The bells of Greymoor tolled like a dirge. Smoke curled over the rooftops, carrying the stink of burned flesh and charred timber. In the streets, bodies swung from gallows, their faces blackened and bloated, a warning to all who whispered the word god.
Inside the castle, Lord Halbrecht paced before the throne like a caged boar, sweat streaking his jowls, his hands twitching around the jeweled dagger at his side.
"They creep in alleys. They strike my granaries. They make fools of my knights!" His voice cracked with rage. "And my people cheer them as gods. Gods!"
The priests at his side muttered prayers, while captains of his guard stared at the floor. None dared contradict him.
Halbrecht slammed his fist against the arm of his throne. "No more patience. No more games. I will scour this city clean. If I must kill half of Greymoor to save the rest, then so be it."
His knights bowed stiffly, their silence hiding unease. The pig lord mistook it for loyalty.
In the Rebel Hideout
Beneath the ruins of a collapsed tavern, the rebels gathered in their largest council yet. Farmers, deserters, smiths, and beggars packed the hall shoulder to shoulder. The air stank of sweat, smoke, and determination.
At the center, Damian, Riven, and Kael stood over a crude map carved into the dirt.
Damian's voice was iron. "Halbrecht bleeds, but he still has steel, stone, and walls. If we want his head, we don't whittle anymore. We cut. We take the castle."
Gasps rippled through the rebels.
Kael exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. "A full-on siege with farmers and pitchforks. Jesus Christ, this is insane."
"Insane works," Riven growled, grinning wide. "We've got numbers now. They've got fear. Let's smash their walls down."
Damian shook his head. "We don't smash. We open."
And then, as if summoned by those words, Sir Aldric stepped from the shadows.
The room fell silent. Even the most hardened rebels gawked at the knight in half-shattered armor, cloak ragged, sword sheathed. To them, he was already legend.
Damian's gaze locked on him. "Sir Aldric. You swore yourself to us. Now we call that oath."
Aldric bowed his head, voice steady. "The gates of Greymoor. I know their patterns. I know the men who guard them. Give me the chance, and I will open them for you."
The rebels erupted in cheers, pounding their fists against the tables.
Riven's grin was savage. "Fuck yes. Nothing better than a traitor with keys."
Kael frowned. "And what then? He just kills Halbrecht for us and we all clap?"
Damian's eyes went cold. "No. Halbrecht is ours. Aldric will open the way. But when we take the throne room… the pig dies by our hands."
Aldric nodded without hesitation. "As you command. My sword will serve the gods, even if it means only as their gatekeeper."
Damian's lips curved faintly. "Good. Then the gates will fall, and the world will see who truly rules Greymoor."
Gears of War
The cellar hideouts were no longer enough. The rebellion spilled into courtyards, basements, and abandoned inns. Hammers rang against anvils as smiths, once silenced under Halbrecht's taxes, now worked openly by torchlight. Broken plowshares became crude spears; rusted scythes were reforged into halberds.
Children fetched water. Women stitched torn rags into banners. The crude sigil of the "Familia" — hastily scrawled by one of the younger rebels — spread across walls and shields: a jagged winged emblem, part divine, part monstrous.
Kael oversaw the makeshift workshops, grease and soot staining his clothes. He muttered constantly, half to himself, half to the exhausted blacksmiths.
"Balance the blade there. No, don't just slap iron on wood, it'll snap on first impact. Goddammit, we're building a medieval Walmart, and I'm the manager."
The smith dont know what Walmart is, but laughed nervously, hammering harder.
Meanwhile, Riven drilled recruits in the ruins of a burned-out courtyard. He barked orders with a grin, chain swinging like a whip.
"You there! Hit harder! If you can't split a skull, you're just a sack of meat waiting to be gutted!"
When one farmer fainted from exhaustion, Riven dragged him up by the collar, slapped him across the face, and shoved a spear back in his hands. "On your feet! The gods didn't save you to die like a bitch!"
The farmer roared in defiance, jabbing again.
Damian moved among them all in silence, eyes sharp, voice low but commanding. He reorganized patrols, marked supply caches, and mapped routes to the castle's walls. To him, it wasn't rebellion. It was inevitability.
In Greymoor Castle
Halbrecht's fortress bustled like a hive disturbed. Smithies inside the walls hammered day and night, forging arrows and sharpening blades. Carts hauled stone to reinforce the gates. Cauldrons were filled with pitch to pour on attackers.
But fear haunted every corner. Knights whispered of the burned granaries. Servants vanished in the night, slipping away to join the rebels. Even among his guards, loyalty was fragile.
Halbrecht sat bloated upon his throne, watching his captains kneel in fear. His face was pale with sleeplessness, eyes twitching at every shadow.
"They gather," he snarled. "I can smell them. Rats breeding in my walls. They think to starve me? Ha! I am Lord of Greymoor! I'll drown their streets in fire before I yield my crown."
One knight stammered, "My lord, the people—"
"The people are nothing!" Halbrecht roared, spittle flying. He lurched forward, stabbing a finger into the knight's chest. "Cattle. Meat. They live because I allow it. And soon, they will remember who feeds them."
Behind his back, the knight's fists clenched. But he bowed all the same.
In the streets, peasants whispered louder than ever.
"They forge blades in the shadows."
"They train like an army."
"They have a knight of their own now."
Some claimed to have glimpsed the "sky gods" themselves, striding through the alleys at night, cloaked in smoke, eyes burning like stars.
Others swore they had seen Damian draw a map of the castle with divine fire, or Kael conjure flames with a single word. None of it was true — but none of it mattered.
The Familia was no longer just rebels.
They were becoming a legend.
In a ruined chapel, the three CEOs met with Aldric again. He spread a parchment across the altar, pointing at the castle's gates and guard rotations.
"This is the weak point," Aldric murmured. "The south gate. Less patrolled at night, because Halbrecht fears attack from the forest more than the city. I can be there. I can turn the watch. When the time comes, the gates will open."
Damian nodded slowly. "And the city will pour through like water through a broken dam."
Kael frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's… a hell of a plan. But what if it fails? What if Halbrecht suspects?"
Riven smirked, baring his teeth. "Then we storm the walls the old-fashioned way. With fire, blood, and rage."
Aldric's voice hardened. "No. I'll see the gates open. For my honor. For the gods."
Damian studied him with those cold eyes, then finally nodded. "So be it. The siege begins when we choose. And Halbrecht will choke on his own throne."
The Knight's Oath
Sir Aldric sat alone in the ruins of the chapel long after the council had dispersed. The parchment map lay crumpled under his gauntlet, his fist trembling against the altar.
The silence pressed on him — heavy, suffocating.
He had worn Greymoor's colors for twenty years. He had taken oaths beneath banners now black with soot. He had marched in Halbrecht's name, through mud and blood, fighting not for justice but for the pig's greed.
And still, he had endured. Because knighthood was supposed to mean something. Because loyalty was supposed to mean honor.
But that was before he had watched Halbrecht laugh as starving children clawed at the gates for bread. Before he had seen comrades hanged for hesitating to butcher peasants. Before he had listened to the screams of women boiled alive in cauldrons, just to "send a message."
That was when the cracks began.
And the night the granaries burned — the night the people cheered while smoke curled to the heavens — Aldric had finally seen it.
The people were not cheering for Halbrecht.
They were cheering for hope.
And that hope had a face: three strangers who bore no banners, who owed no fealty, who walked into this world chained and still spat in the face of power.
Aldric ground his teeth, rage boiling in his chest. All those years he had believed in honor, in duty — and it had been nothing but servitude to a glutton. He remembered his father's words when he had first taken the sword: "Serve your lord, and in him, serve the realm."
But what realm had Halbrecht served? Only his belly.
Aldric's hands tightened around the hilt of his sword. "No more," he whispered into the darkness.
He thought of the rebels' faces when he walked into their cellar. Not fear — awe. Hope. They had looked at him not as a butcher, not as Halbrecht's dog, but as a man who could be something more.
For the first time in years, Sir Aldric felt like a knight.
Not Halbrecht's knight. Not Greymoor's.
The gods' knight.
Aldric's Memory
He remembered his first battle, when he was little more than a boy. The clash of steel, the stink of blood. His commander then had been a hard but fair man, who told him, "A knight is the sword of his people."
That commander had been executed years later — by Halbrecht, for refusing to slaughter an unarmed village. Aldric had carried that weight ever since.
Now, with the three Gods rising, he could almost see his old commander again. The man would have smiled to see him kneel before strangers from the sky rather than a pig on a throne.
Maybe this was redemption.
Maybe this was the last chance to give his sword to someone worthy.
Oath in the Shadows
Aldric knelt before the crumbled altar, pressing his blade flat against the stone. His voice was low, hoarse with anger, but steady:
"I, Sir Aldric of Greymoor, swear by steel and by blood: my sword no longer serves Halbrecht. It serves the Familia. It serves the gods who rose from fire. I will open their gates. I will tear down the pig's walls. And if I fall, let my death be the nail in Halbrecht's coffin."
The words echoed in the empty chapel like a prayer.
When he rose, his face was set. His anger was no longer wild. It was sharpened. A blade honed for one purpose.
For the first time in years, Sir Aldric was not afraid.
Because he no longer fought for survival.
He fought for vengeance.
And for something that almost felt like honor.
The Pig's Court
Sir Aldric slipped through the postern gate of Greymoor Castle with the ease of long habit. The guards barely glanced at him — to them, he was still a knight, still loyal, still Halbrecht's man. None guessed that the parchment hidden beneath his breastplate contained the Gods's battle plan.
The air inside the castle stank of smoke and fear. Torches burned day and night, as if Halbrecht believed light alone could drive away rebellion.
Aldric moved through the familiar corridors, listening, watching. Every stone seemed colder than before.
The Banquet of Ashes
He found Halbrecht in the great hall, seated at the high table. The pig lord stuffed himself with roasted goose, his greasy fingers glistening as he tore into the carcass. Around him, servants shuffled nervously: a dwarf pouring wine, an elf polishing silver, a beastfolk girl carrying platters of bread.
Halbrecht's voice thundered between bites. "Faster, you sniveling wretches! Do you think I sit here to starve? I am Lord of Greymoor, not a beggar at your table!"
When the beastfolk girl stumbled, the platter shaking, Halbrecht's meaty fist shot out and backhanded her across the jaw. She crumpled to the floor, bread scattering across the rushes.
Laughter rippled from a few knights at the table, eager to echo their lord. The girl whimpered, clutching her face, blood staining her fur.
"Filthy mongrel," Halbrecht spat. "You're lucky I don't have your hide nailed to the gate. Get up! Get up, or I'll have you flogged!"
The dwarf servant bent to help her, only to catch a goblet hurled into his forehead. Wine streamed down his beard like blood.
Halbrecht roared with laughter, tearing another strip of meat. "Oh, how noble the races of the world think themselves. Elves with their airs, dwarves with their hammers, beastfolk with their tails. Bah! You are tools, nothing more. Cattle with clever tongues. And you will serve me until your bones break!"
The hall echoed with uneasy chuckles from the nobles. Some laughed because they believed. Most laughed because they feared.
Aldric's hands clenched around the hilt of his sword. Every instinct screamed to cut the swine down where he sat. But he forced himself to breathe, to wait. To remember Damian's command: The pig dies by our hands.
Halbrecht continued, wine spilling down his double chin. "When the rebels are crushed, I'll send their leaders' heads to the other lords. And their people? Hah! I'll sell the elf whores to the brothels, the dwarves to the mines, the mongrels to the kennels. Let the world see what happens when they defy me."
The beastfolk girl trembled as she crawled back to her feet. Her eyes caught Aldric's for the briefest instant — wide, pleading, hopeless.
And in that moment, Aldric's oath hardened into iron.
The Gods wasn't just vengeance. It wasn't just rebellion.
It was salvation.
When the banquet finally ended, Aldric slipped back into the shadows of the courtyard, rage burning in his chest.
The rebellion could not fail. The gates would open.
Because as long as Halbrecht sat on the throne, Greymoor was not a city.
It was a slaughterhouse.
The Pig's Council
The great hall had emptied of servants. Only Halbrecht, his priests, and his closest nobles remained. The fires in the hearth burned low, casting the chamber in restless shadows.
Halbrecht sprawled in his chair like a bloated beast, goblet in hand, wine dribbling down his chin. His voice, however, was not drunken. It was sharp, vicious, and edged with fear.
"They multiply," he growled. "Every night, more peasants vanish into the alleys. Every day, whispers of gods spread through my streets. And still you sit here, fattened on my coin, doing nothing."
The nobles shifted uncomfortably.
One spoke — Lord Brennic, master of a nearby village. "My lord, the people are hungry. The granaries—"
Halbrecht's goblet flew across the table, striking Brennic squarely in the face. The noble reeled, blood pouring from his nose.
"Do you think I need reminding of the granaries, you worm?" Halbrecht thundered. "I need answers. I need solutions. If the people starve, then they should fear me more than hunger!"
A priest stepped forward, robes trailing, voice oozing with false calm. "My lord, this is heresy. These rebels have cloaked themselves in false divinity. The peasants are weak of mind, eager to worship anyone who feeds them hope. We must cleanse the city with faith. Public executions. More sermons."
"Faith?" Halbrecht barked a laugh. "Faith doesn't fill bellies. Faith doesn't hold walls. Steel does. Fire does. Fear does."
Lady Maelwyn, a sharp-eyed noblewoman, folded her hands. "Then perhaps, my lord, it is time to call for aid. Neighboring lords could send men, gold, grain—"
Halbrecht's head snapped toward her, eyes wild. "Aid? You would invite vultures into my hall? Let them march their banners through my gates, so they can measure the throne they'll inherit when I'm gone?" He slammed a fist on the table. "No! Greymoor stands alone. I stand alone!"
Silence choked the chamber. No one dared move.
Finally, Halbrecht leaned forward, his voice dropping into a low, venomous growl. "We do not call for help. We do not beg. We purge. Tonight, my knights scour the slums again. Every hovel, every alley. We drag out anyone who whispers the word 'god' and we burn them alive in the squares."
The priest smiled thinly. "A holy cleansing."
Lady Maelwyn lowered her gaze, but behind her mask of obedience, her mind already raced. Halbrecht's madness was becoming dangerous. If he destroyed the city while trying to save it, what would be left for his nobles to rule?
And though none spoke it aloud, the thought hung heavy in the smoky air: If Halbrecht falls, who rises in his place?
A Whisper in the Shadows
The council had ended in silence. Halbrecht lumbered back to his chambers, dragging two trembling servants behind him, while the priests muttered prayers over the dying fire. One by one, the nobles filed out, their footsteps echoing through the stone corridors.
Lady Maelwyn did not return to her quarters.
Instead, she drifted into a side gallery, her gown whispering over the cold floor. Behind her, Lord Brennic — his nose still bleeding from Halbrecht's thrown goblet — limped after her, eyes darting like a nervous rat.
"Lady Maelwyn," he hissed, clutching his bruised face. "You'll get us both killed, speaking of aid before that… that beast."
Maelwyn turned, her sharp eyes glinting in the torchlight. "Better killed than left to starve in his ruin. Do you not see it, Brennic? Greymoor bleeds. The people turn from him. Even his knights waver. The city is already half lost."
Brennic swallowed hard. "You mean… the rebels."
A thin smile curled Maelwyn's lips. "Not rebels. Gods, if the peasants are to be believed."
She stepped closer, lowering her voice to a venomous whisper. "And gods are easier to serve than pigs."
Brennic gaped at her, horrified. "You would betray your lord?"
Maelwyn's laugh was soft, cold. "My loyalty is to survival. To power. Halbrecht is finished. He cannot see it, but I can. The Familia grows with every day. And when the gates fall…" She touched Brennic's arm with a clawlike grip. "Those who bow quickly may yet keep their heads."
Brennic's lips trembled. "But if Halbrecht learns—"
"He won't." Her eyes flashed. "Because you will keep your mouth shut. And when the Familia takes this castle, we will kneel, not fight. And perhaps we will be rewarded."
Brennic hesitated, torn between fear and the instinct to cling to the strongest side. But Maelwyn's gaze was unyielding.
Finally, he bowed his head. "…As you say, my lady."
Maelwyn released him, turning back to the gallery window. Outside, the city smoldered with fires from Halbrecht's purges. She watched the glow, her smile sharpening.
"The age of pigs ends soon," she murmured. "Best to greet the new gods with open hands."
The Pig's Memory
Lord Halbrecht sat in his private chamber, the doors barred, the candles guttering low. The goblets and platters on his table lay in disarray — half-eaten meat, bones gnawed to splinters, wine spilled like blood across the wood.
But he was not eating.
He sat hunched forward, hands gripping the arms of his chair so tightly his knuckles shone white. His eyes twitched, darting to every corner of the room as if shadows themselves conspired against him.
The Weight of Legacy
Halbrecht was not born to ruin.
He remembered his father — stern, cruel, but unyielding. A man who had ruled Greymoor with iron discipline. As a boy, Halbrecht had trembled under his father's gaze, told again and again: "A lord does not ask. A lord does not beg. A lord takes. The moment you show mercy, the wolves smell weakness."
It had burned into him like scripture.
He remembered standing in the yard as his father ordered a thief's hand chopped off, the blood spraying hot across the cobblestones. Halbrecht had gagged then, a child sickened by the sight. His father had seized him by the throat, hissing into his face: "Better to spill one man's blood than to let ten men doubt your rule."
That day, Halbrecht learned the truth of power.
The Crown of Hunger
But his father had died too soon. The coffers of Greymoor were thin, the fields lean, the people restless.
Halbrecht had filled the emptiness with indulgence. Wine, meat, women — the feasts dulled the gnawing sense of inadequacy. The cruelty came easier with every year. A flogging here, a hanging there. Always telling himself he was doing what his father had demanded: keeping the wolves from the gate.
Yet the wolves never stayed gone.
And now, they had grown bold.
"Gods," he spat into the dark, the word venom on his tongue. "They dare call those gutter-born thieves gods?"
He rose and staggered to the mirror, staring at his reflection. A heavy face, sweat-slick and pale. Bags under his eyes from sleepless nights. Grease in his beard. His hand trembled on the dagger at his belt.
"They will not take this from me," he whispered to himself. "This city, this castle, this throne — they are mine. Mine. I am Greymoor."
He slammed his fist against the mirror, cracking the glass.
The fractured reflection showed him in pieces: pig eyes, pig mouth, pig crown.
But when he blinked, he saw something else — a boy standing in the yard again, his father's hand clamped around his throat, those words like a curse: "The moment you show mercy, the wolves smell weakness."
And Halbrecht whispered back into the silence:
"Then let them smell only blood."
In the Gods' Camp
The rebel camp pulsed with restless energy. Torches burned in a jagged ring around the square where blacksmiths hammered steel, where farmers practiced with spears, where children ferried buckets of water like they were part of an army drill.
At the center of it all, Damian, Riven, and Kael bent over the crude dirt-map once more, their voices low but sharp.
"We hit him where it hurts," Damian muttered, jabbing a stick at the castle walls. "His gates, his patrol routes, his grain stores. And we do it fast, before his knights starve us out."
Riven grinned, leaning on his chain like it was a banner. "Hell yeah. Burn him out, bleed him out. Make that fat bastard squeal before we gut him."
Kael groaned, rubbing his temples. "Right. Siege warfare with farmhands and pitchforks. Totally reasonable. Who the fuck do you think we are, Caesar?"
Damian's cold eyes flicked toward him. "We don't need Rome. We need chaos. And chaos is what we've got."
The flap of the tent stirred, and Sir Aldric entered, his face grim, eyes shadowed. The chatter died instantly. Every rebel turned toward him — not just as a knight, but as their knight.
Damian straightened. "Report."
Aldric placed a hand on the dirt-map, knuckles white. "Halbrecht tightens his fist. He plans another purge tonight. More fires. More screams. He doesn't care if the whole city burns — so long as it burns for him."
Murmurs rippled through the rebels. A woman clenched her child closer; a blacksmith spat into the dirt.
Aldric's voice hardened. "I saw his feast. He struck down servants for stumbling. He called elves cattle. Dwarves beasts. Beastfolk mongrels fit for kennels. He plans to sell them when this is done. And the nobles… they bow, but their eyes are already turning. Some will betray him when the gates fall."
Damian's lips curved into something cold, almost a smile. "So even his own court rots."
Kael leaned back with a sharp exhale. "Great. So we're not just fighting for peasants and bread. We're fighting for every elf, dwarf, and beastfolk that bastard's ever pissed on."
Riven's grin widened, savage. "That's not a fight, that's a fucking crusade."
Aldric stepped forward, lowering his voice. "The south gate is still weak. I can open it. But once it opens, there will be no turning back. Halbrecht will fight like a cornered beast. The city will bleed."
Damian locked eyes with him. "Then we make sure it bleeds for us, not him."
He turned back to the rebels, his voice rising like a hammer against iron.
"Tomorrow we begin the siege. The people are with us. The walls will fall. And Halbrecht will die screaming on his throne."
The camp erupted into a roar of cheers, fists pounding against shields, torches lifted high.
And for the first time, Greymoor trembled not with fear — but with defiance.
Night of Fire
Greymoor burned again.
The purges began as the bells tolled midnight. Knights in steel marched through the alleys with torches and blades, dragging people from their homes. Whole families were pulled into the streets, accused of whispering prayers to "sky gods."
A woman cried, swearing she had never spoken such words — only to have a torch shoved into her hut, flames devouring it as her children screamed.
An old dwarf was dragged by his beard through the mud, his leg broken with a mace before he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch. His screams echoed across the quarter until his voice collapsed into gurgling silence.
The priests walked with the soldiers, chanting, their hollow hymns drowning the sobs of the dying.
"Cleanse the city. Cleanse the heresy."
By dawn, the gutters ran black with ash and blood.
From the shadows beyond the alleys, the rebels watched. Mothers clutched their children. Farmers clenched their fists around crude spears. Rage burned hotter than fear now.
And in the rebel camp, the CEOs listened to the distant screams, the night air trembling with smoke.
Riven spat into the dirt. "That fat fuck thinks this will scare us?" His grin was all teeth. "He just handed us an army."
Damian's gaze was steel. "Fear breeds rebellion faster than hunger. By burning his own people, Halbrecht has already lost them."
Kael shook his head, voice bitter. "And now it's up to us to make sure they don't lose everything else."
The next day, the camp was transformed.
Rebels hammered steel until their hands bled. Spears, swords, shields — crude, but sharp enough to kill. Armor was scavenged from fallen guards, mismatched but functional. Banners were stitched together, the winged emblem of the Familia now flying from poles above the camp.
Recruits poured in by the dozen — peasants whose homes had burned, elves whose kin had been beaten, dwarves who had fled the mines. Even beastfolk families arrived, their children carrying clubs and stones.
Every hour, someone new swore loyalty before the CEOs. And every oath carried the same words: "We fight for the gods who fell from the sky."
Damian drilled them like soldiers. Kael organized supply caches, rationing food and water. Riven kept morale burning, swaggering through the camp with wild laughter, promising them victory or glorious death.
At night, they gathered around the fire. The mood was grim but solid. No one spoke of fleeing. No one spoke of surrender. Only of the coming storm.
And at the center of it all stood Sir Aldric, his sword gleaming in the firelight, his voice steady.
"Tomorrow, the gates open. Tomorrow, Greymoor is ours. We fight not just for bread, not just for vengeance — but for a new order. No pig on the throne. No collars on our necks. A the gods where no man or woman kneels out of fear."
The rebels roared their approval, voices shaking the night.
For the first time, the siege was no longer just a plan.
It was destiny.
Night Before the Storm
The rebel camp was quieter than usual that night. No hammering, no drills, no chanting. Only the crackle of fires and the murmur of exhausted voices. The army had grown, but for now, it rested — a beast coiled before it struck.
At the edge of the camp, Damian, Kael, and Riven sat together on a half-broken cart, a jug of sour wine between them. For once, they weren't surrounded by rebels calling them gods. Just three men staring into the fire.
Kael took a long swig from the jug, coughing at the bitterness. "Fuck me… can't believe I miss airplane whiskey."
Riven snorted. "Whiskey? I'd kill for a shot of tequila. A real one. Lime, salt, the works. Not this goat piss."
Damian didn't drink. His eyes stayed on the flames, calculating, cold.
Kael sighed, rubbing his face. "This is insane. We're running a goddamn startup — except the startup is a war. And if we fail, it's not investors pulling funding. It's heads on pikes."
Riven grinned wide, teeth flashing. "Yeah, but think about it. If we win, we don't just IPO. We own the fucking market. Thrones, armies, worshippers. Who the fuck's gonna tell us no?"
"Until the next lord decides to test us," Kael muttered. "Or one of those big ten clans hears about the 'sky gods' and decides to squash us like bugs."
Damian finally spoke, his voice calm, heavy. "Then we'll do what we always did. Expand. Consume. Adapt. Halbrecht is the beginning, not the end. Once he falls, Greymoor is ours. And with Greymoor, we have a foothold."
Kael let out a bitter laugh. "Listen to you. Same guy who used to talk about quarterly earnings like they were gospel. Now it's cities and castles."
Riven leaned back, staring at the stars. "Honestly? I love it. No board meetings. No shareholders. Just conquest. It's cleaner."
Kael gave him a look. "Cleaner? People are dying, man."
Riven smirked. "People always die. At least now, it means something. At least now, we're the ones writing the story."
Silence lingered, broken only by the fire crackling. For a moment, the three men looked like what they were — strangers in a world not their own, staring down a battle none of them were born to fight.
Kael muttered, almost to himself. "Tomorrow we stop being CEOs. Tomorrow… we become lords."
Damian's eyes glinted in the firelight. "No. Tomorrow, we become gods."
The fire popped, sending sparks into the night. None of them spoke after that.
Dawn of Steel
The first horns blew just before sunrise.
In the rebel camp, the fog still clung to the fields when the army began to stir. Men strapped on scavenged armor, women tied cloth around their heads, children carried spears too tall for their arms. The banners of the Gods fluttered in the pale light, stitched with crude wings that looked more defiant than divine.
Damian stood at the front, cloak drawn tight, his face as cold as the morning air. Kael adjusted the map one last time, muttering about flanking angles and supply carts. Riven rolled his shoulders, grinning like a wolf, chain wrapped around his fists.
Sir Aldric waited astride his horse, helm under his arm, his jaw clenched. He knew the signal, knew the route, knew which guards would look away when the time came.
The south gate would open today.
No matter the cost.
Inside Greymoor's walls, the people awoke not to roosters, but to rumors.
"The gods march this morning," a fishmonger whispered, clutching her basket.
"They say a knight of the pig has joined them," muttered a dwarf, voice low, beard still singed from the last purge. "Sir Aldric himself."
An old elf shook her head, eyes narrowed. "Halbrecht will burn us all before he bends. You'll see. He's cornered, and a cornered beast bites hardest."
"But the gods will strike him down," a young beastfolk boy said with stubborn certainty. "My uncle swears he saw their chains melt like fire the night they fell. No man can bind them. Not even Halbrecht."
In the marketplace, fear and hope tangled in every whisper. Some prayed to see the rebels. Others prayed the walls would hold.
But all agreed on one thing: today, Greymoor's fate would be decided.
The Lady at the Window
High above, in her private chambers, Lady Maelwyn stood by her arched window, silk gown drawn tight against the morning chill. The sun crept over the horizon, staining the mist red like fresh blood.
From her vantage point, she could see the rebel banners rising beyond the hills, a ragged line slowly coalescing into an army.
Her lips curved into a thin smile.
Halbrecht raged like a boar, thrashing and tearing, but he was already bleeding. She had seen it in the council chamber, heard it in the nobles' hushed tones. Loyalty was not iron — it was coin, fear, advantage. And coin, fear, and advantage were shifting rapidly.
"Gods from the sky," she murmured, fingers resting lightly on the window frame. "Or men with fire in their bellies. It hardly matters."
Her eyes lingered on the rebel banners as they crested the fields.
"What matters is survival. And survival belongs to those who kneel at the right moment."
Behind her, her maid — an elf with trembling hands — asked in a whisper, "My lady… will the gods win?"
Maelwyn did not answer. She only watched, her sharp smile widening as the first horns of war split the dawn.
The horns thundered again, closer, shaking the very stones of Greymoor.
Halbrecht stood in his throne room, fists clenched, spit flying as he bellowed orders, his words a storm of rage and bravado. Knights saluted stiffly. Priests muttered prayers they no longer believed.
But for all the noise, for all the fury, the truth lingered like a stench.
Lord Halbrecht's eyes twitched to the doors. To the windows. To the walls that groaned beneath the echo of the horns.
His father's voice rang in his skull, a curse he could not silence: "The moment you show mercy, the wolves smell weakness."
And as the horns blared louder, closer, the boar-lord of Greymoor trembled — a beast cornered, blind to the teeth already at his throat.
The dawn of the siege had come.