The wind cut across my face like a sharp blade. Steam poured from my mouth, mixing with the stench of blood, steel, and sweat. The gates of the Northern Fortress were torn apart, the beams hanging like the jagged teeth of a broken jaw. And through them, they came.
The dark elves of the north. Men and women alike. They moved silently, precisely, like predators. Their armor was made of black metal, but it never covered the whole body. The men had parts of their chests and arms exposed, showing scars from countless battles. The women… they wore even less — metal plates covered only the vital areas, leaving hips and thighs bare, which was as provocative as it was unnerving. Their movements were quick and graceful, and every single one held their weapon with the confidence of someone who had already buried it into a hundred enemies.
We weren't much different. Our armor was heavier, but still left shoulders or thighs exposed, so as not to restrict movement. In the freezing air, it was punishment — but in battle, it paid off.
I tightened my grip on my sword. The metal was cold, but my palm was slick with sweat. Around me, our line closed in, shields locking together, but I knew that when the first strike landed, it would all break into chaos.
"Stay with me," came a voice to my left. I turned. A soldier my height, maybe a year older, with a fresh gouge along the brow of his helmet. "Jered," he said simply. I nodded.
The first two elves broke into a run. One — a tall man with a longsword — aimed for Jered. I stepped between them, knocked the blow aside, and kicked him hard in the gut. He doubled over, and I slashed at the thigh of the woman rushing just behind him. Her metal plate split away, blood spraying across the snow. Jered recovered and finished the man with a thrust into the chest.
"Thanks," he gasped.
"This is only the start," I replied.
Another elf — a woman with two curved daggers — darted past me toward Jered. I stepped back, caught her wrist, and drove my blade into her stomach. Her eyes went wide, her breath froze in her throat, and I shoved her aside.
A scream came from the left. Our men were dragged down, three elves holding them to the ground. I charged. The first — a muscular man wearing a breastplate carved with the symbol of a skull — I split through the spine. The second, a woman with her bare midriff exposed, I drove my sword between her ribs. The third tried to pull away, but I slammed my shoulder into him, pinning him to the wall.
"Aric, behind you!" Jered's shout tore through the noise. I turned, catching a flash of steel — a curved dagger aiming for my throat. I twisted, but another elf, a man in an open-chested cuirass, was already behind me. I felt the cold edge scrape my skin.
My left hand burned from the inside. The runes flared, and without thinking, I slammed my palm against his chest. His armor split with a shriek of rending metal, and his body tore apart from within. Blood and viscera sprayed across the wall and my armor.
For a moment, everything froze. Then hell returned.
Jered was locked in a struggle with another elven woman trying to rip his throat open with her daggers. I stepped in, cutting her leg at the knee. She fell, and I finished her with a downward stroke, her skull shattering under the blow.
"Up!" I shouted, dragging Jered to his feet. We backed toward the wall, cutting down anyone who came close. My blade took the head of a man, then smashed through the arm and part of the shoulder of a second.
The ground beneath us was no longer snow — it was bloody slush.
"Push them to the gate!" I roared. And we pushed. Men and women alike fell back, not from fear, but because here their speed meant nothing.
I cut one man open from hip to rib, the heat of his insides blooming into the freezing air. A female elf came at me with a short sword, but Jered drove his blade through her eye.
From the far side, a tall elf charged, wielding a black-tipped spear. I switched my sword to my left hand, braced my shield, and let him hit. The impact rattled my bones, but his weapon slipped free. I drove my blade under his ribs until it lodged in his spine, then tore it free.
The last three — two men and a woman with her stomach bare — tried to flee. We encircled them at the gate. "We don't need them alive," I said coldly. Seconds later, the snow beneath them had turned dark red.
When the final body fell, the fortress was ours.
The Tavern
The tavern was crowded and loud. The air was heavy with smoke, the stink of spilled ale, and the sweat of too many men in one room. The wooden tables were sticky, and the floor was coated in the grime the soldiers had tracked in from the snowy courtyard.
Jered and I sat in a corner table, the closest thing to quiet in this place, but the noise couldn't be ignored. At the next table over, a third round of shouting had already broken out.
"The whole thing was a fucking suicide mission!" bellowed a man with a broken nose. "Forget about that fortress — it wasn't worth the men we left there."
"Shut your mouth, Jarnik," another snapped — broad-shouldered, with a scar running down his cheek. "Without it, the dark elves would be here tomorrow."
"So what? You think we can stop them? Did you see what they can do? That woman who took half my ear laughed while I was cutting her!"
Their argument was like distant thunder. I was more focused on the quiet question Jered asked as he leaned forward over the table, eyes on me over the rim of his cup.
"What you did out there…" he began slowly. "Your hand. Those markings… I've never seen anything like it. None of us have."
I drained the rest of my ale before I answered. The words were hard to find over the noise.
"I was born with it," I said finally.
"With the runes?"
I nodded. "Never knew why. Never asked. I just know that when I use them… something changes in me. Something wakes up."
Jered gave a short smile, but his eyes stayed serious. "You might be the only man in the kingdom the dead themselves would fear."
From the next table, someone slammed a mug. "And what did we gain? A few scattered elven corpses and snow soaked in blood!"
"We gained a fortress, you idiot," another hissed back. "And that fortress might save hundreds."
The argument grew louder, but I was only hearing my own breath now, tasting the metallic tang of the blood still lingering in my mouth from the fight.
"It was necessary," I told Jered. "No matter what they think."
"I know," he said, "but I saw how they looked at you when you… did that. It's not just respect. Some of them are afraid of you."
I didn't answer. I just stared into the dark foam of my ale, knowing he was right.