I. The Long Walk to the Fire
The Coastal Road was a scar of grey mud trapped between the freezing spray of the ocean and the imposing cliffs of the interior.
Selene, a Vulpine mother with fur the color of autumn leaves, stumbled. Her paws were wrapped in bloody rags. She clutched her daughter, Miri, tight against her chest to shield the kit from the biting wind.
"Mama?" Miri whispered, her small fox ears flattened against her skull. "Are we going to the warm place?"
Selene swallowed the bile in her throat. The "warm place" was Brightwind. The Southern Theocracy. She knew what they did to Demi-humans there. They didn't have prisons; they had pyres.
"Yes, little one," Selene lied, her voice cracking. "We are going somewhere... bright."
"Will papa be there?"
Selene looked back. Her mate had been beaten to death three miles back for falling out of line. "Yes," she whispered, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her face. "Papa is waiting for us."
A whip cracked.
"Move it, animal!" an Iron Legion mercenary shouted. He didn't look cruel; he looked terrified. He kept glancing East, toward the looming, violet-tinged storm clouds that marked the border of the Nyx Imperium.
"We have to make the southern checkpoint by nightfall," the mercenary captain muttered to his lieutenant. "If the Raven Lord sees us..."
"He's busy," the lieutenant scoffed, though his hand shook on his sword hilt. "He's babysitting refugees in the center. He won't care about a few thousand heretics on the coast."
Selene looked at the cliffs. She thought about jumping. It would be quicker than the fire. But she looked at Miri's sleeping face and kept walking.
II. The Echo of the Alpha
In the Sanctum of Obsidios Iubeo, Corvin Nyx stood like a statue. His eyes were closed, his mind projected into Umbra.
He saw them. He saw the mothers. He saw the children. He saw the whip marks.
"They are marching them to the pyres," Corvin said softly. "Five thousand souls. Kyra's kin. Mages. Twins."
Kyra stood by the window, her knuckles white as she gripped the sill. "Brightwind burns them alive, Corvin. They call it purification. They make the families watch."
Corvin turned. The air in the room grew heavy, the Second Circle density vibrating the glass.
"Not today."
He looked at Centurion Kael, commander of the Obsidian Asturias. Kael stood differently now. Since the Battle of the Orphan Gate, where his fifty riders had smashed the Alpha Velox to save the children, he carried a heavy, grim silence.
"Kael," Corvin said. "Do you remember the orphans?"
"I see them when I sleep, Lord," Kael replied, his voice low. "I remember the sound the monsters made when they hunted them."
"These mercenaries are no better than the Velox," Corvin said, pointing to the coastal map. "They are hunting families."
Corvin placed a black marker on the road.
"They think they are safe because they are men. They think you are just cavalry. Show them the difference. Unleash the Dread Charge."
Kael donned his helmet. The obsidian faceplate slid down, erasing his humanity.
"They will not stand," Kael promised.
III. The Tremor
On the Coastal Road, the wind died.
Selene stopped. The ground beneath her bruised feet wasn't just muddy; it was vibrating. The pebbles on the road began to dance.
The Iron Legion captain pulled his horse up. "Earthquake?"
"No," a veteran sergeant whispered, his face draining of color. He pointed East, to the ridge line where the hills met the sky. "Look."
At first, it was just a silhouette against the bruised purple clouds. Then, it was fifty.
The Obsidian Asturias.
They sat atop Obsidian Dark Destriers—monsters of horses, standing eighteen hands high, encased in black plate. The barding on their chests was not smooth; it was covered in cruel, serrated obsidian spikes designed to shred flesh and shatter bone.
The riders sat motionless. They held heavy obsidian lances, their tips drinking the light.
A sound began to grow. It wasn't a horn. It was a low, resonant thrumming—the Aura of Dread. It was a magical projection of primal terror, magnified by the Flock-Link.
Every mercenary on the road felt a sudden, biological urge to run. Their bowels turned to water. Their hands went numb.
"Form ranks!" the Captain screamed, his voice breaking. "Pikes! Pikes up!"
But the pikes were shaking.
IV. The Dread Charge
Centurion Kael didn't shout. He simply leaned forward.
The fifty Destriers moved as one organism. They crested the ridge and began the descent.
It started as a rumble, then became a roar. The earth screamed under the weight of seventy-five thousand pounds of armored muscle and hate.
"Mama!" Miri woke up, screaming at the noise.
"Get down!" Selene tackled her daughter, shielding her with her body. The slaves scrambled away, pressing themselves against the cliff face, sensing that this violence wasn't meant for them.
The Asturias hit the flat road and accelerated. The Fatigue-Reducing magic in their blood flared. They reached an impossible speed for creatures of that size.
The Iron Legion line buckled before contact. Men dropped their spears, weeping in terror as the Dread overwhelmed their minds.
CRASH.
It was the sound of a hammer hitting a melon.
The serrated chest-spikes of the lead Destriers slammed into the mercenary ranks. There was no resistance. Men in chainmail were vaporized—shredded into red mist and twisted metal. The horses didn't slow down; they trampled the front line, their iron-shod hooves crushing the pikes into splinters.
Kael drove his lance through the Captain's chest, the impact lifting the man out of his saddle and hurling him fifty feet into the surf.
The mercenaries didn't fight back. The terror was too absolute. Screaming, hundreds of them threw down their swords and leaped off the road, plunging into the freezing ocean to escape the black knights.
The Asturias wheeled. The horses snorted, steam blasting from their nostrils. They formed a wall of iron between the scattered mercenaries and the huddled families.
V. The Silence of Salvation
The violence ended as quickly as it began. The only sound left was the crashing of the waves and the weeping of the mercenaries drowning in the tide.
Selene dared to look up.
A massive black horse stood over her. Its armor was slick with blood, but the rider held his lance vertical—a sign of peace.
The faceplate slid up. It was Kael. He looked down at the Vulpine woman and her terrified child. His eyes weren't the eyes of a monster; they were tired and kind.
"They cannot hurt you anymore," Kael said, his voice rough.
Selene looked at the ocean, then at the hills. "Where... where do we go? The South will burn us. The North sold us."
Corvin Nyx stepped out from the ranks of the Second Legion infantry that had followed the charge. He walked through the mud, his black cloak trailing behind him.
He knelt beside Selene. He didn't care about the mud. He reached out and touched Miri's cheek. The little fox-girl flinched, then stared at him, mesmerizing by the violet light in his eyes.
"You go nowhere," Corvin said, his voice carrying down the line of five thousand weeping souls.
He stood up and pointed his sword at the ground beneath his feet.
"This road is closed. The Union ends here."
He looked at Garrus Vane.
"Obel Harth. Bring the stone. We build the Fourth Anchor right here. Observo Marus. We lock the door."
Selene pulled Miri close. She looked at the dead mercenaries washing in the surf, and then at the black wall of knights protecting her. For the first time in her life, the dark wasn't scary. The dark was safe.
"We are home, Miri," Selene whispered into her daughter's fur. "We are home."