"Ren!" Alison's voice crashed through steel on steel. The captain shouldered into the narrow space at Renher's side, shield high, face set. "Your orders?"
"Same as before," Renher said. "We don't outrun our line. We don't take gifts we can't pay for. We strangle their center while Thymur cuts the snake's head."
Alison's mouth tugged. "And if the snake grows two heads?"
"Then we find a bigger knife."
Alison snorted once, fierce and brief. "Good to have you awake."
"Try to keep me that way," Renher said.
"Can't do everything," Alison replied, and shoved back into the fight.
On the ridge, the robed orc raised both arms, and for a heartbeat the skin of the world looked thin enough to tear. Thymur's voice cut clean across the space between them, a word Renher did not know in a language he did not want to. Light slammed down like a wall and the tear did not open.
The orc screamed wordless rage. Renher found that satisfying in a precise, cold way.
"Forward," he said, and this time he went with them. The hill accepted his weight. The sword settled into his hand, familiar and hungry. He did not fight like a man trying to survive; he fought like a man making room for others to survive—parry, break, step, cut, move—every motion a small decision that kept the line from fraying. Around him, the army behaved like a single animal finally remembering the way its body should move.
Minutes became a shape without numbers. The right flank locked. The left stopped pretending to run and began to kill in earnest. The center, under the weight of mages' braced earth and archers' punishing rhythm, ground forward until they stood where the ridge began to soften.
The robed orc faltered. Thymur did not. The lattice of light constricted, the ink-dark receded, and the line where their wills met moved a handspan toward the orc. It was enough.
"Press," Renher said, and the word left his mouth like a promise.
The lancers' points dipped, lifted, dipped again, and orcs went down. The contraption that had begun the ambush shuddered and splintered under a falling stone fist shaped by a mage with an exhausted, triumphant grin. The orcs who ran the machine looked at one another and, for the first time since the arrows fell, doubt opened in their faces like a cut.
"Now," Renher said, and the army answered.
They took the top of the hill not with a roar but with a hard breath drawn through teeth. It was not done—battles seldom are when a ridge is won and a valley still waits—but the shape had shifted. For the moment, this ground was theirs.
Renher stood in the press, chest heaving, eyes scanning the field for the next weak place to shore, the next hard edge to blunt. The whisper of that impossible corridor brushed him once more and then slid away like oil from clean metal. Not finished, that voice said without saying. He agreed.
He lifted his blade and pointed down the far slope where the rest of the orc force waited, reorganizing around their wounded pride, their dead machine, their trembling shaman.
"For Skairus," he said—not shouted, simply stated, and the words moved through the men as if they had always been waiting to hear them exactly that way.
"For Skairus," they answered.
They began the descent.
The ground trembled as the imperial lancers surged downhill, shields raised, spears angled like a forest of steel. Their armor gleamed in the sun, their disciplined march contrasting sharply with the guttural chaos that awaited below. At the foot of the slope, the orcs howled, their formation crude but savage, weapons brandished, tusked mouths foaming with bloodlust.
Archers shadowed the descent, loosing volleys into the flanks of any beast daring to approach the column. Each arrow struck clean, felling wolves and oversized boars that prowled the periphery. The mages wove bursts of flame and shards of ice, clearing brambles and breaking loose earth so the path held firm for the advance. It was a dance rehearsed countless times in drills, but today every motion carried the weight of survival.
From his vantage at the rear, Renher watched with arms folded across his chestplate. His dark eyes measured every movement—the pace of the lancers, the tightness of their ranks, the alignment of archers on the ridge. Every detail mattered. One slip, one weak link in the chain, and the momentum of the charge would collapse into slaughter.
"Keep the center tight," Renher muttered under his breath. "Hold steady… steady…"
His horse stamped impatiently beneath him, sensing the tension. Renher's gauntleted hand stroked the beast's neck to calm it. Though his blood sang with the urge to charge at the front, he held back. A commander who rushes too soon leaves his men leaderless. His role was to see the whole board, not just one square.
A sudden bellow erupted from below. The orcs moved, not with weapons—but with stone. From hidden crags, they heaved boulders down the slope, each one large enough to crush five men in a single roll. The air shuddered with their descent.
"Shields!" shouted the lancer captains.
The formation braced, but Renher could already see it wouldn't be enough. The sheer size of the rocks would shatter men and steel alike.
Then, behind him, a voice rang clear.
"Leave it to me."
Renher glanced back. Thymur stood with robes billowing, hands alight with flame. Fireballs roared from his palms, colliding with the tumbling stones mid-descent. The boulders exploded into smoking fragments, showering the battlefield with shards. The ground quaked from the impacts, and for a heartbeat, dust veiled the valley in choking haze.
When the smoke cleared, the orcs on the slope faltered, their crude trap undone. The lancers surged forward again, voices raised in unison war cries.
A thin smile tugged at Renher's lips. Good. The line holds.
But he knew the orcs wouldn't falter for long. Sure enough, more of the beasts poured from behind the rocks, weapons drawn. Their howls shook the air, and the ground seemed to quake beneath their charge.
"Forward!" Renher commanded, raising his blade. His voice cut across the clash, sharp and unyielding. "Spears first, cut them down before they close!"
The lancers responded instantly, bracing as the orcs crashed into them. The first collision was brutal—steel spears thrusting through thick hides, while cleavers and axes hacked at shields. Men screamed, orcs roared, and blood sprayed across the hillside.
Renher's horse stamped again, eager for battle. But still he waited. His place was not yet in the melee. Instead, he scanned the slope—searching for patterns, watching for the true threat hidden among the chaos.
Then it came.
A shriek unlike any beast echoed across the valley. It was a sound that clawed at the spine, half-roar, half-curse, filled with primal fury. The clash slowed as both armies hesitated. Even the mages faltered in their chants, and the orcs, moments ago wavering, straightened with renewed confidence.
Renher felt the pressure before he saw the source. A weight pressed on his chest, as though the very air thickened with menace. His horse snorted, trembling beneath the aura. Then, from the haze at the base of the hill, a figure emerged.
A giant orc, towering above his kin. Muscles bulged like knotted steel beneath scarred hide. His tusks jutted from his jaw, long and yellowed, his crude armor stitched together from bones and plates of scavenged steel. But it wasn't his appearance that froze the battlefield—it was his presence. The sheer force of will that radiated from him, oppressive, suffocating. This was no ordinary foe.
Renher's lips tightened. "So, you finally show yourself."
The Orc Leader's gaze met his. Yellow eyes gleamed with raw hunger for battle. In that silent exchange, words were unnecessary. Both understood—they were the fulcrum of this war. Whoever fell, their army would follow.
"Commander." A lancer captain rode up beside Renher, panting hard. "Your orders?"
Renher did not take his eyes from the orc. His voice was calm, cold. "Hold the line. No one advances past the mid-slope without my command. The archers—keep their flanks pressured. The mages—support where the shields weaken."
The captain saluted, riding off to carry the orders.
For a moment, the battlefield blurred around him. All Renher could see was the orc leader, standing still, weapon resting across his shoulder. A predator, waiting. Watching. Measuring.
Renher's hand tightened on his sword hilt. He could feel the pull—the need to test himself against this foe, to settle the unspoken challenge in those eyes. Yet he did not move. Not yet. Timing was everything. A commander who struck too soon lost more than just a duel—he lost the battle.
"Patience," Renher whispered, though whether to himself or his horse, he wasn't sure. "The time will come."
The clash of steel and the screams of the dying surged around him, but Renher remained locked in that silent contest of wills. One step forward too early, and everything would crumble. One moment of weakness, and his men would fall.
He inhaled deeply, steadying the fire that burned in his chest. This was not just another enemy. This was the storm they had marched to meet.
And storms, he knew, had to be weathered before they could be conquered.