Thirty-six hours of unrelenting northern wind had scraped across the broken remnants of Stonehaven, but the true cold lay in Captain Varrick's core.
He stood on the desolate, south-east ridge, his breath frosting instantly in the air. The ridge was exactly as Kaelen had described: a forgotten, dry path of broken shale leading down to the sealed, geothermal vents of the old Iron Mine perimeter.
The tactical situation was a nightmare. He had four soldiers, not the ten or twelve required for a proper defense against a Tier 5 creature, and they were using salvaged heavy ballistae designed for fixed fortifications, not rapid deployment on shifting, rocky terrain.
They were exposed, exhausted, and deployed based on a prediction that defied five decades of frontier warfare doctrine.
Varrick was a man of logic and procedure. He had seen as the Harpy-Fiend fell off the tower to the Prince's quiet, ruthless efficiency, but that was an isolated incident, a localized surge of power. This was different. This required meteorological prophecy, geological knowledge, and zoological data the Empress's own High Councilors did not possess. If the Behemoth did not appear, Varrick would have wasted critical time and resources, leaving the garrison dangerously thin when Lady Seraphina arrived. He would be ruined.
Yet, he had followed every command with meticulous detail. The ballistae were secured with iron spikes driven into the shale. The three remaining men were positioned high above, not as watchmen, but as dedicated alarm specialists.
"Private Kellen, check the pressure on the wire," Varrick ordered, his voice swallowed by the wind.
Kellen, a grizzled veteran, nodded. He was setting up the trip-wire system Kaelen had demanded. It was a simple, ingenious device: three lines of reinforced hemp, stretched taut across the ridge path, each line connected to a heavy iron mallet suspended over a hollowed-out thunder log. Not an alarm designed to be seen or heard by a man, but one designed to be triggered by a tremendous, heavy footfall moving with calculated slowness. It was a mechanism born of an understanding Varrick could not fathom.
"The Prince said 36 hours, Captain," Kellen murmured, adjusting the tension on the lowest line. "We're pushing 37 now."
Varrick glanced at the chronometer, a salvaged clock taken from the ruins. 37 hours and 14 minutes since Kaelen had issued the order. The Captain felt a chilling certainty that the creature was late not because Kaelen was wrong, but because the Behemoth had encountered a trivial delay, perhaps a patch of deep snow on an approach route Kaelen hadn't accounted for. This man, this sickly, exiled Prince, had turned the terrifying complexity of the northern wilds into a simple, mathematical equation.
Varrick scanned the empty ridge line, trying to fight the creeping sense of futility. He was betting his career, his life, and the lives of the few men left to him, on the fevered ravings of a man who smelled of death and ambition.
Then, the ground vibrated.
It was not a sound, but a deep, subsonic tremor that resonated up through Varrick's boots and into his teeth. The vibrations were heavy, rhythmic, and incredibly slow, confirming the Prince's description of the Behemoth's massive, resource-efficient movement.
"It's coming," Varrick whispered. "Kellen, retreat to the firing line. Hold position. Steady hands."
The massive, rolling sound of shifting stone began to echo off the canyon walls. Moments later, the first sign of the beast appeared: a shower of small stones and loose snow cascading over the ridge crest.
Then, the behemoth.
The Gravel-Skinned Behemoth was a colossal creature, Tier 5, easily forty feet long and twenty feet high at the shoulder. Its hide was not flesh and blood, but a terrifying composite of crystallized quartz and fused stone, rendering it impervious to conventional weaponry. It moved with the slow, deliberate momentum of a mountain, its four massive legs churning the shale path into dust. Its head, shielded by a dense, rocky plate, swept left and right, sniffing the cold air, completely uninterested in the tiny figures waiting below. It was focused, as Kaelen had predicted, on its mineral objective.
As the creature's immense forward leg descended, the hemp line snapped taut.
CLANG.
The iron mallet struck the thunder log with a dull, resonant boom that startled the creature, causing its massive head to whip around. The Behemoth paused, its enormous, clouded eyes finally registering the ambush team.
"Fire!" Varrick roared.
The first ballista bolt launched a thick, iron-tipped spear designed to pierce fortified walls. It struck the Behemoth's chest plate. The bolt shattered instantly, sending a plume of sparks and metallic shards scattering harmlessly across the beast's quartz-armored torso.
The Behemoth let out a low, bass rumble, an expression of annoyance rather than rage, and began to shift its weight toward the tiny nuisance.
"Hold fire!" Varrick yelled, resisting the soldier's instinct to empty the magazines. This was where Kaelen's impossible knowledge was either proved or dismissed.
"Reload, aim for the ventral joints!" Varrick shouted, rushing along the firing line.
Kaelen's instructions had been terrifyingly specific. The Behemoth's hide was composed of fused quartz, but the Arch-Mage's memory of the beast's biology dictated a critical weakness: the creature absorbed the mineral nutrients at the junction points of its carapace plates. These were the areas around the joints—the elbows and shoulders—where the armor was thinnest, waiting for new quartz to fuse.
The men reloaded, their faces grim, aiming for targets that were small, moving, and covered in what looked like slightly less dense rock.
"Fire Ballistae Two and Four!"
Two bolts screamed through the air. One missed, embedding itself harmlessly in the rock face behind the creature. The second struck the left foreleg shoulder joint. There was no shattering impact, but a sickening sound of penetration, followed by a gout of thick, greenish-black fluid.
The Behemoth roared, a sound that finally contained pain. The creature staggered, momentarily crippled on one side, its massive bulk throwing off its carefully calculated balance.
"Fire Ballistae One and Three! Aim for the rear stifle joint!" Varrick commanded, his voice hoarse but steady.
This was the core of Kaelen's strategy: hit the weakest points on opposite sides to induce catastrophic structural failure.
The next two bolts found their marks. The Behemoth's rear leg buckled, the creature dropping hard onto the path, creating a miniature landslide of rock and ice.
It was Tier 5, but it was slow, and Kaelen's plan was designed to exploit that slowness. The creature was rendered immobile, its movement mechanics destroyed by precisely placed shots. It could still breathe fire or unleash sonic attacks, but the strategic attack had stripped it of its primary, crushing weapon: its mass.
The rest of the fight became a grim, grinding exercise in finishing the job. For the next hour, Varrick directed the soldiers to target the exposed underbelly. The Behemoth's collapse had revealed soft, fleshy folds. When the beast finally ceased moving, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and cooked rock, and the south-east ridge was forever scarred by the battle.
Varrick returned to Stonehaven's central courtyard an hour before dawn, covered in green-black Behemoth fluid and dust, the exhaustion of the battle replaced by a disquieting awe.
He did not go to the barracks; he went straight to the tower.
He found Prince Alaric exactly where he had left him, sitting cross-legged, staring out the tiny window, his face paler than ever, a fresh bandage covering his nose.
"Report, Captain," Kaelen said, without turning around, his voice a dry, rasping whisper that implied the conversation was a taxing imposition.
Varrick snapped to attention, the rigid military training asserting itself despite the surreal nature of the victory.
"Your Highness. The threat materialized at 37 hours and 16 minutes, approximately one kilometer from the Iron Mine perimeter. The Gravel-Skinned Behemoth, Tier 5. We engaged with the four-man team and ballistae, as ordered. The target designation was accurate. We achieved full mobility kill within seven minutes of engagement by targeting the foreleg shoulder and the rear stifle joint. The monster is confirmed dead. The south-east flank is secure."
Silence stretched in the cold chamber. Kaelen did not offer praise, relief, or even a hint of satisfaction.
"The quartz? Was it present?" Kaelen asked.
"We found two distinct veins of deep-veined quartz exposed beneath the frost melt near the perimeter, consistent with your prediction of the creature's mineral objective. We also confirmed the geological formation of its carapace joints were precisely as described, with mineral absorption sites near the shoulders and stifles," Varrick stated, every word feeling like a surrender of his military autonomy. "Your Highness, your tactical assessment was... impossible."
Kaelen finally turned, his eyes sunken and impossibly old in the young man's face. He looked at Varrick with a detached, clinical expression.
"It was simple pattern recognition, Captain. The Empress's intelligence network failed because it relies on static reports. The true enemy, whether beast or human, is fluid. You succeeded because you followed orders derived from a complete understanding of the environment, not outdated doctrine."
Kaelen pushed a piece of parchment across the table, not touching it with his hand, but using a salvaged piece of slate. It was a list of five specific, immediate tasks.
"You have proven your competence, Captain. Now you must apply it to the political landscape. Lady Seraphina arrives in approximately nine hours. She will be looking for three things: evidence of your incompetence, evidence of my illness, and evidence of any unusual magical expenditure."
Kaelen paused, emphasizing each point with a subtle, chilling calm.
"First, ensure every trace of the Behemoth's death is cleared from the south-east flank. Remove the corpse, bury the ballistae, and salt the earth. I want that sector to look deserted and untouched. There must be no evidence that a Tier 5 creature ever entered this quadrant. If Seraphina's Mana-Sensitive Shields register any residual energy from the fight, she will question the official reports."
"Second, you will assign four men to be visibly tending the north wall, making a great show of minor, irrelevant repairs. Seraphina expects us to be focused on the north, because that is the politically correct enemy. Give her what she expects."
"Third, you will personally ensure that every man in the garrison is briefed on my 'condition.' I am weak, feverish, and dependent on their assistance. I have not been sleeping due to terrible headaches. You, Captain Varrick, are the sole authority keeping this garrison from collapse. That is the story Seraphina must believe."
Varrick stared at the list. Kaelen was not just a strategist; he was a political choreographer, treating the Empress's envoy as a final, predictable variable in a massive, multi-tiered equation.
"And the Behemoth remains?" Varrick asked. "The hide alone is worth a fortune. We could report the kill, claim the bounty…"
"No," Kaelen cut him off, the single word sharp and final. "The kill is a tactical truth, not a political one. If the Empire believes Stonehaven can defeat a Tier 5 Behemoth with four men, they will stop sending supplies, believing we are self-sufficient. We need them to believe we are desperate. The Behemoth is our secret asset, not our public victory."
Varrick swallowed hard, realizing the Prince's goals extended far beyond mere survival. They extended into the total manipulation of the Imperial system.
"Understood, Your Highness. I will execute the cleanup and the deception immediately. The south-east ridge will be invisible by morning."
Varrick executed his final, crispest salute, the gesture now devoid of skepticism. He still did not know how Prince Alaric, the exiled noble, possessed the tactical memory of a genius general, but he no longer cared. The Prince had predicted the monster's arrival to the minute, and his leadership had saved Varrick's life and reputation. Varrick was secured, not by gold or justice, but by the cold, irrefutable logic of success. He turned and strode out of the tower, ready to clean up the greatest victory of his military career and hide it from the Empire.
Captain Varrick was now a loyal operative in Prince Alaric's shadowy, meticulously planned war.