“Hold the main gate,” I command Korgath, my voice a calm, steady thing that cuts through the tension. “Make them believe it is our only defense. Grak, you have the southern pass. Do not show yourselves until you hear my signal.”
The Dark Elves advance. As I predicted, a smaller force breaks from the main army and begins the slow, arduous march toward the main gate, firing bolts of magical energy at ourwalls that explode in showers of purple sparks. It is a noisy, impressive, and utterly pointless display. A feint.
My eyes are fixed on the southern pass. Lord Jildred himself, a distant, elegant figure on a black, armored steed, leads his main force into the narrow, treacherous canyon. He believes he is flanking us. He believes he is clever. He does not know he is marching his entire army into a trap of my design.
He reaches the center of the pass, a place where the canyon walls are steep and unstable. This is it.
I raise my hand and give the signal. A single, piercing blast from a war horn.
The mountain itself answers. From the high ridges above the southern pass, my warriors, led by Grak, send the great boulders we positioned days ago crashing down. The avalanche is a thunderous, grinding roar of destruction. It does not wipe out his army, but it does exactly what I intended: it shatters their formation. The narrow pass is choked with rock and screaming bodies. Their disciplined lines are now a chaotic, panicked mob, trapped between the rockslide and the sheer canyon walls.
“Archers!” I roar. From hidden positions all along the canyon rim, a hundred Fire Sun bows are drawn as one. “Loose!”
A black cloud of arrows descends upon the trapped army. The volley is devastating. And before they can even recover, the second part of my plan begins.
“Now,” I say, my voice a low growl of pure, righteous fury. “We show them what an Orc’s strength truly is.”
I lift my father’s great axe. “FOR THE FIRE SUN!” I roar, my voice echoing through the valley.
A single, unified war cry, thousands of voices strong, answers me. With a sound like the mountain itself breaking apart, we charge. We pour from hidden tunnels and side passages, not at the main gate, but directly into the flank of their panicked, disordered army.
The battle is a maelstrom of blood and steel. The Dark Elves are skilled, but their tactics are useless in this chaotic brawl. The Orcs are stronger, fiercer, and we are fighting to protect our home. I am a whirlwind of controlled destruction, my axe a silver blur in the morning light. Every blow I land, every enemy I fell, is for the years they stole from me. For the agony of the curse. For Dina.
But my eyes are not just on the battle. They are scanning the chaos, searching for one face. One elegant, cruel, sorcerous face.
I see him. He is on a rocky outcrop above the main fray, his personal guard around him, his pale hands weaving spells of shadow and death that lash out at my warriors. He is a cancer, and I am the blade that will cut him out.
I fight my way toward him, a relentless engine of vengeance. His guards are the best, elite soldiers in enchanted armor. They fall before me like saplings before a storm. I climb the outcrop, my boots slipping on the blood-slicked stone, until I stand before him.
“Sorcerer,” I snarl.
Lord Jildred looks at me, and for the first time, I see a flicker of fear in his violet eyes. “The beast,” he hisses.
He raises his hands, and tendrils of pure darkness erupt from the ground, lashing out, trying to ensnare me. I am not the beast he knew. I am faster. I leap over them, my axe raised. He throws a bolt of black energy. I block it with the flat of my axe, the magical impact a jarring shock that numbs my arm, but I do not falter.
His magic is powerful. But he has relied on it for too long. He does not know how to fight a true warrior, face to face. I close the distance, my sheer, physical presence breaking his concentration. He stumbles back, his face pale, his arrogance finally cracking.
He makes one last, desperate attempt, a complex spell of binding. But I am too close. My fist connects with his jaw, a single, brutal blow that sends him sprawling to the ground, his spell dissolving into nothing.
My axe is at his throat before he can even register his defeat. His eyes are wide with terror. He is mine.
The Urog inside me, the ghost of the beast, screams for blood. It wants me to finish it, to take his head, to repay a decade of agony with a single, satisfying moment of vengeance. The temptation is a physical thing, a burning tide in my veins.
But I look away from his terrified face, down at the battle. I see my clan, fighting with honor. I see Dina in my mind’s eye, her quiet strength, her compassion. I see my father, waiting for me to be the leader he raised.
Vengeance is the beast’s way. Justice is a chieftain’s.
With a grunt, I reverse my axe and bring the heavy, flat pommel down on the side of his head. He slumps to the ground, unconscious but alive. I stand over his broken form, my chest heaving.
The sight of their leader, defeated, his body slung over my shoulder like a sack of grain, breaks the will of the remaining Dark Elf army. A captain sees me, his eyes wide with horror, and he throws down his sword. Then another. And another.
A ragged cheer begins from my warriors, then grows into a triumphant, deafening roar. In the valley below, the army of Lord Jildred, broken and leaderless, surrenders. The war is over. We have won.
37
DINA
The victory celebration is a roaring, joyous fire that fills the great hall and chases the last of the shadows from my soul. Xylon is a king among his people, his name chanted and cheered, his victory in the battle a new, more glorious chapter in the history of the Fire Sun Clan. He is not just the returned son; he is Xylon the Unbroken, the War Leader who saved them all. And I, who once felt like a ghost haunting the edges of his world, am now firmly at its center, my hand in his, a permanent fixture at his side.
