Rise of the Horde

The sun bled across the sky like a wounded beast.

It sank beneath the horizon in streaks of crimson and gold, casting the battlefield in a light too beautiful for the carnage it revealed. The crater was no longer just a strategic depression in the earth...it had become a grave for hundreds. Smoke coiled from shattered trench walls, rising through the settling dusk. The smell of scorched flesh clung to every breath. The ground itself felt soft beneath the boots of those still alive...soft not from soil, but from the sheer density of bodies strewn across it.

The war had not paused.

It had only changed rhythm.

*****

Major Gresham crouched beside the field desk inside the shattered command trench, using a slanted plank of half-burnt wood as a writing surface. His right hand gripped a quill slick with blood and grime. His left pressed down the edges of parchment already smudged with soot. There was no candle. The glow of distant fires would have to do.

"To the Blue Countess,

If this reaches you, it will be by the hand of someone who crawled through hell.

You have failed us.

Your banners did not come. Your word did not come. Your iron did not come.

But death did. And I welcomed it like an old friend.

The enemy has changed. These are not beasts nor brutes driven by tribal pride. They are soldiers. Disciplined. Brutal. Organized. With siege machines. With formations. With strategies. If you still believe this war is beneath your concern, then you are more dangerous to Threia than any axe or claw I've seen.

If you do care...then I beg you: remember the names of those who died here. That will be the last justice they'll ever know."

He stopped writing.

His eyes were dry.

Then he folded the letter and handed it to a barely-conscious courier slumped against the trench wall.

"If you can't walk, crawl. If you can't crawl, roll. Get it past the lines. That's all I ask."

The boy took it with shaking fingers.

*****

The crater groaned.

Boomsticks had fallen silent for a time, their crews either dead or retreating. The thunder of Rhakaddons had passed, leaving trenches torn open and barricades flattened. What remained of the Threian defenders huddled near the interior loop...broken, bloodied, but not broken in spirit.

And then came the chant.

Low. Unified. Orcish.

It rolled across the crater like thunder through a canyon.

The Yohan First Horde had regrouped.

Once more, they advanced...shields locked, ranks tight, each step sending tremors through the earth. Goblins darted between them, carrying short-fuse charges, their cackles rising like sparks from a fire.

*****

At the southern approach, Galum'nor led a wedge of Verakhs up and over a half-collapsed barricade. He moved like a creature born of war...his weapon now red from haft to head. Around him, the Verakhs loosed disciplined volleys into any remaining resistance. A Threian barricade crumpled beneath their assault, its defenders impaled or trampled.

A detonation burst beneath them...a final trap laid by Threian engineers. One Verakh flew backward, crashing against a pike wall, impaled mid-scream.

Galum'nor roared. He did not slow.

*****

On the east wall, Aro'shanna cleaved her way through a reinforced crew of spearmen protecting the last working Thunder Maker. She caught the lead soldier's blade on her vambrace and responded with a brutal overhead strike that shattered the man's helmet and skull alike. The defenders fought with the desperation of cornered beasts...but they were falling, one by one.

Aro'shanna shoved aside a corpse and pressed a torch into the cannon's breech.

Moments later, the explosion blew the remaining platform apart.

She wiped the blood from her eyes and moved on.

*****

Meanwhile, Drae'ghanna pushed through the center trench, her twin blades dancing in short, vicious arcs. She did not waste motion. Each strike opened a throat, each twist disarmed a foe. Around her, her warriors formed a loose circle, protecting her flanks as they punched deeper toward the Threian command trench.

A Threian sergeant charged her with a pike, but she dropped low, swept his legs, and ended him with a blade to the neck. She didn't pause to look at the body.

There was no time to mark the dead.

*****

And then the horn blew.

It was deeper. Louder. Ancient.

Every orc halted.

Even the goblins paused in their advance.

A ripple of silence passed over the host.

At the rear of the army, a single figure stepped into the battlefield.

No banners.

No guards.

No pageantry.

Khao'khen.

He walked forward in battered iron, his blade naked in his hand. The scars on his face caught the fading sun. His hair fluttered like smoke. He did not shout. He did not need to.

All who saw him knew.

The chieftain had come.

And with him came purpose.

*****

The Threians fired what they had left.

Arrows. Boomsticks. Spears.

Khao'khen deflected an arrow with the flat of his sword and moved through the trench wall like a hammer made flesh. The first defender met his blade with a cry...then fell in two pieces. The second blocked once...then lost an arm and screamed until Khao'khen's boot crushed his skull.

He was no mere commander.

He was an executioner.

Captain Braedon saw him from across the crater and froze.

"That's him," he said hoarsely. "The one they follow. The heart of it all."

*****

As Khao'khen carved a path forward, Major Gresham climbed the last functioning lookout, its steps slick with blood. He looked out over the smoldering battlefield...over the fires, the fallen, the dwindling lines.

A page handed him a final tally. He did not look at it.

He raised his sword.

"We stand here," he shouted to what remained of his army. "We stand in the name of those already dead!"

They cheered.

It was not loud.

But it was real.

*****

The goblins breached the inner trench.

The orcs came next.

The crater had no more secrets left to reveal...only blood, and bone, and iron.

*****

The sun vanished.

The moon took its place.

And under its pale light, the final defense of the Threians began...not with hope, but with fury.