Dawn broke, painting the eastern sky in shades of blood and bruised purple. The air was unnaturally still, holding its breath. The Iron Hegemony Legion assembled, a great, metallic beast waking from its slumber. The sounds of shouted orders, of hammered armor, of grinding siege engines, echoed across the clearing.
Lord Valerius, magnificent and terrible in his gilded armor, sat atop a black warhorse. He looked upon the silent village of Sunstone with contempt. The lack of defiance, the extinguished fires—he interpreted it as abject fear, the paralysis of a broken people.
"They cower," he said to his second-in-command. "Good. Let the fear tenderize them. Ready the catapults. We will start with a message of fire. A volley to splinter their gate and their spirit."
The siege crews began to load their machines with tar-soaked bundles.
Elias watched from the shadows of the forest's edge. His consciousness was a spider at the center of a vast web. The Fortress Mind kept his thoughts clear, a nexus of command. The Soul Anchor confirmed that Elara and her people were hidden, silent, waiting in the darkness of their homes as he had commanded. The Corvid-Mind gave him a thousand aerial views of the battlefield.
And at four strategic points, hidden deep within the trees ringing the clearing, were his instruments of war. The Necro-Steel golems—the Stag, the Bear, the two Prowlers—stood motionless, silent as the grave, waiting for his command. They were not four creatures. They were four extensions of his single, cold will.
As the catapult crews began to winch their machines, Elias gave the first command. Awaken.
From the west, deep in the woods behind the legion's left flank, the earth trembled. A sound began, a low, guttural roar that was not of beast or man. It was the sound of rock grinding on rock, of ancient trees splintering.
The soldiers turned, their formations momentarily disrupted. Lord Valerius's horse shied, its eyes wide with animal panic.
Out of the forest crashed Elias's Huscarl.
The bear-golem of fused bone and black iron was a sight of primordial terror. It moved with the force of a landslide, its spiked mace-fists pulverizing everything in its path. It was not aiming for the soldiers. It was aiming for the siege equipment.
It plowed through a line of unprepared legionaries, their screams cut short as they were swatted aside like dolls. The Huscarl reached the first catapult and brought its mace-fist down. Wood and iron screamed and shattered into a thousand pieces. It moved to the next, a relentless, unstoppable engine of destruction.
Valerius roared, "Flank guards! Archers! Bring that thing down!"
The Hegemony soldiers, their discipline reasserting itself, responded. A hundred archers unleashed a volley. A storm of arrows clattered harmlessly off the Huscarl's enchanted iron plating. The flank guards charged, their steel swords striking sparks against its armored form, doing no damage.
The Huscarl was a distraction. A glorious, terrifying, perfectly executed distraction.
While the legion's attention was locked on the western flank, Elias gave the second command. Reap.
From the east, behind their now-exposed right flank, came the Stag. The necro-steel golem with spear-tipped antlers did not roar. It moved with the impossible speed and grace of a forest phantom. It did not charge the main line. It charged the command tent. It charged the supply wagons.
The Stag moved through the chaos like a ghost, its razor-tipped antlers scything through tents, through panicked supply drivers, through barrels of water and sacks of grain. It was a surgical strike at their logistics, sowing chaos in their rear ranks.
And from the north and south, from the trees directly flanking the main force now caught between two nightmares, came the Prowlers. The two golems, their claws replaced with curved Hegemony steel, were blurs of motion. They did not attack the heavily armored legionaries head-on. They were assassins. They struck at the gaps in the formation, at the archers who were focused on the Huscarl, at the junior officers trying to rally their men. Each pass was a flurry of flashing steel, leaving a trail of death and dismemberment. They were whispers of death given form, a liquid dance of slaughter.
The battlefield devolved into a symphony of terror, orchestrated by a silent conductor hidden in the woods. The legion, moments ago a pristine instrument of war, was now a chaotic mess. Their formations were broken, their flanks were being eviscerated, their command structure was in chaos, and their siege equipment was being reduced to splinters.
Lord Valerius was no fool. He saw the strategy instantly. He was being dismantled.
"This is not a beast! It's an army!" he bellowed. "It's the Warden! Form squares! Shield walls! Hold the line! This is a planned assault!"
He was trying to impose order on chaos, but Elias would not allow it. From his hiding place, Elias began his own assault. He drew upon his Reaper of Souls power. He did not throw fire or lightning. He threw fear.
He sent a wave of Soul Whisper across the battlefield, a psychic scream that mimicked the terror of the dying. Every soldier felt a jolt of unnatural dread, the feeling of cold grave-dirt in their lungs. Their morale, already stretched thin, began to snap.
Elias was a king playing on a chessboard the size of a valley. His Huscarl was his rook, taking their castles. His Stag was his knight, forking their king and queen. His Prowlers were his bishops, controlling the long diagonals of the battlefield and sniping their key pieces. And he, the king, was the untouchable, unseen force controlling it all.
But his sermon was not complete. The demonstration of his power was only the first verse. Now came the collection.
He activated his Harvest skill. As his golems killed, as soldiers fell, he did not allow their Soul Essence to dissipate. He ripped it from their bodies the moment of death, pulling it towards himself in invisible streams. He felt the raw energy of hundreds of dying men pour into him, a torrent of fear, pain, and life force.
[Soul Essence Banked: 150.0]
[Soul Essence Banked: 180.0]
[Soul Essence Banked: 220.0]
The power was intoxicating, a roaring inferno in his consciousness. But he did not use it to create more monsters or to unleash a more devastating attack. He had a different purpose for this gruesome harvest.
Lord Valerius, seeing his army being torn apart, finally made the call. "Retreat! To the ridge! Form a defensive line on the high ground! Retreat!"
But retreating from the Blackwood was not so simple. As the legion broke and ran, Elias's monsters did not pursue them relentlessly. They herded them, culling the weak, driving the main force onto a single, predetermined path.
Elias had reaped their lives. Now, he would reap their hope. The harvest had only just begun.