A soldier turned to his nearby comrade—his longtime friend—his voice low beneath the sound of marching boots and creaking wheels.
"With all this artillery… don't you think we'll end up killing our own? Our brothers, sisters?"
"Yeah," the other replied, eyes fixed ahead. "That's been on my mind too."
He shifted his grip on the strap across his chest.
"I'm sure they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't risk it."
"You think we'll have to fight in every village?"
"Gods, I hope not. If we do… death's waiting. But they say our general's the best. Maybe that'll be enough."
Their conversation was cut short as an older soldier stepped alongside them. His beard was streaked with gray, and instead of a rifle, he carried a worn longsword slung over one shoulder.
"You boys fretting about the artillery, huh?" he said with a half-smile. "Don't worry. They'll use it as a last resort. Besides, even if we have to storm every village, we've got over five thousand men. We'll be fine."
"Yeah," one of the younger soldiers nodded. "Old man's got a point."
The older soldier's grin widened. "Who you calling old? I've still got a few fights left in me."
The men chuckled together—tension loosening for a breath. Then—
BOOM.
A sudden blast echoed from the front of the column.
"All men—HALT!"
The voice was unmistakable—Wilhelm. Stern. Loud. Sharp enough to cut the wind itself.
The marching ceased in a wave—first the front, then the middle, and finally the rear. Murmurs spread quickly, but those in the back could only see the path ahead—an open stretch of plain leading to the village gates.
They didn't yet know what had truly stopped the momentum.
But the front ranks saw it clearly.
An army.
Not human.
Over a thousand demi-humans—armored in iron and bronze—stood defiantly between the column and the village. Banners bearing clawed sigils fluttered in the wind. Some bore axes. Others spears, halberds, swords, or massive two-handed clubs.
Silent. Waiting.
Wilhelm's voice rose again from atop his horse, crisp and commanding.
"All men—advance into the plains. Infantry to the front. Riflemen behind. Artillery remains in the rear until given orders."
The battle was about to begin.
And this time, it wouldn't be a raid.
It would be war.
A tense silence gripped the fields as the two armies stared one another down. Only the wind moved—whistling across the scorched plains where so many had already bled.
Then movement.
A single figure broke ranks from the demi-human side.
He was young—perhaps too young—his furred ears pinned flat, his pale hands shaking as he rode a spotted beast toward the human lines. He held no weapon, only a white cloth in one hand, raised high above his head.
"Messenger," Wilhelm muttered. He didn't dismount. His gloves creaked as his fists clenched on the reins.
The rider slowed as he approached the front of the human formation. Riflemen watched him like wolves, fingers brushing triggers. Dust curled around the beast's hooves.
The demi-human halted ten paces from Wilhelm's horse. He looked up, clearly intimidated by the older man's hardened face, high-collared uniform, and unflinching stare.
The messenger cleared his throat.
"In the name of Commander Rhagor of the Western Shield, I bring terms," he announced. "Leave this field and abandon your siege, and our armies will allow you to live. We will not hunt down your men and will allow safe passage."
A murmur swept through the human lines. Several soldiers snorted or chuckled behind their hands.
Wilhelm stared at the messenger for a long moment, then slowly dismounted. His boots struck the dirt with the weight of iron.
He walked forward—calmly, steadily—until he stood only three paces from the messenger.
"Let me offer you my reply," he said softly.
The messenger nodded nervously.
Wilhelm leaned closer.
"Tell your commander this: There is no truce with monsters, no deals, only death awaits your for your kind. You offer us peace while standing ankle-deep in the blood of our children." He paused. "So come and die. All of you."
He turned without another word.
The messenger sat frozen, mouth slightly agape.
"Go," Wilhelm said without looking back. "You have five minutes. Use them well."
The beast turned, and the rider fled.
Demi-Human Lines – Minutes Later
Commander Rhagor stood with arms crossed, his heavy fur cloak swaying in the cold wind. His face was carved from stone, every scar a line in a long, violent story. Around him stood dozens of officers and scouts, eyes locked on the returning messenger galloping across the plain.
He dismounted roughly and dropped to one knee, panting.
"Well?" Rhagor asked.
The messenger swallowed hard.
"They… declined, Commander."
Rhagor grunted. "Naturally. What did they say?"
The messenger hesitated, then recited, voice shaking:
"There is no truce with monsters, no deals, only death awaits your for your kind. You offer us peace while standing ankle-deep in the blood of our children so come and die."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Silence.
Then a few soldiers laughed quietly. A chuckle here. A snort there. The tension began to melt.
One of the younger lieutenants stepped forward, tail twitching. "They talk like warlords… but I saw them. Not all carry swords. Half their army just has sticks strapped to their backs."
A roar of laughter erupted through the front ranks. Officers laughed. Warriors slapped backs and shoulders.
"Sticks!" one barked.
"Maybe they're bringing firewood!"
"They think they're soldiers?"
Commander Rhagor didn't laugh—but a slow, grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Let them carry sticks," he said, raising one gauntleted hand. "It won't save them."
He turned to the front line, his voice rising with authority.
"Troops—advance. But hold your weapons until I give the command. Let's see how brave they are when death marches toward them."
The demi-human army began to move—shields raised, eyes gleaming, rows upon rows descending the flat plain like a tide of fangs and steel.
They had no idea.
Their laughter would be the last they ever shared.
"Men!" Wilhelm shouted, his voice rising above the bitter wind that swept across the flat expanse before the village. "We have trained for this war. We have marched under snow and fire, and now we stand on the edge of what will be remembered as a slaughter."
He paced before his lines, boots kicking dust as his dark uniform rippled behind him.
"Today, I promise you—only a few unlucky among you will die. Maybe none. But don't mistake this for fortune! We will win because we have discipline. Because we have fire. Because we do not underestimate our enemy, even as they underestimate us."
He raised a gloved hand to the sky.
"Our enemy has made the gravest mistake of war… Pride. And it will cost them this battle."
A pause. His soldiers stood like statues.
Then his hand dropped.
"Mortars—fire!"
The command ripped through the air.
Twenty mortar teams, positioned behind rows of infantry, responded as one. A dull thump followed by shrill howls of metal as the first shells soared into the sky. Half a second later—
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The front ranks of the demi-human army erupted into chaos.
Dirt, flesh, and armor flew in all directions. Blood misted the twilight air. Limbs were torn from bodies. Where there had been ranks of spear-wielding fox-kin and wolf-kin, there were now craters.
More shells followed.
The thunder of repeated impacts created a storm of sound that rolled across the plains. Demi-human screams pierced through the haze. The ground shook. Panic spread like fire. A minotaur captain tried to rally his troops—but was obliterated mid-shout by a direct hit.
"SECOND VOLLEY!"
Another series of thumps.
The sky rained hell.
After two minutes of unrelenting bombardment, Wilhelm turned to his rifle commanders.
"Advance the rifle line! Infantry prepare to support!"
Drums began to beat. The riflemen moved forward in perfect formation—250 strong—spaced in ranks of five, boots crunching over churned-up soil and scattered body parts. Behind them, 4,000 infantry with swords drawn, shields raised, moved as one tidal wall of steel and rage.
The demi-human army, what remained of it, stumbled backward. Horned heads twisted. Orders were shouted, incoherent under the panic. They turned and fled toward the massive iron gates of the village.
"Close the gates!" a demi-human officer bellowed, voice cracking with fear.
Wilhelm saw it.
His eyes narrowed.
"Don't let them close that gate!"
The riflemen picked up pace.
"FIRE!"
A unified crack ripped across the plains.
Hundreds of bullets cut into the retreating demi-humans. Dozens fell in seconds. Blood sprayed the walls. A leopard-kin archer trying to cover the retreat had her chest ripped open by three rounds. A war-drummer was shot mid-beat, collapsing into the dirt.
A squad of riflemen shifted fire, targeting the ones pushing the gate shut.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Three fell instantly. One screamed as a bullet shattered his ankle. Another took a round to the throat and bled out on the gate hinge. The wooden gate groaned halfway closed—then jammed, stuck by a corpse caught in its path.
"INFANTRY—CHARGE!"
The front line of sword-bearing humans roared as they surged forward.
Screams tore from the demi-human ranks as the human infantry crashed into them.
Steel met flesh.
A pig-kin warrior swung a spiked mace—only to have his skull cleaved open by a screaming human. A deer-kin tried to surrender, but was impaled and kicked aside. The ground became mud—slicked with blood.
At the gate, a bull-kin dropped his axe and charged. A human soldier stumbled and fell, just as the beast raised a hoof to stomp him.
CRACK.
A rifle shot tore through the bull-kin's skull.
The soldier looked up, gasping, as blood poured from the beast's mouth and it collapsed beside him.
"Thank you…" he whispered, clutching his stomach, eyes wide.
"MOVE!" shouted another, dragging him to safety. "Medic! Get a medic over here!"
The humans surged through the broken gate.
Into the village.
Inside the Village Walls
The streets were narrow, built from stone and mud, filled with stalls and homes now abandoned in chaos. Torches were overturned. Smoke billowed. The remaining demi-humans tried to form a defense—but it was too late.
Riflemen fired through open windows, bullets punching through walls.
Infantry burst into homes with swords and torches, dragging out families and executing them on the street.
A fox-kin mother screamed as her door was kicked open. She tried to shield her two children. She was stabbed in the chest. The children ran—one was shot in the back, the other caught by the hair and beaten to death.
A male demi-human crouched behind a stairwell, clutching a small dagger.
He lunged out and stabbed a human soldier in the neck.
The man fell, blood bubbling from his lips.
"MEDIC!" a soldier cried, dropping to his knees beside him. "MEDIC, GOD NO!"
The attacker was stabbed in the back before he hit the ground. The human soldier didn't survive.
His friend wept, rocking slightly as he pressed cloth to the wound.
"Please… please hold on…"
Further down the street, a human squad entered a two-story stone home. Upstairs, a family of rabbit-kin huddled together in a closet. They were found. One tried to beg. He was shot mid-sentence.
"No chances," said the soldier.
They cleared the rest of the house. None were left breathing.
Near the well, a trio of heavyset demi-human warriors made a last stand with axes and hammers. They screamed war cries.
Ten riflemen opened fire. The three fell mid-charge, riddled with holes, one still twitching.
A human lieutenant gave orders calmly amid the carnage.
"Check under every floorboard. Behind every wall. If they breathe, shoot them."
A squad entered a small chapel. Inside, an elderly demi-human priest prayed with a group of blind children.
The squad hesitated.
"I can't do it." Muttered one lowering his sword
Then their commander stepped in and pushed the soldier aside, pistol raised.
"No mercy."
Six shots. One for each child.
Two for the priest.
Blood stained the altar.
Outside, Wilhelm stepped through the broken gate, his coat brushing against a corpse. He looked around at the carnage and nodded once.
"The center is ours. Push through the east quarter. Leave no gaps."
The East Quarter
Here, some demi-humans still fought.
Archers on rooftops fired blindly. A fireball erupted from a torch-lit tower as a last-ditch oil defense was launched—but missed.
Riflemen returned fire, cutting down defenders one by one.
A human soldier breached a bakery. Inside were two teenage demi-humans and their elderly grandmother. They cowered.
"Please…" one of the teens whispered.
He was shot point-blank.
The other screamed and was run through by a bayonet.
The grandmother cried over them—until another blade ended her life.
In the square, a human collapsed, blood pouring from his thigh. He screamed as another demi-human tried to finish him off with a hammer.
But before the blow landed, a sniper's bullet blew the attacker's head apart.
"CLEAR THAT SQUARE!" an officer shouted.
The humans surged forward, bayonets plunging into the last defenders.
Hours Later – The Ruins of the Village
The fires had died to embers, casting a soft, red glow across the shattered village. Smoke lingered in the air like a veil of death, drifting through broken alleyways and collapsed roofs. Bodies—demi-human men, women, and children—lay strewn in the streets, many still where they had fallen. Blood soaked the cobblestones. Burnt wood and ash clung to the boots of the living.
But amid the ruin… came life.
A low cry echoed from beneath a pile of bricks near what had once been a butcher's shop. A soldier rushed over, waving for help.
"Over here! There's movement!"
Three more infantry dropped their weapons and began digging. Brick by brick, they uncovered a trapdoor. Beneath it—dark, trembling eyes. Human eyes.
A woman with two children huddled beneath the rubble-covered cellar. Her face was gaunt, bruised, one arm broken. When she saw the human soldier's uniform, she gasped—then wept.
"We're here," he said, gently lifting the boy first. "You're safe now."
Another team pried open a wine cellar beneath the mayor's estate, revealing more survivors—over two dozen huddled together in darkness. Some recoiled at first, unsure if it was another trick. Then a rifleman offered water and bread.
"Humans… you're really human," one whispered, collapsing into the arms of a medic.
All across the village, basements were uncovered, trapdoors pried open, wells emptied to reveal hiding places. By the end of the third hour, the count had grown—over four thousand rescued, the majority too weak to walk on their own. Starved. Scarred. Shaking.
Carts rolled in from the rear of the army's column, their canvas tops flapping in the cold wind. Engineers helped lift the elderly, medics tended to wounds, and younger soldiers handed out rations from wooden crates stamped with black eagles and crosses.
A commander approached Wilhelm, saluting sharply.
"Final tally confirmed, sir. Just over four thousand humans rescued. No enemy survivors remain."
Wilhelm stood beside a smoldering wall, his coat flecked with ash. His eyes scanned the sea of hollow-eyed survivors being carried away.
He said nothing at first.
Then, with a cold certainty:
"Eight more villages to go."
He exhaled, long and tired.
"Luckily," he muttered, turning toward the cannon crews and stacked crates of black powder, "we've got more ammunition than we could ever use."
The officer beside him smirked grimly.
"The mortars barely got warm today."
Wilhelm nodded. "They'll get their chance."