The sun rose over Ashenplain Ridge, casting a bruised orange light across the battlefield. From the horizon came the thunder—not of hooves, but of iron steps. The ground trembled beneath the synchronized march of golems: Mitis's last war-bloom, a full-strength offensive made possible by weeks of sabotage, disarray, and psychological erosion.
Fornos watched from a fortified cliffside bunker, his eyes fixed on the rhythmic advance of the siege units. "They bought us this," he murmured, referring to the civilians who had jammed Zatack's reinforcements. "Now we collect the debt."
At the head of the charge stood the Siege Petals—a class of heavily armored golems designed not for speed but for brutal, sustained assault. Each unit stood three stories tall, covered in layered plates of enchanted iron. Their codices were tuned for a single task: advance and obliterate.
Behind them lumbered the walking artillery, long-barreled mana-cannons mounted on quadruped frames. They marched to the pulse of drums, releasing low-frequency pulses to communicate—thoom, thoom, thoom, a deadly heartbeat rolling across the plain.
The air was thick with tension and dust.
The last of House Zatack's fortresses, the sprawling bastion of Garn Hold, stood like a wounded beast atop a plateau. Its towers were scorched, its outer walls cracked from weeks of harassment. And now, Mitis would finish what Fornos had orchestrated.
Gorvan stood atop a command ridge, hands behind his back. His armor was dented but polished, blood still drying in the joints from the last engagement. His voice, calm but final, echoed through the command relay:
"Begin."
At once, the siege erupted.
The Siege Petals slammed into Garn Hold's outer curtain, their fists ablaze with binding glyphs and crushing enchantments. Stone exploded. The golems absorbed return fire like rain—mana bolts and alchemical grenades bursting across reinforced plates but failing to halt the march.
Artillery opened fire. With each volley, mana shells cratered the enemy battlements, sending shockwaves rippling across the field. Inside the fortress, Zatack defenders fought like trapped wolves, but their formations were broken, their command chain frayed by weeks of chaos.
Fornos had spent the night before the assault inside a seized Zatack relay station, reviewing intelligence stolen from scorched granaries and captured couriers. Every officer's name, every turret position, every known weakness in the fortress walls was accounted for.
He issued precise relay commands as the battle unfolded:
"Petal-Row Five, rotate formation to exploit the breach at Tower Three."
"Cannon Echelon Delta, suppress southern turret; overdraw cores for double burst."
"Cut escape routes. Collapse the west tunnel—no survivors."
He wasn't a knight, or a mage. But on the battlefield, he was a scalpel. And the scalpel had no sympathy.
The battle raged for nine hours.
By the end of the day, the main keep lay in ruin, its blackstone walls pulverized under the fists of golems and cannon fire. Zatack's defenders, noble-born knights and conscripted militia alike, were reduced to ash, bone, or ragged prisoners.
When Gorvan walked through the broken gates, his war hammer slung across his shoulder, the remaining defenders threw down their weapons without a word. They had no command, no food, no path left.
Mitis soldiers raised their standards across the wreckage.
House Zatack had fallen.
But the war wasn't done.
Inside the ruined halls of Garn Hold, Gorvan led a personal purge. Any vassal lord, bannerman, or officer of House Zatack who refused immediate and unconditional loyalty was executed on the spot. Some knelt. Many lied. A few resisted.
He gave them no second chances.
One by one, Gorvan watched them dragged to the Execution Pit, a carved recess filled with shattered golem fragments. There, kneeling nobles begged for mercy—some claiming loyalty to Mitis, others invoking ancient rights of parley.
Gorvan listened to none.
"Zatack bred wolves. We leave no pups behind," he said.
Steel fell. Heads rolled.
Fornos, meanwhile, descended into the vaults beneath the keep, accompanied by a squad of his Architects. Their task wasn't blood. It was knowledge.
The heart of Garn Hold wasn't its throne room. It was the Strategikon, Zatack's subterranean command archive. Row upon row of crystal-infused data-slates, journals, codex blueprints, troop deployments, golem schematics—a generation's worth of military infrastructure.
"Pack everything," Fornos ordered. "Translate what we can't decode. Anything remotely encrypted is priority one."
He walked the aisles like a man in a temple, fingers trailing over rune-etched tablets, plucking up notebooks sealed in blood. He recognized names. Patterns. Mistakes.
They'd built well. They'd also grown arrogant.
Now, their work would fuel Mitis's future.
That night, Mitis officers gathered in what remained of Zatack's grand war hall. Golem cores flickered in the background, lighting the walls like dying stars.
Gorvan entered last, his armor stained, a bloodied Zatack banner in one hand. He flung it to the floor.
"No quarter. No regrets."
Applause was sparse. Most were too tired to cheer.
Fornos stood nearby, face calm, eyes alive with calculation. "This war isn't over," he said quietly to Gorvan. "Not the real one. Zatack was a blade. But we haven't yet seen the smith."
Gorvan grunted. "Then sharpen ours."
The next morning, Fornos oversaw the systematic dismantling of Garn Hold. Not just its walls—but its memory.
Every emblem was destroyed. Every mural painted over. The libraries gutted, then rebuilt under Mitis scribes. The city's population—what little remained—was documented, tagged, and sorted.
Zatack would not become a martyr. It would become a footnote.
In the war room, Fornos reviewed the final report. Of the 500 golems recalled by Zatack to the front, less than 200 had arrived in functional condition. The rest had been neutralized by traffic, attrition, or failed coordination.
One last page caught his eye.
A sketch from a dying Zatack officer's notebook.
It read: "The Iron Bloom devours all."
Fornos smiled.
"Good," he whispered.