"When the ground itself remembers the dead, you do not retreat. You dig in. You become the memory."—Attributed to Koryun the War-Sighted
The remaining cohort ate in silence. No toasts. No prayers. Just the quiet rhythm of chewing and sharpening, of breath drawn slow and steel checked for nicks. Some Stormguard trained their squires lightly, more reminder than rehearsal. Others sat alone, eyes closed, seeing the battle already. Wen Tu meditated without a word. Kael stared into the dark, sword across his knees.
Dawn broke over the steppe like a blade pulled from its sheath.
A scout returned, face pale beneath his dust-caked helm.
"Goblins and orcs. South slope. Hundreds—no, thousands."
The ground trembled.
Kael narrowed his eyes. "First wave approaching."
Dust rose from the low valley below, blotting the wind in thick plumes. Silhouettes took shape—misshapen bodies, hunched and many-limbed, spread wide across the steppe. Goblins. Hundreds. Then thousands. Behind them, the broad shapes of orcs. Tall. Thick-necked. Weapons forged from bone and rusted steel gleamed under the pale light.
A low murmur passed through the defenders.
Bruga exhaled slowly and stepped forward from the front line.
"Hold," Kael said. "What are you doing?"
Bruga didn't answer. He walked up the slope until he stood above the circle, alone. He raised his axe, and his body tensed. The veins in his arms pulsed with heat. The ground beneath his feet scorched faintly.
He inhaled once, deep and slow.
Then he roared.
It wasn't a voice. It was a shockwave.
His qi burst outward in a thunderclap, a primal howl forged of fire and fury, bellowed in the tongue of the steppe, the old words of the mountain ancestors. It crashed down the hill, echoing across the plain like a god's challenge hurled across time.
"COME, THEN! BRING YOUR FIRE AND FILTH! I AM BRUGA, SON OF FIRE AND BLADE! FACE ME IF YOU DARE TO DIE IN A CIRCLE OF ASH!"
The goblins faltered. The orcs behind them slowed. Confusion rippled through their ranks. Even the war drums paused.
Then the growling began.
Guttural. Furious.
The horde responded with a thousand howls, spurred by rage and pride. Drums thundered anew. Their pace quickened.
"They took the bait," Ryoku muttered, a grin touching his lips. "You just pissed off ten thousand of them."
Bruga returned to the line, still smoldering with qi. "Good. Now they'll come straight for me."
Kael nodded once. "Positions. This is it."
The goblins came first.
Thousands of them, shrieking and clambering over one another, swarming across the grasslands like ants. Small bodies, blades of bone and jagged metal. No formation. Just speed and numbers.
Kael raised his hand.
"Archers."
The squires who stayed behind stood firm. Arrows knocked. Breath held.
"Loose."
Hundreds of arrows rained down. The goblins didn't even try to shield themselves. Many fell in heaps, pinned to the dirt, green blood spurting from ruptured throats and eyes. Others were skewered mid-jump, limbs flailing as they collapsed into their kin, staining the earth with bile and gore.
"Second volley."
Flaming arrows hissed down like falling stars. The front line of goblins caught fire, igniting with high-pitched screams. Burning limbs flailed as the creatures ran in circles, spreading the blaze to their own.
Kael's voice rang out. "War mages."
The war mages stepped forward, spaced between the Stormguard line. Hands outstretched. Words of fire and ruin hissed from their tongues.
Bolts of lightning cracked through the air, turning groups of goblins into steaming piles of twisted corpses. Gouts of flame spiraled into the mob, reducing flesh to blackened husks. Frost missiles detonated with sharp snaps, freezing dozens in place, then shattering them as goblins behind plowed through their brittle corpses.
Still, they came.
Kael shouted, "Elementalists."
From the center, the elementalists answered.
Torrents of wind slashed sideways, flaying goblins alive as skin peeled from bone. Spikes of stone erupted from beneath their feet, impaling through guts, chests, skulls. Green ichor sprayed in arcs across the battlefield. Vines burst from the soil, wrapping around throats and limbs, dragging writhing goblins under. Some disappeared screaming into sinkholes of thorned roots.
Still, they came.
Then they reached the traps.
Illusion-masked pits shimmered and flickered, revealing false ground lined with jagged iron teeth. Goblins screamed as they plunged down, impaled on ancient stormforged stakes. Mine-runes flared as they triggered upon movement, detonating in bursts of elemental fury. Fire mines erupted, consuming entire clusters of goblins in pillars of flame. Ice mines shattered on impact, freezing a wide radius into jagged tombs of frost. Some goblins halted mid-charge, their legs encased in sudden ice before shattering under their own momentum.
The hillside was a butcher's slope. Banners flickered in the wind behind the defenders. Broken shields, planted into the soil like grave markers, served as the last visual border before chaos.
Then the hill answered with something deeper.
Wen Tu stood alone among the scattered defenders, his breath steady, his eyes half-lidded in trance. Around him, the carnage crackled and screamed. But he knelt and pressed a hand to the dirt. The runes and mines had done their part. Now, the world itself would speak.
The chant began as a whisper, low and ancient.
"Vur'asha tal'nein...
Thrae'vyn no kael'an...
Eshuth na ruun'shara...
Vel'maruuth... bloom."
The syllables slipped from his tongue like roots unfurling underground. The ground in front of the hill did not shake. It groaned.
Deep beneath, a pulse answered. Then came the tearing.
The earth split, not with fire or thunder, but with hunger.
Roots burst forth, tangled and thorned, slick with rot. They did not rise. They surged, threading through goblin ranks, impaling, dragging, devouring.
Compared to the traps, Wen Tu's sutra was no simple ward or mine. It was judgment.
Nature itself uncoiled. Vines thick as torsos snapped bone and blade alike. Screams gurgled under choking sap. Blood fountained skyward. Goblins stumbled, howling in confusion, only to be swallowed whole by grasping earth. The mist that followed curled low, wrapping throats, blinding eyes, seeping into lungs.
And in that veil of rot and madness, the final cry of a crooked goblin horn broke.
It was not a call to rally.
It was surrender to the hill.
Over two thousand goblins were devoured, consumed by root and soil. Their bodies were crushed, drained, and forgotten beneath the earth.
Bruga stood in stunned silence, eyes wide as the ground quieted once more.
He let out a slow breath, then chuckled darkly.
"Wen Tu... remind me never to be on your bad side."
But he wasn't about to be outmatched.
Bruga dug his heels into the blood-slick dirt and raised both arms. The veins along his forearms glowed faintly, magma beneath skin.
He had made a skill too. His own. His answer to the elementalists and monks alike.
He drew in breath, deep and slow, his lungs expanding with qi-infused heat. The air shimmered around him. Then he roared.
It wasn't just sound. It was combustion.
From the base of the hill, a shockwave of molten energy burst outward in a ring. Lava and flame spiraled in a wave, a rising circle of inferno racing down the slope. The earth hissed and cracked where it touched. Grass blackened, turned to soot. Goblin bodies ignited mid-sprint, shrieking as they burned alive.
The ring left a glowing scar across the land — a halo of heat marking where Bruga drew the line.
Ryoku coughed behind him. "Your breath stinks and kills, Bruga."
Bruga just laughed softly, shoulders slumping as the energy left him. "Good. Means it worked."
Wen Tu, seated in meditation at the center of the chaos, opened his eyes. Calm. Focused. Without moving from his position, he traced a silent mudra in the air — a flowing gesture honed by years of discipline.
Golden threads of qi spiraled from his palms, not wild or forceful, but deliberate. Like breath in stillness. The energy coursed through the ground and into Bruga's core.
Bruga inhaled sharply as it hit — not a jolt, but a tide of steady power. The warmth reached his bones, like sunlight under his skin, not burning but purifying. Strength returned to his limbs. His heartbeat steadied. The exhaustion faded like mist before sunlight.
He flexed one hand and grinned. "Thanks, monk."
Wen Tu closed his eyes again and murmured, "Do not thank me. Breathe. Fight. Be present in the strike."
But the goblins kept coming.
Kael drew his blade.
"Stormguard, ready."
Steel met shield. Boots braced into the earth. Five hundred Stormguards stood at the front line, eyes narrowed, breaths measured.
And then the wave hit.
The goblins crashed into them like a living avalanche. The first ranks impaled themselves on spears. Others climbed over bodies, screeching with foam-caked jaws, stabbing with jagged bone. The Stormguard answered with cold precision.
Slash. Block. Step.
Strike. Pivot. Brace.
They moved not as individuals, but as a single blade forged in unity. Their armor ran slick with green blood, their shields coated in gore. Goblin ichor hissed on steel, sizzling where magick reacted with dying curses.
Behind them, the squires fired between gaps, arrows thudding into backs and skulls. Some goblins burst apart under sheer impact. Others staggered on, half-burned, entrails dragging behind them.
Wen Tu stood still at the center, arms raised, a glowing lotus of green and white swirling around him. Every time a Stormguard stumbled, roots rose to catch him. Every time a shield broke, earth flowed upward to reform it. He moved with eerie calm, even as the circle burned.
The goblins shrieked, but the Stormguard did not yell.
They sang.
Not in voice. But in rhythm.
Every movement, every breath, every kill — they moved in silent harmony, a hymn of death not sung, but carved into the flesh of the enemy.
Kael's sword danced, leaving broken bodies in his wake. Bruga's axe howled with every swing, cleaving heads and torsos in fountains of green. He was soaked, face to boots, in goblin blood, his laughter like thunder. Ryoku moved with brutal efficiency, hacking limbs, slicing tendons, every motion deliberate. Nyzekh was a ghost, blades whirling, appearing behind goblins before they could scream, leaving only slit throats and spilled bile.
The goblins did not break.
But they died.
In hundreds. Then thousands.
The hillside turned slick with gore. Slime and blood pooled in the ditches. Broken goblin bodies twitched in death, torn apart by spears, arrows, and the unrelenting fury of the defenders.
And the hill stood.
An island in a sea of blood.
In the distance, through the smoke and ruined mist, another shape stirred — something massive, shrouded in bone and warpaint, watching.
And waiting.