House of Blood

The sky over Bergis had turned the color of a fresh bruise.

By noon of the third day, the air no longer carried the crisp scent of pine from the surrounding peaks. It smelled of sulfur, damp fur, and the oppressive, metallic static that preceded a high-grade mana surge.

Standing atop the highest battlements of the northern gate, Wren adjusted the leather straps of her armguards. Below her, five thousand men of the city watch, militia, and auxiliary units stood lined up along the lower battlements and inner courtyards. Their armor was polished, but their faces were pale, their knuckles white as they gripped spears and heavy shields.

Beside her, Sir Van Liondale stood in full plate armor, his hand resting on the pommel of his longsword. Down in the front courtyard, Inquisitor Charles and his twenty-four Holy Knights formed an unyielding wall of silver and gold, their white cloaks snapping violently in the rising gale.

A low rumble vibrated through the stone beneath their feet.

It was not thunder.

It was the synchronized, rhythmic pounding of tens of thousands of clawed feet tearing through the northern valley.

”They’re here,” Wren said quietly.

Over the crest of the northern ridge, a black wave spilled over the horizon.

Abyssal direwolves the size of warhorses, armored stone-hide boars, and massive, multi-jointed razor-crabs surged down the mountain slopes like a flash flood of dark flesh and teeth. The sheer weight of the horde shook the dust from the city walls.

A ripple of panic ran through the front ranks of the militia.

Men shuffled backward; breath caught in tight throats.

Wren stepped onto the stone ledge of the battlements, her figure outlined against the dark sky. She didn’t use a communication artifact. She simply let her dragon-blood mana swell in her chest, her voice cutting through the howls of the wind with terrifying clarity.

”Look at them!” Wren yelled, pointing a single, claw-tipped finger at the approaching horde. ”They look big! They look loud! And they think this city is just another pile of rocks for them to smash!”

She turned, her golden eyes sweeping over the rows of terrified soldiers.

”Listen to me! Valerian didn’t leave you here to die, and I certainly didn’t stay behind to watch a bunch of overgrown mutts piss on our parade! Look to your left! Look to your right! That is your brother! That is your neighbor! You hold this line today, not for glory, but because everything behind you belongs to us!”

She drew her twin dragon-skin daggers, the dark metal humming with dense, crimson mana.

”Let them come! We will turn this valley into their graveyard!”

A pause hung in the freezing air—and then a deafening, unified roar erupted from five thousand throats.

The fear vanished, replaced by the hot, violent surge of adrenaline.

Wren turned back to Van Liondale, her voice dropping to a low, sharp tone.

”Sir Van, get down to the inner ward. The refugees and civilians are going to hear the slaughter. You’re the face they trust. Ease their fears, keep the panic contained, and ensure the supply lines stay open. You have this.”

Van Liondale looked at the young half-dragon, his old eyes softening with deep respect. He bowed his head firmly.

”May the gods hold your blades sharp, Lady Wren. The inner city will remain secure.”

As Van Liondale hurried down the stone steps, Wren raised her right dagger toward the sky.

”ARCHERS! BALLISTAS! LOAD!”

Along the top wall, giant iron-strung ballistas groaned as winches pulled back heavy steel cables. Hundreds of archers drew back arrows tipped with explosive fire-runes.

”RANGE FIVE HUNDRED PACES!” Wren barked, watching the front line of direwolves leap into the lower trench zone. ”FIRE!”

THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!

The sky darkened as thousands of black shafts were unleashed in a single, massive arc.

Seconds later, the front edge of the beast tide detonated.

Fire-rune arrows burst into blossoms of orange flame, tearing through flesh and bone, while heavy ballista bolts impaled three beasts at a time, pinning them to the frozen earth.

The initial barrage carved massive, bloody gaps in the horde, but the beasts pushed forward over the corpses of their own kind, driven by a mindless, violent frenzy.

”AGAIN!” Wren commanded. ”DO NOT LET THEM BREATHE!”

While the long-range barrage rained hell from above, two shadows flickered atop the lower courtyard gate, watching the approaching tide with wild, unhinged grins.

Castor and Pollux—Valerian’s deranged shadow-bound twins—were practically vibrating with suppressed violence.

To anyone else, the oncoming horde was an apocalyptic tide of teeth and claws.

To them, it was an all-you-can-eat blood sport.

”Look at all those ugly faces, brother,” Castor giggled, his pitch-black chitin daggers humming with dark spatial mana as he licked a streak of dark grease off his knuckles.

”It’s almost rude to keep them waiting, brother,” Pollux purred, his own identical daggers spinning around his fingers like dark, liquid fan-blades.

Before the main gates could even take a direct hit from the vanguard of stone-hide boars, the deranged twins didn’t wait for orders.

They synchronized their breaths, giggled in terrifying unison, and leapt directly off the thirty-foot wall, plunging straight into the thickest, most suffocating mass of the horde.

BOOM!

Castor hit the ground like a meteor, unleashing an explosive shockwave of compressed shadow mana that shattered the ribs of a dozen direwolves instantly.

He moved like a rabid shadow-demon, abandoning all form of traditional martial posture. He dove beneath the bellies of massive armored boars, carving upward with his daggers to disembowel them in single, fluid sweeps.

He laughed maniacally, his eyes burning with a manic crimson gleam as he bathed in the spray of black, steaming beast blood.

Beside him, Pollux was a dancing storm of gory, psychotic art.

He didn’t crush; he dismantled.

Moving with unnerving, twitching speed, he leaped from the snouts of charging beasts to the backs of razor-crabs, plunging his chitin blades into joint gaps and twisting until bone cracked and cartilage popped.

He twirled through the crimson rain, his blades singing a high-pitched song of death, shrieking with pure delight whenever a spray of hot gore hit his face.

”Five for me!” Castor yelled, plunging his arm elbow-deep into a direwolf’s skull and ripping out its mana core with a sickening SQUELCH.

”Seven for me, slowpoke!” Pollux cackled back, somersaulting over a stone-hide boar and severing all four of its legs in a single, blinding flash of dark cutting arcana.

They didn’t fight like soldiers holding a line; they fought like starved wolves let loose in a sheep pen.

Their shadows extended outward across the frozen earth, stretching into razor-sharp black tendrils that impaled lesser beasts, holding them pinned in place while the twins skipped between them to deliver brutal, lingering finishing blows.

Together, the deranged twins became an absolute, unstoppable meat-grinder.

They single-handedly carved a fifty-yard perimeter of pure, unadulterated carnage right outside the main gate, holding back the entire western wing of the tide through sheer, psychotic aggression.

From the high battlements, Inquisitor Charles watched the two shadow-bound psycho twins butcher the monsters with terrifying, inhuman efficiency, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth groaned.

”Monsters fighting monsters...” Charles muttered, a cold shudder running down his spine before he turned to his knights.

”HOLY KNIGHTS! DRAW STEEL! RAISE THE RADIANT BARRIER!”

A massive wall of shimmering golden light erupted along the gate perimeter, catching the secondary wave of beasts as the battle descended into an all-out bloodbath.

Five miles north of the raging battle...

Deep within the dark, cloud-shrouded peaks of the jagged mountains surrounding Bergis, the ground began to tremble—not from the trampling of feet, but from a deep, ancient resonance far beneath the granite crust.

The snow along the highest peak split open as a vast fissure tore through the mountainside.

Rocks weighing thousands of tons tumbled into the abyss below with deafening crashes that echoed across the valley.

From the pitch-black depths of the newly shattered mountain ridge, the darkness itself seemed to stir.

Slowly, agonizingly, two massive rock-covered eyelids parted.

A colossal, beast-like eye opened against the mountain face.

It was larger than the city gates of Bergis, glowing with a sickening, molten-gold irradiance that cast a demonic light across the surrounding fog.

Its vertical, abyss-black pupil dilated slowly, shifting its gaze from the dark sky down toward the burning battlefield in the valley below.

A heavy, subterranean breathing hum shook the mountain roots—a deep, ancient rhythm that drowned out the screams of soldiers and the roars of the beast tide alike.

The horde was not the main event.

It was merely the scent of blood that had awakened what slept within the rock.