"We buried our dead in ash. We sang no songs. The wind carried no victory, only warning."
From the journals of the Black Vein Sentinel, Year 3 Post-Siege
The battlefield no longer roared.
It breathed. Shuddered. Sank.
Smoke curled gently now, rising from the last of the shattered siege pits and oil-fed pyres. Wolves padded through the wreckage, low growls replaced with quiet panting. The Stormguard stood among the bodies like statues left behind after a cataclysm.
But some of the squires wept.
Some stared at nothing. Others simply sat in the mud, holding the hands of the dead, brothers, mentors, friends.
The Stormguards did not weep. They had no tears left. The Chasm and the Crucible had burned them dry. By dawn, these squires would be halfway to becoming Stormguard themselves. This was their last sorrow.
Ash fell like gray snow.
Wen Tu crouched near the wounded, sleeves rolled, hands glowing faintly as he moved from one soldier to the next. His lips whispered constant prayers, though his eyes were distant. One man clutched his thigh, blood pouring from a jagged wound. Wen Tu pressed his palm over it. The bleeding slowed, then stopped.
"You'll keep that leg," Wen Tu said. "But not the limp."
The soldier laughed through his tears. "Monk... you're a storm-sent miracle."
Wen Tu smiled. It was faint. Quiet. His humor felt far away.
Nyzekh moved silently among the tents, dragging broken standards and snapping the rusted remains of enemy weapons. He collected no trophies. He searched no bodies. Instead, he found the old altar at the center of the shaman ring. There, he knelt, staring into the dying coals as if listening for something beneath the silence.
Nearby, Stormguard veterans and squires dragged the corpses of goblins and orcs into blackening heaps. Some had burst open, their green blood hissing as it touched soil. From the cursed ichor, spore-veins pulsed, already threading into the ground. The elementalist war mages raised their hands and summoned flame. Pyres roared to life. The fire did not burn for honor, but for cleansing. The blood had to be purged.
The flames consumed not only flesh, but possibility. That which could rise again from spore and rot now smoldered into ash.
Kael approached as Ryoku finished binding his arm with leather cord.
"Seventy-eight dead on our side," Ryoku said. "Twelve more may not last the night."
Kael didn't respond immediately. He watched a Stormguard carry his fallen brother to the pyre lines. They did not weep. There were no priests here. Only flame.
"We burn them tonight," Kael said. "Full rites. Armor and blade."
Bruga stood at the edge of the gorge, staring down into the cliffs below where the last orcs had fallen or thrown themselves into the abyss. His axe hung from his back. His arms were crossed, muscles twitching with tension that refused to ease.
Kael walked to him.
Bruga didn't look away.
"How many did you kill?" Kael asked.
Bruga rolled his shoulders. "Enough that my arms are shaking. That's a first."
Kael gave him a sidelong glance. "You ever been shaken before?"
Bruga finally looked at him.
"Once. When I was ten. It was winter. My father made me sleep in the snow because I cried during training. Said tears were heat leaving the soul."
Kael smirked. "And now?"
Bruga's eyes narrowed toward the battlefield. "Now I understand what real cold looks like. It's not snow. It's silence after the killing stops."
Then, amidst the soot and silence, a shadow moved against the light.
A messenger bird, feathers ragged, descended fast. It landed on Kael's arm with a weak screech. The scroll on its leg bore the seal of Stormwake.
Kael broke the seal and read quickly.
His face turned grave.
"Scouts spotted a second wave. Ten thousand strong. Half a day out."
Silence fell over the command tent.
The disciples gathered. Wen Tu, Ryoku, Bruga, and Nyzekh. They exchanged no long words, just nods and the silent resolve of those who had stood in fire before.
Wen Tu spoke first. "We're less than a cohort. Hundreds are wounded. Do we retreat?"
No one answered at first.
Then Nyzekh, quiet as ashfall, said, "We fight."
Ryoku blinked. "What? We are fewer than thirteen hundred. The wounded..."
"Help will come," Nyzekh said. "But if we retreat, what happens to the steppe people? If we abandon this path, the horde will spill into their lands. They won't be able to flee in time. This is the gate to the steppe."
Wen Tu nodded slowly. "Then we make our stand here."
Bruga spat blood into the dirt. "Let them come. We'll give them a grave to climb over."
The Stormguard Iron Hands also agreed to stay and fight. Saran, their captain, stepped forward with his officers. Their armor bore the dents and soot of battle, but none hesitated. They stood behind the disciples, wordless in their conviction.
Kael began issuing orders.
The severely wounded Stormguards were to be escorted by squires to the nomad camp they had rescued. Some squires would serve as messengers to the surrounding nomad tribes, warning them and calling for aid. Most of the squires and Stormguards not too wounded to lift blade or bow chose to stay. They wanted to fight.
The Stormguards chose a low hill, a rise sturdy enough to form a circle defense. The earth would be shaped and hardened.
The plan was simple.
War mages and elementalists laced the outer ring with layered traps: glowing sigils, mine-runes designed to detonate with elemental force upon movement, and pits masked by illusion. The 500 Stormguards would form the first circle. Behind them, 700 squires with bows would create a second ring, loosing arrows through the gaps.
At the core stood the elementalists, healers, and Wen Tu, whose will would anchor the defense.
The Qorjin-Ke scouts hid with the mounts at the rear slope, concealed by brush and illusion. If the lines broke, they would ride in to pull survivors out.
They became an island in the coming flood.
And they waited.
Not with fear.
But resolve.