The sky was low and gray as the warhost moved north.
Gone were the heat-slick obsidian valleys of Emberreach. Now, the land twisted into dense bramble forests and steep ravines, where the air smelled of moss and old blood. This was the Wildmarch, home to creatures not bred but born of untamed mana—beasts that obeyed no leash, no brand, no crown.
Duncan rode at the front, flanked by Kaelen and Alra. Behind them marched warriors of the Flameborn, the Bannerless, and remnants of fallen tribes—unified now not by flag, but by fire.
Ahead lay Hightower Reach.
The Dominion's fortress.
Their chokehold on the wildlands.
But between the army and that fortress stood the Greywood: a cursed stretch of ancient forest known for beasts that vanished entire patrols in silence.
They would have to go through it.
Alra spoke as they reached the forest edge. "No torches past here. Fire draws them. They remember."
Kaelen looked up at the gnarled trees. Their bark was silver and black, twisted like grasping hands. "And if they come?"
"Don't scream," Alra said. "They like the sound."
Duncan dismounted and walked into the trees.
The canopy swallowed light. Roots snagged at their feet. Strange calls echoed from deep within—some birdlike, some almost human. Yet none of the warriors hesitated.
They trusted Duncan now.
He was no longer a conscript. No longer just a commander.
He was becoming something more.
It began at twilight.
The forward scouts didn't return.
Duncan halted the column. "Kael. Eyes high. Watch the canopy."
No sooner had he spoken than a sound like splitting wood echoed above—and something dropped.
A beast. Six-legged. Covered in armor-plates of living bark. It hissed with a face like a skull carved from root.
It lunged.
Duncan moved faster.
Ashborn flared into white heat as he brought the blade up, cleaving through the creature mid-leap. It shrieked—a sound that rattled bones—and collapsed into steaming pulp.
Then the forest screamed.
From the trees, from the roots, from the dark—they came.
Wild beasts. Horned, scaled, clawed. Some with crystal growths erupting from their spines, others with eyes that glowed like stars. The army formed a ring instantly—spears forward, archers loosing arrow after arrow.
But the beasts weren't mindless.
They didn't attack blindly. They tested the flanks. Probed weaknesses.
And one by one, they began targeting Duncan.
Alra's voice rang over the clash. "They sense the Crown!"
Duncan stood his ground as a massive beast, twice the size of a warhorse, bounded toward him. He dodged aside, slicing through its hind leg. Another followed—this one with iron talons and fire dripping from its maw.
"Back," Kaelen growled, hurling a burning javelin into its throat.
Still, more came.
A tide.
The warriors were holding, barely. The ranks thinned. Men fell. Kael was slashed across the side, blood flying as he pulled a beast down with him in a furious grapple.
Duncan knew it then—they wouldn't survive this without a choice.
He pulled the Crown free.
The air shifted.
Every beast froze.
Their snarls stopped mid-breath. The forest went dead silent.
Duncan didn't speak.
He simply raised the Crown high—and let them see.
Not power. Not domination.
But memory.
Visions shimmered in the air. Old kings. Fallen cities. Wild beasts walking beside men as allies, not weapons. Not bound, not summoned. Shared purpose.
The forest held its breath.
And then the largest of the beasts—towering, fur like dark stone, horns like crescent moons—stepped forward.
It didn't attack.
It bowed.
The others followed.
Hundreds of wild beasts dropped their heads, not in submission, but recognition.
The warriors stood stunned.
Kaelen, clutching his wounded side, muttered, "You're not just marching to war, Duncan. You're waking up the old world."
Duncan lowered the Crown. "Then let the world remember."
By dawn, they emerged from the forest.
No beasts followed.
But from then on, every night as the warhost camped, strange eyes watched from the tree line. Never attacking. Never threatening.
Only watching.
Alra said it best as they approached the cliffs overlooking the distant towers of Hightower Reach:
"You didn't just win the beasts' respect," she whispered.
"You awakened them."
And Duncan, standing before the greatest fortress the Dominion had built, knew something had changed.
This war was no longer just rebellion.
It was reckoning.