They emerged from the shadowed gully, breath ragged, eyes sharp.
Talgir was the first to speak. "Good to see you again, Ryna."
Ryna turned, surprise and relief flashing across her face. "Didn't know Serana and the others with you were still alive."
Talgir's gaze darkened. "Where's Shade? And Karin?"
Ryna's voice dropped. "Tarin is dead. Shade… we last saw him being dragged off by the Nerathil horde during the melee."
The weight of the news settled between them like a stone. Silence hung for a moment.
Talgir cleared his throat and gestured. "This is Teshar and Eorlas."
Teshar nodded curtly, eyes scanning the group.
Ryna stepped forward. "And these are the others: Lira, the flame-warmage. Vekar, a stormblade assassin from the Stormguard. And Halin, Qorjin-Ke scout, like Talgir."
Teshar's brows lifted. "And the rest?"
Ryna's expression hardened. "Refugees mostly. Mercenaries, former soldiers who've banded together against the Nerathil. We're not Stormguard anymore, just survivors now."
Eorlas's gaze flicked to Talgir, then Ryna. Without a word, the three shared a subtle exchange of non-verbal signals. A qi pulse carried silently between them. We don't know your real names or ranks. We'll act as mercenaries and survivors. The message was clear and unspoken.
Teshar broke the silence. "How many are you all?"
Ryna looked toward the ridge. "Scattered, about five hundred. If the messages get through, they'll all gather. Right now, a group is finishing off the Nerathil in the gully below… your trap. We can wipe them out without losing anyone."
Talgir exchanged a glance with Teshar. "And the main camp? Any news?"
Ryna nodded grimly. "It won't hold much longer."
Teshar's voice dropped, serious. "Can you send a message? There are comrades at the main camp who'll be attacked soon."
Hours later, distant shapes moved closer through the morning mist. A new force approached, five hundred more, veterans of countless battles. Warriors clad in worn leathers, warmages radiating subtle, powerful auras, old soldiers whose scars told stories no one asked to hear, and young fighters hardened too quickly by war. Some bore the insignia of mercenary companies, others none at all.
They joined the group atop the ridge, swelling their numbers to over six hundred.
Ryna's voice was steady as she addressed them. "This is the strength we need. With you all here, we can push the Nerathil back."
Talgir looked over the sea of grim faces, nodding slowly. "Good. Let's prepare. The fight is far from over."
Teshar's warhawk swooped down from the sky and perched quietly on his shoulder. Its sharp eyes glimmered with keen intelligence as it relayed what it had seen.
At the warcamp by the ruins, the Nerathil horde had come in force, more than a thousand strong. The defenders were struggling to hold their lines, battered and stretched thin against the relentless assault.
Teshar's gaze hardened. "Ruun saw it all from above. The camp is under heavy attack."
He turned to his companions. "We need to move fast. If we don't reinforce the warcamp soon, those men won't hold."
Without another word, the group gathered their gear and hurried toward the ruins, determination driving their steps. The battle was far from over.
This place had once been a city.Long before the Dazhum came, the first settlers of the island built their homes here, carving streets between the hills and raising their walls from the pale stone beneath their feet. It had been their heart, the center of their trade, their worship, their lives.A thousand years later, the Dazhum Empire came by sea. They razed the old city to dust and built their own acropolis far to the north, leaving these ruins to crumble into the moorland. Time and storms did the rest, until only broken walls and hollow gates remained, haunted by wind and memory.
The ruins breathed with an uneasy stillness. Every crack in the shattered stone, every shadowed gap between collapsed walls felt like a watching eye. Ryoku stood atop the fractured parapet, gaze fixed on the tree line beyond the blackened fields. The wind carried no sound of marching boots, only the occasional scrape of stone or whisper of movement where no man walked.
Two Moorfire scouts stood at attention near the gate, awaiting orders.
"Eyes forward. The moment you sight the vanguard, return and report strength," Ryoku ordered.The pair saluted sharply and slipped into the tall grass beyond the ruins, vanishing into the dim treeline.
Ryoku turned to the yard. "Prepare the outer grounds. Trenches first. Then spike the field."
The defenders moved without hesitation. Wardruids spread their hands over the earth, whispering low chants. The soil shuddered and split, sinking into deep, jagged trenches before the walls. Warmages joined in, guiding the shaping magic so the cuts were clean and angled for defense. From the torn ground, roots erupted and twisted upward, hardening into a wall of jagged spikes that stretched across the front approach, an improvised barricade of living wood and stone.
Blacktide elites dragged sharpened stakes to reinforce the root-wall while Moorfire warriors laid bundles of arrows along the battlements. The air smelled of churned soil and sap. Above them all, the late-day sun dipped behind the treeline, painting the battlefield in dying gold.
The scouts returned before dusk, breathless and grim.
"They're close," the scout said, catching his breath. "Skulkin moving fast toward us. More than a dozen Dreadblades with them. The vanguard numbers over a thousand."
Ryoku's jaw tightened. "Every man and woman to their station."
The defenders worked quickly, the ruins alive with the clatter of arms and the crackle of mage-light. Warmages traced sigils in the dirt, readying wards of flame and stone. Archers tested bowstrings. Swords were checked and re-checked in the fading light.
Ryoku's hand rested on the worn hilt at his side. Soon, there would be no more preparations. No more warnings. Only the sudden, coordinated violence of an enemy that did not fear death and could not be reasoned with.
The air hung heavy with the scent of churned earth and raw magic. The trenches lay dark before the walls, lined with jagged root-spikes still oozing sap. Beyond them, the moorland stretched out in dim haze, the distant shapes of the Nerathil horde shifting like shadows in the mist.
Ryoku stood with his gauntlets resting on the crenellation, eyes fixed on the horizon. Serana approached quietly, her boots whispering over the timber planks.
"Warden," she said, voice low, "is this part of our mission? To defend the Dazhum and their civilians?"
Ryoku did not answer at once. His gaze stayed outward, as if measuring the enemy's approach against the strength of the wall.
When he finally spoke, it was with a calm certainty. "I've… modified what we are doing. To defend the defenseless. I think the commander will understand why."
Her brow furrowed slightly. "We could have already left. No losses. Half of the Veilguard found. The mission nearly complete."
"Yes," he said, his voice quiet but edged with conviction. "But maybe there's a reason we're still here. A reason we didn't take the clear path out. Sometimes you choose the road that costs you more because it keeps something worth saving alive."
Serana studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she gave a single, slow nod. "Then we'll hold this wall, Warden. Until the last."
Ryoku's eyes flickered toward her, the ghost of a smile in the corner of his mouth. Holding the line isn't just about walls and weapons. It's about protecting the last flicker of hope in a dark world. "Until the last."
The wind shifted, carrying with it the faint hiss of distant movement.
They both looked to the mist, knowing it would not be long.
From beneath the churned earth before the trenches, faint glyphs pulsed to life, glowing like molten veins beneath the soil. In the span of a heartbeat, they flared blinding gold, then erupted. The ground itself heaved upward in gouts of fire and stone, each blast hurling chunks of earth and burning shards through the air. The first detonation tore a smoking hole through the front ranks. A second and third followed almost on top of each other, showering the battlefield in embers. By the time the fifth rune mine went off, a swath of the horde was nothing but charred husks and broken armor, the heat rolling back in suffocating waves.
But the slaughter did not end there. Before the acrid smoke could even thin, warmages and wardruids lifted their hands skyward, voices threading together in a low, resonant chant. The night split open. Burning stones rained down like judgment, meteor-like projectiles trailing fire as they slammed into the Nerathil. Each impact blasted shockwaves through the ranks, flesh, steel, and dirt hurled outward in expanding rings of destruction. The ground trembled beneath the sheer force, and the screams of the dying were swallowed in the roar of the inferno.
Then the sky lit again, this time from the Moorfire bowlines. Dozens of arrows tipped with flame sigils streaked over the defenders in perfect arcs, their runes flaring crimson in flight. They fell among the Nerathil like sparks into dry grass, each impact blooming into a contained firestorm that clung to armor and skin alike. One shaft struck the towering Nerathil at the center of the charge. Its head and shoulders vanished in a burst of searing light, molten armor dripping down its collapsing form.
Still they came, pounding forward until the tide smashed against the spike wall. The sharpened roots, grown from the earth itself by wardruid magic, speared into the front lines, halting their momentum. More roots burst from the ground in twisting coils, wrapping around legs, throats, and weapon arms, constricting until bone cracked and armor buckled. Archers, their breathing steady despite the chaos, shifted their aim, seeking out every patch of exposed flesh. Arrows found eyes, throats, and the unarmored gaps beneath the arm.
The battlefield became a churning, firelit nightmare. Heat, smoke, and the copper sting of blood hung thick in the air. The roar of the Nerathil mixed with the hiss of burning wood and the relentless twang of bowstrings. The earth shuddered with every step of the horde still pressing forward.
The defense had begun.