Dry Bone Valley did not welcome them.
It tightened.
Like a throat closing around prey.
Alfred's army poured into it anyway.
Torches flickered in restless lines, armor clanged, voices carried—loud, careless, alive. They moved like a blazing serpent forcing its way into a narrow grave, unaware that the walls were already closing.
The deeper they went, the wrongness grew.
The wind sharpened.
It scraped along armor and bone alike, dragging dust, pebbles… and pale fragments of something that had once lived. The sound it made—dry, whispering—clung to the edges of thought.
The torchlight began to struggle.
Shadows stretched unnaturally along the rock walls, twisting into clawed shapes that seemed to reach.
Some soldiers noticed.
Most didn't.
At the front, Alfred rode on.
He could see them now—faint shapes ahead, retreating.
Prey.
His lips curved.
"Faster—"
The valley bit back.
A scream tore the night open.
A warhorse collapsed mid-stride—its legs snapping with a wet, splintering crack as if seized by something unseen beneath the earth. Momentum carried rider and beast forward. The knight's armored head struck stone—
A dull impact.
Silence.
"Trap—!"
Too late.
The ground came alive with betrayal.
Another horse vanished into a shallow pit—bones breaking, weight crushing the man beneath it. His muffled cries turned to choking gasps under the animal's thrashing.
Vines snapped tight.
Invisible lines became blades.
Tripwires lashed across charging legs—horses went down in waves, bodies flipping, armor crashing, men screaming.
The formation collapsed.
Not slowly.
Instantly.
Knights slammed into fallen comrades. Infantry crashed forward, unable to stop. Steel tangled with flesh. Horses shrieked. Men cursed, screamed, prayed.
What had been a charge—
became a pile.
A choking mass of bodies, metal, panic.
Alfred's horse reared violently, nearly throwing him.
He fought it down, breath ragged, eyes burning as he looked back.
His vanguard—
ruined.
"Hold formation!" he roared.
No one heard.
Then—
the world split.
A roar.
Not human.
Not entirely.
It struck like thunder.
"For Blackwood! Kill—!"
They came from the dark.
Fifty shapes.
Too large.
Too fast.
Too real.
Brown Bear Warriors.
They fell upon the right flank like a collapsing mountain.
Men saw them—truly saw them—and something inside snapped.
"Monsters—!"
"Run!"
Weapons dropped.
Formation dissolved.
Courage—whatever thin thread held it—broke.
Boulder led the charge.
Not like a man.
Like impact itself.
He hit the line—and it shattered.
Bodies lifted off their feet, thrown aside like broken tools. His axe didn't strike—
it erased.
Each swing carved red crescents through flesh and bone. Limbs separated cleanly. Torsos opened. Blood sprayed in arcs that caught the firelight for a fleeting, terrible beauty.
A spear struck him—
skidded across armor.
Ignored.
His return swing split three men at once.
The conscripts died screaming.
Those who ran did not run fast enough.
Alfred saw it.
Felt it.
Rage burned through the shock.
"Leave them!" he snapped.
His voice cut through enough to matter.
"Infantry—form on me!"
This time, discipline answered.
Three hundred iron-shield infantry closed ranks with brutal efficiency.
Shields slammed down.
Locked.
A wall rose.
Cold. Solid. Unyielding.
Spears extended from its gaps—like thorns waiting for flesh.
They became something else.
Not men.
A structure.
A machine.
Boulder hit it.
The impact thundered through the valley.
His axe slammed into the front line—force rippling through shields, through arms, through bone. Men staggered back, fingers splitting, joints screaming under the strain.
A crack opened.
Small.
Enough.
"Kill—!"
He forced himself forward.
The wall bit back.
Spears struck.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Steel pierced flesh.
Not deep.
Not enough.
But enough.
Blood began to run.
Boulder roared.
Not in pain.
In fury.
He surged into the gap, forcing space where none existed.
And the world closed around him.
Inside the formation, everything tightened.
No room.
No swing.
No momentum.
His strength—his greatest weapon—became constrained.
Limited.
Choked.
Men swarmed him.
Not bravely.
Desperately.
They clung to him, hacking at joints, stabbing low, striking wherever armor thinned.
Like insects.
Like parasites.
Like survival.
He killed them.
One by one.
Crushing ribs with kicks. Breaking skulls with the haft of his axe. Splitting bodies at arm's length.
But for every one that fell—
another took its place.
Blood ran thicker.
His blood.
Armor cracked.
A strike found purchase—splitting his chest plate open just enough.
Another cut his thigh.
Another his side.
He was still standing.
Still killing.
But he was slowing.
A bear surrounded by hounds.
Then—
a shift.
A knight stepped forward.
Calm.
Watching.
Waiting.
He saw the opening.
Small.
Precise.
Enough.
"Die."
No flourish.
No wasted motion.
Just a thrust.
The spear drove forward—straight, fast, clean.
A perfect line toward Boulder's heart.
Boulder saw it.
Too late.
He twisted.
Forced his body to move.
To block.
To survive.
But the distance was too short.
The speed—
too absolute.
For the first time—
death reached him.