Smoke rose in the east again. Not from volcanic fissures. Not from beast attacks.
Campfires.
Organized. Spaced evenly. Surrounded by figures that didn't move like scavengers or wanderers.
Nightforge had arrived.
Sira had spotted the glow first during her morning sweep—just before the sun crested the far ridge. She didn't say a word as she came down the path toward the forge rampart. Just knelt beside the war table and drew three tight arcs in charcoal across the southern valley.
"They're setting up formation drills," she said. "Three shifts. Full equipment. March discipline. Not skirmishers."
Riku stood behind her, arms folded. He already knew. The moment they'd allowed the Pale Flame trap to play out, the veil had begun to thin. Their enemies had started to guess.
Now, one of them had guessed right.
"Any banners?" he asked.
"Only their mark. Same mirrored sigils as before."
Kael joined them, his jaw set tight. "They're not sending scouts anymore. This is a siege force."
"They want to test the walls," Sira muttered. "See if the hidden stronghold is hollow inside."
Riku didn't respond immediately. He walked to the edge of the outer platform and looked down across Blackridge's defenses. The trenches had been reinforced twice since the second Blood Moon. The obsidian spike nests had hardened further. And still, it felt like the forge was breathing faster—bracing.
"They want us to panic," Kael said behind him. "To meet them in the valley. That's where they've planned the fight."
Riku turned. "Then we don't give them the valley."
That evening, every unit in Blackridge moved like an extension of the forge itself. The drake-bonded spearmen took up positions in the second trench layer, silent and focused. Engineers finished anchoring the southern defensive net, embedding the last of the wyrm-forged alloy rods. Sira oversaw the archers along the eastern pass, checking fletching without speaking, nodding once at each finished line.
And in the wyrmling pens, the first three had begun to shed.
It wasn't dramatic—no sudden burst of growth, no explosion of light. Just a slow crackling of skin and plate, their forms stretching, muscles pulsing stronger beneath their ash-colored hides. One of them opened its mouth for the first time and let out a low, resonant exhale.
Kael crouched nearby, watching the beasts. "You sure they're ready?"
"No," Riku said. "But they don't need to be."
The first arrow struck at midnight.
Not as an assault. A signal.
Then came the drums—low, pounding, rhythmic. Echoing across the cracked stone like a heartbeat. Shadows emerged from the far ridgeline, masked and armored, marching in lockstep. Shields carved from slag-metal. Glaives of blackened iron. Torchlight flickered behind their eyes.
Nightforge's forward force hit the outer trench by the second hour.
The traps held—steam pressure detonated in bursts, slicing into the first wave. Spike nests impaled the second line. But Nightforge had sent fodder first. Soft armor. Fast feet. Sacrificial units meant to map weaknesses.
Riku stood on the forward platform, watching the patterns.
"They're watching how we kill," Sira said beside him.
"Let them," he replied.
The real force hit at dawn.
They came from two angles—northwest and due south. Coordinated, timed within seconds of one another. Their glaive-runners moved with terrifying precision, flanking the outer vents, pressing just close enough to draw fire without fully committing.
And then they brought the beast.
Chained. Controlled. A bipedal thing wrapped in slag coils, steam hissing from vents buried in its back. Each footfall cratered the earth. Its breath reeked of sulfur and crushed bone. The creature roared once, and the front ranks surged forward behind it.
Kael's voice came through the forge comm. "Traps one through five have discharged. Holding. Target creature is breaching trench line."
"Deploy glaive unit to flank six," Riku ordered. "And release the wyrmlings."
There was no ceremony. No charge. The pens opened with the hiss of steam, and three wyrmlings leapt from the cradle onto the stone field, moving low and fast. Their scales shimmered with residual forge heat, their claws finding purchase even on slick slag.
The clash was violent. The Nightforge beast roared and swung wide, scattering spearmen. But the wyrmlings didn't retreat. They struck in tandem—one at the creature's heel, another at the shoulder, and the third bit deep into the steam coil at its back.
The vent exploded.
And with it, the creature collapsed in molten shrapnel, screaming until it fell still.
By dusk, the siege broke.
Nightforge's ranks retreated in organized withdrawal—bloodied, but not panicked. A warning in itself.
"They weren't trying to win," Kael said that night, crouched near the forge map. "Just to see if we could lose."
"They'll try again," Sira murmured.
"They all will," Riku said.
He stood in silence a moment longer, watching the faint glow of new eggs pulsing in the wyrmling den—ones they hadn't placed there.
Not laid.
Appeared.
Quiet. Unannounced.
But alive.