For over three hundred years, Blackreach Bastion had stood as an immovable bulwark of imperial power. Carved into the jagged cliffs above the eastern wilds that led to the swamplands, it had withstood plague, rebellions, and countless raids. Its walls were etched with scars, and every stone had a tale to tell.

  During the Brothers’ War, when the empire tore itself apart, a young mercenary commander named Gregor Willinghelm made his stand with only a thousand soldiers consisting of sell swords, a now-famous wizard, and a ragtag bunch of lower nobles who wanted change. He held the bastion for two years—facing famine, desertion, and many sieges. It was said that even the gods were impressed by how the walls stood.

  Blackreach had endured.

  But not all legends are eternal.

  And not all walls, no matter how storied, stand forever.

  On this morning, as the stars faded to a ghostly gray, the wind brought not the scent of pine and mist—but blood.

  Not a raid. Not a rebellion.

  War.

  ?

  Day One: The Silence Breaks

  It began with bells.

  A sound split the pre-dawn hush like thunder cracking through stone—the bells. First one. Then another. Then all. From tower to tower they rang, great iron voices that boomed across the cliffs and echoed over the town of Osh.

  The alarm bells of Blackreach had not sounded in full for twenty years. Not since the last siege. And even then, it had been different—briefer, less final.

  Men and women spilled from their tents and cottages in nightclothes and armor half-buckled, dragging children behind them or clutching weapons with bleary hands. The ground beneath the Bastion trembled with movement—not from below, but from within. Soldiers ran in formation, pulling carts of quarrels, and crates of oil. Blackreach was awakening, and she woke with grim purpose.

  In the center of it all strode General Casamir Saumont.

  He was tall for a man in his sixth decade. The weight of command had bowed his shoulders, but it had not broken them. His beard, once the color of burnt bronze, had turned silver, but his eyes remained sharp—cold as shattered sapphire. And behind him moved his elite soldiers, the black lion crest of House Saumont etched upon their pauldrons.

  Among them strode First Captain Rhys Strongmore, long of limb and blade, a man whose loyalty was the stuff of legend.

  As they climbed the stair behind the First Wall, their boots clanged like iron drums. The wind howled louder the higher they rose, and from the topmost parapet they beheld the truth that now spilled through every crevice of the waking fortress.

  A sea of green skins.

  It was not the usual chaos associated with their kind. No rabble. No mindless charge. Instead, they moved with eerie purpose, gathering like a green tide—thousands strong. They kept just beyond bow shot, as if they knew the Bastion’s range. Lines were forming below: spear-wielders, axe-wielding behemoths, ram crews.

  And wagons. Gods—the wagons.

  Lady Egwene Thornfield ran toward the general and Rhys. A hard-eyed woman of noble birth and a soldier’s blood, her chest heaved as she came to a halt before them.

  “General,” she gasped, “several figures have entered the valley below—green skins, sir.”

  Casamir nodded grimly, saying nothing, and stepped forward to peer over the wall’s edge. Rhys joined him, already pulling free his spyglass.

  “What company was on patrol last night?” Casamir asked.

  “Sixth, sir,” came Rhys’s measured reply. “Led by Captain Aluric.”

  Casamir’s jaw tightened. “Then where in all the hells are they? Why was no alarm raised? No riders sent?”

  Rhys did not answer. Instead, he passed the spyglass to his lord.

  Casamir raised it slowly. For a long, terrible moment, he said nothing. Then his brow furrowed, and his face turned a shade paler beneath his beard.

  In the glint of the magnified lens, he saw orcs wearing scavenged armor—Imperial breastplates warped to fit wide green chests, helms shattered and repurposed. And he saw the wagons up close.

  They were overflowing with limbs. Boots. Bloodied red cloaks.

  And in that moment, he truly saw them—rows of all manner of green skins, from orcs to ogres, stretching beyond what the eye could see. His eyes honed in on one giant orc in black armor.

  The chief, he thought.

  Behind them: crude siege weapons. Crates with gods-only-knew what inside.

  The Sixth Company was gone.

  “Sound the full alarm,” Saumont said, lowering the glass.

  “Sir?”

  “Wake the Ninth and Tenth. Put them on the outer wall. Put the Twelfth on the scorpions. Signal the clerics. Have the Fourth and Fifth companies help evacuate Osh. When the First Wall falls, they’ll guard the retreat.”

  “When?” asked Rhys.

  “When,” answered Saumont.

  Rhys hesitated, still staring down into the great green mass. “This isn’t a raid, is it?”

  “No,” Saumont said, turning away. “It’s a war host.”

  ?

  The First Wall cracked a few hours later.

  Orcish banners blacked out the morning sun as drums began to thunder—a guttural rhythm that rattled bones. Down in the valley they came, like a flood through a broken dam. Arrows rained down upon the defenders from goblin longbows. Stone-hurlers creaked, launching molten barrels. The defenders lit the pitch trenches. The skies filled with ash.

  Thar’okk Bloodletter—a giant orc wielding a bell-hammer half the length of a man—led the charge.

  Hours passed as several green-skin-built rams were used upon the southern gates. The defenders had been successful in repelling them with heavy stones and boiling oil.

  Then came the ogre.

  It lumbered up the slope, ignoring the burning oil melting its flesh, and with one great swing of its massive hammer, it struck the weakened gate. The iron-bound timber split down the center.

  A boulder dropped a minute too late, smashing in the brute’s head.

  But the damage was done.

  Thar’okk led the host through the breach.

  Day One : The Flames of Osh

  They always said the bells of Blackreach would wake the dead.

  Tamsin had heard that since she was a girl, long before her hands were bloodied by her father’s cleaver, back when her feet still danced in the frost and she believed stories were stronger than steel. Now, at nineteen, she knew better.

  Dead men did not wake.

  They only whispered in the dark, behind her eyes.

  But the bells had woken her.

  She’d been tangled in a thin blanket, curled beside her younger brother, when the first great peal cracked the morning silence like a thunderclap. The second sent her bolt upright, her heart kicking like a trapped bird in her ribs.

  Outside, chaos.

  Boots thudded past the windows. Voices screamed. Somewhere in the square, someone was already crying. A baby, maybe. Or a mother who already knew.

  “Weylin!” she hissed, shaking the boy beside her. Her brother blinked up at her, sleep and fear colliding in his pale blue eyes. “Get dressed. Now.”

  “Is it raiders?” he asked. “Did they come through the pass?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t know.

  She pulled on her heavy wool skirt, then the leather apron from the butcher’s block. It was stiff with blood, her father’s old emblem — the two cleavers crossed like swords — still etched into the hide. He’d been taken by a coughing fever last winter. Left her the shop. The debt. And Weylin.

  A heavy knocking rattled the door.

  “Tamsin!” came a voice. Roff Redhall, the tannery boy. “Get outside! They’ve called the town to arms!”

  She threw the door open. Roff stood in the street, bareheaded, a woodcutter’s axe in his hands. His face looked wrong—not afraid, exactly. Just… hollow.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, grabbing Weylin’s hand.

  “They say the green skins are here. Not a raid. An army. The general’s called a full muster. All hands.”

  Tamsin’s gut twisted. Green skins meant goblins. Orcs. Trolls. Filthy things that came from the marshes and killed for sport. She’d seen what they’d done to a logging outpost when she was ten.

  Charred bones. Stripped flesh. Men torn in half like meat pulled from the bone.

  She swallowed. “Where do they need us?”

  Roff shrugged. “Pitch pots near the gate. Boiling tar. Arrows too. I saw Captain Mardon taking a count. Anyone who can shoot’s being handed a bow.”

  “I’ve never shot a bow in my life.”

  “You’ve got arms. That’s enough today.”

  They ran.

  ?

  The town was a frenzy. Smiths pounded nails into shields. Children dragged water buckets to the front lines. A black-robed Septon stood in the square, anointing volunteers with ash and whispering prayers to the Seven. No one stopped to listen.

  Near the western gate, where the wall loomed like the spine of a slumbering god, smoke already curled from makeshift tar cauldrons. Fires roared beneath them, stoked by anything that would burn — broken chairs, crates, wagon wheels.

  Tamsin helped lift a barrel of pitch. Her hands, used to slicing tendon from bone, found strength in the strain. Weylin, too small for fighting, ferried buckets. Roff swung his axe into a stack of firewood until his hands were raw.

  And still the bells rang.

  A woman screamed behind them — no one looked.

  A boy ran past with his arm split open — no one stopped him.

  The Bastion’s First Wall rose half a league away, its jagged teeth silhouetted against the gray morning sky. From her vantage, Tamsin saw specks of crimson and steel gathering on the ramparts.

  She looked for the general.

  Everyone knew of Casamir Saumont—the Hammer of the Empire, the Butcher of Dun Hollow. They said he’d never lost a battle. They said he’d cut an orc chief in half with a single blow.

  But words were wind.

  She could not see his face.

  Then the ground began to tremble.

  Not much at first. A murmur beneath her boots. A whisper in the bones of the earth.

  Then came the drums.

  Not of horses. Not wagons. Something deeper. Like thunder chewing through marrow.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Tamsin turned east.

  A green tide spilled through the valley gap. Thousands strong.

  Orcs. Goblins. Trolls. Beasts with tusks like roots, siege towers fashioned from bone and ironwood.

  Weylin dropped his bucket.

  “Oh gods,” he whispered.

  “I can’t—”

  “You can. You will.” Her voice cracked. “We survive. That’s what we do. That’s what you do.”

  The First Wall roared to life—catapults hurling stones, arrows blackening the sky. But the green skins didn’t stop. They absorbed the blows, filled the gaps, and came on, step by terrible step.

  Behind Tamsin, townsfolk wept as they readied boiling tar. One old man dropped his torch and fell to his knees, rocking and muttering.

  Above them all, the bells of Blackreach still tolled.

  And in her heart, the butcher’s daughter prayed—

  Not for victory. Not for glory.

  But for time.

  Time to run.

  Time to fight.

  Time to die well.

  Day One : The Breach

  The First Wall fell at sun’s height.

  The sound of it traveled like thunder down through the valley — stone cracking, men screaming, war horns blaring. Tamsin had not seen it fall, but she heard the moment the orcs spilled through. It was not one noise, but a thousand layered into a single, impossible chorus. And once it began, it never stopped.

  By the time the first scouts reached Osh’s edge, soaked in blood and ash and horror, the sky was no longer blue. Smoke had stained it the color of old bruises. Bits of ash fell like gray snow. Tamsin watched it cling to Weylin’s hair and tried to pretend it wasn’t bone dust.

  She had sent him to the Sept.

  It was the only place left with stone walls and a locking door, and the old Septon was still there — muttering prayers and shoveling holy books into sacks. Tamsin had pressed a fillet knife into Weylin’s hands and told him to stay low, stay hidden, stay quiet. And if he heard something break the door, to strike for the throat.

  He had cried. He hadn’t wanted to go.

  She’d kissed his forehead and lied.

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  She wasn’t.

  ?

  Now she stood in the butcher’s square, among five dozen townsfolk, many of them armed with whatever they’d had to hand — smithing hammers, rusted spears, one woman with a scythe taller than she was. Tamsin still wore her father’s apron, though it was now stiff with pitch and dust instead of blood.

  Her hands ached. Her arms shook. She had not eaten since dusk the night before, and her stomach was a twisted knot of bile and dread.

  “The Bastion still stands,” said Roff beside her, voice hoarse. “The second wall will hold.”

  “For how long?” asked the scythe-woman. “An hour? A day? Doesn’t matter. They’ll come through here next.”

  Tamsin didn’t argue.

  She looked toward the Bastion’s silhouette—still proud, still iron-gray against the firelit horizon. Even now, the second wall lit up with activity.

  She thought of the soldiers who had fought on that first wall. Of Captain Rhys, who her father once said could shoot the wing off a crow in flight. Of Sergeant Egwene, who had trained alongside the men and left them bruised and breathless.

  Of General Casamir himself.

  They were dying now.

  Or already dead.

  “Tamsin,” Roff said, and pointed down the alley.

  She turned and saw them.

  The first of the orcs had reached the town.

  Not hundreds. Not yet.

  Just a scouting group — seven, maybe eight, lean and quick, with blades carved from dark iron and bone. One wore a helmet fashioned from a man’s skull. Another dragged a club studded with jagged nails. They howled as they ran, eager for blood.

  The scythe-woman charged first.

  She screamed a wordless cry and swung wide, taking the first orc’s head clean off — but the second slammed a hammer into her gut and crumpled her where she stood.

  Tamsin didn’t wait.

  She darted forward, low and fast, her cleaver flashing.

  It buried deep in the soft place beneath one creature’s ribs. It shrieked — a wet, high sound — and clawed at her as it died. She pulled free, spun, ducked an axe, and drove her blade into a thigh. It slipped free like meat off the bone.

  Roff was beside her, axe swinging, his mouth open in a roar. He felled two before the third took him in the back with a hooked spear.

  His blood splashed warm across her cheek.

  They kept coming.

  By the time the last of the orcs lay twitching in the dust, Tamsin had lost track of how many had died. Five of their own were down. One girl couldn’t stop screaming. One man bled from the eyes and mouth, begging for his mother.

  Tamsin’s hands were black with blood.

  Not all of it orc.

  She fell to her knees, trembling, and retched into the gutter.

  This is what it means, she thought.

  To fight.

  To survive.

  ?

  Above, another horn sounded.

  This one wasn’t from the Bastion.

  It was deeper. Older. It made the hairs on her arms rise and her breath freeze in her throat.

  A new shadow moved across the valley.

  Through the smoke, she saw it — a massive figure, half again as tall as any man, clad in armor of blackened bronze and bone. A chieftain, maybe. Or something worse. It moved with purpose, and behind it came the true horde — a river of green, snarling and stomping and chanting in a guttural tongue.

  The gates of Osh would not hold.

  They were barely more than wooden beams lashed with iron.

  Tamsin rose.

  She had one more thing to do.

  She ran. Not toward the gate. Not toward the Bastion.

  To the Sept.

  To Weylin.

  Day Two: The Storm

  Rain fell. Cold. Heavy. Cleansing nothing.

  General Casamir Saumont stood on the second wall of Blackreach Bastion. His armor, once polished and proud, was now caked in mud and dried blood. His left pauldron had been dented by an ogre’s club. A rough tourniquet wrapped around his thigh where a jagged spear had torn through. The fighting at the first wall had been brutal. He had already lost so many soldiers, and even more of the townsfolk. Evacuating the town had cost them dearly. And he had not even been able to save most of them. He had been forced to call the withdrawal earlier than he had wanted. And now the townsfolk were scattered everywhere between the town's ruins and the second wall.

  He did not sit. He did not lean. He stood.

  Beside him limped Captain Rhys Strongmore, one eye swollen shut, his shield arm useless, wrapped and bound with a splint of broken spear shaft. Behind them, what remained of the Bastion’s defenders gathered.

  No more than a thousand.

  And many of those were no longer soldiers — smiths with hammers, bakers with rusted cleavers, boys barely old enough to shave. They all bore the lion of Saumont on their armor or torn cloth, painted in ash, carved in sweat.

  Egwene Thornfield was there too, leaning against a stone parapet, coughing blood into her hand and wiping it away without complaint. Her braid was matted with soot. Her sword hand was shaking. And still she stood.

  They all stood.

  The orcs had broken the first wall. The gates of Osh had burned behind them.

  Now they came for the second.

  The drums began again — that slow, bone-shaking rhythm of war, like the heartbeat of something vast and ancient. Fires burned in the fields below, and the sky had turned the color of bruises. Smoke clung to the wet air. Ash soaked into the stones.

  The breach came just before midday.

  A hammer blow. Then another. The weakened gate groaned and shrieked. A troll with a black-iron ram brought it crashing down. The second wall, like the first, had been broken.

  And once more, General Casamir Saumont walked into the fray.

  ?

  Steel met flesh.

  Orcs swarmed the breach, and Saumont carved through them like a butcher at a blood altar. Rhys followed close, fending off blades with a broken shield and returning each strike with grim efficiency. Egwene was a flame behind them, screaming orders, cutting down anything that reached her.

  The rain made everything slick. Men slipped in blood. Fire hissed and steamed. Stone cracked.

  Everywhere Saumont looked, his lion-sigil soldiers held the line. Even as they fell, they dragged their killers down with them. His heart, battle-hardened and cold, swelled with pride.

  And then Thar’okk Bloodletter came through the smoke.

  Ten feet tall. Muscled like a mountain. His black hammer hung at his side, soaked in gore.

  He moved like a god of war. His face was scarred, tusks cracked from years of killing. He wore the flayed skin of a fallen captain as a cloak. The sight of Saumont made him snarl.

  He was not coming for the walls. He was coming for the lion.

  ?

  Thar’okk carved a path through the chaos. Ten orcs flanked him, but he outpaced them all. He smashed a soldier into paste, another into the wall. A blade slashed across his cheek — he turned and crushed the man’s skull with a roar.

  He was close. Ten more feet and the general would be dead. He stopped and picked up a dead soldier's sword.

  And then—

  He struck.

  A thrust from behind.

  But not into Saumont.

  Into Egwene.

  She had stepped between them.

  Thar’okk’s sword burst through her back.

  She gasped once, looked at Saumont, and smiled.

  Then the orc threw her body aside like a broken shield.

  Rhys screamed.

  Saumont turned.

  ?

  They circled each other.

  The Lion and the Bloodletter.

  Around them, war raged. But here, in the eye of it, time slowed.

  Saumont struck first — a feint to the left, then a twist and a downward arc into Thar’okk’s knee. The blade bit deep. The orc roared and backhanded him across the face.

  He had accepted the blow. Throwing his head to the side at the last second, lessening the sting.

  Stars still danced in Saumont’s vision.

  He staggered but did not fall.

  Thar’okk came forward, swinging wild.

  Saumont ducked once. Twice. A third time, then drove his blade into the wrist, lopping off the orc’s left hand.

  Thar’okk bellowed and raised the hammer with the other—

  Saumont chopped again.

  The second hand fell.

  Thar’okk stood, blood pouring from both stumps, staring in dumb shock.

  Saumont did not speak.

  He simply took the orc’s head.

  It rolled across the stone with a dull thud.

  The green skins around them froze.

  And then, like the tide pulled by the moon, they stepped back.

  ?

  Saumont fell to one knee, panting. Pain lanced through his ribs. He tasted blood. But he stood. He always stood.

  He looked around at the carnage. Dozens dead. Hundreds wounded. Ash coated everything. Fire burned behind them.

  Rhys knelt beside Egwene’s corpse. He was whispering a prayer.

  Her eyes were still open, staring at the sky.

  Saumont limped over.

  “Captain,” he called, softly at first. Then louder. “Captain Rhys.”

  Rhys turned. His face was smeared with blood and rain and tears.

  “We’re doomed,” he said hollowly. “Nothing can stand against these monsters. The Empire will be no more.”

  Saumont looked past him at the horizon.

  “The Empire will not fall so easily, Captain,” he said. “This is but another attempt in a long history of invasions. In the end, it will be as it should. Our armies will push them back into the swamps, where they will stay for years—until another warlord arises, and the cycle begins again.”

  He extended his hand.

  “All we can do now is die well. For our Emperor. For the Empire. So what do you say?”

  Rhys took the hand.

  And stood.

  “Fall back!” he roared. “We make our final stand in the courtyard!”

  The soldiers, bloody and weary, raised a cheer. The last cheer Blackreach would ever know.

  Day Three: The Lion’s Last Breath

  At dawn, the rain had turned to mist. The fires of Osh still burned, casting a sick orange glow across the ruined hills. Smoke clung to everything—stone, steel, skin. The scent of blood and ash had replaced the mountain air.

  General Casamir Saumont stood in the courtyard of Blackreach Bastion.

  His armor was cracked, his sword chipped, his body failing.

  But he stood.

  At his back were the final two hundred souls of the Bastion. Rhys stood beside him, armor stripped to essentials, blade in hand. No banners flew. No horns blew.

  They were past ceremony now.

  They were down to the bone.

  And then the giant sea of green skins parted.

  A silence unlike any they had known fell — no taunts, no drums, no war cries. Just the sound of boots in the mud as the green tide moved aside. A great path opened through the sea of monsters, until, at last, an enormous figure stepped forward.

  He was taller than Thar’okk by a head and a half. Wider than any man. His armor was blackened bronze and ribbed bone, etched with runes that pulsed with dull red light. A cloak of iron rings dragged behind him.

  In his hands, he carried a sword unlike any other — massive, obsidian, alive. It shimmered with heat despite the cold, the air around it warped like glass near flame.

  Warmonger had come.

  Behind him came two others: a monstrous orc with red tattoos — Oogold — and a twisted, hunched shaman with bone charms swaying from his robes.

  They stopped at the edge of the horde.

  Warmonger walked on.

  Thirty feet away, he stopped.

  His eyes passed over the defenders. No fear showed in him. Only the slow grin of something that had never once doubted its own dominion.

  Rhys swallowed hard. “General… you can’t fight that. That thing is different.”

  “Yes,” Saumont said quietly. “It is.”

  He stepped forward.

  “But I will fight it all the same. It will know the Empire has no quit. That men will not turn and flee. Not here. Not today.”

  He looked back over his shoulder. “If I fall… you will rise. Is that understood?”

  Rhys’s voice was iron. “Yes, General.”

  “Good.”

  Saumont drew his blade.

  And strode to meet his doom.

  ?

  The courtyard held its breath.

  Warmonger waited in silence. The rain hissed as it struck his cursed plate. He raised his sword — Ar’Sul shimmered with hunger. The demon within it growled, though only Warmonger could hear.

  “I have heard of you, Saumont,” he said in near-perfect Imperial. “They say you are a lion. Or once were.”

  “I still am,” Saumont answered. “And today, you’ll hear me roar.”

  Their blades met in a scream of steel and hellfire.

  The first strike rang out across the Bastion like thunder. Sparks flew. Saumont moved like a storm — measured, controlled, years of duels behind every thrust. Warmonger was a force of pure wrath. Every swing of Ar’Sul was a mountain’s weight.

  Steel clashed. Blades sang. Feet slid in mud and blood.

  Saumont ducked a crushing blow and rolled forward, stabbing upwards — but Warmonger parried with a backhand that shattered Saumont’s pauldron and nearly broke his collarbone.

  The demon blade was hissing now.

  Ar’Sul was eager. Ar’Sul was feasting.

  Saumont feinted, then cut deep across Warmonger’s side. Blood welled — dark, thick. Behind the orc horde, a cry rose. The Lion had drawn blood.

  Warmonger snarled and responded with a blow that shattered the flagstones under Saumont’s feet. The general danced back. He was tiring. Fast.

  "You fight well, lion. I shall enjoy the taste of your flesh."

  "You bleed the same as we do beast", Saumont said between great breaths. " You will have to earn your kill."

  "Your courage amuses me human."

  They exchanged a dozen more blows. Each one could have ended a lesser man.

  Then—

  Saumont slipped.

  Just one foot, half a step too wide.

  That was enough.

  Warmonger drove Ar’Sul into his side.

  The general staggered, coughing blood, yet still moved. With the last strength in his limbs, he thrust upward, aiming for the throat.

  Warmonger turned just in time, the blade slicing a long, deep gash across his cheek.

  He roared.

  Not in pain. In fury.

  In insult.

  He grabbed Saumont’s blade in his bare hand, holding it in place as his blood poured between his fingers — and rammed Ar’Sul down through the Lion’s throat, half-severing his head.

  Casamir Saumont fell.

  The Lion of the East was dead.

  ?

  Warmonger stood over the corpse for a long moment. The blood from his cheek ran down his neck, mixing with the general’s.

  Then he turned.

  And walked back into the sea of green.

  Oogold raised his cleaver and howled.

  The horde surged forward.

  Rhys didn’t wait.

  He charged.

  And the last soldiers of Blackreach charged with him.

  They met the tide with steel and screams.

  And Blackreach fell.

  ?

  Escape:

  Tamsin ran.

  Weylin stumbled beside her, his legs giving out. He wasn’t wounded — just broken. Shaking. Eyes red with smoke. He collapsed in the mud.

  “I can’t,” he sobbed.

  “You can,” she said. There was no softness in her voice now. Only will. Only survival. She hoisted him up, slinging him over her shoulder like a sack of flour.

  He was eleven. He had never felt this heavy before.

  Behind them, Osh burned.

  The sky glowed orange and red as flames tore through rooftops. Screams echoed behind them — high and shrill, short and sudden. Orcs howled. Wolves snarled. Blades rang.

  Tamsin didn’t look back.

  She had grown up near the ravine, knew its edges, knew the goat paths and forgotten steps. She reached it now, boots slipping in wet grass and blood.

  She shoved Weylin into the mouth of a cave.

  He didn’t argue.

  He curled up against the stone and closed his eyes.

  Tamsin dropped beside him, panting, her cleaver still in her hands. She had not let go of it. Not once.

  Outside, the hunt began.

  No longer war. No longer battle.

  Now came the cleanup.

  The slaughter.

  The silence.

  She could hear it. Boots in mud. Chains dragging. Voices low and cruel. The shrill bark of goblins. The snarling of wolves.

  Weylin opened his eyes.

  “Will they find us?” he whispered.

  “They might,” she said honestly.

  “What do we do if they do?”

  She looked down at the cleaver in her lap. At her father’s apron, now stiff with blood that might have been hers… or someone else’s.

  “Then we make them bleed.”

  ?

  The dawn was gray.

  Cool wind swept away some of the smoke. Tamsin crept to the edge of the cave and looked down at Osh.

  What she saw twisted her stomach.

  The orcs weren’t looting. They weren’t leaving.

  They were building.

  Towers of timber and bone. Trenches. Watchfires. Roads paved with stone from the Bastion. They were settling in.

  “They’re not going back to the swamps,” she said.

  Weylin stepped up beside her. “They’re staying?”

  “They’re taking the valley.”

  Weylin clenched his fists. “What do we do?”

  “We go west. Over the pass. To Redmarsh. To whoever will listen. Someone has to.”

  “I’ll fight,” Weylin said.

  She looked at him. And nodded.

  In the early light of a broken morning, two ghosts slipped from the cave — a girl with a cleaver and a boy with a promise.

  They didn’t look back.

  They never would again.

  ?

  That night, the Bastion had new custodians.

  Great fires were built.

  Over them hung iron pots, boiling with human bones and dreams long dead.

  Blackreach was no more.

  And war had only just begun.