Dumbfounded silence. It spoke. They speak—and by God, it speaks better than most of my men.

  They had encroached further, called our bluff. Most were not even facing our walls, their heavy, unmoving forms clustered at the periphery like standing stones. Except their bastardly leader, that unyielding rock of flesh, whose pale chest-eyes still stared down half my men.

  The Gustavian border was practically aflame. Their blasted dialect carried clear across the march—shouts, drums, and darker noises better left to the imagination. What god-cursed situation were we in? A presence so close you could feel their breath, and behind us a hornet’s nest that shivered whenever mutant or native or otherwise unsightly beasts tread near.

  “What madness is this?” Hauptmann Riedel growled through clenched teeth. His eyes narrowed at the gathered menace beyond the gate, his knuckles bone-white as they gripped the saber. “They stand within scattershot, yet posture like envoys. If this is a trap, they've set it masterfully.”

  “Trap or taunt, they mock our defenses openly,” snapped Vollmer, pacing methodically with a sharpness that mirrored the rhythmic drill of parade grounds. “Observe their calm! They gauge our strength and find us lacking. Why else would such creatures, savage brutes, hold themselves in ordered ranks?”

  “They posture—but they have not struck,” Kristoff interjected steadily, his words measured with quiet authority, eyes shifting cautiously between each officer. “No burning houses, no shattered gate. No war engines roll behind them. Why provoke battle when none has yet arrived?”

  “The provocation is plain enough,” Old Brandt rasped, eyes smoldering with the intensity of an ancient predator. “Captain Edelmer, the men tremble at their posts, awaiting a decision. Will our guns strike these chest-faced devils or turn toward the flames that lick the Gustavian border? We cannot fight on two fronts with half measures.”

  “Damn this to hell,” I breathed, eyes narrowing sharply. The urgency of the moment burned away hesitation.

  “Open the bloody gate.”

  Hesitations and objections erupted instantly from the officers. “Speak to them? In the open? Do you lust to be pulled apart?” Vollmer snapped incredulously.

  “They need not even pull,” Brandt rasped bitterly, his eyes fierce beneath lowered brows, “a single thrown stone would crack your ugly mug wide open, Vollmer."

  I fixed them with a steady glare, unyielding. “I need to speak face to face—it might deescalate this nonsense. Riedel, I need your nerve. We'll confront this absurdity directly. Unless anyone prefers to discharge muskets and cannons instead?”

  Eyes widened, mouths tightened into grim lines—but none objected openly.

  “Damn the horses. We walk.”

  Our march through the gate was brisk, our boots ringing on cobbled stone. The Blemmye watched impassively. It had waited for this. Hope it's worth the wait.

  “Captain Edelmer of Erden’s Edge Bastion, leader of the Sun Swords, appointed guardian of this border.” I raised my voice clearly, precisely. “You unlawfully entered our protected village in ill faith, drove out cattle and men. Now you camp at the edge of our domain. Speak plainly of your intentions—and quickly.”

  Straight to the point. No beating around bushes. I sensed it’d appreciate that.

  A deep rumble, a voice like stone waking from ancient slumber, responded in tones of high, honored antiquity: “So, thou canst converse. Good. Now let us discern if thou canst sense reason as well.”

  His speech was archaic.

  Echoes of tribal folktales. A time before union under God, and guidance of Joseph. The oldest books and passages was written in tones like these. A peculiar eloquence from a beast I had never once seen utter a word worth hearing.

  “Then speak this reason,” I demanded.

  “Thou art soon to be ended,” It pronounced gravely, sending a chill crawling down my spine. Riedel beside me paled visibly, his mask slipping. My sabre felt magnetic at my side. Was a strike incoming?

  "Blemmye, are we to fight?" It looked at me, with a spent look. No, the eyes said.

  “A host cometh. We gather to meet it. Yet we march not alongside, but against. It cometh from the east, from forests deep and darkness older still. It seeketh easy prey first, to feed its hunger and grow.”

  “Thou art the prey. And so are we.”

  “And what manner of predator seeks to end us?” I asked, forcing steel into my voice.

  The Blemmye’s chest-eyes roved slowly over the fort behind me. “Hast thou wondered why thy provisions run late and scarce?”

  They knew more than any simple beast; this much was now undeniable.

  “Will you answer this riddle plainly?”

  “Thy provisions cease because the veil hath shut once more. The storm returneth, and with it thy world is divided—cleaved in twain.”

  It paused, his gaze heavy with an alien gravity. “We sensed this as we awoke. As others awaken now.” His voice softened, a note of dreadful certainty woven into his final judgment:

  “Captain, thy post is doomed.”

  “Captain?” Riedel’s voice cut through the tension, flat and level, addressed to me but with no heed of the Blemmye still standing like an idol before us. I did not heed him back. My mind whirled. A grave warning—from former simpletons, no less.

  A host? Of what? More Blemmyes? Something else? Too many answers, none of them welcome, and none that could be handled standing here in the open with the stench of powder and sweat rising off us.

  More noise from the Gustavian border. Different voices now. A rhythm, a chant. A pattern of command.

  Then—a sound like a hammer striking wet iron, followed by the high whistle of metal.

  Impact.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The mud geysered near the march, the iron ball struck earth, before it screamed past in horrid rebound. A heartbeat passed. Then the cannons echo finally came.

  I hurled myself flat to the earth. Riedel too. Reflexes. Instinct. The Blemmye did not move.

  I turned red-faced, teeth bared, fury boiling. I was ready to kill whichever man on my line had loosened a shot. But there was no smoke. And the sound of cannon had come after the strike.

  Too far. Too slow.

  The Gustavians.

  They had fired.

  “Turn heel! Arm the northern cannons! Ready for combat!” I shouted from the ground, spitting grit and rage.

  The Blemmye’s stillness broke. It roared it seemed, in a mix of pain and proclamation. A scream that cracked from deep within its ribs. Eyes wide, white as skulls, bared teeth gleaming.

  “Will none heed?!” It thundered, as if the very world had failed to listen to its warning.

  This time I could see the shot. The second charge—smoke and fire blooming like wicked flowers. A whine overhead swelling into a shriek of steel.

  A Blemmye was struck by the full might. The blast ripped through its side, tearing flesh and bone in a sudden spray of meat and sinew. To see such a mighty beast unended so—

  I looked back at their leader. Its teeth were clenched, face blooming with a furious red. Not rage like mine, but something deeper. A sorrow transmuted into wrath. An anger I could not comprehend.

  "Blemmye!" I shouted. A reluctant eye met mine—a flicker through the rising haze, a moment’s break in the storm of hatred I sensed building behind that monstrous face.

  "Organize your people into the fort! Use the Toll Road as cover! Let us lead the fire!"

  If I was wrong, I’d just invited headless-beasts into my last defensible ground. But that was tomorrow’s mutiny.

  The anger lifted, briefly, and clarity filled the breach. That was enough. We had an accord.

  It turned, opened his ribs like a bellows, and let loose a roar—not in our tongue, nor in any I had ever heard. Not the speech of stone. This was older, broader. A battlefield thunder.

  The Blemmyes responded in kind—they hummed in low murmurs, heavy as drumbeats. Their rhythm shook the earth.

  The fort answered them with its own voice–musket and drum.

  The rhythm of musket fell into place—finally, damn it. Some officer had beaten them back into form. From the march and blood we hurried—me and Riedel both—back through the gates, past the trenches, under the shadow of our southern wall. Safer, for the moment.

  Vollmer met me there, fire in his eyes, voice clipped and sharp as a drawn blade. "Sir—southern line holding. Riedel’s flank reformed after your departure. Kristoff has rallied a third of the greenhorns to firing positions on the ridge. Brandt’s posted by the powder cart with that damned look in his eyes again."

  He stepped closer, lower now, though the heat still burned in his words. "We’ve got a column of stone-skinned bastards moving down the Toll Road. What the fuck has begun? Where are the Blemmyes moving?"

  "To us, officer. They’ll seek shelter. They'll cover our flank."

  "They’ll what?!"

  Thunder. Sulphur. The northern cannons spoke their language. War drums rolled above it.

  No, they should not be fired, not now, not yet.

  "On what targets and whose orders are they shot?!" I roared back. "Cannons are escalation!"

  "Escalation, Captain? They shot at us!"

  "They shot at them!", pointing at my rear, and the stream of headless muscle heading our way.

  "Blow the horn! Cease fire—immediately!" I practically spat the words at Vollmer. Some of his fire dampened in contact with mine. He barked sharp orders to a signalman, and soon his brass rang with the quick-then-slow tone of command. No shots before ordered.

  Shots still rang from across the river. They heeded no brass of mine. Another cannon went off for good measure—the screaming siren of the thing suggesting it was aimed at us.

  I raced toward the palisades of the northern wall, where I found a bleak-faced Kristoff, pale as powdered ash, watching the ridgeline with horror.

  "Cannons, Kristoff? Do you want this bastion leveled? Are you begging for their mortars, you diapered fool?!" I roared. He flinched—young and too brave for his own good—but said nothing. I swear he could have died there and then. I had no time for the wrigglings of a dry-eared officer. The situation had to be stabilized at once.

  The bridge. The only damn thing between our rotten marches and the Gustavian war engine was a narrow, splintering span of timber—built with one purpose in mind: to be destroyed quickly, and with little regret.

  "Two cannons trained on the bridge! The third on our side of the road!"

  The guns swung with the daft hands of conscripts in distress. Muskets rang, both from our walls and from them. The air was chaos—smoke, iron, and blood. Children screamed underfoot, somewhere near the parade square. Mothers cried names I dared not recognize.

  And beneath it all, rising low and deep like the hum of earth before a quake—the Blemmyes sang.

  "Cannons aimed!" Shouted Kristoff, voice tight with nerves.

  "Fire!"

  Three practically simultaneous roars rang across the dark battlefield. I snatched a glimpse before the smoke erased our sight:

  Wood splinters, a collapsing structure, and a streak of mud across a road.

  Let them write their treaties later. Let them curse my name. But this would be remembered.

  A clear message:

  Here and no further.

  For a moment, silence held—raw, ragged, unbelieving. Then I rose to my full height, my ribs burning, boots slick with muck and powder. I raised my arm and let loose a cry I had not planned.

  "Join me! Stand, damn you!"

  My voice cut the air like sabre-edge. Brandt gave a broken cheer, lips twisted in a grin that hadn’t seen light in weeks. Vollmer struck his fist to his breastplate once, twice. Kristoff choked back a prayer and bellowed raw beside me.

  Then the cheer broke loose in earnest along the Sun Sword line. One voice, then a score, then the whole battered chorus of the southern wall.

  The drummer boy struck steel—hard, irregular—and found a pulse. Then came rhythm: a steady, martial beat. I knew the tune even before the men joined in.

  “A Call to God and Arms.” A song of glorious death. A hymn for those who die standing.

  “Steel before shame,” they cried. “Fire before flight.” “We who guard the breach do not kneel, do not yield!” “Glory in ruin, God in the smoke!”

  Their voices rose together—hoarse, cracked, imperfect—and holy. A choir united by memory. A whole fort singing to be heard.

  From the marsh came an answer.

  The Gustavian cannon stilled. Then, from beyond the bridge’s remains, rose a hymn of their own. Not ours. Their dialect was thick, old-fashioned, sung in harmonic tiers that grated like gravel and incense. A counter-hymn, in rhythm and tone.

  “Our God, our unshakeable fortress.” “On our Earth none shall compare.” Their cadence was slower, deliberate. It marched with discipline honed by the weight of doctrine.

  Brandt muttered beside me, eyes narrowed. “They sing like priests with swords.”

  Kristoff, wide-eyed, added, “This is their judgment.”

  And then—the Blemmyes joined.

  One voice at first—old, rasping, immense. Male or female, I could not say. The sound was like wood grinding on wood, rock splitting from earth, a voice both lost and returned. It vibrated in the teeth. Deep. Deep.

  A hymn, older than language. Older than scripture. Older, perhaps, than Joseph himself. It rang with the cadence of stone dropped in an empty well. It held no glory or scorn. It was the sound of memory returned to the throat.

  The officers fell silent. The men did too. Even the villagers who had been sobbing in the shadows of the square looked up with open mouths and wet cheeks.

  Both camps quieted. The Sun Sword’s battle hymn trailed into murmurs. The Gustavians’ layered chants stopped in a clean breath.

  Only the Blemmye sang on.

  A voice not meant to be heard.

  The voice of God.

  “What have we brought into our camp, Edelmer?” Brandt murmured, voice low and half-prayer. No one answered. No one could.

  And in that silence, where no man spoke and no cannon dared bark, I felt something slip. Not defeat. Not victory. But the rhythm of the world itself. Off-beat. Tilted. Waiting.