The column of one hundred and five militia men snaked southward along the newly cleared road to AshenVale, the Tenebrae brothers spaced evenly among their squads like anchors in a storm-tossed sea. Roland rode at the vanguard, eyes scanning the treeline for ambushes; Chris and Tom bantered quietly about harpy feathers making fine quill pens; Sam drilled his men on lizardman weak points—scales thin at the joints; Harold and Jeffrey murmured wards of vigilance; Matthew brought up the rear, his youthful voice calling cadence to keep the pace steady. Three days' march lay ahead, but the air hummed with purpose, the black-sun crests on their shields a defiant gleam against the encroaching wilds.
Miles away, in the heart of Eldermere, Viscount Frederick Fairbourne sealed ten urgent summonses with his signet ring, the eagle-and-scepter emblem pressing deep into crimson wax. His hands trembled slightly—residual shock from the capital's dire news. The kingdom's foundations cracked, and the frontier must know before the fissures swallowed them whole. He dispatched riders to the ten most notable figures across the Gilded Wilds' three settlements: men of influence, skill, and resolve who could steady their communities in crisis.
Among them was Byrt Tenebrae, former Captain of the Royal Guard, whose military prowess had once safeguarded the Solmire throne. Others included Stanley Levithoro, head of Eldermere's premier smithing family, a veteran armorer who'd forged weapons for the Orcish Incursion under old King Maximus, his hammers ringing through battles that turned tides. From AshenVale came Ealdor Thorne, a master forester and scout whose keen eyes had mapped the Eldersong Fields' hidden passes, saving countless lives during elven border skirmishes. Black Hollow sent Garrick Stonehewer, a quarry master and engineer who'd built unbreachable fortifications in the southern peaks, his designs holding against dragonfire sieges. Also summoned: Mirael Voss, Eldermere's herbalist sage, a healer who'd tended wounds in the Emberhold Siege with potions that defied death; Harlan Piffel, a farmer-lord from AshenVale whose innovative irrigation spells fed armies during famines; Thorne Calder, Black Hollow's alchemist, inventor of explosive runes that shattered orcish war machines; Lirael Windmere, Eldermere's archer-captain, a sharpshooter whose arrows felled war-chiefs from impossible distances; Durin Blackthorn, AshenVale's beast-tamer, who'd domesticated griffons for royal scouts; and finally, Silas Ironvein, Black Hollow's miner overlord, a delving expert who'd uncovered lost dwarven relics in Maximus's campaigns.
The summons reached the Tenebrae compound by midday, a rider thundering up the path with dust in his wake. Byrt accepted the sealed parchment at the gate, his callused fingers breaking the wax with a practiced snap. Cindy hovered at his shoulder, the girls peering from the porch, Belfin and Ophelia clinging to her skirts.
Byrt's eyes scanned the words: Urgent assembly at the manor. Matters of kingdom security. Attendance mandatory.
He folded it slowly, brow furrowing. "Viscount calls. Notable heads from all three settlements. Must be grave—Fairbourne doesn't summon lightly."
Cindy's hand found his arm, magic humming faintly in her touch—a subtle ward of safe return. "The boys just left… and now this?"
Byrt pulled her close, kissing her forehead. "I'll ride swift, learn what shadows loom. Keep the home fires burning, love. Girls—mind your mother. Belfin, Ophelia—no pranks while I'm gone, eh?"
The twins nodded solemnly, though Ophelia's eyes twinkled with mischief. Clarice hugged him fiercely. "Bring word back soon, Father." Roselda whispered a quick enchantment over his cloak, warding against chill and ill intent. Eden, Landina, and Elizabeth clustered for quick embraces, their small hands pressing tokens—a carved rune, a dried herb sachet, a sewn charm.
Byrt saddled his horse, a sturdy bay named Ironhoof, and set out along the winding paths toward Eldermere's center. The trek would take three hours on horseback, through fields and forested stretches. Not half an hour in, he encountered Stanley Levithoro riding from his forge, soot still dusting his broad shoulders.
"Byrt! Figured you'd be summoned too," Stanley boomed, reining in. "What's the world coming to—pulling old hammers like me from the anvil?"
Byrt chuckled, clasping forearms. "Stanley, you old fire-eater. How's the family? Tyrell still mooning over Clarice?"
Stanley grinned. "Boy's forged her a necklace fit for a queen. And your brood? Heard the seven lads marched south—proud day."
"Aye, testing their mettle. Your lands thriving? That new vein we mined feeding your forges well?"
"Like a dragon's hoard. But yours? Without the boys, mine must feel quiet."
Byrt nodded. "Quiet as a tomb. Cindy's magic keeps it humming, though."
They rode on, soon joined by Harlan Piffel from a crossroads, his horse laden with sample crops. "Gentlemen! Summons got you too? My fields are bursting—enchanted rains working wonders. Your kids, Byrt—how many now? Enough to start their own kingdom?"
Byrt laughed. "Fourteen and counting, Harlan. Yours? That irrigation spell of yours must be breeding bumper harvests—and heirs."
"Five sturdy lads, three clever lasses. But this call… reckon it's beasts? Or worse?"
Stanley grunted. "Worse, I'd wager. Fairbourne's face at the last meeting—pale as milk."
Speculation flowed as more joined: Lirael Windmere overtaking them with her lithe mare, bow slung across her back. "Comrades! What's the bet—capital troubles? My arrows itch for action."
"Could be taxes," Harlan mused. "Or reinforcements finally coming."
Byrt shook his head. "Too soon for replies from the capital. Feels like storm clouds gathering."
The group swelled—Ealdor Thorne slipping from the woods like a shadow, Garrick Stonehewer rumbling up on a draft horse, the others converging at junctions. Banter lightened the miles: tales of children's antics, lands prospering or plagued, old battles relived. "Remember Blackridge, Byrt?" Stanley teased. "You pulled me from that rubble—now look at us, summoned like green recruits."
After three hours' ride, the manor loomed—stone walls aglow in afternoon sun. Servants in Fairbourne livery welcomed them at the gates, stabling horses with efficient grace. "The Viscount awaits in the audience chamber, sirs."
Inside, the chamber was packed: thirty men total, ten from each settlement, a mix of the summoned notables and their key aides. Fairbourne stood at the dais, face drawn, no trace of his usual wry smile.
The group filed in, murmurs dying. Stanley broke the tension with a bark of laughter. "Viscount early? Gods, the kingdom must be ending—Fairbourne beating us to a meeting!"
Harlan chuckled. "Aye, next the harpies'll sing ballads and lizardmen dance jigs."
Fairbourne managed a ghost of a smile, but his eyes remained shadowed. A nervous silence fell, thick as fog, broken only by shifting boots and cleared throats.
"Gentlemen," Fairbourne began, voice steady but laced with gravity. "Thank you for coming swiftly. What I share comes from the capital—not the reinforcements we hoped, but peril far greater."
He unfolded the royal missive, reading aloud in a measured tone, the words penned in a familiar hand—likely from Sir Reginald Hale, a longtime court advisor and mutual acquaintance of Fairbourne's from his commoner days, a man known for his blunt counsel and deep loyalty to the realm. The letter bore Hale's signature style: direct, personal, laced with urgency as if warning an old friend over ale rather than through formal decree.
"My dear Frederick," Fairbourne read, "I write not as a courtier but as one who remembers our shared climbs from the dust. The shadows have deepened here, and you must know before they reach your wilds. Duke Vermont, the Iron-Fist himself, has forsaken his oaths. Three nights past, under cover of storm, he led his heavy cavalry—those same legions that crushed the orcs at Ironspike—to seize Fort Grimhold, the king's northern stronghold. No grand siege; he used his old keys from Maximus's era, marching in like a thief in his own home, disarming the garrison with promises of shared glory before chaining the loyalists in the dungeons. By dawn, the fort's banners flew his colors, and he's already redirecting the grain shipments south to his own estates, starving the capital's reserves. Vermont claims the king squanders the realm's strength on frontier follies like yours, but we know it's ambition gnawing at him—ten years Augustus's senior, he served Maximus as a brother, yet chafes under a 'boy-king's' rule.
"Worse still, Duke Winsington, the Flame Sorcerer, has joined the rot. Two days after Vermont's move, Winsington struck at the arcane vaults in Emberhold, the very siege he once defended. He wove illusions to mask his approach, then unleashed targeted flames—not wild blazes, but precise strikes that melted locks and incinerated wards without harming the structures. His mages overpowered the guards, binding them with chains of heated air, and carted off relics and spell-tomes worth a kingdom's ransom. He's holed up in his tower now, fortifying it with barriers of living fire, and word is he's diverting river flows with evaporation spells to flood rival lands, all while proclaiming the king's court 'corrupt and unworthy' of Maximus's legacy. At sixty, with a decade on Augustus, Winsington mentored the prince in arcane strategy—now he twists that knowledge like a dagger in the back.
"Frederick, old friend, guard your flanks. The center frays; alliances shatter. Hold the wilds, for if the heart falls, the limbs must stand alone. With vigilance, Reginald."
Fairbourne lowered the parchment, the chamber erupting in a cacophony of rage and disbelief.
"Traitors! The Iron-Fist and the Sorcerer—spitting on Maximus's grave!" Stanley bellowed, face reddening like his forge, slamming a fist into his palm.
"By the gods, Vermont seizing Grimhold like a common bandit? After all those years of iron loyalty?" Harlan Piffel snarled, his usually calm demeanor shattered, veins bulging in his neck.
"Astonishing—Winsington burning his own bridges? The man's flames turned inward!" Ealdor Thorne spat, hand twitching toward a absent dagger.
"Shockin' betrayal! Served the old king like kin, now this?" Garrick Stonehewer roared, his engineer's precision forgotten in fury.
Mirael Voss gasped, hand to her chest. "The vaults plundered? Those tomes could heal or destroy— in traitor hands?"
"We march on the capital! Rally our militias—crush these dogs before they spread!" Silas Ironvein thundered, stepping forward with clenched fists, his miner's build coiled like a spring.
Byrt raised a hand, voice cutting through the din like a captain's command. "Hold, Silas. Rage blinds us. We've beasts at our gates here—goblins, harpies, worse. Strip the wilds bare to chase court snakes, and we lose everything we've built. No—the center's storm must rage without us. We hold the edge, strengthen our own. That's survival."
Murmurs of reluctant agreement rippled, tempers cooling under Byrt's steady gaze, though fury simmered beneath.
As the weight settled, horror etching every face, the scene shifted abruptly southward.
The Tenebrae brothers' column crested a ridge, AshenVale sprawling below: timber walls scarred by claws, smoke rising from fresh breaches. Chaos reigned—thirty harpies wheeling in the sky, divebombing the ramparts with shrieks that pierced the air, talons raking defenders. At the gates, lizardmen hordes pressed, scales glinting as they clashed with the desperate militia, spears thrusting at the very threshold.
Roland raised his shield. "Form up! Shields high—"
A piercing screech cut him short. A lone harpy broke from the flock, wings folding as it plummeted toward the company, talons extended like daggers from the sky.