"They do not just want our city. They want to erase the memory of resistance."
—Jag, Prince of Stormwatch
Location: Southern Ruins, Near Broken Ward Gates – Siege Day Four
At dawn, the winds shifted.
Ash no longer fell from above—it rose from beneath. The scorched ruins around Stormwatch began to tremble, not from siege engines, but from something older. Something buried. Something that remembered when the skies burned before.
Jag stood on the inner wall, gripping the hilt of his half-broken sword, staring down at the valley. Fire no longer raged—but neither had it died. It smoldered, low and dangerous. A blanket of gray fog and smoke covered the battlefield.
And from within that fog, banners rose.
POV Shift: Orcish Encampment – Warlord Ur'Zhul's Tent
Ur'Zhul the Furnace spat black blood into a brazier. His warlords knelt before him.
Rukk had returned, his bone sack lighter but his rage heavier. Kravaa stood cloaked in smoke, her runes scorched and cracked from the frost wound Ashra delivered. Even the Mangler's replacement—a stitched beast named Splintra—kept its distance.
Ur'Zhul slammed a clawed fist onto the war table.
"They bleed and still stand."
"But they are nothing without their people."
He looked toward the eastern rim—a range of jagged mountains where no banners had flown for centuries.
"Send the word."
"It's time to awaken our... ally."
Scene: Stormwatch Keep – Debrief and Ruins Patrol
Jag limped into the strategy room, where Rain, Ashra, and Orlen waited.
"The trenches are holding, but only barely," Rain reported.
"The East Flame Gate is gone. The Choir's losing its core channelers."
Ashra unfurled a blood-stained parchment.
"We've lost 15% of our frontline. Another 10% are critically wounded."
Jag nodded. "Reassign our broken guard to civilian shield patrols. If they can hold a line, they can save a child."
Orlen hesitated.
"My prince… we've intercepted a glyph pulse. It wasn't orcish. And it didn't come from their ranks."
He revealed a burned obsidian shard, still glowing with pale purple light.
"This came from the Ashen Deep."
Silence followed.
Rain's eyes narrowed. "That place was sealed off… three kings ago."
"What's buried there?"
Orlen's voice trembled.
"Something the world agreed to forget."
POV Shift: Ashen Deep, Beyond the Black Stair
In a valley carved by ancient fire, through a gate bound in iron and salt, the orcs had unearthed something older than them.
Wrapped in cloths that had once been kings' robes. Shackled by gold-lined chains. It stood twenty feet tall, and spoke not in words—but in intentions.
They called it "The Hollow Lord."
Ur'Zhul knelt before it and whispered.
"Stormwatch has stolen centuries from us."
"We return the favor."
The Hollow Lord raised a hand—and the dead did not rise.
Instead, shadows gained weight.
Even flame flickered away in fear.
Scene: Jag's Burden – A Crack in the Wall
Back at the keep, Jag met privately with Ashra.
The walls around them were shaking from distant clashes, but inside the chamber, only silence sat.
Jag spoke low, like a man peeling off armor piece by piece.
"Every life I save adds a name to the list of those I couldn't."
Ashra stood behind him, gaze steady.
"And yet you keep saving more."
He looked at her, exhausted.
"I'm not the boy who woke up in this body anymore."
"He died at the first fire. What's left… is what Stormwatch needs."
Ashra stepped closer.
"Then let us be who Stormwatch needs."
"Even if it burns us."
Scene: Civilians Take Arms – Training Begins
Elsewhere, the first civilian combat squads formed.
Jorrik, the smith who once cursed the war, now led a group of miners turned pikemen. They trained in alleys and behind food halls, stabbing straw figures with iron rods.
Children ran messages. Elderly volunteers boiled pitch and prepared sling traps on rooftops.
Jag walked among them, offering not words—but presence.
And one young girl, no older than eight, looked up at him.
"Are you scared, Prince Jag?"
He knelt beside her.
"Yes."
She smiled faintly.
"Then I know you'll win."
Scene: The Ashborn Appear
As the sun dipped—though the sky remained dim from smoke—a new shape entered the fray.
The Ashborn.
Pale figures, clad in soot-black armor, emerged from the broken ridgelines east of Stormwatch. They moved not like warriors—but like inevitability.
Three of them.
Each bearing no banners.
Only open, flame-less torches strapped to their backs.
Rain spotted them first from the tower.
"Who… are those?"
They walked through orc lines.
And the orcs… stepped aside.
Ashra gripped her glaive.
"They're not orc. They're not human."
Orlen, voice hushed: "They're Ashen Oaths made manifest. They fought in the Burning Crusades—before names."
Scene: Jag Confronts the Flame
Instead of fleeing, Jag descended the broken rampart and stood near the last gate.
He raised his voice.
"I am Jag. Prince of Stormwatch."
"State your intent, or meet my blade."
The Ashborn in front—taller than any man—lowered its cowl.
Inside was only cracked porcelain skin and burning eyes.
It spoke without moving lips.
"We were bound to silence."
"But Stormwatch… has not forgotten its debt."
Jag narrowed his gaze.
"Whose side are you on?"
"The side that remembers the world once burned."
"And the fire started here."
The Ashborn turned and walked past him—into the city.
Jag watched them go.
Then whispered:
"May your silence speak louder than our screams."
Final Scene: War Council Decision
Jag gathered his council in the war chamber.
He looked at the flame map, saw the Hollow Lord's slow advance.
"We hold here for three more days."
"Rain—pull our forward traps back. Consolidate under Stonehill Pass."
"Ashra, assign skirmishers with signal flares. We're blind in the ash."
"Orlen—tell the Choir to prepare glyph-chains."
"We are not stopping this storm."
"We are going to ride it into their throat."
They nodded.
And somewhere, far beyond the burning horizon, the next enemy banner was already rising.