreaks to scatter fireballs midair.
Catapults stationed atop inner towers answered back. Great stones, marked with runes of acceleration, hurtled across the bay, smashing through Dazhum masts and crushing entire decks. One warship, its hull ruptured and aflame, capsized into the breakers. Screams followed it under.
By dusk, the city smoldered but stood unburned. Only charred scaffolds and broken warehouses littered the outer ring.
Day Two
The marines landed.
At first light, the Dazhum unleashed their assault. Warships launched barges and skiffs toward shore. Armored marines surged ashore under the cover of catapult fire and volleys of javelins.
The beaches became hell.
Stormguards waited behind stone ramparts, then unleashed death. Elementalists opened sinkholes beneath the first wave, swallowing ranks whole. Archers from the towers sent hailstorms of black-fletched arrows down with uncanny precision. Free Cities skirmishers ran through the surf with curved sabers, slicing tendons and throats, using wrecked hulls as cover.
Then the Stormguards descended.
Clad in darksteel and aurichalcum, they moved like statues come to life. Silent. Implacable. With slitted helms hiding all trace of humanity, they fell upon the Dazhum flanks. Sabers shaped like broad leaves slashed with brutal efficiency. Shields crashed forward with bone-breaking force, and spears struck like coiled serpents. Each motion was final. Each exchange lethal.
Dazhum warpriests conjured wards of bronze and blood, deflecting arrow and spell. Their berserkers slammed into the Stormguard lines, wielding axes and bronze-clad shields. One entire tower collapsed from a siege boulder, but the defenders climbed from the wreckage and rejoined the line.
The battle surged into the shallows. Fire clashed with water, steel with will. Atop a mound of dead, a Stormguard centurion held the line with only a shield and spear, shouting orders through bloodied lips.
Dazhum siege engineers attempted to construct beachhead fortifications under cover of pavise shields, but were targeted by sniper spellcasters trained for precision. Bolts of arcane force lanced through the air, detonating behind shield walls. A makeshift tower of stacked hull debris caught fire and collapsed onto the advancing wave.
The sea turned red.
Bodies floated in the shallows, limbs torn, armor broken. Salt and iron filled the air. Flaming oil coated the sand in thick, sticky fire where a Dazhum barge exploded. Screams echoed between wave and wall.
In the southern stretch of the beach, where coral ridges jutted from the surf, a company of Stormguard halberdiers formed a wedge and pushed into the invaders' flank. Their halberds hooked shields and tore through exposed joints. It was close-quarters, brutal, with the spray of blood and water rising in plumes.
One squad deployed the Gravelwalk Technique. As the Dazhum advanced, the very sand beneath them betrayed them—loose footing, false steps, and sudden misbalances opened gaps. Into those, Stormguard sabers fell with surgical precision.
By dusk, three full waves had been broken. The beach was stacked with corpses, the tide dragging crimson froth back into the sea. The Dazhum retreated, their losses heavy.
That same morning, several nearby coastal towns were raided.
But the towns were already empty, evacuated weeks ago. The streets were silent, the windows boarded, the hearths cold. Thinking them abandoned, the Dazhum marines entered in force.
They walked into traps.
Stormblades, assassins of the Stormguard, struck from the shadows. Blades laced with alchemic poison cut through commanders and warpriests before a cry could escape their lips. Roofs collapsed on marching columns. Fire pits hidden beneath floorboards ignited entire units. From beneath the earth and within sealed cellars, Stormguard cohorts emerged, steel disciplined, their tactics flawless.
In one village, a Zhong exile battalion was caught in a cul-de-sac lined with false doors. When they breached them, they found only traps. Seven ignitions of oil and pitch erupted, consuming two hundred men.
In another town, fog summoned by ritual drifted in unnatural thickness. Lost in the haze, a Dazhum unit blundered into a cemetery rigged with explosive glyphs and alchemical fire. The resulting chain detonation shattered the square.
A final ambush occurred in a granary complex rigged with the Stumblefield Mirage. Terrain shifted underfoot. Stone paths became slick mud. Barrels tumbled like dominoes. Caught off-balance, a full company was annihilated in seconds by a hidden squad using Serpent Wind Form.
Entire battalions were annihilated before they could regroup. Of the seven towns struck that morning, five bled marines by the hundreds.
Chaghan never left the wall.
He stood above it all, robes tattered, armor smeared in soot. He said nothing, only watched.
Day Three
No drums. No banners.
The Dazhum ships turned north, vanishing into the early fog. Seven legions vanished in silence. One lone flare was fired skyward, a farewell or a warning.
Estimated Dazhum force strength upon departure: five legions Dazhum regulars, two legions Zhong exiles, minus heavy casualties sustained. Perhaps five legions remained combat-effective. The rest left broken, bleeding, or ash.
Altan's message arrived that night, borne by Vahir skyhawk.
By the time you read this, I have already sent orders to the Warden of Recruits. He will cross the desert with two Stormguard legions and two and a half freed slave legions. It will take them a week.
You are to march from the Free Cities' southern border and meet him in the heart of the Southern Kingdoms. Attack at the same time. Take command of the center.
Liberate the cities.
Free the slave legions.
Capture the Chainmasters. Kill them if they resist.
Do as he did. Let them know the storm is not over.
There was no debate. No ceremony.
By morning, Chaghan had departed, his Stormguards marching south toward the Southern Kingdoms. His orders were clear. When the Warden of Recruits emerged from the desert with the freed legions, they would strike at the same time. Two fronts. One purpose.
The Warden of the West assumed control. Though the tide had gone, the city's defenses remained strong: two Stormguard legions, four inland Free Cities corps, and the same stone-bound walls still braced against fire.
But the Dazhum retreat was no surrender. It was a pivot. News of the Misty Grove massacre had reached them. Four legions lost in a single day. The southern thrust had failed.
And so the tide turned, not away, but toward vengeance.
To the north.
To the Kaldoran Strait.
Where the storm awaited.