Half an hour stretched until it broke.
Inside Greenwood Valley, time flowed sweetly—wine poured, laughter swelled, music danced through warm air thick with roasted meat and careless joy. Life was abundant, soft, unguarded.
Outside—
Time rotted.
Four thousand five hundred figures waited in the dark, unmoving, unbreathing. Hunger gnawed. Hatred simmered. Every second scraped against their nerves like rusted blades.
This was not anticipation.
This was restraint on the edge of collapse.
—
When Anna returned, she did not speak.
She did not need to.
A single gesture.
Complete.
Colin understood.
The world narrowed to a point.
His hand rose slowly, deliberate, as though even time itself obeyed him. Between his fingers rested a small iron whistle—cold, ordinary, stolen.
He did not lift it to his lips.
Instead—
He let it fall.
A flick.
"Tweet—"
The sound was thin. Sharp. Almost nothing.
And yet—
It split the night open.
—
"Kill—!!!"
Hask's roar shattered the silence like a bone snapping inside the skull of the world.
Three nights of suppressed bloodlust erupted at once.
He became motion before he became form.
Bonebreaker blurred, a streak of pale death tearing through the dark, and behind him surged the Wolf-folk—2,400 nightmares given flesh. Not an army.
A flood.
A living tide of claws, teeth, and starvation.
Their target—
The gate.
—
"BOOM—!!!"
The first impact nearly tore it from its hinges.
The second—
Ended it.
Wood screamed. Iron snapped. Flesh broke with it.
Guards didn't die cleanly. They were crushed, flattened into the splintering wreckage, their bodies reduced to pulp beneath the collapsing gate.
The bell rang too late.
"Enemy—!"
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Panic spilled outward, infecting every corner of the manor.
Music died mid-note.
Laughter curdled into shrieks.
Dancers froze, wine still in hand, faces lifted toward the gate—
—and saw hell walk in.
—
They came as shapes first.
Then eyes.
Green.
Cold.
Alive with something that was not life.
The Wolf-folk surged through the shattered entrance, towering, bristled, monstrous. Steel hung from their hands like an afterthought—blades chipped, rusted, stained black with old blood.
Others needed no weapons.
Their claws were enough.
"It's—werewolves—!"
The words barely formed before fear devoured them.
Hask did not slow.
He did not look at the fleeing.
He only saw resistance.
"For the Wolf God—!"
His blade fell.
A guard raised his spear—
Too slow.
"Puchi—"
The sound was wet. Intimate.
Steel parted mail. Bone. Organs.
The man opened from chest to belly, his insides spilling into the firelit square as if the world itself had rejected him.
That was the beginning.
—
Then the slaughter truly started.
The wolves spread.
Not fighting.
Feeding.
Guards collapsed instantly under the onslaught. Formations shattered before they formed. Training meant nothing against creatures who did not fear death—only the absence of killing.
Throats were torn out mid-scream.
Hearts ripped free, still beating in clawed hands.
Bodies dragged down, torn apart, reduced to meat before they hit the ground.
The square became a charnel pit.
—
Then came the second wave.
Heavier.
Slower.
Unstoppable.
—
"For food! Break them!"
Barton's roar rolled forward like thunder trapped inside iron.
Eight hundred Boar-folk charged.
They did not see the battle.
They did not care.
Their eyes locked onto something else.
The granaries.
Hope.
Salvation.
They moved like living siege engines—massive, brutal, unthinking. Anyone in their path ceased to exist as people. They became obstacles.
Obstacles were removed.
Bodies flew.
Bones shattered mid-air.
Blood painted arcs across the firelight.
—
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
Axes fell.
Hammers followed.
Doors that had endured storms and years of wear splintered like dry bark.
And behind them—
Gold.
Grain spilled outward in a rushing cascade, flooding the ground like treasure.
"Food…"
A young Boar-folk dropped to his knees, trembling, shoving raw grain into his mouth, choking, sobbing, devouring.
"Don't eat! Pack it!"
Barton struck him aside.
Survival came first.
Feast later.
They filled sacks with frantic desperation, as if the grain might vanish if they slowed.
—
Then—
The third wave arrived.
And the battlefield changed.
—
"ROAR—!!!"
Boulder's voice did not echo.
It pressed.
Heavy.
Crushing.
Four hundred Bear-folk advanced.
Not charging.
Not rushing.
Walking.
Each step deliberate. Each step final.
A wall of fur, muscle, and iron.
They did not look at the chaos.
They did not react.
They advanced like fate itself—slow, certain, impossible to stop.
—
A handful of guards rallied.
A knight at their center.
"Hold the line! Spears—!"
Their voices trembled. Their hands shook.
But they stood.
They tried.
—
It meant nothing.
The spears struck first.
"Clang. Clang. Clang."
They bent.
Snapped.
Deflected as though striking stone.
Boulder did not stop.
Did not block.
Did not care.
He simply walked through them.
And as he passed—
His axe moved.
—
"Whoosh—"
The air screamed.
The knight, his horse, the men behind him—
Cut apart.
Clean.
Effortless.
Their bodies separated before their minds understood.
Blood followed a moment later.
—
The line vanished.
Not broken.
Erased.
—
The survivors fled.
Screaming.
Crying.
Begging.
It changed nothing.
The Bear-folk did not chase.
They did not need to.
They simply continued forward.
And anything still breathing—
Was no longer allowed to.
—
Fifteen minutes.
That was all it took.
Greenwood Valley—once warm, bright, alive—
Collapsed into something unrecognizable.
Blood ran where wine had spilled.
Bodies lay where dancers had laughed.
The air filled not with music—
But with choking, dying sounds that slowly, inevitably faded.
—
A waltz had been played.
Not with instruments.
But with flesh.
A Crimson Waltz.
—
And its conductor had already left the stage.
—
Colin stood in shadow.
Watching.
Silent.
Untouched.
His legions moved exactly as intended—wolves tearing, boars claiming, bears erasing.
Perfect.
Efficient.
Inevitable.
His face did not change.
Not satisfaction.
Not disgust.
Nothing.
This was not horror.
This was calculation fulfilled.
—
"The prey thrashes," he murmured softly. "Good."
He turned away from the burning manor, toward a deeper darkness waiting beyond sight.
"The final nerve remains."
Behind him, thirteen Wolf Guards waited.
Beside them, thirty of Anna's finest archers—unseen, silent, lethal.
They understood without explanation.
—
"The snake moves."
Colin stepped forward.
Into blackness.
And they followed.
Not as soldiers.
Not as warriors.
But as the final thought before death.
—
Beneath the manor, hidden in rot and stone, a narrow sewer tunnel waited.
Dark.
Unnoticed.
Leading inward.
To the heart.
Where the last, most valuable life still clung desperately to safety—
Unaware…
That the darkness had already come for it.