Ashfang Mountains – Border of the Abyssal Rift Year 312 of the Demon Calendar, 9th day of the Frost Moon
The wind up here had teeth.
It clawed through the gaps in Krax's armor and sank them straight into bone. Every breath tasted of ash and iron filings.
The legion marched in ragged silence, five hundred demons strong, yet somehow Krax still felt alone in the middle of them.
He was always alone in the middle of them.
Up ahead, the veterans joked in low voices, passing a skin of fermented blood-wine that never reached the back ranks.
Their armor was black iron and crimson runes; his was whatever scraps the quartermaster had left after the real soldiers took their pick.
A dented pauldron that hung to his waist.
A gorget two sizes too big. Greaves that clanked like cookpots.
And the spear.
Gods below, the spear.
Four meters of blackened yew meant for an ogre berserker.
The balance was all wrong; the weight sat at the tip like it wanted to fall over and die.
Krax had to carry it diagonally across his back just to keep it from dragging. Every step made the butt-cap scrape sparks off the rocks.
Someone behind him laughed when it happened again.
"Look, the runt's making music."
Krax didn't turn. He knew the voice: Urkash, a broad-shouldered imp with filed tusks and a brand-new chain shirt he'd won in a dice game. Urkash had been tormenting him since basic training.
Basic training.
Six months of being used as a practice dummy.
Six months of coming last in every drill, every spar, every written exam on flame cantrips. The instructors had stopped bothering to learn his name by week two. They just pointed and said, "You. Bleed for the others so they can learn."
He bled a lot.
The column halted.
Captain Vorgath stood on a boulder, wings half-spread for balance, surveying the ravine ahead.
He was a true demon: seven feet tall, obsidian horns curling like a ram's, scars glowing faintly with old spell-burns. When he spoke, the mountain itself seemed to listen.
"Double-S rank raid party," he announced. "Humans. Call themselves the Dawn Covenant. They breached the outer wards at dawn and are heading straight for the Rift Gate."
A low hiss rippled through the ranks. Double-S. The kind of rating that made even high demons nervous.
"They're five," Vorgath continued. "We're five hundred. Numbers are on our side. But they're fast, and their saint has that damned sword. We bleed them here, in the choke, before they reach the Gate. Understood?"
Grim nods. Fangs bared. Weapons drawn.
Krax's stomach folded in on itself.
He had heard stories about the Saint of Dawn, Callion. They said his blade had drunk the blood of three demon lords. They said sunlight followed him into caves. They said when he prayed, the gods actually answered.
Vorgath's gaze swept the legion and, inevitably, stopped on the back row.
"Krax."
The name hit harder than any fist.
The captain crooked a finger.
Every head turned.
Five hundred pairs of eyes. Some amused, some pitying, most just relieved it wasn't them.
Krax's legs moved before his mind caught up. The oversized spear dragged behind him like an anchor. He stopped five paces from the captain and tried to salute. The spear tip dipped and nearly took his own foot off.
Vorgath didn't smile. "You're scouting the ravine."
"Sir, I—"
"You're small. You're quiet. You won't be missed if something goes wrong." Vorgath's voice was almost kind. "Make noise. Draw them out. Buy us thirty seconds to form the trap."
Thirty seconds.
Krax felt the world tilt.
Around him the veterans were already moving, forming two silent wings on either side of the ravine mouth.
Pikes lowered.
Spell circles began to glow under clawed palms. They were preparing an ambush.
And he was the bait.
He searched their faces for anything: mercy, guilt, even disgust.
Found nothing.
Urkash gave him a cheerful thumbs-up, as if to say, Try not to die too quick, runt.
Someone pushed a cracked horn-helm into his hands. "Wear this. Makes you look scarier."
It didn't fit.
One horn poked through a jagged hole meant for something twice as thick.
Krax looked back once more, desperate.
There was a girl in the supply corps, Mirri, who sometimes slipped him an extra mushroom when no one was watching. She stood at the edge of the group now, ears flat, eyes wide.
She opened her mouth; maybe to protest, maybe to wish him luck, but a senior imp elbowed her silent.
The message was clear: Don't waste breath on the dead.
Vorgath placed one massive hand on Krax's shoulder and squeezed, just hard enough to crack bone.
"Make us proud, soldier."
Then he turned away, already discussing kill-zones and mana thresholds.
Krax walked toward the ravine alone.
The wind died the moment he stepped between the black walls.
Sound became thick, muffled.
His hooves echoed too loud. The spear scraped stone with every step, shrieking like a dying thing.
Ten meters in, he started shaking so hard his teeth chattered.
Twenty meters, he whispered the only prayer he knew, an old rhyme about the Moon Mother who carried weak children home on her back. His voice cracked on every word.
At thirty meters the ravine widened into a snow-dusted clearing no bigger than a village square.
They were already there.