The Topa Kingdom. "The Gate of the World."

  On the high watch post of the "Gate of the World"—a colossal wall that for five long millennia had stood as an unbreakable barrier between the fragile world of men and the insatiable hunger of the beasts from the cursed continent of Grameus—two men kept their dreary watch. The air here was so cold and thin that every word turned into a thick cloud of vapor, and the icy wind that whipped across the frozen stone battlements pierced to the very bone, finding the smallest chink in their thick woolen cloaks and making their bodies tremble with a continuous shiver.

  "Bored to death," yawned Gai, a burly mercenary with a weathered face covered in a web of fine scars and weary eyes. He leaned lazily against the cold, rough stone of an embrasure, staring with longing at the endless, dazzlingly white plain, covered in deep snow. "Ten years I've been stuck on this wall, and the biggest threat I've seen is a dozen mangy goblins who were foolish enough to get too close. And even if there were a hundred of them, they wouldn't have left a scratch on this stone."

  "It is precisely because this wall stands that we see only goblins," replied his companion, Moah, calmly, without looking up from his parchment journal. He was a young half-elf knight, whose serious, almost aristocratic face and sharp, attentive eyes contrasted sharply with the mercenary's rough-hewn simplicity. "The ancient chronicles kept in Tormeus say that once, their legions covered the continent of Philades like a swarm of locusts. We stand here so that it does not happen again."

  Gai only gave a contemptuous snort, but a witty remark about elven pedantry stuck in his throat. His gaze froze, focusing on something at the very edge of the horizon. He tensed, leaning forward with his entire body, his relaxed posture instantly vanishing, replaced by the instinctive alarm of a battle-hardened veteran.

  "Moah... Look."

  On the horizon, where the white of the snow merged with the low, leaden sky, a dark patch had appeared. It was not moving. It was spreading. It was pulsating, growing in size, as if a giant drop of living, writhing ink had been spilled on the pure white snow. At first, it looked like an optical illusion, caused by the refraction of light in the frosty air, but the patch did not disappear. It grew, and now, even with the naked eye, one could distinguish a chaotic, boiling movement within it.

  "Gods… it can't be," whispered Moah, dropping his journal and running to a stationary observation telescope, cast in bronze by the dwarves. His hands trembled slightly as he turned the focusing knob. The picture that appeared in the eyepiece made his blood run cold, and his face instantly turned as white as the snow outside the wall. He recoiled from the eyepiece, his breath catching in a ragged gasp.

  "What is it?!" Gai growled impatiently.

  "It's… it's not a pack… It's a horde! Thousands… tens of thousands of goblins!" Moah's voice trembled, breaking into a falsetto. "And orcs… Hundreds… no, thousands of savage orcs!"

  Gai roughly pushed him aside and pressed his own eye to the eyepiece. Amidst a sea of primitive creatures, swarming like ants, he saw them. Perfect, frighteningly straight squares of legions clad in blackened steel. Above them, on long poles, flew black banners, emblazoned with a sinister symbol he had seen only in the most terrifying books on demonology—the crimson eye of a dragon. Their steps kicked up clouds of snow dust, which merged into a single gray cloud, crawling toward the wall.

  "High dark orcs…" Gai hissed. His mind refused to believe it. These were not just monsters. This was an army. "Contact the commandant! Immediately!"

  In that same instant, over the wall, over the entire kingdom, the deafening, heart-rending roar of a signal horn sounded. Its low, vibrating note seemed to shake the very stones, echoing through the gorges and the frozen valleys. The alarm. The very same one that had not sounded for five thousand years, since the founding of the kingdom. The entire garrison erupted in a controlled chaos. In the adjacent town of Tormeus, every bell began to ring in alarm, their panicked tolling mingling with the screams of the people. Women with children in their arms said tearful goodbyes to their husbands, who, grabbing rusty swords and old spears, joined the ranks of the militia to take their place on the wall.

  The next day, a black gloom had swallowed the horizon. The innumerable army of demons, having ceased its advance, had drawn up before the Gate of the World, turning the white plain into a black, writhing sea. At the command of their orc-officers, the legions began to beat their heavy swords against their shields in unison. The rhythmic, maddening roar, amplified by the cold acoustics of the valley, seemed to shake the very earth, penetrating through the soles of their boots and resonating in the chest of every defender.

  "Don't be a coward, boy! Strike without mercy!" a gray-haired sergeant roared at a young militiaman who was gripping his bow with white-knuckled fingers. "Behind you is your family, your home. And these beasts know no pity! Do you understand me?!"

  From the ranks of the demons, dozens of crude horns, carved from bone, were raised, and their roar, full of a primal hatred, struck the fortress walls. In response, a battle cry erupted from behind the Gate of the World—a cry that was desperate, furious, and filled with the resolve to die rather than retreat.

  "TO BATTLE, READY!" roared the sergeants all along the length of the wall.

  Thousands of archers drew their bowstrings as one. The creaking of wood and stretched leather blended into a single, long, deathly groan. And at that moment, giant trolls in black armor, with siege engines on their backs, emerged from the rear ranks of the demonic army. With a low creak, the levers of the catapults were released, and dozens of huge boulders were hurled into the gray sky. They crashed against the wall with a shattering roar. The Gate of the World shuddered, but held against a blow that would have made the finest engineers of Parpaldia envious. However, the merlons and parapets, not designed for a direct hit, were turned to dust and stone rubble. The unlucky few who happened to be at the point of impact were instantly crushed, turned into a bloody pulp.

  "VOLLEY!" a surviving sergeant roared.

  A cloud of thousands of arrows shot from the wall and rained down on the forward ranks of the enemy. The goblins and the savage orcs fell by the hundreds. But the black wave, not even seeming to notice its losses, continued its inexorable advance. The arrows bounced off the heavy plate of the dark orcs with a dull, futile clang. They marched on, ignoring their losses, their eyes burning with an ancient evil.

  And once again, the visceral roar of a demonic horn sounded over the battlefield. The entire armada, as one, broke into a run. The earth trembled.

  Suddenly, like something born of a nightmare, the black mass of bodies in the front parted. From the misty haze burst the giant, crimson silhouette of an Earth Dragon, whose scales shone as if covered in dried blood. And on its back, in a throne of obsidian adorned with human skulls, sat He. The Demon Lord Nosgorath. Flanking the dragon, his bodyguards—the monstrous Blue and Red Ogres—strode heavily. Their very presence was a sign: the battle for mortals was over; the slaughter had begun.

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  "Nosgorath…" Gai breathed, and all the tavern tales took on a horrifying, bloody reality. "The Demon Lord... He's real…"

  The attack resumed with a new, animalistic fury. Savage orcs, resembling overgrown boars, began their own primitive artillery preparation with visceral grunts: picking up the heavy boulders that had broken off the parapet from the frozen ground, they hurled them at the walls with inhuman strength. The stones shattered the wooden shields with a dull, sickening crack, crushing bone and turning men's heads into a bloody pulp. In the chaos of the battle, it became impossible to maintain an organized defense—each man was focused only on his own stretch of the wall, on his own arrow, on his own life.

  "TROLLS! TO THE GATES!" the desperate cry of a watchman pierced the air again.

  Showers of arrows bounced off their heavy cuirasses. One of the trolls, which had a massive cast-iron battering ram surgically grafted in place of its head, began to charge. Each of its steps was a dull thud, as if piles were being driven into the ground. With a shattering force, it slammed into the main gates. The impact was so powerful that the entire wall shuddered, and the men on it staggered, falling with cries. The mighty locking bars, forged by the dwarves in ancient times, groaned piteously but held. However, a spiderweb of deep cracks spread across the thick oak gate, its ancient enchantments flickering as the mana embedded in the wood began to drain under the relentless assault.

  Suddenly, an arrow, loosed by the skilled hand of Moah, struck an unarmored troll that was carrying a siege ladder directly in the eye. The giant let out a deafening, gurgling roar and collapsed with a crash, crushing several dozen orcs beneath it.

  In response, the legions of orcs raised their shields, and their crossbowmen fired a dense volley, pinning the defenders down. At that moment, the troll with the battering ram delivered its second and final, devastating blow. With a deafening crack, the mighty oak gate, reinforced with magic and steel, were blown to splinters. The way was open.

  Through the breach, like pus from a lanced boil, the horde poured in. The goblins were the first, shrieking and whooping as they ran. Behind them, with heavy treads, came the savage orcs. And in the depths of the breach appeared the trolls, clad in black plate. Finally, in a perfect, terrifying silence, to the monotonous beat of a drum, the legions of the high orcs marched in, their discipline unnatural for creatures of flesh and blood.

  From the depths of the fortress, a human horn answered with a strained roar. The phalanxes of the Topan infantry, formed up into bristling "boxes" of pikes, charged forward with a single cry. Two waves—one black, the other steel—collided.

  The hell of close combat began. The savage orcs and goblins, as their masters had intended, were the first to slam into the human lines, serving as a bloody lubricant to dull the defenders' blades and wear down their strength. The goblins, giggling, leaped onto the shields, plunging rusty daggers into any gap. After killing someone, they would begin to dance on his corpse, their joyful shrieks more hideous than death itself. The orcs charged straight ahead, their clubs crushing helmets with a sickening crunch.

  But the warriors of Topa did not falter. Their line bent but immediately bristled again in a furious counterattack. Their pikes, like the quills of a giant porcupine, found their targets. An old sergeant, instead of trying to block the blow of a club, stepped aside, letting the weapon pass, and with a short, precise thrust of his sword, he buried the blade in the orc's unprotected underbelly. The creature gurgled and collapsed. Another infantryman, having thrown aside his broken pike, drew his zweih?nder with a roar. The two-meter-long blade sang through the air, and in a single, wide, fluid motion, he beheaded several creatures at once.

  "MOAH! FALL BACK TO TORMEUS AT ONCE! WE WILL HOLD THEM!" The captain's roar cut through the din of the battle. His sword crushed the skull of a goblin with a wet crunch, a goblin that, a moment before, had thrown a rock in his face.

  "NO! I WILL NOT ABANDON YOU, CAPTAIN!" Moah screamed back in desperation. He and Gai were fighting in the very heart of the bloody vortex, covering their commander.

  "THAT IS AN ORDER, KNIGHT!" the captain roared, parrying the blow of an orcish club. In his eyes was no longer a fatherly warmth, only the icy steel of a commander. "YOU HAVE SEEN THEM ALL! THEIR NUMBERS, THEIR COMMANDERS, THEIR BANNERS! THAT KNOWLEDGE IS NOW MORE IMPORTANT THAN A THOUSAND SWORDS! THE KING NEEDS IT! GAI! GET HIM OUT OF HERE! THAT IS MY LAST ORDER TO YOU!"

  Gai, his face an impassive mask, covered in grime and blood, gave a short, military nod. It was an oath, given by a dying man to his comrade. He grabbed Moah by the forearm. His grip was like a steel vise.

  "Gai, what are you doing?! LET ME GO!"

  "We're leaving. Now," Gai said firmly, pulling him away from the heart of the fight.

  "NO! CAPTAIN!" Moah looked back one last time. He saw the captain and the handful of remaining warriors, having formed a shield wall, preparing for their final, heroic, and suicidal stand. Their faces were calm. There was no fear in their eyes. Only a grim, heavy resolve.

  Watching the retreating figures, the old captain gave a faint but proud smile. His hope that the news of this indescribable threat would reach the capital was the last thing he had left.

  "Commandant, they've broken through! The horde is in the inner bailey!" the young aide-de-camp's voice, hoarse and breaking with terror, barely cut through the cacophony of the battle.

  "Understood," the commandant replied in a hollow voice, watching from the parapet of the final inner wall as the black tide inexorably flooded the last islands of defense. He was not surprised. He knew this moment would come. "All remaining forces—to the citadel! Fortify the defense at the last gate! Hold to the death!"

  There was no panic in his voice, only the leaden weight of a decision made. He rushed down to the final line of defense. The endless stream of goblins and orcs suddenly parted. From the clouds of smoke and fire, with a regal majesty, emerged the colossal figure of the crimson dragon, and behind it, shaking the very earth, the Blue and Red Ogres. They had entered the arena.

  The commandant slowly, almost with a relish, drew his ancestral sword. All the weariness, all the fear, all the despair evaporated, replaced by a cold, crystal-clear rage. His face twisted into a grimace of a cruel, cheerful resolve.

  "Well then… it seems that today we have been granted the honor of repeating the great deed of our ancestors! We will send these beasts back to the abyss!" He raised his blade high, and his voice thundered over the fortress: "FOR THE KINGDOM OF TOPA! FOR THE FOUR GREAT HEROES! TO BATTLE!"

  In reply, the roar of a human horn thundered back—a final, desperate, and proud sound. The last defenders, the few who had survived, with a frenzied cry, charged into their final, suicidal attack.

  Their wedge of men, with the fury of desperation, crashed into the black mass of the enemy that had been left for them to be torn apart by. And then, in the passage that had been created, two living nightmares appeared before them.

  The Blue and Red Ogres. Enormous, almost four-meter-tall creatures, covered in thick, coarse fur, armed with monstrous, spiked clubs of black metal. The Red one, more massive, was roaring, saliva dripping from its maw. The Blue one, leaner, moved with a grace that was unnatural for its size, its eyes burning with a cold, calculating intelligence.

  They did not just charge into the fight. They began a tactical extermination. The Red Ogre, taking the brunt of the charge, worked like an unbreakable battering ram. Each swing of its club sent several warriors flying, their armor crumpling like paper. The Blue Ogre acted differently. It did not strike randomly but targeted the commanders, the standard-bearers, the seasoned veterans, decapitating and demoralizing the squads with a single, precise blow.

  Terror began to seize the hearts of the defenders. Their formation faltered. But the commandant, who was fighting in the front ranks himself, would not let them break.

  "THE HEARTS OF YOUR WIVES AND CHILDREN ARE BEATING IN UNISON WITH YOURS! DO NOT LET THEM STOP!" he yelled.

  Inspired by his voice, the warriors again and again threw themselves at the indestructible monsters. They plunged their swords and spears into their flesh, but it was useless. The deep wounds on the ogres' bodies closed before their very eyes with a sickening hiss, as if their flesh were woven from a living, regenerating magic. The commandant himself, having dodged the blow of a club, slashed at the Red Ogre's leg with his sword, but the blade only screeched as it slid off the hide, which was as hard as stone, leaving only a shallow scratch.

  It was a hopeless fight. The human line was melting away. Every minute cost dozens of lives. It was a slaughter in which mortals had no chance at all. The last hope of the Topa Kingdom was dying in blood and fire, under the indifferent, almost bored, gaze of the Demon Lord. "The Gate of the World," which had stood for five thousand years, had fallen. And the darkness they had held back was pouring into the world.