Baron Edric Valhan stood alone on a ridgeline just beyond the outer forests of Whitehold, cloak unmoving in the still air. The distant city, lay wrapped in silence. No smoke from chimneys. No fires in the watchtowers. Just stillness…unnatural and patient.
His gloved hand tightened around a small wooden box.
He didn't open it. Not here.
Behind him, the camp stirred to life. Soft clinks of armour being strapped on, quiet murmurs over sharpening blades, the low voices of scouts returning with breathless updates.
There were spies among his men. Of that, he was certain.
So, he'd planned around it. No announcements. No public declarations. Just one whispered order to each commander. No parchment, no signal fires. And for the deepest moves…the ones that couldn't risk interception, he had sent Kaavi.
Not even his closest officers knew the old warrior's role.
They didn't need to.
Edric exhaled once, slowly. His pale eyes lingered on Whitehold for a few seconds more.
Then he turned and walked back into the quiet heart of camp.
A small command tent had been set up on a rise just above the main campfires. Inside, maps stretched over wooden tables, weighed down by stones and rusted daggers. Brass tokens marked villages, rivers, and potential fallback routes.
Commander Dave Morren stood near the flap, arms crossed, sabre strapped to his side as always. His one ear twitched every time someone approached too fast. Old habit from older wars.
Captain Serah Baines sat with her back straight, reading from a fresh report. She'd barely removed her cloak despite the warmth of the tent…her eyes never left the numbers: rations, fletching, wound dressings.
Calder leaned over a smaller table, comparing ink-streaked sketches of enemy troop symbols, his fingers smudged with soot and dried wax.
Edric stepped in. The quiet conversations ceased.
"Report," he said.
Dave grunted. "Scouts confirmed fortified patrols around the gate, but not in the numbers we expected. Either they're hiding their strength… or they're too confident to bother."
"Or they're waiting," Serah added without looking up.
Calder straightened. "Something's wrong in there. I can feel it. The city's quiet, but not asleep. Like it's… listening."
Edric nodded. "They've lured us into a stalemate. No skirmishes. No messages. Just silence."
He placed the wooden box on the centre of the map.
None of them spoke.
Serah finally asked, "Is that… what came yesterday?"
Edric opened it.
Inside, wrapped in cloth stained a sickly brown, were three severed fingers…delivered to him by a masked courier two nights ago.
"My son's," Edric said, voice flat. "Taken while riding north to deliver a warning. I suspect. I'll find the body later. If there's anything left."
Even Dave looked away for a moment.
"They sent a message," Edric continued. "They think it'll break our resolve."
He closed the box.
"They forgot we have nothing else left to lose."
By dawn, the camp had changed.
The air felt thinner…like it knew what was coming. Soldiers moved in quieter steps. Armor was fastened a little tighter. Spear shafts were wrapped in cloth to silence their clatter. Even the wind moved careful through the tents.
The laughter from days before had dulled to murmurs. Bread was passed between calloused hands. A flask made its slow rounds. A few told stories…not bold tales, just quiet and boring ones. Things they hoped to return to.
"I told her I'd open a bakery when this is over," one soldier said, turning a battered locket in his palm. "Swore I'd bake her apricot tarts every week. Truth is, I've never even lit a hearth the proper way."
A man beside him gave a dry grunt. "That's the kind of talk that gets men killed. Sweet promises and no clue how to keep them."
Someone chuckled low, and another added, "He's right. That's what the songs always start with…some poor bastard saying he'll come home to build a quiet life, then dying two steps from it."
The first man gave a small smirk, slipping the locket back into his coat. "Then I'll live, just to spite the bards. Let them find another poor fool to turn into a tragic song."
A few laughed, but no one too loud.
Not far off, a young boy…barely past sixteen…was wrapping his brother's bruised arm in linen. He winced once but didn't speak. The boy tied it tight. He let him. It was the kind of silence that didn't ask for words.
The quiet of the camp pressed into the bones…not dread, not grief, just something old and weighty. The kind of quiet that always came before a storm… and made a man wonder which promises might live to be kept.
Outside the Tent - Just Before Dawn
The wind pulled through the camp, sharp and cold, as Baron Edric stepped out from his tent, boots crunching frost, until the soldiers began to notice … one by one … and gathered without needing to be ordered.
Hundreds of them, all silent.
No banners flew. No drums sounded.
Just firelight flickering across tired faces and cold steel.
Edric stood on the small slope beside the central fire pit ... no platform, no height to speak of … and held something in his hand. A small wooden box.
"I won't speak long," he began, voice clear, but not raised.
Just a man facing his truth.
"I know what you're thinking. What you're waiting for. You want me to tell you that we'll win. That we'll drive them out, return home, and this will all be a bad memory."
He paused.
"I'm not going to say that."
Murmurs stilled. Some men shifted on their feet. Others stood motionless.
"I won't lie to you. What we're facing inside Whitehold is unlike any army I've stood against. It doesn't shout. It doesn't demand. It creeps. It replaces. It gets inside your home… and your head."
He lifted the box and opened it. Inside, wrapped in cloth, were severed fingers, laid out.
"They sent this two nights ago. Said it was a gift. A warning."
He closed the lid.
"It was from my son."
A few rookie soldiers looked away. But most didn't blink. They'd seen worse
"He rode to warn Whitehold, and never came back. Not captured. Just... erased. Like he never existed."
Edric's eyes swept across the crowd …not grandly, but directly. Locking gaze after gaze.
"This is what we're up against. Not just an enemy that wants to kill us. An enemy that wants to replace us. Quietly. Without battle. Just masks, silence, and rot. They want to wear our faces, walk our roads."
He let the words settle.
"So no, I won't promise you glory. I won't promise you survival."
He raised his voice slightly now, just enough to carry.
"But I will tell you this... if we don't stop them here, tonight, there won't be a next line. There won't be a second chance to regroup or fall back. There'll be no messengers. No reinforcements. Just death."
He gestured to the snowy plains behind them.
"You think the South will be ready for them? For something that doesn't march, but seeps? For an enemy that can turn your brother into your killer without even lifting a sword?"
A few heads shook. Others lowered.
"We are the North's last wall. We are the breath before the freeze. If we fall, then everything behind us falls with us. One by one. Family by family. Until there's nothing left but strangers wearing our names."
He drew his sword slowly, holding it out … not high, just forward, level with the firelight.
"This blade belonged to my father. He died with it in his hands, defending strangers who couldn't fight for themselves. He didn't ask if it was fair. He just stood."
He looked down a moment.
Then raised his eyes again.
"If we fight tomorrow, we do it knowing we're not just protecting walls. We're guarding the memory of who we are. Of the ones who came before us. Of the children who might still grow up free because of the choice we make now. And no matter what happens next, they will remember that we did not bow."
He lowered the sword.
"I'm not asking you to die. I'm asking you to stand. And if you fall, fall facing them... not fleeing. Let your last breath carry the truth that we did not yield."
A beat.
Then quieter.
"So, I'll say this once…if you feel fear, good. That means you haven't gone numb. But let it burn clean. Let it harden into something sharp. Something that won't break when it's time to stand."
He tapped his chest.
"We are the Northern Wall. We're what stands between these things and everything south of the valley. We are not stepping aside. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever."
"Now eat. Rest. Say what you need to say to the people you care about. Because tomorrow, we fight as if there's no second chance."
He turned, walking away without ceremony.
No cheers.
But none were needed.
The silence that followed carried more weight than any roar ever could.