It watched.

  It waited.

  And now—it moved.

  The hills around Osogorsk seemed to crawl as the sun rose, casting long orange blades across a landscape alive with monstrosities. Rows upon rows of figures shuffled forward—first in slow, clumsy lines, then with rising unity, as war horns screamed out from behind the black ridge. The sound was like nothing Bhraime had ever heard. Like iron being torn apart by rage.

  He stood once more on the walkway, hands clasped behind his back, face still.

  To his right, Captain Alavastor grimaced as he looked through the spyglass. “I count eight columns. Maybe more. Goblins in the brush on the flanks. Left ridge has ogres—twelve of them, maybe fifteen. The south is crawling with spear-tongued bastards. Lizards. Six, ten feet tall.”

  He lowered the glass and looked at Bhraime. “And behind them… trolls. Godless, hairy mountain-bred trolls. I thought those things didn’t fight in sunlight.”

  “They don’t,” Bhraime murmured. “Unless they are mixed with something.”

  Alavastor didn’t laugh.

  Below, the archer-captain emerged from the west tower, dragging a command rope over his shoulder. He gave a salute. “Sir! All bow regiments deployed. North towers are stacked four levels deep. We’ve got clear line-of-sight to the eastern valley.”

  Bhraime gave a nod. “Any volleys, you fire on my order only.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As the captain hurried off, Alavastor leaned in closer. “You sure about that?”

  “They’re not attacking yet. This is their theatre. Let them perform.”

  And perform they did.

  From behind the goblin swarm came a rhythmic, drumming clatter—hundreds of crude bone instruments pounding in harmony. The goblins began to dance—dancing and leaping, brandishing severed heads and bloody banners, shrieking chants that sounded like a butcher’s lullaby.

  Behind them came the orcs—true orcs, tall and wide and brutish, each one armored in overlapping plates of black and brass. They roared as they came, pounding their axes against their shields, some of them painted head to toe in red clay, their eyes rolling white.

  And behind them, the beasts.

  A lizardman with a crest like a peacock but eyes full of murder came loping forward on all fours, shrieking. He was followed by ogres—seven feet high, mottled like moldy fruit, some with chains for belts and human bones in their mouths.

  Then the great horn blew.

  From the highest ridge, as if the land itself bent in submission, rose Warmonger.

  He stood a full head taller than the ogres, plated in black steel carved with ancient glyphs. A cloak of flayed skins billowed behind him, and on his back was strapped a massive sword made of obsidian—Ar'sul.

  The horde quieted as he raised one gauntleted fist.

  Shermongrin, the shaman, stepped forward, robed in flayed flesh stitched with symbols. He lifted a skull in both hands and began to chant in a tongue too old for memory.

  Bhraime watched it all, unmoving.

  “They’re calling their god,” Alavastor muttered.

  “Then we’ll answer in kind.”

  Bhraime descended from the wall and walked into the cathedral square where three priests of the Twelve waited. The elder among them, a scarred woman in white, looked up.

  “We’ve prepared the offerings,” she said. “Salt, steel, flame, and wine.”

  Bhraime removed his gauntlets and dipped his fingers in each in turn.

  “We do not ask for rescue,” he said.

  “No,” said the priestess. “Only that your names be remembered.”

  “I’ll settle for that.”

  The first skirmish came an hour later.

  A vanguard of goblins surged up the eastern slope—no armor, just sticks and knives and teeth. They hit the wall in waves, crawling over each other, screaming obscenities in their high, nasal tongue.

  “Hold,” Bhraime commanded from the gatehouse. “Draw.”

  Archers pulled strings. Fletchings quivered.

  “Loose.”

  The air filled with arrows—a storm of razors. Goblins fell like wheat in a hailstorm. Still more came. And fell. And rose. Until finally, after five volleys, the slope was too slick with gore to climb, and the survivors shrieked and fell back.

  Alavastor joined him moments later, smirking.

  “Reckon we killed two hundred.”

  Bhraime’s voice was iron. “Reckon they wanted us to.”

  Sure enough, as the goblins scattered, the real vanguard appeared. Orcs in tight wedges, shields locked, flanked by lizardmen with long spears. Ogres moved in behind, carrying massive tower shields to protect the advance.

  “They’ll test the walls next,” Alavastor said.

  Bhraime nodded. “We’ll make them bleed for it.”

  And bleed they did.

  The orcs charged the wall with ladders and hooks. The defenders met them with boiling oil, dropped stones, and ballista bolts that tore through flesh like parchment.

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  Bhraime fought at the north gate himself, sword flashing, armor streaked with black blood. He moved like a man possessed—every motion economical, every kill a statement. Three orc champions reached the top of the ladder. He sent them back down in pieces.

  And still, the enemy came.

  By nightfall, Osogorsk still stood. But the walls were black with blood, the air thick with smoke, and the moans of the dying echoed from the town square.

  Alavastor limped toward Bhraime, wiping gore from his blade.

  “They’ve pulled back. For now.”

  Bhraime looked over the parapets.

  In the distance, Warmonger sat atop a great horned beast, watching. Always watching.

  “This was the prelude,” Bhraime said. “Tomorrow, the war begins.”

  Night came bruised and loud.

  The first day’s fighting had ended not with silence, but with exhaustion—an uneasy lull filled with the groans of the wounded and the distant mutter of greenskin drums withdrawing just far enough to deny sleep. Osogorsk smoldered in places, pitch still burning along the walls, the air thick with smoke and copper.

  Inside the mayor’s house, General Bhraime Montclef stood over a long table littered with reports, maps, and blood-smudged tally sheets. His helm lay discarded nearby. His gauntlets were still on.

  Sergeants took turns speaking, each voice stripped of ceremony.

  “Eastern wall held, sir. Forty-three wounded, nine dead. Most from the ladders.”

  “Gatehouse archers expended near half their stock. We’ll need to ration tomorrow.”

  “Civilians performed… adequately,” another said, choosing the word carefully. “Some froze. Some didn’t.”

  Bhraime listened, marking figures with charcoal. Losses. Ammunition. Structural damage. He absorbed it all without comment, the way a man does when he cannot afford reaction.

  Captain Alavastor stood near the window, peering into the dark beyond the glass. Torches bobbed along the walls. Shouted orders drifted up from the streets below.

  A sound cut through the room—sharp, sudden.

  A shout from outside.

  “What is it, Captain?” Bhraime asked without looking up.

  “I’m not sure,” Alavastor began—

  The window exploded inward.

  Glass and night came with it. Alavastor dove instinctively, armor scraping wood as something small and fast smashed through the space where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. The object struck the wall beside the table and burst apart wetly.

  Blood sprayed.

  Bits of leather. Bone. A severed limb slid down the plaster, leaving a dark smear.

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Bhraime looked at the ruin on the wall.

  “Is that” he said calmly, “a goblin?”

  The thing twitched once. Then stilled.

  Bhraime’s voice snapped sharp as steel. “Sound the alarm!”

  He turned, already moving. “Alavastor—get off the floor and make sure the archers are in position. Now.”

  Alavastor was already up, sword half-drawn. He bolted for the door.

  Outside, the night erupted.

  Screams—human and otherwise—ripped through Osogorsk as dark shapes arced overhead. They came shrieking from the sky, flung by unseen engines or cruel hands, crashing into rooftops and streets alike. Goblins—broken, screaming, alive just long enough to kill.

  One smashed through a thatched roof in a gout of sparks. Another hit the cobbles and burst, bones snapping, yet still clawed forward with a jagged blade.

  Panic took hold.

  “By the gods!” someone shouted.

  The mayor’s voice rose above the din, high and hysterical. “What is happening—this is madness—this is—”

  He burst into the room, face pale, his captain at his side, both of them shouting over one another. “They’re flying them in! They’re—”

  A screech cut him off.

  It dropped out of the night like a curse given flesh.

  The goblin hit the mayor full on, the impact throwing both to the floor. Bones shattered on contact, but the creature was still alive—too alive. It shrieked again, high and piercing, and drove a jagged knife down into the mayor’s chest.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Again.

  The mayor screamed. Then the screams broke, collapsing into wet, gurgling gasps as blood flooded his mouth.

  Bhraime was already moving.

  He crossed the distance in two strides and drove his sword down through the goblin’s skull, pinning it to the floorboards. The screech cut off instantly.

  Silence followed—thick, stunned, broken only by the mayor’s final rattling breath.

  Bhraime withdrew his blade and looked down.

  What remained of Haldric Vorn lay twisted beneath the goblin’s corpse, eyes wide, face ruined, blood spreading fast across the floor.

  Bhraime regarded the scene for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

  “Pity,” he said flatly. “I was beginning to like him.”

  Another crash shook the house.

  Bhraime turned away without another word, already issuing orders as he strode toward the door.

  “Get every bow on the walls,” he barked. “Light the sky. Kill them before they land.”

  Outside, the night burned as goblins continued to rain from the dark—screaming ammunition hurled at a town that refused to break.

  And General Bhraime Montclef went to meet them.

  Night belonged to the greenskins.

  Fires burned low across the siege lines—not for warmth, but for shadow. The great host crouched in the broken earth beyond Osogorsk like a living scar, its mass stretching farther than torchlight dared reveal. Drums beat slow now, not to rally, but to pace the blood. Every orc knew the rhythm. It was the sound of a hunt delayed, not denied.

  At the forward edge of the camp, the goblins screamed.

  They were called crazies—the broken ones, the drug-fed, the oath less, the ones promised nothing but the fall. Their eyes were wide and glassy, pupils blown black by alchemical brews and crude shamanic rites. Spittle frothed at their lips as handlers dragged them forward by chains and iron hooks.

  The catapults were not engines of craft.

  They were bones lashed to beams. Wagon axles stolen and reforged. Counterweights packed with stones, scrap metal, and sometimes bodies. Greenskin ingenuity was never clean—but it was always sufficient.

  “Get in, get in!” a goblin handler shrieked, jabbing with a spear.

  One crazy laughed as he was shoved into the sling, his laughter high and wrong. Another sobbed. A third bit at the hands restraining him until his teeth broke.

  They were packed three at a time when possible. More weight. More momentum. More ruin.

  Above it all stood Warmonger.

  He did not shout.

  He did not move.

  He stood atop a rise of packed earth and trampled grass, massive frame outlined by the fires behind him. Bone-and-iron armor hung heavy upon his shoulders, scarred and blackened. One eye burned green. The other glowed red, steady and cold. His gaze never left the walls of the town.

  Osogorsk.

  The catapults creaked as they were drawn back. Goblins howled as the tension built, some in terror, some in joy.

  A handler raised his fist.

  Thunk.

  The arm released.

  The night filled with screaming.

  Warmonger watched as dark shapes arced up and over the walls—tiny against the sky, flailing, spinning, shrieking prayers to gods that had never listened to goblins. A heartbeat later, distant impacts echoed back: crashes, splintering wood, screams cut short or stretched long.

  Fear delivered.

  Still, Warmonger did not smile.

  At his side, bound in chains of blackened obsidian and wrapped in runes that burned like old wounds, hung Ar’Sul.

  The demon sword pulsed.

  Not with light—but with need.

  Why do you wait?

  The voice pushed into Warmonger’s mind like a blade sliding between ribs. Deep. Booming. Hungry.

  They are soft. You hear them break. Let me drink. Let me drown in them.

  Warmonger’s jaw tightened.

  Tomorrow, he answered, not aloud, but with iron will. Tonight teaches them fear.

  The sword snarled inside him.

  Fear is weakness. Blood is truth. Push in. Tear the gates down. I will sing with their souls.

  Warmonger shifted his weight slightly, boots grinding into the dirt. His gaze never wavered from the walls.

  They prepare, he sent back. They learn the sound of dying tonight. Tomorrow, they learn the weight of it.

  Ar’Sul laughed—an echoing, layered sound, as if a dozen throats mocked him at once.

  You think yourself patient. You think yourself clever. But I feel their deaths already slipping away from me.

  Another catapult fired.

  Another wave of screaming flew into the dark.

  Warmonger’s hand closed around the sword’s hilt—not drawing it, but warning it.

  You will feast, he promised. But not yet.

  The sword hissed, coiling its hunger tighter.

  Delay breeds doubt, it whispered. Doubt breeds failure.

  Warmonger finally spoke aloud, his voice low, gravel dragged across steel.

  “Silence.”

  The word carried weight—not command, but dominance.

  Ar ’Sul recoiled slightly, its runes dimming, though its hunger did not fade.

  Below them, goblin handlers dragged the next batch of crazies toward the waiting sling. One goblin twisted in his grip and looked up at Warmonger, eyes wild, mouth split in a grin.

  “Fly?” the goblin croaked.

  Warmonger did not answer.

  The handler kicked the goblin into place.

  The catapult arm was drawn back once more.

  And above Osogorsk, the night screamed again—

  not yet with conquest,

  but with promise.