The heart of the battlefield was a crater choked in blood and smoke.
The sun had lowered to a dull orange, casting long shadows over the broken trenches. In the distance, the war drums of the orcs still beat in measured cadence...a steady throb of momentum that echoed across the plains. The Threians knew what it meant. The storm had not passed. It had only paused.
Inside the crater rim, the defenders moved like men on the edge of the world.
Boomsticks were reloaded by trembling hands. Torn sandbags were hastily restacked into walls. Dead comrades became cover. Engineers shouted over the roar of fire as they lit more barricades and dumped oil into low trenches to form firepits. All sense of order had vanished, replaced by a raw instinct: survive, and slow the enemy.
