Dawn rose cold and gray over Ashfang Ford. Smoke drifted lazily from the forges, curling upward into the pallid sky. Warriors moved quietly, sharpened weapons glinting in the pale light. There was tension in every step. The Whispering Banner, lashed to the highest watchtower, snapped softly in the wind like the heartbeat of something ancient and unseen.
And then came the smell.
Foul. Oily. Wrong.
Gorak tasted it before he saw them: rot, mingled with wet fur and old blood.
The scouts were first to spot them—a procession winding up the riverbank. Twelve figures in total. Cloaked. Shambling. Beasts at first glance, but wrong upon closer inspection. Patchy fur, bones protruding from wasted limbs, heads too large for their necks, lolling tongues purple-black with decay.
Carrion Envoys.
Beastblood tribes used them for long-distance messages, a sick mockery of diplomacy. Not living. Not dead. Puppets for their shamans' dark arts. They moved with jerking steps, dragging their feet through mud and brambles.
At their head, a larger creature shuffled forward. Not quite bear. Not quite man. Its eyes were stitched shut, its snout peeled back in a permanent snarl. Around its bloated neck hung a necklace of cracked teeth.
Gorak stood atop the palisade walls, arms crossed, flanked by Drask and Tharak. "What in the hells is that supposed to be?"
"One of their shamans," Drask muttered. "Bone-eaters. Rot-drinkers. From the Eastern Marches."
The envoy stopped thirty paces from the gate. And then, horribly, the bear-thing spoke.
Not from its mouth, but from deep inside its chest. Its ribs rattled with every word.
"Gorak of Ashfang. The Spiral belongs not to you. It is marked. Claimed. You have opened what should not be opened."
The voice sounded ancient, hollowed by time and pain. The warriors behind Gorak exchanged wary glances. Some touched their weapons. Others gripped tokens of bone or polished horn for protection.
"Go back," Gorak called, lifting his obsidian axe so the dull black sheen caught the light. "I have no patience for dead things that talk. Send your masters here if they want it."
The creature took another step forward. "We come to offer mercy. Leave the banner. Leave this place. Flee into the cold, and you may yet see the next moon."
Gorak bared his tusks in a grin. "Wrong offer."
And with that, he hurled his axe.
It arced in a perfect black gleam through the morning air and buried itself in the envoy's bloated skull with a wet crunch. The thing staggered once, then toppled forward like a felled tree.
The others screamed—hideous, chattering noises, more insect than speech—and began to charge the palisade.
"Archers!" Drask roared.
Dozens of bowstrings sang. The air filled with black-feathered arrows. The carrion beasts fell like grain beneath the scythe, one by one, until the ground outside the ford was strewn with twitching, broken bodies.
Silence followed.
Then—a pulse.
Every warrior on the palisade felt it: a ripple through the very earth, as though something vast had shifted far below the surface. The Whispering Banner flared outward against the wind, taut like a sail filled with invisible breath.
And in that instant, Gorak knew:
The Bone-Eaters were only the first. Others were coming. Worse things. Things drawn by the spiral's ancient hunger.
Later that night, as fires crackled and the survivors gathered in grim silence, Gorak issued new orders:
"Double the watch. Fortify the eastern banks. And send word to the outposts: any who can fight, bring them here. If we fall here, we fall as a kingdom, not a camp."
Ashfang Ford was no longer just a camp of orcs on the run. It was now a stronghold of defiance, standing alone against the ancient forces stirring in the dark.
And the banner whispered still.