The horns of war howled across the Latian stronghold. Deep and ancient, they shook the stones of the walls, sent crows screaming from the trees, and hammered into the bones of every man and woman listening within. Torches lit the ramparts, and oil braziers roared as soldiers dragged them into place. The sky was bruised with dusk, yet the ground trembled as though thunder walked across it.
Zed stood upon the wall, his hand tight around the Shadow Staff. The polished black length of it seemed to drink in the firelight, faint runes pulsing at its joints where it could shift its form. His cloak whipped in the rising wind, his face grim but calm. Below, lines of spear-wielders locked their shields tight. Archers checked their quivers. Cauldrons of oil were stoked into boiling readiness.
Behind them, tucked into the keep's belly, the villagers huddled. Mothers pressed cloth to their children's mouths to silence sobs. Old men sat sharpening kitchen knives, hands trembling but determined. Merchants wept over the stores they had abandoned, while the clan's servants tried to organize them into order. The air stank of smoke, sweat, and fear.
Fuine stood at the far end of the rampart with her father, Lord Lestari of the Leshonte Clan. Her pale purple sash swayed in the wind, black hair drifting behind her like a shadow. She said little, but her gaze slid often to the young master of Latian, standing proudly at the front as if he were carved from the same stone that built the wall.
"Too young," one elder muttered under his breath, his wrinkled hand clenched tight on the railing.
"Or perhaps too foolish," another said.
But neither could look away from him.
The first roar cut across the night.
From the treeline surged wolves — not the lean scavengers of the wild, but beasts swollen with qi, their eyes burning with green fire. Dozens at first, then hundreds. They loped low and fast, foam flying from jaws, their bodies large enough to crush a man beneath them. The earth shook with their charge, their howls rising like a storm.
"Archers!" barked one of the captains.
A thousand bowstrings thrummed, and the night sky rained arrows. Shafts drove into fur, blood spattered the ground, bodies tumbled. But more surged forward, trampling their fallen kin beneath claw and fang.
They hit the first barricades like a tide. Spears bristled, shields locked, and men grunted under the weight as wolves slammed against them. Jaws closed on wooden hafts, snapping them like twigs. One soldier screamed as a wolf dragged him over the line, tearing his throat open.
"Hold!"
The shield wall wavered, then steadied. Oil poured down, fire bloomed, the night seared bright. Burning wolves shrieked, thrashing madly as flames devoured them. The scent of charred fur and blood mixed into a choking haze.
But it was not enough.
The second wave thundered in — tusked boars the size of carriages, their shoulders rolling with muscle, their eyes red with rage. They smashed into the barricades, splintering wood and shattering shields. Men flew like dolls. One boar skewered three soldiers at once, tossing them aside as though they were straw.
The line buckled.
Zed leapt from the wall.
His feet struck the earth with barely a whisper, Shadowfoot carrying him like a phantom. The staff whirled, black and silver arcs blurring through the smoky night. He moved like a blade drawn from its sheath — sharp, merciless. A wolf lunged, but his staff snapped across its skull with a sound like a hammer on stone, brains splattering the dirt. Another beast lunged; he spun low, staff cracking ribs, then brought the butt down to crush its throat.
The men who saw him froze for an instant. Then they roared.
"That's our young master!"
"Latian! Latian!"
Zed didn't hear them. He was already moving, staff flashing in the firelight. The boar came at him, tusks wide. He slid beneath it, staff braced, and with a pulse of qi, shadows wrapped the weapon in jagged force. He struck upward. The beast screamed, tusk snapping, its eye bursting in a spray of gore. It thrashed, but Zed's second blow crushed its skull, dropping it like stone.
Then the shadows ripped apart.
From his dantian surged a wave of crimson, and the Vampire appeared. No longer a husk, no longer an apprentice. A predator. Its eyes burned red, its limbs graceful and cruel, its fangs gleaming in the torchlight. It hissed once, and then it dissolved into a storm of bats.
The swarm struck like a blade. Wolves vanished beneath the mass, torn apart in showers of blood. A serpent that had slithered through the rear ranks shrieked as its scales were ripped open, its flesh gnawed to ribbons. In moments, the bats reformed into the pale figure of the Vampire, blood dripping from its claws, gaze burning with unholy hunger.
The soldiers faltered in terror — but then saw how it stood beside Zed, its back to his, shielding him from a lunging wolf with a swipe that split it in half. The fear turned into awe.
"He commands that thing."
"It fights for him."
"No… it fights with him."
Fuine's eyes widened, and even her father's hand twitched on his sword hilt.
The tide raged. Hours felt like days as wave after wave of beasts slammed against the Latian wall. Wolves and boars gave way to serpents and scaled drakes, wings blotting the moon. Screeches split the night, arrows hissed, steel clanged. The wall ran red with blood.
And then the Beast Lords came.
First, a crimson-furred bear, its mane a crown of living fire. Each step crushed men and stone alike, flames trailing from its claws. It roared, and the wall itself trembled. Soldiers scattered before it, their courage quailing.
With it came an obsidian serpent, thicker than a house, scales gleaming black as glass. Its tongue lashed like a spear, its body coiling around siege towers, snapping them like twigs.
Despair rippled across the ranks.
Zed only twirled his staff once, planting his foot firmly.
"Mine."
He shot forward, shadows wreathing his form. The Vampire shrieked beside him, exploding into swarm once more.
The bear struck first, a paw like a falling mountain. Zed's staff met it, qi shattering the ground beneath him. His body rattled, but he flowed with the force, sliding inside its guard. His staff cracked across the beast's jaw, flame and blood spraying. The serpent lunged — but the Vampire's swarm wrapped its head, fangs digging into its eyes.
The duel raged, a storm within the storm. Soldiers watched from behind shattered lines, mouths open, hearts hammering. They saw their young master fighting not as a boy, not even as a man — but as a force of nature.
Hours bled away until at last, the crimson bear fell, skull caved in by the Shadow Staff. The serpent writhed one last time before the Vampire tore free its core, crushing it between clawed fingers.
The battlefield froze.
For a moment, only silence reigned. Then a voice cried out.
"Latian! Latian! Zed! Zed!"
The chant rose, spreading from soldier to soldier, until the night itself thundered with it.
They pushed the beasts back, their morale surging like fire. Shields locked again, spears drove forward, arrows rained. Wolves were slaughtered, serpents driven off, the tide halted.
But from the treeline, a deeper roar answered. The forest itself shook. The earth groaned.
Far away, in hidden temples and mountain caves, old cultivators stirred.
"That beast again," muttered a scholar, brush stilled over parchment.
"A nuisance… always the same," rumbled a monk, fists clenched.
On the wall, Fuine's father narrowed his eyes. His daughter, silent at his side, whispered so softly only she could hear it.
"That boy… he fights like one born for war."
The night ended in blood and smoke. The Latian wall still stood. Zed leaned on his staff, his chest rising steady, the Vampire crouched at his side. Both stared into the black forest where eyes burned back at them.
The first clash was over.
The true storm was still coming.