The Southern Kings had not surrendered. Not yet.
Before Chaghan could reach Zha'irat, what remained of their power gathered under fractured banners. Chainmasters, exiled warlords, and slaver generals from Velshad and Badran'Khul formed a makeshift coalition. They brought whatever was left. Hollow-eyed slave legions. Mercenaries bought with foreign gold. Blood-hungry war mages who demanded payment in sacrifice as much as coin.
They chose to make their stand east of the city, on the open ground, betting that formation, ritual, and raw numbers would do what the coastal campaigns had failed to. Five legions arrayed in tiers. Chain-gangs at the front, desert sellswords behind, then the command lines—flanked by fire-priests and bolstered by five robed war mages. Their feet were planted in carved ritual circles, skin already smeared with the blood of offerings.
Chaghan's line matched them in number, but not in weight. Stormguard held the vanguard, shields tight in the shape of the forward wedge. Stormriders moved on the flanks, ready to exploit breaks or answer encirclement. Behind them, the Freedmen—three legions of conscripts and ex-slaves—waited without banners. The Zhaqarin Host manned the ridge, their scouts already marking the depth lines and blind slopes. Stormcasters inscribed resonance glyphs into the dirt, one line at a time, without chant or flourish.
Chaghan studied the field in silence. His eyes held to the line of war mages and the five unmoving figures around them.
"They've brought monsters," said the Deputy Warden.
"Then we end them first," Chaghan replied.
He lifted one hand.
The line moved.
Stormguard advanced without need for signal. Their boots struck dry earth in rhythm. Shields lifted. Formation tightened. Arrows fell in waves. Some caught shoulders or helmets, but not enough to slow the push. When impact came, it came fast and clean. The first chain-gang shattered on contact. Stormguard blades punched low, sheared through shins, pierced the gaps under ribs. Feet slid forward with Gravelwalk techniques, letting them press through without breaking line.
Freedmen poured into the gaps behind, half-armed but wild. There were no horns, no orders to charge. They simply surged forward. One man tackled a slaver from behind and beat his skull in with a hammer until the handle broke. Others carried iron picks or looted short swords. One Chainmaster screamed until a freedwoman slammed a hooked blade into his throat and pulled sideways.
The Stormriders swept into position, pushing at the flanks. Zhaqarin snipers dropped into gullies and began taking out priests near the rear. For a moment, the line began to collapse.
Then the ground convulsed.
The chanting rose behind the enemy formation, low and slow at first, then drawn into a scream. Red light spilled through the cracks opening in the rear ranks. What came out was not summoned. It had been buried. Bound. Sealed.
The first golem clawed its way up from blood-slicked soil, its bulk covered in runes that pulsed with residual heat. Obsidian skin layered over bronze joints, held together with rune-stitched iron ligaments. Three more followed, each nearly four meters tall. Two carried within them living flame, furnace vents billowing smoke from their backs. Their mouths glowed. Their eyes were hollow sockets churning with red fire.
The war mages encircled them, arms raised in invocation. Their wrists had been cut open again. Blood pooled at their feet, feeding the ritual.
The golems charged.
The Stormguard line fractured. One stonebound construct hit the center column like a siege ram. Its arm swept a dozen men aside. Shields exploded. Bodies crushed flat or hurled aside like dolls. Helmets split open on impact. One soldier was torn in half at the waist, his lower half still standing a moment longer before collapsing.
A fire golem belched heat as it swung wide. Flesh cooked on contact. Mail melted into skin. Fifteen men burned in place before the sweep of its arm even landed. The Stormguard there had no time to scream.
Chaghan moved.
He entered First Resonance. Stoneheart. His breath slowed. The earth beneath him stiffened under each footstep. His stance became an anchor, rooted by force, not hope. The golem came down at him. He turned the shield, braced the weight, and let it pass. Second Resonance, Waterheart, flowed through his joints. He let the momentum glide past him and bent with the force.
His sword angled low. He sliced beneath the golem's knee. Not a kill, not even a break, but enough to expose the glyph behind the joint. A faint shimmer in the stone.
"Mark," he called.
Three beams from Stormcasters cut across the field and struck the same point. The rune overloaded. The sigil sputtered, then shattered. The golem's leg buckled under its own mass.
Chaghan moved again.
Third Resonance. Fireheart. Heat raced up the length of the blade, drawn from his own breath and blood. No flame. Just friction, resonance, and force. He struck again, this time higher, where neck met shoulder. Another glyph. Weak now, flickering.
Fourth Resonance. Windheart. He burst upward with a controlled lift, not flight, but enough to bring him to the height of the collapsing golem. From above, he plunged his sword through the exposed core as it pitched forward.
The golem convulsed. Then it died.
Another advanced before the body even hit the ground. It caught a rider mid-gallop and snapped the horse's neck with one hand. It slammed the mount and rider into a shield wall, crushing six men in the same impact. A molten golem waded into a trench line and simply stepped through it, burning men alive in their own dugouts.
"Stagger the wedges," Chaghan shouted. "Hit the second channel. Zhaqarin, blind their rear."
The battle broke into chaos. Freedmen legions assaulted the golems with grappling hooks and axes. Stormcasters redirected beams into weakened points. Zhaqarin archers focused on exposed runes, loosing acid-glass into smoking joints.
Chaghan reached a second fire golem at the trench. He severed the wrist conduit just as it unleashed a plume of heat, but not before the spray caught his left shoulder. The burn tore through pauldron and skin alike. He bit down and kept moving. The golem turned on him. The next strike shattered his shield and hurled him backward into the dirt. He rolled twice, came up bleeding, and stepped back into Windheart.
He climbed.
Not with magic, but with blood-stained boots and fury. He hauled himself onto the construct's back, hacked once, twice, then buried his sword into the back glyph that pulsed between the iron plates. The resonance spike cracked it in two.
The flame guttered out. The golem collapsed.
When the fifth construct finally fell, there was no silence. Only vengeance.
The mercenary mages tried to run. The Zhaqarin cut them down without orders. Each was dragged to their ritual rods and nailed to them. Heads were set alight. The blood on their lips hadn't dried.
The Chainmasters fled. The slaves did not.
The Freedmen surged forward. They did not ask for quarter. They did not take prisoners. They used whatever weapons they had to bring their tormentors to ruin. One man used the chain that once bound him to strangle the officer who gave the order. A woman stabbed her former master with a broken spear, then kept stabbing until her arms gave out. Some wept as they did it. Others stared blankly, faces smeared in blood and ash.
By the time the sun fell, the killing plain had become a graveyard.
Zha'irat's gates were still closed. The survivors had fled behind its walls.
Chaghan stood amid the ruin, his blade warped from overuse, his armor scorched, his shoulder leaking blood into the dust. He said nothing at first. Just looked toward the towers.
Then he turned to the Stormguard.
"Form up. Siege lines begin at dusk."
The men obeyed. No one asked what came next.
In the distance, Zha'irat waited. Its walls held more than soldiers.
And what was inside would not fall easily.