For five days, the valley held steady. Drums by day, fires by night. The empire sang of conquest, the Scythelanders sharpened in silence. Skirmishes sparked and died, leaving the illusion that both armies were locked in a patient stalemate.
But patience was a mask.
When the sixth night fell, the Scythelanders moved like shadows untethered from the moon. Skar led the charge himself, his voice tearing the night sky as he bellowed like a lion unchained.
"Now, my brothers—tear the marrow from their bones!"
They broke through the empire's outer guards before the alarm could even rise. Blades flashed, scythes reaped, throats opened. No mercy, no sound but the roar of lions and the wet crack of steel. Campfires became beacons for slaughter, tents collapsed over dying men.
By dawn, the valley's heart belonged to the Scythelanders. Where once imperial banners fluttered, their sigil of the scythe now hung, painted in blood. They sealed every road, every path, every escape. The Ellis empire awoke to find itself trapped within its own camp, the valley turned into a cage.
Skar's words echoed over the corpses as his men raised their weapons high:
"No way forward. No way back. Tonight, the empire learns what it means to be culled."
The battlefield was no longer theirs. It was a slaughterhouse.
The sun rose red, as if it too had tasted blood. Smoke coiled above the valley, carrying with it the stench of iron and ash.
Sky stirred in his tent, thinking the chaos of the night a dream. But when he opened his eyes, the nightmare had form. A shadow loomed above him, broad as the mountains, breath like a furnace.
"Wake," the voice rumbled.
:
Sky blinked then froze. It wasn't a fellow soldier standing over him. It was Skar, the butcher of the Scythelands, the very name mothers whispered to frighten their sons. His axe rested lazily across his shoulder, yet even in its stillness it promised slaughter.
"You thought the walls would keep you safe," Skar rumbled, voice like a stone rolling downhill. He stepped close enough that Sky could smell smoke and iron on his breath. "The same wall you trusted to keep you safe will be your slaughterhouse. Here, far from home, your bones will lie."
Sky's mouth went dry. The roar of the valley—the cries, the trampling, the distant collapse of banners—seemed suddenly very near. He understood, in that cold, sharp instant, that safety had been an illusion and the world had already turned to ash.
Sky's breath caught in his throat as the dawn peeled back the veil. The camp he had trusted, the walls he had believed unbreakable—gone. The banners drooped like surrendering arms, the roads were cut, and the gates stood barred not by stone but by the enemy who now owned them.
In that instant, the truth seared itself into him: safety had never been real. It had only ever been the story they told themselves to sleep at night.
And Skar, towering beside him with a predator's calm, drove the blade in deeper.
"The wall you trusted has become your cage," he said. "Here, far from home, your bones will lie. Let this illusion be the last lie you cling to."
He turned, his voice rising just enough for the men around to hear, the kind of words meant to burrow into memory and fester.
"We leave this valley with victory already in hand. But know this—we will return. And when we do, a thousand of your best will be slaughtered outside the walls of your empire, their deaths a promise of our conquest. Remember it well. Let it rot in your hearts until we come to collect."
The words hung heavier than any sword. Sky's silence was not defiance, nor submission—it was the silence of a man who knew the storm had only just begun.