Oakhaven was quiet. Too quiet for Captain Krag's liking.
He leaned heavily against a weathered fence post, watching Sergeant Vane wipe the sweat from his brow. "Lord Kent swore the Greenskins were moving this way," Krag muttered.
Vane eyed the dense treeline. "Let's be thankful he was wrong. For now."
"Excuse me, sirs?" A village boy, no older than ten, stood before them with wide, reverent eyes. "Could you teach us the sword? We want to be strong like you! To fight the bad guys!"
Krag and Vane exchanged a heavy look. They both knew that childhood thrill. They remembered watching the Lord Commander's banners snapping in the wind, dreaming of glory. And they both remembered the exact moment that illusion had shattered in the blood and mud of the frontline.
But looking at the boy's eager face, neither man had the heart to break it to him. Forcing a smile, Krag pushed off the fence and tossed Vane a wooden practice sword. "Alright, kid. Let's start with your footwork."
Miles to the north, General Ulric Stone wasn't resting.
Having finally reached the Iron Horn, he ignored the bitter wind and rode a slow circuit around the fortress's perimeter, his eyes hunting for structural flaws in the ancient masonry. Inside, the garrison was pitiful: a hundred infantrymen and eighty crossbowmen. Buried deep in the frozen wastes, the fort hadn't seen action in a century. Against a Dwarven siege, it would be a slaughter.
Ulric had no intention of fighting a traditional defensive war. He put the men to work immediately, carving brutal trench lines into the permafrost outside the gates, and ordered every barrel of lamp oil dragged up from the cellars.
He deployed his forces with ruthless precision. A thousand of his crossbowmen, bolstered by the local infantry, took the hidden trenches. His five thousand heavy cavalry were fractured into three ambush points: beneath the stone bridge, deep within the snow-draped pines, and masked by the crags behind the keep. Finally, Ulric led the remaining four thousand crossbowmen to the high walls, setting up overlapping fields of fire to shred anything that stepped out of the treeline.
The trap was set. Now, they just had to wait.
Deep in the southern domain, the messenger eagle finally folded its wings.
It landed perfectly on the saddle horn of Bella Snow, Knight of the Phoenix Order. A feline demi-human, Bella's snow-white ears twitched as she popped the wax seal. Beside her, Vice Commander Lily Violet—a sharp woman whose dark, raven-like eyes missed nothing—watched her commander's expression shift from politically-drained annoyance to radiant joy. Bella's white tail began to thrash excitedly behind her.
Bella tossed the parchment to Lily. "Looks like we're going to war!" she cheered, practically bouncing in her saddle. "And I finally get to see Kent! It's been a decade, Lily. Ten years! He only writes when people are dying. I'm going to punch him so hard."
Her indignation flared, and a sudden, suffocating pressure of golden Paladin mana leaked from her frame. Behind them, the hundred-man infantry patrol shifted uneasily, sweating under the sheer weight of her aura.
Pouting, Bella hopped down and kicked a stone in frustration. It ricocheted down the path and smacked into a massive boulder blocking the road.
The boulder uncurled.
Jagged rock shifted and ground together as an ancient Stone Golem rose to its full, towering height. The infantrymen shouted in panic, drawing steel.
Lily sighed, resting a hand on her pommel. Born of the earth, Golems simply absorbed magic; it took impossibly dense, physical mana to shatter their earthen armor. "I'll handle this," Lily said.
"No way, I need to blow off some steam!" Bella cracked her knuckles. Her nails elongated into deadly claws, and her fists erupted in a blinding, golden glow.
The golem swung an arm the size of a tree trunk, but Bella was already gone. She blurred backward, vaulted off a nearby pine, and launched herself at the creature's face. Her mana-infused fists battered the golem's shell in a devastating flurry of strikes, her feline agility keeping her just out of reach of its crushing counterattacks.
Lily checked her pocket watch. "End it, My Lady. We have a schedule."
Bella smirked. Channeling her aura into a miniature sun around her right fist, she met the golem's double-fisted slam head-on.
The impact deafened the patrol. A shockwave of dust and pulverized rock blasted through the trees. As the debris cleared, Bella stood grinning amidst a crater of pebbles, casually dusting off her armor.
"Good warm-up," she chirped.
Lily deadpanned. "You used a fraction of your strength and wasted time playing with it. I'm taking the next one."
"Meowww!" Bella yelled back playfully, vaulting onto her horse and leaving her terrified infantrymen staring at the smoking crater in absolute awe.