The rain had stopped two days ago, but the land still bled water.

  Mud clung to boots and hooves alike, sucking at every step, slowing the march just enough to fray nerves. Low fog curled through the trees in the early hours of the morning, clinging to branches and undergrowth, blurring distance and dulling sound. The forest here was old—older than imperial maps claimed—and it watched Bhraime’s army with a silence that felt deliberate.

  General Bhraime Montclef rode at the center of his column, helm pushed back, eyes narrowed as he scanned the tree line again and again. For four days now it had been the same rhythm: sighted green skins at dawn, skirmish by midmorning, blood by noon, pursuit until dusk. Each fight ended the same way—imperial discipline breaking savage charges, the enemy fleeing in ragged disorder.

  Too easy.

  That thought gnawed at him more with every mile.

  Ahead, scouts filtered back through the ranks, breathless, mud splattered.

  “Contact,” one of them reported. “Bigger this time. Hundreds, at least. They’re massing just beyond the eastern tree line.”

  Bhraime reined in hard.

  The column rippled to a halt behind him, shields thumping as soldiers adjusted grips, officers barking sharp commands to restore spacing. Bhraime turned in the saddle and raised one armored hand.

  “Captain Alavator!”

  The captain spurred forward immediately, visor lifted, eyes bright with the fierce confidence of a man who had survived too many fights to doubt himself.

  “Form the line,” Bhraime ordered. “Defensive posture. Spears forward. Shields locked. No one advances without command.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Alavator wheeled away, his voice cutting through the column like a blade.

  “Shields! Front ranks, lock them! Spears to the fore! Second line, brace and support!”

  Orders cascaded down the line, shouted, repeated, refined. Men moved with drilled precision despite the churned ground beneath them. Heavy shields came together with hollow thuds, forming a wall of iron and wood. Spearpoints slid forward through gaps, bristling like the spines of a massive beast.

  Bhraime dismounted and stepped forward, planting himself just behind the front rank. He rested one hand on the rim of a shield, feeling the tremor in the wood—not fear, but anticipation.

  The forest exploded.

  Savage screams tore from the trees as green skins burst into the open, bodies painted with crude war sigils, armor cobbled together from bone, leather, and stolen steel. Axes and cleavers rose and fell as they charged, howling, teeth bared, eyes alight with bloodlust.

  “Hold!” Alavator roared.

  The first impact hit like a wave against a cliff.

  Green skins smashed into the shield wall, blades screeching across iron, bodies slamming hard enough to stagger men backward a half-step before discipline locked them in place. Spears punched forward in unison, skewering attackers through chest and throat, yanking them off their feet to be trampled by those behind.

  “Steady!” Bhraime shouted. “Keep the line! Thrust and pull—do not overreach!”

  Blood sprayed across shields. Bodies piled at the base of the formation. The air filled with the stink of sweat, iron, and wet earth. Savage screams clashed with shouted imperial commands, the sound rising into a single deafening roar.

  Again, and again the green skins hurled themselves forward, and again and again they broke against the shield wall. Imperial discipline held. Long spears did their merciless work, keeping the enemy just far enough away to die without dragging defenders down with them.

  Minutes stretched into a brutal eternity.

  Then Bhraime saw it.

  A flicker of movement off to the right. Not a charge. A signal.

  He turned sharply. “Captain!”

  Alavator was already looking where Bhraime pointed.

  “Signalman!” Bhraime barked. “Now!”

  Alavator nodded once and raised his arm toward a lone figure standing just beyond the line—a man holding a heavy flagstaff, banner furled tight.

  The signalman snapped to attention.

  At the captain’s gesture, the banner was thrust high and whipped back and forth with furious force.

  The sound came a heartbeat later.

  Thunder.

  Not from the sky—from the ground.

  Hooves pounded earth as if the forest itself were charging. From the green skins’ flank, trees parted violently and imperial cavalry burst forth at full gallop. Lances leveled. Armor gleamed. Horses screamed as one.

  They hit the enemy line like a hammer blow.

  Lances carved through bodies, splitting skulls, punching through crude armor and snapping free slick with blood. Riders trampled the fallen, swords flashing as the formation drove straight through the green skin host, splitting it clean in two.

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  Panic rippled instantly.

  The green skins’ momentum shattered. Screams turned from rage to terror as they broke and fled in all directions, abandoning the dead and wounded alike. Cavalry wheeled and gave chase, cutting down those too slow or too foolish to run.

  Within minutes, the field belonged to the Empire.

  Bhraime stood amid the carnage, breathing slow, eyes cold as he surveyed the aftermath. Bodies lay everywhere—green skin corpses twisted in the mud, imperial dead fewer but no less real.

  Alavator approached, helmet tucked beneath his arm, blood splattered across his armor.

  “Casualties,” he reported. “Forty-six wounded. Twelve won’t fight again. Fifty-three dead.”

  Bhraime frowned.

  Silence hung between them.

  “Sir?” Alavator said carefully. “What’s wrong? We’re cutting through them.”

  Bhraime did not answer immediately. He turned slowly, scanning the tree line, the distant hills, the churned ground marked by retreating footprints.

  “Look around, Captain,” he said at last.

  Alavator did, brow furrowing. “I see a rout.”

  “I see a lesson,” Bhraime replied. “This is the fourth fight in four days. Each one just big enough to bleed us. Just small enough to flee.”

  Alavator hesitated. “You think they’re… testing us?”

  “Or guiding us,” Bhraime said grimly.

  The captain frowned. “Sir, with respect—these are green skins.”

  “Yes,” Bhraime said softly. “And they conquered a bastion that stood for hundreds of years. They killed one of the most capable generals this Empire has produced in centuries.”

  He met Alavator’s eyes.

  “No, Captain. We will not make the same mistakes.”

  A chill crept into the captain’s expression. “Then what do we do?”

  Bhraime turned. “Map.”

  Moments later, a rolled parchment was spread across a shield laid flat on the ground. Bhraime knelt, studying it with intense focus.

  “You see here,” he said, pointing to a forested stretch funneling into a narrow valley. “Hills on both sides. Perfect ground for an ambush. Difficult to maneuver cavalry. Spears lose their reach.”

  Alavator nodded slowly. “We’d be hard-pressed there.”

  “Exactly,” Bhraime said. He shifted his finger eastward. “Here.”

  He tapped a small mark beside a river bend.

  “This town,” he continued. “Defensible terrain. Open approaches. If they want to trap us, they’ll try to draw us past it.”

  Alavator leaned closer, reading the name beneath Bhraime’s finger.

  “Osogorsk,” he said.

  Bhraime rose.

  “That,” he said, “is where we make our stand. If it still stands.”

  The wind stirred the fog, carrying with it the distant echo of something not quite a horn, not quite a drum.

  And Bhraime Montclef knew, with a certainty that settled heavy in his bones, that the real battle had not yet begun.

  The encampment stretched for nearly a mile across the churned plain, a sprawl of crude tents, bonfires, and sharpened stakes driven into the earth like broken teeth. Smoke hung low, heavy with the stink of blood, cooked meat, and unwashed bodies. Drums beat somewhere deep within the mass of green skins—slow, irregular rhythms that thudded like a diseased heart struggling to remember its own cadence.

  Thousands gathered there.

  Warbands squatted around fires, sharpening blades with stones slicked black from old use. Wolves snarled and strained against chains. Captured banners—imperial, dwarven, and worse—hung torn and inverted from crude poles. Everywhere there was noise: arguing, boasting, laughing, snarling.

  Through it all walked Thiragirn.

  He was larger than most, broad even for his kind, his shoulders thick with corded muscle and ritual scars. A jagged mohawk ran down the center of his skull, dyed in violent bands of color—red, white, and a sickly yellow that marked him as something apart from the others. He wore heavy plates scavenged from fallen foes, hammered into place without care for balance or comfort. Blood crusted his gauntlets, still fresh.

  The green skins parted before him as he passed.

  Not in respect.

  In wariness.

  Thiragirn’s eyes burned with ambition, with the feral certainty that the world existed to be taken. He had tasted human blood that morning. He had felt the shield wall buckle—just for a moment—and that moment had lodged itself in his mind like a promise.

  He reached the heart of the encampment where the great war tent loomed.

  It dwarfed all others, stitched together from hides thick enough to turn a blade. Bone trophies dangled from its poles—skulls of dwarves, men, beasts whose names were better left forgotten. The ground around it was bare, trampled flat by countless boots, stained so dark it no longer showed fresh blood.

  Two massive orcs stood guard at the entrance, both scarred veterans with weapons as tall as men.

  Thiragirn stopped before them.

  Neither moved.

  “I bring word,” Thiragirn growled.

  One guard snorted and turned, ducking into the tent without a word. The other watched Thiragirn closely, fingers tightening on his axe.

  Moments passed.

  The drumbeat slowed.

  Then the guard returned.

  He said nothing.

  The tent flap parted again.

  Warmonger emerged.

  The noise of the camp seemed to draw inward as he stepped out, as if the world itself leaned away from him. He was enormous even among his kind, armor forged from bone, iron, and scorched steel clinging to him like a second skin. One eye burned green, the other red, both glowing faintly beneath his heavy brow. Across his back rested Ar’Sul, the obsidian blade drinking in the firelight, its presence warping the air around it.

  Warmonger did not pause.

  He walked straight toward Thiragirn.

  The orc dropped to one knee instantly, head bowed so low his forehead struck the dirt.

  “Master—”

  Warmonger reached down and seized him by the neck.

  The grip was sudden, absolute.

  Thiragirn was yanked upright so violently that a surprised yelp tore from his throat as his feet left the ground. Warmonger hurled him backward without effort. Thiragirn hit the earth hard, bounced once, and skidded to a stop amid a spray of dust.

  Before he could rise, a massive boot slammed down on his throat.

  The impact drove the breath from him in a choking gasp.

  Every green skin nearby took an instinctive step back.

  The war camp fell silent.

  Warmonger drew Ar’Sul.

  The blade slid free with a sound like stone cracking under pressure. He lowered it slowly until its edge hovered just beside Thiragirn’s neck, so close the orc could feel its cold hunger against his skin.

  “Were you not told,” Warmonger said quietly, “to back off and let the humans continue forward unimpeded?”

  Thiragirn’s hands scrabbled weakly at the boot crushing his throat. “M–master,” he rasped, voice broken, “I saw opportunity… to hurt them.”

  Warmonger’s gaze never wavered.

  “That was not the plan,” he said. “And now I am told they have changed course.”

  The blade shifted slightly, pressing closer.

  “They head to a town,” Warmonger continued. “One that can be defended.”

  Thiragirn’s eyes bulged. “We will still crush them there,” he wheezed desperately. “We—”

  “Yes,” Warmonger agreed calmly. “We will.”

  The boot pressed harder.

  “But at greater cost to us.”

  He leaned down, voice dropping to a growl that carried across the camp.

  “When I give an order,” he said, “I expect it to be obeyed.”

  “Yes, master,” Thiragirn gasped. “I wi—”

  Ar’Sul moved.

  The blade sliced through Thiragirn’s neck with effortless precision, severing flesh, bone, and spine in one smooth motion. The orc’s body convulsed once beneath Warmonger’s boot, then went slack. Blood pooled into the dirt, steaming faintly in the cool air.

  Warmonger straightened.

  “I was speaking to the others,” he said, looking down at the corpse with open disgust. “Fool.”

  No one spoke.

  No one dared breathe too loudly.

  Warmonger turned, lifting his gaze to the gathered warbands.

  “We make for the town,” he announced. “We break them where they think themselves safe.”

  He did not wait for cheers.

  He turned and strode back into the tent, Ar’Sul settling against his back like a living thing.

  Shermongrin, who had stood silently to one side throughout it all, raised one painted hand. Two orcs hurried forward and dragged Thiragirn’s body away, leaving a dark smear behind them.

  The drums began again.

  Faster now.

  Hungrier.

  And across the plain, the green skins began to move—toward Osogorsk, toward blood, toward a battle that would decide far more than any of them yet understood.