Zha'irat stood like a scar carved into the land. Its blackstone walls were layered with fireglyphs. Its towering temples rose like ziggurats, burning with sacred flame. The Flame Seat of the Southern Kingdoms had never fallen. Not to invaders. Not to rebellion. Today, that changed.
They had already fought once on the plains east of the city. The Stormguard broke the Chainmaster-led forces and drove the remnants through their own gates. Now the Ember Gate was closed and reinforced. The siege began.
From the eastern ridge, Supreme Warden Chaghan watched the smog roll across the city's upper terraces. Dust from the battlefield still clung to his armor. The trenchlines below were lined with discipline—no war horns, no shouts, only readiness. Beside him, the Deputy Warden squinted through a spyglass.
"The slave legions broke. Those who survived fled behind the gates. What remains are the last fire-priests, the Chainmasters, and their hired blades."
Chaghan nodded once.
"Then we cut the head."
He gave the signal. Stormguard siege crews moved with practiced tempo. Ladders were passed down. Breach glyphs were carved into the outer soil. Saboteur teams positioned themselves behind overturned wagons. From the rear, the Freedmen legions came forward—axes, hooked spears, chain blades. The air grew heavier. All movement now had weight.
A red flare went up. Then orange. Then gone.
Siege rams hit the gate first. Glyphfire surged in response, spewing molten bronze across the vanguard. The first two squads broke—screaming as armor boiled and eyes burst. But Stormcasters anchored dampening runes into the soil and the fire gutters slowed. Glyph by glyph, the gate began to fracture.
Chaghan descended the ridge. By the time he reached the forward line, the eastern wall was splitting. Fire-priests hurled chainfire from the parapets. Hired blades surged down through murder-slits to cut into the ladders. The air smelled of fat and lime.
Then came the bell.
Deep. Hammering. A sound of summoning.
From the far side of the temple ziggurat, the first golem emerged. Not born from fresh casting—but old, ritual-bound, and vault-preserved. Its limbs dragged chains. Its arms were shaped from stone and slag, stitched together with rune-seam and bloodsteel. Three others followed, then a fifth. Two fire-forged, three stonebound. All moved with mechanical certainty. The war mages guiding them stood within protective circles, forearms etched in live script, chanting in tongues not spoken aloud in decades.
Stormguard formations tightened.
The first fire-forged golem landed inside the breached gate and flattened the front squad. No scream. Just crunch. Shields and men alike folded beneath the weight. A stonebound construct followed, dragging half a Freedman squad with it—still clinging, still trying to wound it as it moved.
Chaghan entered the First Resonance—Stoneheart.
The ground steadied. His breath timed itself to impact and rhythm. He advanced.
Second Resonance—Waterheart.
He moved under the sweep of the stonebound's hammer-arm, low and to the left. His blade kissed the underside of the joint. Not a kill. Just a mark.
Glyph exposed.
"Now!" he shouted.
Two casters caught the signal. Sigil lances struck the weak point. The construct reeled. Chaghan shifted stance, pushed higher.
Third Resonance—Fireheart.
His blade sparked from friction alone. He drove it forward, carving into the rune on the back of the creature's skull.
Then Fourth—Windheart.
He jumped, form compact, and slammed both boots into the exposed glyph, cracking it inward. The golem lurched and fell to one knee. Saboteurs dragged chains over its limbs and pulled it down with raw weight and screaming effort.
One down.
The others hit harder.
A fire-forged one tore through the second trench. Its arm was not a fist, but a mangled pylon of slag and chain. It drove through Stormguard and Freedmen alike. One man was impaled through the ribs and thrown forty paces. Another was crushed against the siege ramp and turned to pulp.
Chaghan moved laterally. Stoneheart again. He closed the distance, eyes on the weld lines, the resonance stitching across its chest.
He gave no command. Just pointed.
Freedmen came from the flank. One had a saw-hook, two held melted chainblades. They hacked, pulled, held. Chaghan drove his sword in at the hip joint. The rune cracked. Molten ore gushed from the seam. A caster launched an overloaded beam glyph directly into its exposed chest. The thing buckled. Then it detonated, lighting half the breach lane in red-white flame.
More died in that burst than in the previous two clashes.
But it fell.
The others were slowing. Zhaqarin archers loosed acid-glass arrows into rune-eyes. Stormcasters called collapse glyphs into their path. One golem tripped over a burned-out siege frame and fell, where four squads hacked at its spine until it stopped moving.
Chaghan's left arm hung slack. His ribs ached with every breath. He had no time to check his own wounds. He moved, adjusted the wedge, pulled backup reserves forward, and kicked a stunned mercenary in the teeth without slowing.
Another golem turned to flee.
It made it three steps.
The Deputy Warden speared it from the flank. Not enough to kill—but enough to stagger. A barrage of resonance blades finished it. The construct rolled once, legs twitching, then went still.
The Chainmasters' last line broke.
The remaining fire-priests tried to hold the ziggurat steps. Freedmen overwhelmed them. One man drove a chain-hook through a priest's mouth and dragged him down the stairs by the jaw. Another split a war mage's skull and took his glyphbook for kindling.
No shouts. No glory.
Just killing.
Just fury.
Chaghan stood at the base of the Flame Seat. Its doors were shut. Its outer guards butchered. The temple fires still burned from within. He looked up.
Blood trickled from his fingers. His sword bent in the middle. He didn't care.
"To the steps," he said.
And behind him, ten thousand survivors followed.
By late afternoon, the Grand Temple was secured. The ziggurats were taken. Chainmasters who resisted were dead. Others lay bound. Across the city, the flame banners of the Fireshard Accord were torn down and burned in every major square.
Zha'irat had fallen. The storm was over. The streets fell quiet.
Stormguard patrols dragged away the corpses of commanders and fire-priests. Hospitaliers began restoring wells and treating burns. Freedmen squads helped stack debris, clear alleys, and convert storehouses into shelters.
From the steps of the central ziggurat, the Deputy Warden looked over the city. Below, the freedmen began organizing themselves. There were no banners, no uniforms. But they stood with intention now.
"They were forged in chains," the Deputy Warden said. "But not bound by them anymore."
Chaghan nodded.
"We'll give them structure and purpose. Let the south see the legion it created by accident."
He turned to the officers.
"Reinforce the ziggurat walls. Convert the temples into command centers. Send a full mapping of the wells, gates, and roads leading east."
His second-in-command stepped forward.
"What about the other cities?"
Chaghan looked into the distance.
"If the Flame Seat can fall, so can the rest."
One month later, the southern campaign came to an end. Chaghan's combined forces took the last of the Southern Kingdoms—Badran'Khul, the coastal city of salt and sea. Resistance was light. The Chainmasters had fled or were captured soon after. Those taken alive were stripped of their sigil robes and paraded in shackles through the same streets they once ruled. They were branded as slaves.
Across the Southern Kingdoms—Zha'irat, Kurmashi, Velshad, and Badran'Khul—a single decree was issued.
Slavery was no longer permitted.
The former slaves, once treated as tools, now stood as the first citizens of the Freedmen Cities. Their banners were plain, but they flew high. They stood under the Stormguard Protectorate, protected not by gods or masters, but by the memory of what they had survived—and what they had become.
From the high halls of Badran'Khul, Chaghan penned a final message to Commander Altan.
The missive carried no wax seal. Only a line in black ink:
The Southern Kingdoms are ours.