Every man froze. A collective silence fell over the hall, so profound you could hear the drip of water from the leaking roof. Then the great bronze bell in the central watchtower began to peal, a frantic, clanging death knell that spoke of pure panic.
Chaos erupted.
Bowls clattered to the ground. Men swore, shouting questions no one could answer. Sergeants started roaring orders, trying to impose some semblance of order on the sudden pandemonium. I saw Captain Valerius stride out of his tent, his face pale and tight beneath his perfectly coiffed hair. The fear on his face was real. That, more than anything, sent a shard of ice through my veins.
“To the walls! To the walls!” Sergeant Marius screamed, his face purple with the effort. “Form ranks! Now!”
I was already moving, my body reacting on pure instinct. I shoved through the sudden press of panicked bodies, my small size an advantage for once as I slipped through gaps in the crowd. My spear and shieldwere leaning against the barracks wall where I’d left them. My hands closed around the worn leather of the shield strap, the familiar weight a small comfort in the swirling madness.
The city had descended into pandemonium. Civilians poured from their homes, screaming. Merchants frantically tried to load carts, their panicked shouts adding to the din. The city’s disciplined military facade had cracked, revealing the terrified heart beneath.
“Kael! Joric! Torvin! North wall! You’re with me!” Sergeant Marius bellowed, grabbing men and shoving them in the right direction.
We scrambled up the stone steps to the parapet, the stone slick with mud and old rain. From the top, the true scope of the disaster was laid bare. It wasn't a defense being mounted; it was an evacuation. The city’s wealthy were already streaming towards the southern gate, their carts piled high with belongings, guarded by a cordon of the Captain's personal guard. They were clogging the main thoroughfare, abandoning the city. Abandoning us.
They were running. The people we were supposed to be protecting were abandoning the city.
“What in the seven hells is going on?” Torvin breathed, his earlier bravado gone, replaced by a wide-eyed terror that made him look like a scared child.
Captain Valerius was down there, not rallying the troops, but overseeing a detachment of his personal guard at the southern gate. They weren't stopping the civilians. They were clearing a path. For themselves.
The blood in my veins turned to ice.They’re going to leave us.
The grunts, the fodder, the disposable boys like me—we were being left to hold the wall. To die on the wall. We were a speed bump. A human sacrifice to buy the officers and the wealthy a head start.
My hatred for them was so pure and hot it momentarily burned away my fear. These men, my supposed leaders, were cowards of the highest order. They would watch us get slaughtered from a safe distance and call it a strategic retreat.
“Sergeant!” a young sentry from the main watchtower yelled, his voice cracking with terror. “A rider comes! One of our own!”
We all turned, straining our eyes to look out over the plains that stretched towards the mountains. A single rider was galloping towards us, a frantic,desperate speck against the green landscape. He wasn't just riding hard; he was riding for his life.
Behind him, the earth itself seemed to darken.
At first, I thought it was a cloud shadow, a trick of the light. But it wasn't. It was a mass. A moving mass of black and green, pouring out of the foothills like a river of death. An army. So many of them that they looked like a biblical plague of locusts sent to devour the world.
My breath hitched. The stories hadn’t done it justice. The sheer scale of it was impossible. My mind couldn't comprehend the numbers.
The lone rider reached the gate, which was hauled open just long enough for him to stumble through before being slammed shut and barred. He fell from his horse, gasping for air, his face a mask of blood and terror.
“War party…” he choked out, his words carrying on the wind. “It’s not a raiding party… It’s the whole damned horde! And he’s with them! Korvak is with them!”
The name hit the wall like a physical blow. A collective gasp went through the men around me. The Bonecrusher. He was here.
Panic, which had been a frantic energy, solidified into pure, paralyzing dread. I saw one of the younger recruits, a boy no older than sixteen, drop his spear and vomit over the side of the wall.
My hands were numb on my own spear shaft. This couldn't be happening. My plan had been to serve my time, to earn my discharge, and then disappear. Find a quiet corner of the world where I could just be. Not a woman in a cage, not a boy in a barracks. Just… me.
But there was no quiet corner. There was only this flimsy wooden wall, and a tide of monsters coming to tear it, and us, to pieces. My fear was a living thing in my throat, choking me. Fear of the Orcs. Fear of the agonizing death they would bring.
Chapter 2
The silence was the worst part.
The Orc horde assembled on the plain below with a terrifying, disciplined quiet. There was no chaotic screaming, no savage war cries like in the stories. There was only the rhythmic, gut-deepthump-thump-thumpof a single massive war drum, a sound that vibrated up through the stone of the wall and into the soles of my boots. It felt like the heartbeat of a hungry god. They moved in perfect, terrifying synergy, a river of green skin and black iron flowing into formation. This wasn't a mob. This was an army.
My knuckles were white where I gripped the rough wood of the parapet. Down in the city, the panic had settled into a kind of grim, frantic despair. The southern gate was sealed. The officers, along with anyone who had the coin or the connections, were long gone. We’d been left behind. The whole damn city, written off as an acceptable loss.
“They’re really gone,” Joric whispered beside me, his voice hollow with disbelief. “Valerius, the Magistrate’s men... All of them. They just left us to die.”
