The horns howled as dawn broke, and with them came the hammering of war-drums — a thunder that rolled across the plains, shaking even the stone foundations of Frostfang's walls. A morning mist hung low, clinging to every corner of the field, veiling the countless ranks of the Vulture King's horde. Through the pale haze, dark banners rippled, black wings of carrion painted across ragged cloth, and the shapes beneath them moved like a plague given flesh.
Aldric stood atop the south rampart, breath steaming in the cold air, eyes fixed on the seething army below. His steel armor gleamed dully where Rowena had polished it the night before, but a fresh gouge above the heart showed plainly — a reminder of how close death had come in the drowned caverns. Now, death marched again, not from below but across the earth, relentless and cruel.
Beside him, Kaelin slammed the head of her warhammer against the stones, a deep rhythm to steady her pulse. The sight of the marsh host seemed to make her jaw twitch, but her eyes were sharp as a wolf's.
"They're massing on the left," she growled. "Pushing heavy ranks. They mean to break us quick."
Aldric nodded, voice steady though he felt the tremor in his bones. "Then we will hold them there. You'll take your skirmishers around the marsh road — strike them on the flank. Burn their supply carts if you can."
Kaelin cracked a savage grin. "With pleasure."
Further down the battlement, Rowena was a statue of cold precision, her bow in hand, strings already waxed against the damp. She had chosen her archers carefully — hunters, poachers, even old women who had shot at wolves to protect their goats. They lined the walls, each with a quiver at their side, faces pale but resolute.
She turned as Aldric approached. "We'll cut them down before they get close enough to throw ladders," she promised.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, warm through the chill. "Keep your head down, Rowena. They will answer your arrows with fire."
She nodded, though her jaw was tight with fear. "I'll take them all to the grave if I must."
Thunder rolled again — no, not thunder, but the pounding of the Vulture King's iron-shod boots. A vast wedge of his army had begun to advance, shields raised, spears bristling like a tide of thorns. At their head, a monstrous shape in a cloak of rotting skins: the Vulture King himself, helm shaped to a cruel black beak, eyes lost in darkness.
A shriek went up from his priestess, the barefoot woman with milk-blind eyes, her thin arms raised to the morning sky. Her voice seemed to flay the very air, and all across the plain, the marsh soldiers roared in answer, a wave of hate that seemed to drown the world.
Frostfang's defenders did not falter. The city had seen horrors in the deep; it would see horrors again and stand.
Aldric raised his sword high, catching the new sunlight. Its light turned the battered steel to a white-hot gleam.
"Archers!" he roared.
Rowena echoed him, voice cutting through the gathering storm. "Nock!"
The hiss of arrows drawn back was like a hundred serpents waking.
"Loose!"
The sky darkened as the first flight of arrows soared, arcing over the field to fall upon the oncoming horde. The first ranks of marsh warriors fell, screams rising as iron punched through shield and flesh. But more came behind them, unstoppable, trampling the fallen.
Then the siege engines rolled forward — towers of splintered wood, pieced together with swamp logs and banded in rusted iron, pulled by teams of thick-muscled oxen half-mad from the stink of the Vulture King's poisons. Atop them, crossbowmen fired massive bolts that crashed into Frostfang's walls, shaking stones loose and sending men tumbling from the ramparts.
Kaelin and her skirmishers, already outside the walls through a secret postern gate, struck at their flanks. Flames blossomed as they hurled firepots into supply wagons, and the sharp cry of burning men rose above the clamor of war.
Rowena fired again and again, eyes gone hard as granite, even as the enemy bolts smashed the parapet around her. A splinter tore a gash across her cheek, hot blood running down, but she barely blinked.
Aldric fought wherever the wall looked weakest, rallying men whose courage buckled under the scream of iron and fire. The Vulture King's forces pressed forward with terrifying discipline, planting ladders, hammering at the gates with a ram shaped like a monstrous bird's head.
Inside the keep, Maerlyn worked her own grim magic. She moved from chamber to chamber, chanting in a language older than stone, drawing chalk runes that seethed with ghostly light. Down in the crypts, the bones of Frostfang's kings seemed to tremble as if listening.
A boy, no older than fourteen, stumbled into the witch's path, wide-eyed. "Lady—are you raising the dead?"
Maerlyn looked at him, eyes black as a raven's, and for a moment the world seemed to grow silent around her.
"If the living fail," she said calmly, "the dead will have their turn."
Outside, the gates groaned under the pounding of the ram, each blow shaking the courtyard beyond. Cracks spidered through the iron-banded oak. Aldric could hear the hinge scream.
Kaelin reappeared, her hammer stained with gore, a grin wild and unbreakable. "We lit their wagons like festival lanterns!" she shouted over the din. "But there are still thousands left!"
Aldric nodded, chest heaving. "Then we kill thousands."
With a final splintering roar, the gate burst inward. The Vulture King's soldiers poured through in a black tide, blades flashing.
"For Frostfang!" Aldric bellowed, and hurled himself forward, blade ringing against the first attacker's axe.
The courtyard became a slaughterhouse — men screamed, steel bit, and the ground grew slick underfoot. The defenders of Frostfang fought with a fury born of desperation, hacking down foe after foe.
Rowena, from atop the tower, sent arrows whistling into the press, picking out enemy captains, trying to slow their advance. Her arms burned with exhaustion, but she refused to rest.
Kaelin slammed into the enemy wedge with her hammer, breaking bones, sending armored men sprawling like dolls. She laughed, a wild sound, unstoppable.
Aldric carved a path toward the center of the courtyard, where the Vulture King himself advanced, a towering shadow of iron and stitched skins. Their eyes met, and Aldric felt something vast and cold behind that gaze — a will that refused death, refused pity, refused even the memory of peace.
Their blades met with a crash that echoed through the burning city. Sparks showered from the clash, and Aldric staggered under the sheer force of the blow.
"Wolf-king," the Vulture King hissed from behind his beaked helm, "you will kneel."
"Never." Aldric spat blood, raising his sword again.
Their duel raged, surrounded by the ruin of Frostfang. Maerlyn's chants rose higher, the runes flaring like stars gone mad. The crypt doors groaned, and from within, bones rattled — the old kings hearing the witch's call.
Above them all, the sun burned through the smoke, red as a dying heart, as the battle for Frostfang reached its terrible crescendo.