In the afternoon light, the ruin felt less like a huddled mass of prey and more like the beginnings of a column. The weakest were packed in the center — the injured, the children, the gray-haired who had trouble standing. But the outer ring had taken shape, hardened by those who had stepped forward when asked.

Not all had been beaten down into helplessness.

The elf woman's gentle probing had uncovered more than tradesmen and scribes. Some of the freed had come from the fighter pens, housed on the far side of the market. Others were gonna be able to contribute immediately like the orc blacksmith or the human woman who was a formation student before her master sold her into slavery to cover her debts.

A broad-shouldered dwarf with broken knuckles and a jagged grin had admitted to spending years fighting for wagers in the pits. His Dao of Stone wasn't refined, but it was stubborn — like the man himself. He swore he could still break bones if given half a chance. Kelan and him immediately got along.

Beside him, a wiry, long-legged beastkin woman rolled her shoulders, scars banding her arms. She'd fought as a sellsword before being sold, and her Agility Dao made her a blur when she wanted to be. Even in rags, her stance screamed fighter.

And three humans, scarred and hollow-eyed, bore themselves with the unmistakable posture of men who'd been drilled once — pit fighters who hadn't forgotten how to move as a unit.

Lira listened as they offered their skills, her heart tightening. "We'll need you at the edges," she said quietly. "If we're attacked, you'll be the ones who buy the others time to get through."

The dwarf spat into the dirt and gave her a crooked grin. "Better than rotting in chains."

Kelan's eyes swept the rough ring forming around the helpless center. His jaw tightened. "Not soldiers. But not lambs either."

Lira nodded, her voice steady. "Enough to make someone bleed, if it comes to that. We need more weapons though."

The last murmurs died down as people settled into their places — the weakest pressed into the center, the fighters spreading to the edges, Kelan pacing the line with a predator's eye. The smell of soot and old leather hung heavy in the ruin, but the panic that had ruled last night had hardened into something else.

Footsteps approached. The elf woman emerged from between two groups, her cloak ragged but her posture as graceful as if she still stood in a noble hall. The bruises across her face did nothing to dull the weight in her eyes.

She stopped before Lira and dipped her head. "They're ready. The groups are in place, the fighters know where to stand, and the children have been gathered to the center. It's as orderly as they'll ever be."

Her gaze flicked to Kelan, then back to Lira. "Fifty souls waiting for your word. The break must come soon — the city stirs like a hive. Guards were already sniffing the alleys near the market at dawn."

Kelan exhaled, his hand pressing briefly into the earth, feeling the hum of his Dao coil tight and ready. "Then it's time."

The elf woman folded her hands before her, voice quiet but firm. "Whatever happens next, they believe in you. Don't let that go to waste."

Lira's throat tightened. She glanced over the fifty — bruised, scarred, ragged — and yet standing.

She gave a single nod. "Let me confirm Hal is good then we move."

The afternoon light slanted low across the fields, long shadows stretching between rows of corn and wheat. Daran moved at the head of the column, his broadsword riding easy on his back, shield slung across his arm. Ferin ghosted along one flank with his hounds pressed close, Auren on the other, bow half-drawn and eyes sharp. Behind them, the axe brothers trailed in grudging silence, even they sensing this wasn't the time for noise.

Hal's presence rippled ahead of them, the frost wolf and his pack threading through the brush like smoke. When Daran raised his hand, Hal padded out of the rows, his fur haloed by dust motes caught in the amber light. The wolf's ice-blue eyes fixed on Daran for a heartbeat before flicking back toward the city wall. No words were needed. They were in position.

At least, close enough.

The farmland helped cloak their passage — high stalks and ramshackle stone walls breaking lines of sight, farmhouses few and far between. Still, moving men this close to a city was always a gamble.

The gamble reared its head sooner than Daran expected.

A rustle to their right. He snapped his hand up — the column froze, weapons half-lifted, hounds tense and whining. Then a pair of figures stumbled out of the corn, half-bent, clothes in disarray. Teenagers — boy and girl, flushed and breathless, wide-eyed as they froze at the sight of armored soldiers in the middle of their tryst.

The boy's mouth dropped open. The girl yelped, grabbing his arm, and together they bolted back into the rows with a clumsy crash of stalks.

The axe brothers snorted. One even muttered, "Braver than we are," earning a glare from Ferin.

Daran didn't so much as twitch. He kept his hand raised until the sound of fleeing footsteps vanished into the distance. Only then did he lower it, voice low and cutting. "We keep moving. Quiet. The wall won't wait on us."

The soldiers slipped forward again, ghosting through the fields.

At least it was away from the Bloodnight compound. That small mercy lingered with Daran as they closed the distance to the stone that hemmed the city in.

Hal cocked his head, ears twitching, eyes half-glazed in that way Daran had learned meant he was elsewhere. Oath-perception, talking to Harold or Lira — maybe both. The frost wolf stood utterly still, then gave the faintest growl, like the sound of stone cracking in the cold.

Daran's hand drifted to his sword hilt. "Message?"

The wolf's gaze met his, and Daran understood. Trouble.

They were still a full kilometer from the city wall — a distance Hal could cover in a minute if he chose. Too far for steel, but close enough to feel the tension prickling in the air.

Daran motioned sharply. "Sergeants. With me."

Two men broke from the line, veterans both, their eyes fixed on him. Daran stabbed a finger toward the looming shape of a great barn squatting against the fields. "There. Elevation, concealment. Put your squads into the rafters, windows, anywhere they can shoot from. I want bolts raining down when the time comes, but hidden until then."

They nodded and ran, voices low as they peeled men off in pairs. The barn soon came alive with silent motion — crossbowmen hauling themselves onto the straw roof, burrowing into hay, others bracing against beams and window frames. The axe brothers grumbled at being stuck in the shadows but went, muttering as they shoved themselves into position.

Daran stood in the field, broadsword unhooked, his eyes never leaving the wall.

That was when Hal went rigid. Hackles rose, his body coiled like a drawn bowstring.

The warning came a heartbeat before the world shook.

With a thunderclap, the stone wall ahead ruptured, dust and rubble spilling outward in a choking plume. Screams echoed, steel clashed. Through the smoke, figures burst into view — Lira and Kelan, half-shielding the ragged column of freed slaves as retainers in black and crimson tore at them. None of them actual vampires but fast and disciplined nevertheless, blades flashing in the haze.

The breakout wasn't clean. It was a fight.

"Positions!" Daran barked, voice cutting through the chaos. "Hold until my word!"

Crossbows creaked as strings drew taut in the shadows of the barn. Wolves paced low, teeth bared.

Daran raised his sword, eyes narrowing as the battlefield opened.

Stone and dust still rained from the fractured wall when Kelan surged forward. His body was sheathed in jagged plates of stone, every step grinding with weight, every blow landing like a hammer. He caught the charge of a retainer square in the chest, fist clenched — the man went flying back into the rubble, armor caved and breath gone. Another tried to flank him, blade raised high. Kelan turned, forearm braced in rock, and took the blow full-on. Sparks skittered, the sword biting shallow before Kelan shoved back, sending the retainer staggering.

Beside him, Lira's eyes burned with life and death both. A whip of pure shadow coiled in her hand, woven from her focus, crackling with threads of death qi. She snapped it across the churned ground — it tore through a retainer's shoulder, black rot blossoming instantly as he cried out. He tried to dodge, shifting low and quick, but the whip licked out again, curling around his leg. He screamed as flesh sloughed from bone, collapsing in the dirt.

Two of the freed were at her sides, desperate but determined. The dwarf pit fighter swung a stolen mace, catching a retainer hard across the helm and forcing him back a step. The beastkin woman blurred in and out, her Agility Dao carrying her strikes too fast for the retainers to ignore. They weren't polished, weren't soldiers — but they gave Lira the space she needed.

And she made it count.

Between lashes of her whip, Lira's free hand flared with life qi. She touched the dwarf's scorched arm, sealing flesh before the wound could weaken him, then sent another pulse to knit a rent across the beastkin's ribs. All the while, the whip cracked again and again, death qi tearing rents in the line of retainers pressing against them.

"Hold!" she shouted, voice raw, sweat running down her temple. "Hold the gap!"

Behind them, fifty frightened souls pressed forward, huddled together, pushing toward the breach and out of it.

Kelan slammed another retainer down into the dirt, stone plates cracking where fire dao had burned deep into him. He bared his teeth in a grimace, glancing at Lira.

"They arent going down easy!" he growled.

"Then we break them," she snapped back, her whip carving another bloody arc through the smoke.

Kelan caught another blade on his stone-plated arm, the edge biting a shallow groove before skittering off. He shoved the vampire back with a shoulder check that cracked ribs and sent the retainer sprawling. Dust and sparks clung to him, burns smoldering across his armor — but he was still standing, still grinning through the grit.

"They're all Tier 3," he bellowed over the clash, fist hammering into another chest plate hard enough to dent steel. "But their Daos are lacking. They're strong, but not honed. We can take them!"

The words cut through the panic like a blade.

Lira's whip snapped across the gap, catching a retainer's blade arm and searing it black. He screamed, dropping his weapon, and two of the freed fighters surged forward — the beastkin's claws flashing, the dwarf's mace crunching down to finish him.

"They bleed like anyone else!" the dwarf roared, planting himself in front of the weakest of the group.

Lira's voice rose above the din, her whip cracking again as her other hand flared with life qi, sealing another gash across the beastkin's shoulder. "Stay close! Hold the line! This is our chance!"

The freed pressed tighter behind them, eyes wide but catching fire with each enemy that faltered. The boy with the spark of fire qi hurled a raw, clumsy flare of flame into the fray, barely controlled — it splashed across a retainer's back, distracting him long enough for Kelan's stone-clad fist to finish the job.

For the first time, the retainers' tight formation wavered.

Kelan planted himself in the breach, stone armor smoking but unbroken, his voice carrying above the clash.

The freed stumbled out into the farmland, blinking against the sudden light after the dark choke of the tunnel. Dust still clung to them, children clutched tight, fighters ringed around their weakest. The air was filled with the stink of sweat and rubble.

Kelan emerged last, nearly collapsing as he forced the breach wider with his stone-clad shoulders, his armor cracked and scorched. Every breath came ragged, the tunnel and the fighting together having bled him dry. Still, he stood, bracing himself in the gap as the last of their number spilled into the open.

"Go!" he rasped, shoving a half-frozen man forward. "Get out!"

But the ground trembled under new footsteps.

From the fractured wall, two shapes advanced with calm, terrible certainty.

The first was a mountain in steel, shield braced, hammer slung back and ready. A tier 4 squire , his Dao heavy around him as he walked.

The second cut a leaner figure, his sword drawn lazily at his side, eyes glinting like the polished edge of a whetstone. A tier 4 Knight — sharper, faster, deadlier. His presence bled into the air like an unsheathed blade, every motion promising blood.

Lira pulled back beside Kelan, her whip snapping once to drive a retainer off balance, but her gaze was locked on the two.

"They're tier 4s," she breathed.

Kelan's jaw clenched. He could barely keep his stone plates from falling apart. "Then we don't fight them here. Not in the breach."

She glanced back — at the fifty scattered freed, at the fields opening wide beyond them. She felt the Oath tug, Harold's will pressing faintly at the edges, Daran and the others waiting, watching. Reinforcements were near.

Her eyes hardened. "We take it outside. Into the open. Where we can be reinforced."

Kelan nodded once, then shouldered forward, his stone armor cracking but holding, blocking the tunnel mouth like a dam.

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"Move!" Lira shouted to the freed, her whip lashing in arcs to keep the retainers back. "Run! Get to the fields!"

Behind them, the two Tier 4's advanced, hammer and blade gleaming in the fractured light — and the true battle shifted toward the open farmland.

The Tier 4 Squire raised his hammer and came forward, each step pounding the ground, shield braced high. Beside him, the Tier 4 Knight strode with an easy, lethal grace, his longsword already dripping with condensed qi that shimmered like heat haze.

Kelan staggered backward, stone plates cracking across his shoulders as he braced. The hammer slammed against his guard, sparks exploding, nearly driving him to the dirt. He spat blood but forced his Dao to bind, jagged armor crawling back over his arms as he gave ground.

Lira's whip of death snapped in vicious arcs, forcing the Knight to weave and twist. He was faster, sharper — every motion efficient — but each lash stole a heartbeat. Between strikes, her free hand flared with life qi, pulling the stumbling back to their feet, forcing them into the column that rushed across the fields.

The freed scattered in a desperate line, driving toward the woodline two kilometers distant. Children clutched at their mothers, the old dragged by stronger arms. Fighters from the pens formed a rough screen, bloodied but holding. At the very rear, the elven woman pressed herself into the role of rearguard — cloak snapping as she barked encouragement, dragging the slow and the terrified along with her. She never let the line collapse.

The Tier 4s pressed hard, hammer and blade striking with a rhythm that would have broken most warriors in moments. But Kelan and Lira fought like anchors in a tide, yielding ground inch by inch, buying time for every life fleeing into the open farmland.

From the shadow of the great barn, Daran watched.

The dust rising from the breach. The freed scattering into the fields. Lira's whip lashing black against the sunlight. Kelan braced in cracked stone armor, stubbornly refusing to fall. And behind them, the two Tier 4s — advancing like inevitability itself.

Ferin crouched low in the straw beside him, hounds tense and growling. Auren's bowstring hummed, his eyes narrowed, wind coiling faint around his shoulders. The axe brothers lay half-buried in hay, crossbows drawn, eager despite the straw clinging to their armor.

"They're being run down," Auren murmured.

"They're buying ground," Daran corrected, voice low and flat. His eyes stayed locked on the Tier 4s. "The question is whether we bleed with them… or end this before it starts."

His hand brushed the hilt of his broadsword. The barn creaked under the weight of his hidden men, every breath drawn tight.

The ambush waited.

Daran's voice was little more than gravel in the straw, but every ear caught it.

"Auren. Ferin." His eyes never left the two advancing figures below. "Take the longsword user. The Tier 4 Knight. He's faster — more dangerous. The best shots you have."

Auren gave a single nod, already drawing deeper into the wind, string taut with silent promise. Ferin's hounds whined, the hunter's hand steadying them as he pressed low against the rafters, eyes narrowing on the swordsman's stride.

Daran's hand brushed the hilt of his broadsword, his jaw tightening.

"I'll tell you when."

Below, Kelan's stone armor cracked again as the hammer crashed against his guard, forcing him back another pace. Lira's whip lashed, her face drawn tight with strain as she tried to hold the line. The two Tier 4s pressed forward like wolves at the throat. The rest of the group taking too many wounds for her to maintain as the other retainers pressed at the edges of their fight.

Daran's eyes narrowed, breath slow.

Not yet.

The crossbows in the barn creaked, strings drawn and waiting.

Not yet.

He watched for the moment — when the Knight overstepped, when his blade cut too deep into the retreat and his guard left the smallest opening.

"Now"

The command cracked through the barn like a whip.

Auren loosed first. The wind carried his arrow in a perfect spiral, faster than the eye could track. Ferin's bolt followed a breath later, his hounds barking low as if to drive it home. From every rafter, every shadowed window, crossbows thrummed in a staggered storm.

The Tier 4 Knight's blade was mid-swing when the first arrow slammed into his pauldron, driving him half a step off balance. Then the storm hit him — bolts hammering into chest and thigh, another cracking against his helm, Auren's second arrow biting deep into the gap at his side. He staggered back with a snarl, qi flaring to shred half the volley, but too many had landed.

The hammer-wielding Squire raised his shield, bellowing as he caught the rest of the bolts with a roar of iron and will. They rattled and broke against his reinforced Dao, but the distraction was enough.

Lira's whip lashed across his exposed flank, searing with death qi, while Kelan surged forward with the last of his strength, stone-clad fist hammering into the weakened Knight's ribs. Bone cracked under the blow.

The freed surged into motion, driven by the sudden chaos. The fighters pushed harder, forcing back the retainers who had been gnawing at their edges. The elf woman's voice cut through the panic, sharp and commanding, driving the weakest into a run for the treeline.

On the barn roof, Daran rose, his broadsword gleaming in the dusk. "Second volley!" he barked. "Put them down!"

Daran vaulted from the barn window, boots hitting the dirt with a heavy thud as he charged forward, bellowing for his men to follow. His sword gleamed as it cleared his back, the weight of it like a promise in his hands.

His eyes caught on her — the elf woman, cloak torn and face bruised, yet unyielding as she dragged stragglers by the arm, shoving them into the rows of grain. Her voice was steady even as chaos pressed around her, ordering the freed into lines, forcing them to move faster, straighter. She was holding the column together by will alone.

And then it came.

A sound that froze the marrow.

From the farmers field next to him — long, low, and ragged — a wolf's howl split the field. But it was no ordinary call. It carried something primal, something older than steel or stone. It was fear itself, wrapped in sound. The kind of cry that had haunted the first fires of mankind, warning them that the dark belonged to predators. It was echoed by the innumerable wolves that were around him and for the first time he really noticed how many wolves Hal had at his call.

The howl carried across the fields, rattling the crossbowmen still braced in the barn, making even the axe brothers falter mid-stride.

Daran's blood ran cold. His knuckles whitened on his hilt. He had hunted beasts, fought monsters, trained men through horrors. But this sound… this was different.

He felt it in his bones: something was coming.

The howl rolled over the fields again, nearer this time, deeper — and it wasn't some unknown terror. Daran's spine still prickled, but recognition burned through the fear.

Hal.

The frost wolf burst from the grain with his pack at his heels, eyes like shards of winter fire, jaws dripping frost. Ashen wolves flanked him, smaller but no less fierce, their growls blending into a chorus that made even hardened soldiers stiffen. The frost wolves left a trail of frost across the ground as they raced to keep up with their Alpha

The frost wolf burst from the grain with his pack at his heels, eyes like shards of winter fire, jaws dripping frost. Ashen wolves flanked him, smaller but no less fierce, their growls weaving into a chorus that made even hardened soldiers stiffen. Wherever the frost wolves' paws struck, the earth glazed over, a glittering trail of ice cutting through the wheat like a frozen scar.

Hal's howl rolled again, deafening at this distance, and the very air seemed to shudder. His pack answered in unison, voices layering into something primal, something older than any banner. It was not the call of beasts. It was the sound of claiming — winter itself folding around them.

The retainers faltered. Some stumbled outright, eyes wide in panic, and even the Tier 4 Knight twitched in hesitation before raising his sword again to send off a flare of fire into the sky.

Daran cursed under his breath and broke into a sprint, his broadsword flashing in the sunlight. The wolves were too fast, streaking past him to rip into the vampire ranks — retainers were dragged down screaming, armor splitting under fangs rimed with frost. The air filled with the metallic tang of blood and the unnatural crackle of ice spreading through corpses.

Daran pushed harder, lungs burning, his boots churning up dirt. He had to keep up or the freed would scatter in terror as easily as the enemy.

Behind him, the ambushers in the barn had frozen for a breath, crossbows held slack as the howls shook their marrow. Auren had gone still, eyes closed, bowstring drawn but not loosed, listening to the wind shift around Hal's cry. Ferin's hounds crouched low, whining as if in reverence, their master's knuckles white on his bow.

But the pause ended as quickly as it came.

Auren's eyes snapped open, wind swirling down the length of his bow. He let fly — the arrow cut the air like a razor, striking a retainer square in the throat as he turned to flee the wolves. Ferin loosed with him, his shot driving into the chest of another who had raised his blade to strike at one of Hal's pack.

The barn roared again with crossbow fire. Bolts hissed into the melee, timed carefully to follow Hal's surge rather than hinder it.

The wolves tore through the field in streaks of gray and white, their Alpha cutting a path straight toward the Tier 4s. Frost rimed the hammer's steel as Hal's jaws snapped shut inches from the Squire's face, forcing the man to stumble back with his shield braced high. The Knight cursed and swept his longsword in a wide arc, qi blazing to hold the pack at bay.

And still they came, snarling, snapping, raking the ground with ice.

Daran's heart hammered in his chest as he fought to close the distance, knowing he had only moments before the Bloodnights' signal flare brought more predators to the field.

Hal's pack hit like a storm, but even their fury wasn't enough to end it cleanly. They evened the field, not won it. Too many retainers still poured from the breach, blades flashing, their discipline holding even against the chaos.

But Hal was more than a wolf. He was an anchor of fear, a banner of frost. His ashen wolves glimmered like silver streaks in the winter light that followed him, their paws riming the earth with ice. They crashed against the hammer-wielding Tier 4 Squire, forcing him back step after step. Each time the hammer rose, Hal was there, frost-sheathed jaws snapping, keeping the brute away from Kelan's battered form.

His pack spread, snarling and snapping, their weight splitting the fight into jagged pockets. Retainers who might have crushed the freed in a unified wedge now found themselves dragged off in twos and threes.

And then the shadow wolf appeared. One moment there was smoke and dust; the next, a retainer screamed as darkness swallowed him whole, yanked into the grain. The sound choked off in an instant. Silence. Nothing but the rustle of stalks bending in the breeze. The wolf never reappeared — an ambush predator, the perfect weapon for this fight.

Lira's whip cracked again, the lash of death qi keeping another retainer off her flank, but her chest heaved with every strike. Her free hand flickered with life qi to drag another freed back to his feet, but the strain was clear in the sweat running down her brow.

Kelan staggered beside her, stone plates splintering, arms trembling as he tried to raise his guard again. The hammer-wielding Squire closed fast, shield high, murder in his eyes.

And then Daran was there.

He caught the blow mid-swing, his broadsword raised high. The hammer crashed down against his steel, the shock shuddering through his arms and rattling his bones. Dirt burst under his boots, but he held, teeth clenched, eyes like flint.

"Not her," he growled, shoving the Squire back with a surge of his own tier 4 strength.

The hammer-wielding Tier 4 Squire reeled back from Daran's block, but the Knight was already there, blade flashing in a blur of steel. The longsword cut down in an arc too fast for the eye, aimed to split Lira from shoulder to hip.

Daran moved.

His broadsword rose in a savage parry, sparks showering as steel screamed against steel. He didn't retreat — he surged forward, teeth bared, the weight of his knight-tier sharpness Dao flooding into his strikes. Every blow he threw was meant to kill, every block a brutal counter that forced the Knight to yield ground. He wielded some kind of heaviness dao, his strikes hitting with more weight behind them than they appeared.

The two clashed in a furious rhythm, the Knight's longsword darting like a serpent, Daran's broadsword answering like a cleaver through bone. The air rippled with their qi, the ground gouged and cut where their strikes met. It was no careful duel — it was rage and precision, fury honed by years of war.

Across the field, Hal met the hammer-bearing Squire head-on. Frost spread from every strike of his claws and teeth, coating the shield and haft in rime. The Squire's hammer shattered the dirt with every swing, but Hal never let it land clean, forcing the brute to defend as much as he attacked.

The frost wolf's pack swirled around him, ashen wolves snapping at ankles, pulling retainers off balance. The shadow wolf reappeared from the stalks, dragging another screaming foe into the dark before vanishing again.

Lira darted in where she could, her whip lashing across the Squire's unguarded flanks. Death qi ate into the man's armor, searing black lines that Hal's fangs drove deeper with every bite. Her other hand never stilled, life qi knitting torn flesh where her allies faltered.

And then the battle turned.

The platoon arrived in force, the axe sergeant leading the line. Crossbows cracked, bolts whistling into the Tier 3 retainers still pressing from the breach. The axe brothers roared and charged into the flank, hacking and cleaving with wild fury. Ferin's hounds bowled men over as Auren's arrows scythed through gaps in armor, each shot driven by wind.

The retainers faltered. Discipline cracked under the storm. Within moments, their line collapsed — men dragged down by wolves, skewered by bolts, cut apart by steel. Screams echoed, bodies littering the field.

It wasnt a one sided affair either, slave fighters and wolves were cut down by the stronger opponents and various daos. Fury only makes up so much of the equation when raw stats come into play.

And then it was quiet.

All that remained were the two Tier 4s.

The hammer-bearing Squire, his shield rimed in frost and dented, blood running down his face.

And the Knight, his longsword still humming with qi, locked blade-to-blade with Daran in a furious dance of sparks and steel.

The field closed in around them, everyone watching as the duels that would decide the fight truly began.

Steel clashed in furious cadence, the Tier 4 Knight's longsword flashing like lightning — thrusts, feints, and cuts that would have overwhelmed most foes. But Daran was not most. His broadsword answered with brutal simplicity, every swing cutting through the Knight's flourish, every block met with crushing force.

The Knight hissed, sweat running down his face as his blade was turned aside again and again. "You fight like a beast."

Daran's lips curled in a humorless smile. "No. I fight like a teacher." His next parry smashed the Knight's blade wide, his pommel crashing into the man's jaw. "And you're learning nothing."

The Knight snarled, lunging with desperate speed — but Daran was already moving, blade twisting, cutting the strike aside. His broadsword arced in a gleaming curve, biting through armor, flesh, and bone in one clean stroke. The Knight staggered, eyes wide, then collapsed into the dirt, his longsword clattering uselessly from his grasp.

Daran spat, lifting his blade in salute almost mocking. His eyes already evaluating the field.

On the other side of the field, Hal and his pack circled the Tier 4 Squire like wolves around a wounded stag. His shield was rimed in frost, his hammer scorched the ground with every swing, flames trailing with each strike. Fire roared with every impact, bursts of heat searing the earth black.

But winter pressed closer.

Every blow he landed was answered by snapping jaws, by claws tearing at gaps in armor, by ashen wolves dragging at his legs. When he swung to crush one, two more darted in from the sides. The shadow wolf struck from behind, a phantom bite that left him bleeding before vanishing again.

Hal lunged high, his jaws closing on the Squire's shoulder, frost exploding across steel. The retainer roared and let his fire Dao surge, heat blasting outward, flames ripping from the hammer in a desperate explosion. Wolves yelped, scattering back, their fur scorched — but none fell.

The flames dimmed, and winter closed in again.

The pack pressed as one, their howls rising in unison. Frost crawled over the Squire's legs, locking him in place. The hammer swung slower, weighed down by ice.

Hal threw back his head and howled, a sound that split the field — and his pack answered. Their voices rose into a storm, a winter's chorus that smothered fire under the weight of countless fangs and endless cold.

The Squire screamed once, hammer flaring bright, then was drowned in frost and silence.

When the howls faded, nothing moved but wolves circling their Alpha, and the steam rising from a body frozen solid in the dirt.

The field steamed with blood, frost, and smoke, the silence after battle heavier than any warcry. Daran stood over the fallen Knight, broadsword still slick with crimson, his breath steady despite the fight. Around him, soldiers and freed alike stood frozen in the moment — staring at the two Tier 4 corpses that marked their victory.

He didn't let it linger.

"Move!" Daran barked, voice cracking across the field like a whip. "We don't have time to gawk. Strip the dead — weapons, armor, anything we can carry. Now!"

The platoon snapped into motion. Crossbows slung, men dropped to pry blades from retainers, cut straps, and drag shields free. The freed fighters joined in, desperate hands ripping what they could from fallen foes. Even the dwarf pit-fighter bent low to wrench a hammer from a corpse, grinning like a madman at the weight.

"Sergeants, count heads!" Daran shouted, turning in place. "I want every freed accounted for. No one left behind. Eyes strangely looking for the elven woman."

The spear sergeant's voice rang back, firm and clipped, "We've got them."

Daran's eyes flicked to the woods beyond, jaw tight. "Good. Because cavalry will be here soon."

He glanced at the sky, where the crimson signal-flare still burned faintly above the wall. He'd seen it too many times before — the kind of call that brought riders thundering from every direction. "We're already out of time. Form up. Double column, push for the treeline. Wolves on the flanks, hounds in the rear. If they catch us in the open, we're done."

Hal padded past him, frost dripping from his jaws, his pack falling in line with uncanny discipline. The shadow wolf melted back into the fields, vanishing as if it had never been there.

Daran pointed his sword toward the distant line of trees. "We move. Fast and quiet. Every breath we waste is another step closer to the cavalry riding us down."

The column lurched forward, freed and soldiers alike moving as one, abandoning the battlefield to frost, ash, and corpses.

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