The southern watchtower of Silverleaf usually smelled of pine sap and damp earth. Tonight, it smelled of the grave.
Joran, a scout with keen eyes but young nerves, rubbed his arms. "Do you feel that?" he whispered, his breath puffing out in a cloud of white steam. "The temperature... it dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat."
Beside him, Kaelen, a veteran sentry, frowned. He gripped his spear tighter, the wood slick with sudden frost. He didn't answer. He was staring into the black wall of the forest.
"It's just a frost snap, Kaelen," Joran said, trying to laugh, but the sound died in his throat. "Right?"
"Quiet," Kaelen hissed.
At first, it looked like the shadows themselves were detaching from the tree line. Then, the moon broke through the clouds, illuminating the horror.
A hand, stripped of flesh and yellowed by age, gripped a low-hanging branch. Then another. Then a skull, grinning in the moonlight.
One by one, they stepped out of the darkness. Skeletons wearing rusted scraps of ancient armor. The bones of wolves that moved with a jerky, unnatural rhythm. They didn't run; they shambled forward in a silent, endless tide.
Joran's eyes went wide. "By the Elder Oak..."
"Ring it!" Kaelen roared, shoving the younger scout toward the alarm mechanism. "Ring the bell! NOW!"
Joran scrambled up the ladder and threw his weight against the heavy bronze bell.
CLANG.
The sound shattered the night, deep and mournful.
CLANG. CLANG.
It wasn't the rhythmic toll of a ceremony. It was the frantic, uneven beat of doom.
Inside the Chieftain's house, the sound hit like a physical blow.
Thorne's eyes snapped open. In the same second, he was moving. He didn't groggy wake; he surged from the bed, his warrior instincts overriding the sleep.
"Thorne?" Elara gasped, sitting up, clutching the sheets. "The bell... it hasn't rung like that since—"
"Since the Great Beast," Thorne finished grimly. He was already pulling on his leather breeches and grabbing his chest plate. "This is no beast. The rhythm is too fast. It's an invasion."
He grabbed his weapon from the wall mount—a massive two-handed warhammer made of black iron, inscribed with runes of weight and impact.
The door to the nursery creaked open. Two small faces peered out, illuminated by the flickering light of the hallway crystal.
"Mother? Father?" Rian rubbed his eyes, looking confused. "Why is the village screaming?"
Aael stood beside him, wide awake. He didn't ask questions. He was staring at his father's hammer, his face pale. He could feel something the others couldn't—a sickness in the air, a vibration that made his teeth ache.
Thorne knelt on one knee, his heavy hand gripping Rian's shoulder, then Aael's.
"Listen to me," Thorne commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument. "You do not leave this house. You do not look out the windows. You stay with your mother."
"But I can fight!" Rian protested, looking for his wooden sword.
"Not tonight, Rian," Thorne said, his voice softening just a fraction. He looked up at Elara. "Bar the door. If the warding stones fail... take them to the root cellar."
"Thorne..." Elara's voice trembled, but she nodded. "Come back to us."
Thorne didn't promise. He couldn't. He turned and kicked the front door open, vanishing into the chaotic night.
Elara rushed to the boys, wrapping her arms around them, pulling them away from the open door. "It's alright," she lied, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Just a false alarm. Everything will be fine."
Aael buried his face in her robes, but he knew she was lying. He could smell it on the wind drifting in before the door closed. Death.
Thorne reached the southern gate just as the reinforcements poured in from the barracks. The air was thick with panic.
"Report!" Thorne barked, grabbing a trembling guard by the shoulder.
"It... it is not the wildlings, Chieftain," the soldier stammered, his face drained of blood. "They do not bleed. We put an arrow through a scout, and he just kept walking. It is the Dead, sir. A sea of them."
Thorne looked over the palisade. The sight confirmed the nightmare. The forest floor was white with bone, and the green witch-fire of the commander burned in the distance.
A murmur ripple through the crowd of defenders. An old archer, one of the few who remembered the old wars, dropped his bow. His hands shook violently.
"The Green Flame..." the old man whispered, his voice cutting through the noise. "It is him. One of the Seven Deadliest Creatures of the Land. The High Lich, Azaroth."
The name struck the crowd like a physical blow. The younger warriors looked at the elders, seeing the terrified recognition in their eyes.
Thorne felt the chill in his own marrow. He remembered. He was just a boy then, but he remembered the pyres. His father, the previous Chieftain, had driven the Lich back, but Silverleaf had nearly drowned in blood to do it. Half the village had died that night.
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. The grip on spears loosened. Men took half-steps back away from the gate. The shadow of the past was paralyzing them.
"We cannot win," someone whispered. "It is a slaughter."
Thorne slammed the butt of his warhammer onto the wooden platform. BOOM.
The sound cracked like thunder, silencing the whispers. Thorne turned to face his people. He didn't look at the enemy; he looked at the terrified faces of the farmers, smiths, and weavers.
"I see fear in your eyes!" Thorne roared, his voice deep and gravelly, echoing off the copper-wood houses. "I see you remembering the stories of the old war! You ask yourselves: 'If our fathers barely survived, how can we stand?'"
He walked along the line, looking every man and woman in the eye.
"My father fought this monster with pitchforks and leather! He fought with a village that was half-starved and unprepared!" Thorne raised his black-iron hammer high, the runes glowing faintly. "But look at you! Look at your armor! Look at your steel! We are not the village we were! We have forged our walls in iron! We have sharpened our claws!"
He pointed his weapon toward the forest, toward the oncoming death.
"Why do you fear the dead?" Thorne bellowed. "They have no heart! They have no family! They have no home to protect! YOU DO!"
The fear in the soldiers' eyes began to crack, replaced by a spark of anger. Of pride.
"Let the High Lich come!" Thorne shouted, his voice shaking the very timber of the gate. "Let him see that the sons and daughters of Silverleaf do not break! Tonight, we do not die! Tonight, we send them back to the hell they crawled out of! ARE YOU WITH ME?"
For a second, there was silence.
Then, a young spearman slammed his shield. Then another. Then a roar erupted from the crowd—not a scream of terror, but a war cry that shook the leaves from the trees.
"FOR SILVERLEAF!"
"FOR THE CHIEFTAIN!"
The fear vanished, burned away by the fire of their resolve. They gripped their weapons until their knuckles turned white. They surged forward, lining the walls, ready to face the apocalypse.
Thorne turned back to the gate, a grim smile touching his lips. They were ready.