The army of Alaric halted in a small clearing beside a stream, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. For a fleeting moment, it was peaceful—the kind of silence that feels almost sacred. Then, without warning, that silence deepened into something wrong.
Gray and Snows, the twin wolves, stiffened. Their fur bristled, lips curling back in low, guttural growls as their eyes locked on surrounding trees.
Every soldier froze. Then their hands found hilts of their swords, while the archers took out out their bows and arrows. Jethru's disciples and the soldiers moved as one, their disciplined stillness sharper than any blade.
Then the jungle erupted.
Arrows whistled through the air from all directions, their deadly hiss breaking the stillness like shattered glass.
"Ambush!" someone shouted.
