HAREM: WARLOCK OF THE SOUTH

The world ahead was a spine of jagged stone, its silhouette cutting a black line against the bruised-purple sky. The Hollow Pass was no gentle mountain crossing—it was a wound carved through the bones of the earth, a narrow, twisting throat where armies were swallowed whole and spat out broken, if they were spat out at all. Ryon walked at the head of the column, boots striking the frost-hardened soil in a steady rhythm that echoed the thudding of his own heart. Behind him stretched the great train of the Ashen Host: ranks of armored soldiers, banners snapping in the thin wind, the glint of steel like a thousand eyes watching the horizon. They marched in silence, not because they lacked courage, but because every man and woman there knew the Pass had earned its name with blood older than any of them.

The cold air bit into their lungs. Even the horses exhaled great clouds of steam that drifted behind them like phantoms. Somewhere in the high crags, a hawk cried, its voice thin and distant, and the sound seemed almost mocking—as if the wild things knew that men did not belong here. Ryon adjusted the strap of his cloak, its fur-lined weight comforting but heavy, and glanced toward the ridgeline. Up there, the shadows seemed to move, but he knew better than to trust his eyes; the Hollow Pass played tricks on the senses. It had been the site of countless ambushes—where the enemy used height and stone to rain death upon those foolish enough to march through without vigilance.

Beside him, Captain Alric's jaw was set hard. The older warrior had been in more battles than most men had seen seasons, but even he kept glancing up at the peaks, hand never straying far from the hilt of his sword. "The wind's wrong," Alric muttered under his breath, low enough that only Ryon could hear. "Carries no scent of snow. It smells… stale."

Ryon nodded without replying. He felt it too—a strange flatness in the air, as if the wind had forgotten to move freely, as though something ahead was swallowing it.

Behind them, the war-drummers struck a slow, deliberate beat. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom. Each pulse vibrated through the stones underfoot, syncing the heartbeat of the host into one relentless cadence. Between the beats, the clinking of armor, the creak of leather, and the low murmur of war-priests chanting prayers were all that dared disturb the silence. Every so often, a soldier would cough, and even that small sound would draw glances—as if each man feared his voice might wake something ancient that slumbered in the dark cleft ahead.

As they climbed toward the mouth of the Pass, the walls of rock began to loom higher, the sky narrowing to a jagged ribbon above. The setting sun painted the peaks in blood-orange light, and the shadows within the gorge deepened, swallowing details until the interior was no more than a yawning blackness. Ryon slowed his pace, letting the vanguard spread out. This was the point of no return. Once inside, retreat would be almost impossible. A handful of archers could hold this ground against an army ten times their size, and Ryon knew—he knew—the enemy would be waiting.

He thought of the Council of Ash and Oath, of the sharp-eyed men and women who had tried to sway him toward hesitation, toward safer roads. But safer roads took time, and time was a luxury the South no longer had. The enemy's forces were moving quickly through the North; to delay would be to allow them to dig in, to fortify. No. The Pass was a gamble, but it was his gamble. And as the wind moaned softly through the high stone, he clenched his fists and accepted the weight of it.

"Signal the scouts," Ryon ordered. His voice carried easily over the quiet. Within moments, lean, hooded riders slipped ahead, their mounts' hooves striking the stone with muted clops. They disappeared into the darkness, swallowed whole in less than a dozen paces. The rest of the army waited, breath steaming, eyes fixed forward. Minutes stretched, became long enough for doubts to creep in. But then the scouts reemerged, their signals clear—no sign of the enemy yet, the way open.

It felt too clean.

They moved forward.

The first steps into the Pass were like stepping into another world. The air grew colder, sharper. Sounds became strange—echoing oddly, bouncing off unseen ledges, returning as whispers rather than reflections. Even the horses shifted nervously, their ears twitching at every stray drip of water from the rocks above. The stone walls rose so high that they seemed to scrape the clouds. Thin trickles of ice clung to the cracks, catching what little light remained and gleaming faintly, like the eyes of something hidden. Ryon's hand drifted to his sword hilt almost without thought.

Hours passed in this slow, tense progress. The column wound deeper into the gorge, its shape stretching and bending with the terrain. Torches were lit as the sky above darkened to indigo, their light painting the walls in wavering gold and shadow. More than once, Ryon caught movement in his periphery—shapes on the heights, gone the moment he looked. He kept his voice steady when he ordered the archers to nock arrows and scan the ridges. They obeyed without hesitation, bows raised toward the dark.

Then came the sound. A faint clatter, like stone striking stone, from far ahead. The column halted instantly, tension rippling down its length. Ryon lifted a hand, signaling for silence. The sound came again—this time closer, echoing unnaturally. From the gloom ahead, a figure emerged. Alone. Cloaked. The torchlight caught on something at its side, and Ryon's breath stilled when he recognized the distinctive hilt of a Northern war-sword.

The figure stopped just at the edge of the torchlight, lowering its hood. A man's face, pale as snow, scarred from temple to jaw. His smile was not the smile of a man greeting an enemy—it was the smile of a man who knew he had already trapped you. "Ryon of the South," he called, his voice carrying in strange, distorted waves. "We've been waiting."

And then the walls above came alive. From every ledge, from every crack in the stone, Northern soldiers rose like phantoms, their armor blackened to blend with the shadows. Arrows gleamed briefly in the torchlight before they were loosed in a deadly rain. The first volley struck the front ranks, shields raising too late to catch them all. Men and women cried out, some falling without a sound. The drummers beat faster now, a rallying call, and the Ashen Host roared in answer, the gorge filling with the clash of steel on steel as the battle for the Hollow Pass began in earnest.

Ryon drew his sword, its edge catching firelight, and his voice thundered through the chaos: "Forward! Break them here!"

The Pass answered with its own roar—a wind surging down the gorge, carrying with it the scent of blood, steel, and the promise that none would leave unchanged.