Kael woke on the morning of his fifteenth birthday to the scent of damp earth and steel oil. The Vanguard camp bustled as always; recruits and veterans alike moved with the tense rhythm of people who knew death might strike before sundown.
He sat up on his bunk, rolling his stiff shoulder. Nearby, Lyren was already lacing his boots, smirking.
"You sleep heavier every year. Getting old?"
Kael grunted, throwing a rolled bandage at his friend's head. Lyren caught it easily, grin widening. Despite everything — the horrors they faced, the friends they'd buried — moments like this made Kael feel human.
They joined Ayla, Garrick, Toma, and Nell by the mess tent. Everyone was thinner now, harder. Ayla's eyes seemed to weigh every person who passed. Toma still cracked jokes, though quieter these days. Garrick's hands were always restless, drumming on the table or checking the edges of his blades. Nell studied the movement of soldiers like he was memorizing every weakness.
As they finished a thin stew, horns blared across the camp. Kael's breath caught. Those weren't practice calls — that was the alarm. Dreadborn sighted. Too close.
Captain Daric's voice rolled over the grounds. "Form up! We stand at the outer trench line! Any man caught running will be cut down where he stands!"
Kael's heart pounded. He caught Lyren's gaze; neither needed words. They grabbed their spears and strapped on battered cuirasses, then jogged toward the low earthworks at the perimeter. All around them, squads fell in with grim precision.
Then the first Dreadborn broke through the tree line. They were larger this time — limbs thick and knotted like old oaks, bodies split by glowing cracks. One dropped to all fours, galloping toward them with terrifying speed. Arrows struck its torso but did nothing. Kael felt his mouth go dry.
"Hold until they close!" Daric shouted from down the line. "Aim for the head or don't bother living!"
The creature leapt the trench. Soldiers screamed, spears shattered under the weight. Blood sprayed. Kael lunged in, planting his weapon into its cheek, feeling it bite through something soft. The Dreadborn shrieked, claws flailing, nearly taking off his arm. Then Lyren slammed his blade into the exposed skull, twisting until there was a horrible crunch. The monster collapsed, quivering.
There was no time to breathe. More shapes moved through the trees — five, then ten. The line faltered. A huge one barreled into a cluster of fresh recruits, tearing three apart before anyone could react. Garrick and Toma charged in from the flank, blades glowing faintly with runes, hacking at the creature's legs. Ayla vaulted onto its back, driving twin short swords through the base of its neck until it toppled.
Kael tried to calm his shaking hands. He stepped over bodies — friend and foe — searching for the next threat. He found Nell instead, face pale, pointing with bloody fingers.
"They're breaking through east side — too thin there! Come on!"
They ran together. As they crested a small rise, Kael skidded to a halt. A group of their own soldiers — older boys from another squad, faces he recognized from drills — were hauling crates of supplies, running away from the line.
"What are you doing?" Kael shouted.
One of them, Terro, swung around, eyes wide with panic. "Forget this! We're not dying here for Daric's pride! The Obelisks will protect the next village. We'll make it there ourselves!"
Kael felt heat flash through him. Betrayal. The line was dying for lack of men, and here they were, abandoning them. Before he could move, Ayla was already there. Her blade cut low, slicing through a hamstring. Terro screamed, dropping the crate.
"Run again," Ayla said coldly, "and I'll finish it."
The others scattered, leaving Terro sobbing in the dirt. Kael wanted to feel righteous — instead there was only nausea curling through his gut. Lyren grabbed his arm.
"Come on. We're needed more than they ever were."
They plunged back toward the crumbling defense. Around them, Dreadborn fell — heads split, brains pulped under desperate steel. But so did men. Garrick took a swipe that laid open his side; he staggered, clutching the wound, until Toma hauled him back. Nell directed them with quick signals, guiding attacks to flank each monster, eyes sharp even under streaks of blood.
At the heart of it, Kael felt something new inside him — a pull, almost like a voice, whispering from the same dark place these creatures came from. Once, he nearly lost his footing, and for a heartbeat the world tilted strangely. The Dreadborn nearest him paused, its empty face tilting. It hesitated, claws dropping.
Kael struck then, driving his spear through its eye socket, ending it. He staggered back, chest heaving.
Later, when the battle was won and bodies were dragged into pyres, Ayla stood beside him in the smoke.
"You felt it," she said softly.
Kael didn't answer. He couldn't. Because she was right — and it terrified him. Somewhere deep in his blood, something answered the Dreadborn. And he feared what it might mean for all of them.
He turned fifteen that day under a sky blackened with ash, surrounded by the wounded cries of men and the hissing corpses of monsters, and wondered if growing older always felt like growing darker.
Winter bit hard that year. The fields outside the encampment lay under crusted snow, dotted with blackened pyres where burned Dreadborn remains smoked against the sky. Frost gathered on Kael's cloak as he trudged through the outer trench lines. He was fifteen now, though it hardly mattered — days and battles blurred, each one stripping another layer of youth from his face.
They were ordered east, toward the line near Frostpine, to reinforce a company that had nearly been overrun. Captain Daric moved them out at dawn, his breath steaming, eyes as cold as the wind. Lyren walked at Kael's side, humming under his breath to keep his teeth from chattering. Ayla, Toma, Garrick, and Nell marched just behind, eyes scanning the tree line. No one spoke of the last assault, of how close it had come to wiping them out.
At Frostpine, they found chaos. The local militia — poorly armed, terrified boys younger than Kael — stumbled over the half-frozen ground, digging hasty fortifications. Corpses lay where they fell, twisted into shapes that spoke of frantic last stands. Daric cursed under his breath.
"We take command," he told Kael's group. "These villagers are rabbits waiting to be torn apart. You've fought them before. Show them how soldiers hold."
Kael's gut tightened. Orders like that meant he'd be at the front, demonstrating for men who'd never driven steel into a living skull. They assembled the villagers into tight blocks. Lyren barked corrections on spear grips, Garrick physically shoved them into proper lines. Ayla moved up and down the ranks with icy calm, showing them where to brace.
Night fell. Frostpine's single bell tower rang twice — the warning. Dreadborn were coming. Kael could hear them before he saw them: that guttural chuffing breath, the scrape of claws over ice. His heartbeat thrummed in his throat. Around him, villagers tightened knuckles on their pikes, eyes wide and white.
The first of them burst from the trees — tall, twisted things with icicles hanging from lipless maws. They moved faster on frozen ground, claws kicking up shards of ice. Kael stepped forward without thinking. His blood roared. Somewhere deep, that same dark whisper unfurled, sharpening his focus. The Dreadborn's head snapped toward him, hesitated. In that half-second, Kael lunged, driving his spear point through its left eye.
Warm black fluid sprayed over the snow. The villagers behind him gasped.
More came. Dozens. The lines almost broke immediately. One group of militiamen threw down weapons and bolted — Kael saw them only long enough to watch claws tear them apart. Ayla dove into the gap they left, blades spinning, moving like she felt nothing at all. Garrick was there too, teeth gritted in a savage snarl as he hacked through a creature's knee.
Kael fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Lyren. Their breaths misted together, their weapons rose and fell together, each trusting the other to guard the flanks. When a massive Dreadborn barreled through, Lyren planted himself in its path, catching a backhand that sent him crashing into a mound of snow. Kael roared, driving his spear up under the monster's chin, feeling it shudder and drop. Then he was at Lyren's side, dragging him up.
"I'm fine—" Lyren started, coughing blood.
"Shut up," Kael snapped. He pressed a hand to his friend's side, felt warmth leaking through the cloth. "You'll be fine."
Around them, Nell's shouted orders kept what was left of the line from collapsing. Toma moved like a shadow, flanking Dreadborn, drawing their attention just long enough for militiamen to stab home. Ayla's face was splattered with black gore, her eyes bright, almost feverish.
By dawn, the field was a ruin. Broken bodies — human and otherwise — lay half-buried in churned snow. The survivors limped among the dead, searching for friends, finishing off twitching Dreadborn with short, exhausted thrusts.
Daric found Kael hours later, still standing guard over Lyren. The captain's armor was notched, his hair matted with frozen blood. He looked at Kael with something almost like approval.
"You held. They might have broken, but you didn't let them. That's how wars are won — not by grand charges, but by refusing to give ground when you're bone-tired and want to run."
Kael didn't know what to say. His arms felt like iron bars, his chest hollow. He just nodded.
That night, huddled around a tiny fire, Kael cleaned dried blood from Lyren's face. Ayla sat close, silent. Garrick snored on the other side, Toma's head resting on his shoulder. Nell wrote quick notes in a blood-streaked ledger, eyes darting up whenever a noise cracked through the dark.
Kael thought about the way the Dreadborn had hesitated, how it almost seemed to recognize him. A secret fear twisted in his gut. But he kept it down. They had won the day. They were alive. In this war, that was everything.