Alright, sit down, grab a glass of that overpriced wine from Drymon—or that cheap swill from the Southwest if you're looking to dissolve your esophagus—and listen up. The chroniclers have been pestering me again. They claimed there was a need for some "clarification."

  No, it’s not about my ex. Yes, I know you're all waiting for me to spill about Luminara and how she hacked my heart into bite-sized pieces, but we’re pushing that right to the back. Work first, emotional trauma later.

  But before we get to business: Fuck Arkos. I mean that with every fiber of my being. If you only knew what that puffed-up, self-righteous piece of work pulled... but no, I'm not allowed to spoil it. The chroniclers are threatening me with a writing ban if I corrupt the timeline.

  Let's get to the point: Tirros.

  When you think of Tirros, you probably see the usual picture, right? You think of dark curses that wipe out civilizations, bloody rituals in the moonlight where someone sacrifices a goat for Tainted Mana even though human souls are way more efficient (seriously, why always goats?), and wild creatures with too many teeth waiting in the woods for an unwary adventurer to pass by—not to mention the three forms of mana.

  But you've surely read what we’re currently staging here in Caleon.

  Since we started telling this story, the vibe has shifted. Everywhere we look, things are getting mechanical. It doesn't smell like incense and dragon dung anymore; it smells like lubricating oil, hot iron, and scorched ozone.

  We’re talking about seven-meter-tall golems like the Night-Howler or the Iron-Fist. These aren't just lumps of clay with an "Animate Me" spell slapped on them. These are highly complex war machines with hydraulic servos, high-pressure mana tanks, haptic control interfaces, and optical sensors projecting thermal images directly onto the pilot’s retina. We’re sitting in cockpits, people! We’re operating levers and pedals! If that isn’t a vision of the future, I don’t know what is.

  Reyn isn’t sending demon armies crawling through portals from hell (though that’s coming soon too). He’s sending Siege-Crabs. Mechanized constructs large enough to pass for a small town, equipped with drills and shears that would make any engineer in Thulegard turn green with envy. It’s an industrial revolution, only the fuel isn’t coal—it’s extracted mana.

  We’ve reached a point where the line between "magic" and "engineering" has become so thin you can barely see it. When I open a mana valve to ignite a plasma blade, is that magic? Sure, the energy source is magical. But the way that energy is pressed through pipes, focused, and converted into kinetic force feels a hell of a lot like technology. It’s cleaner, more efficient, and—let’s be honest—significantly deadlier than your average transformation spell.

  The Dwarves saw this coming ages ago. While we humans and elves were still busy poking each other with sharp sticks, they were already philosophizing about how to make the world predictable.

  In their definitive work, The Great History of the Dwarves on the Evolution of Structure and Technology, Volume 3, there’s a passage every recruit of the Gray Lords has to memorize. I’ll quote it for you so you understand this shift isn’t an accident:

  "It is a common error of the short-lived races that mana is a wild river to be steered only by one's will. All variants of mana are nothing more than a physical constant merely waiting for its discovery through mechanics. He who ignites a fire utilizes not raw mana, but chemistry; he who summons a bolt of lightning utilizes the electricity of the ether. The transition from the spellbook to the gear is not a departure from tradition, but the completion of reason.

  "Where the mage of yesterday hoped for the favor of the stars, the constructor of today trusts in the tolerance of his bolts. A golem is not ensouled; it is optimized. A curse is not unpredictable; it is a malfunction of the arcane-mechanical wavelength. In the coming era, the ruler will not be the one who whispers the most complicated incantations, but the one whose mana pumps can withstand the highest pressure without bursting. The future of Tirros will not be written in temples, but in the workshops where the spirit of the inventor breaks the resistance of matter. He who mechanizes magic strips it of its mystery, but grants it inevitability."

  Caleon’s Lords are the pilots of this new era, and their swords are now often enough connected to energy cells.

  Tirros will always remain magical—it’s in the air, in the soil, in our damn genes. But the way we use that magic is becoming colder, more precise, and yes, more technical.

  So, enough of the prologue. The chroniclers are nodding in satisfaction. I’ve done my duty and explained why we suddenly find ourselves in a mechanized nightmare. It’s still Tirros, just with more screws.

  And now... back to the action. We’ve talked enough theory. While in the North, Reyn’s crabs are eating the walls of Wolfsgrund and Lord Barwan is trying to hold the line, we have very different problems.

  Forget the mud of the North. Pack your bags, strap your armor tight, and prepare for the smell of smoke, ash, and hot grease.

  We’re transitioning to Felswacht now. The Southwest is waiting, the Scar-Horde is on the move, and I have a bad feeling that Elara of Ironbrand would have ripped my head off if I hadn't shown up on time for the next briefing.

  Fuck Arkos.

  See you at the front.

  -

  The dull rumble of the Ironbrand launchers still vibrated through the stones of the parapet as the flamethrowers finished their work. This was no ordinary fire; it was a chemically enriched inferno charge, burning hot enough to superficially vitrify even the granite of the fortress walls. In the deep trench before the outer wall of Rockguard, nothing remained but white-hot ash and the pungent stench of scorched horn and rancid fat. The Orc scouts—nimble, sinewy fellows mounted on wargs—hadn’t even had time to scream. The fire had simply inhaled them.

  Elara of Ironbrand leaned against the battlements with an almost sensual satisfaction. The flickering of the receding embers reflected in her eyes. She looked like an artist who had just completed the final brushstroke on a canvas. "A clean exit," she commented dryly, brushing a few soot particles from her scarlet glove.

  I stood beside her, feeling the heat that still rose like an invisible wall from the trench. It was fascinating. Cruel, yes, but fascinating in its efficiency. My gaze was fixed on the spot where a dozen living beings had stood moments before.

  Behind me, I heard Vin make a dry gagging sound. The Nature Elf had already turned away. Her skin looked even paler than usual in the sallow afternoon light, almost a sickly greenish tint. For her, who felt life in every fiber of the world, this mechanized, all-consuming fire was an insult to her existence. Without a word, she sought out a quiet corner on the battlements, drew her dagger, and began to carve complex patterns into a piece of wood with almost obsessive speed—a fine motor skills exercise she clearly needed to keep from losing her mind.

  To my surprise, it was Arik who seemed the most irritated. He consisted of ash; he was the end product of fire, and yet even he turned away. His gray eyes, glowing like embers in his ash-colored face, fixed on a distant point in the mountains. "That is... unnecessarily thorough," he murmured.

  I, on the other hand, felt neither disgust nor pity. Zarkhural had taken away my fear of fire long ago by showing me that pain is merely information for the body. And Gravor? The demon within me relished the spectacle. I felt his deep, satisfied purr in my marrow. His influence made me resilient—not only against the heat, which barely brought a bead of sweat to my brow, but also against the moral burden that came with incinerating enemies. To Gravor, this fire was just a foretaste of what he considered the natural order.

  "I thought the Scar-Horde wouldn't arrive for another few days?" Arik asked, trying to ignore the acrid smoke wafting over the wall. The last remnants of Orc flesh evaporated with a hiss in the heat.

  Elara shrugged without taking her eyes off the horizon. "Those are just scouts. Or sacrificial lambs. Uzug sends them ahead to test our reaction times. He wants to see where we’ve positioned our heavy guns and how long the lines take to reload. Cannon fodder for arrows and bolts, so we waste our ammunition before the real attack comes. A classic tactical maneuver by the Orcs. They have plenty of lives to burn."

  I cracked my knuckles under my bracers. The sound was dull and metallic through the helm I was wearing once again. "Only we can't run out of ammunition," I said, smiling beneath my visor. Thanks to the cooperation with the Ironbrands and the massive mana tanks carved deep into the rock, we had enough energy to keep this trench burning for weeks.

  It felt strange to stand here in full gear again. Since the meeting with Thivan in Drymon, I had discarded parts of my armor, especially the helm—now I wore it all. Every segment, every clasp, every strap cinched tight around my body. It was a second skin that gave me stability while my interior fluctuated between Luken and Gravor. The helm, which I had lately carried carelessly under my arm, was now firmly in place. The matte black material reflected almost no sunlight, seeming instead to swallow it.

  The smiths of House Ironbrand had done a thorough job. They had polished the armor and oiled the joints until they glided in total silence. When Elara had asked me the morning after my arrival why a Paladin—a warrior of light—walked around in such grim, crusted armor that radiated no white-gold splendor or nobility, I had my standard excuse ready.

  "So much ash from the battlefields has rained down on this armor that it has left a solid, un-cleasable crust," I had explained as I belted my sword. "It’s not a design, Elara. It’s the scar of my past. Every time I tried to clean it, the dark shimmer only ate deeper into the steel. It is the ash of those I could not save."

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  She had bought it. People in the Southwest loved such dramatic soldier stories of guilt and atonement. But you know the truth. It wasn't dust from battlefields that blackened this armor. The darkness of my sins radiated from the inside out, corrupting the metal until no light could bounce off it. It was a visual warning disguised as practical camouflage.

  The only thing that had never changed in all these years was the majestic blade with the eagle pommel at my hip. The sword of a true Paladin. The eagle still spread its wings proudly over the hilt, even if its details were hard to discern if one ignored the dark, oily veil that lay over the steel like a fog. The sword was like me: a noble core shrouded in a demonic corruption that was slowly claiming everything for itself, yet entering into a synergy.

  "You're staring again," Elara said, snapping me out of my thoughts. She pointed to my sword. "A beautiful piece. Doesn't quite fit the rest of your... somber ensemble. Looks almost as if you stole it from someone who was actually a better person than you."

  I laughed softly, a sound that rumbled like a growl inside my helm. "Perhaps I did. Or perhaps it just reminds me of who I used to be, before I learned that fire is the only language this world truly understands."

  Valkor Ironbrand, Elara's uncle, came stomping along the walkway. He carried a heavy hammer over his shoulder and seemed to be in high spirits despite the stench of burnt Orc flesh. "Good work with the launchers, Elara! The boys at the tanks say the pressure is stable. We could set the whole pass ablaze if Uzug decides to come all at once."

  He stopped in front of me and scrutinized my armor. "I'm telling you again, Luken: that thing needs a proper coat of paint. In that black, you look like a ghost that's lost its way. How are my men supposed to recognize you as an ally if you look like death itself?"

  "Death is a very effective ally, Valkor," I replied dryly. "And as long as I’m swinging in the right direction, your men shouldn't care what color my harness is."

  Valkor snorted. "You're a stubborn mule. Fits perfectly with the Gray Lords here. They all have stones in their heads instead of brains too." He looked out over the wall into the plain. "But seriously: when the horde arrives, we're going to need more than just black armor and a few jokes. The scouts were just the flies before the pile of shit. The pile itself is going to be massive."

  I looked out as well. The wind whipped across the barren rocks, carrying the scent of the distant wastelands. Somewhere out there, Uzug was marching. Tens of thousands of Orcs, driven by a hunger that only blood could sate. And behind them stood Reyn, pulling the strings, pressing magic into machines and waiting for us to make a mistake.

  Vin was finished with her training. She joined us at the parapet, her face more controlled now, but her eyes remained hard. "The plants down here are reacting to the heat," she said quietly. "They are retreating into the ground. If we use too much fire, I will have nothing left to work with. I need zones where no Ironbrand oil is spilled."

  Elara raised an eyebrow. "This is a battlefield, Elf, not a botanical garden. I can't tell my gunners to watch out for the little flowers when a warg cavalry is charging at us."

  "It’s not about flowers," Vin hissed. "It’s about roots that are as strong as your golem cables. If you burn everything, you take away my ammunition."

  "We will mark zones," I interjected before the argument could escalate. "Elara, Vin is right. Her control over the terrain is more valuable than a few extra meters of fire. We need traps to slow the Orcs down so your fire-snipers have a clear shot."

  Elara looked at me searchingly for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. "Alright. Coordinate with Sergeant Horgas. He’s managing the minefields. He’ll tell you where we have room for... weeds."

  Vin glared at her but said nothing more. She knew that was the best offer she was going to get here.

  I felt the weight of the armor on my shoulders. It was a pleasant weight. It reminded me that I still physically existed, that I wasn't just a host for Gravor. I ran my gloved thumb over the eagle pommel of my sword. The blade was quiet, but I knew it would soon sing.

  "Prepare yourselves," I said, looking over at Arik, who was still silently watching the mountains. "Uzug won't wait long. He sacrificed the scouts to lull us into security or to feed our arrogance. Tomorrow or the day after, the horizon will be black."

  "Let him come," Valkor grinned, swinging his hammer. "We have enough fuel for everyone."

  We remained on the wall for a while longer as the sun slowly sank lower and the shadows of the fortress of Rockguard stretched across the valley like long fingers. It was a deceptive silence. Down in the Ironbrand camp, one could hear the constant clinking of metal and the hiss of steam, while above in the fortress, the golems of the Gray Lords loomed over us like silent sentinels.

  I felt Elara's gaze on me. She was curious, I knew that. She saw the Paladin wearing ash-crusted armor, wielding a demon-veiled sword, and showing no fear of fire. She saw the riddle that I was. But she would never know the full answer. The truth about Luken and Gravor was a secret I had buried deeper than the mana tanks of this fortress.

  To her, I was just another weapon in Caleon's arsenal. And for the moment, that was perfectly sufficient.

  As we finally left the battlements to prepare for the night, I felt a slight tremor in the ground. It wasn't a golem or a cannon. It was the distant, hammering echo of ten thousand Orc boots moving rhythmically toward us. The Scar-Horde was near. And this time, no more scouts would burn; instead, war itself would seek to sate its hunger on us.

  I closed the visor of my helm completely. The world became a bit darker, a bit narrower. But in that narrowness, I felt safe. I was the Black Paladin, the ghost of the battlefields, and Rockguard was the perfect place to prove that even ash can burn again if you pump enough hate into it.

  "Luken?" Arik called after me.

  "Yes?"

  "The excuse about the ash... it was good. But next time, try not to sound like you practiced it in the mirror."

  I let out a short laugh, a metallic echo in the silence of the corridor. "I'll keep that in mind, Arik. I'll keep that in mind."

  -

  The end of Wolfsgrund was not announced with a heroic blast of trumpets, but with the ugly, screeching sound of bursting stone and the dull grinding of gears tearing through flesh and bone.

  Thorsten Barwan sat in the sweltering heat of his cockpit, hands clamped tightly around the worn displays of the Iron-Fist. Sweat stung the deep wrinkles of his face, and the bitter taste of ozone and burnt oil clung to his palate. Through the primary optics, he watched as the third Siege-Crab—a behemoth that had finally shattered the inner barricades—rolled its massive body over the mountain of rubble it had made of the second line of defense.

  "Father, the north flank is open!" Barchas bellowed over the ether-radio. For the first time, a note of panic resonated in his son's voice that Thorsten could no longer ignore. "The Dragon-kin are swarming into the lower tunnels. If we don't act now, we'll be buried inside the fortress!"

  Thorsten looked to the left. There, Sk?ll Wolfsgrund was fighting like a madman in the Night-Howler. The young wolf's golem was barely recognizable; the right arm was missing entirely, the armor hung in tattered strips, and thick black smoke billowed from the cooling vents. Nevertheless, Sk?ll rammed his remaining plasma blade into the flank of a crab again and again—a desperate act of rage that remained futile against the construct's sheer mass.

  "Sk?ll!" Thorsten shouted over the open channel, his voice as authoritative as only centuries of leadership could command. "It’s over! We must retreat while the east gate still stands!"

  "Never!" came the hoarse reply. "This is my home! My father is lying down there in the mud! I will not abandon this place!"

  Thorsten felt a pang in his old heart, but he suppressed it instantly. A Lord of Caleon could not afford the luxury of sentimentality when the survival of his House and that of his ally were at stake. He wrenched the Iron-Fist around and literally hammered a charging squad of Dragon-kin infantry into the ground with his massive energy fist.

  "You are dying for stones, boy!" Thorsten thundered. "If you want to save Wolfsgrund, you must stay alive to take it back one day! Do you want your father's legacy to end in this trench today? Look around you! The pack is nearly destroyed!"

  Indeed, only seven of the original forty golems remained standing. They were surrounded, huddled on a small square before the inner keep, while Reyn's crabs advanced inexorably. The Barwan golems formed a dwindling circle of blue steel, desperately trying to keep the escape route to the eastern pass open.

  A massive impact shook the Iron-Fist. One of the crabs had hurled one of its shears against Thorsten's shield. The warning lights in the cockpit flickered wildly. The Iron-Fist’s energy reserves dropped to the critical range. Thorsten knew: if they didn't leave now, they would all end up here as a monument to Reyn's power.

  "Barchas! Form up the remaining infantry! Retreat movement Phase Delta!" Thorsten commanded. He saw his son move his golem into position to secure the path to the gate. "Sk?ll, this is my final order as the elder of this alliance: Retreat! Now!"

  It took agonizingly long seconds, during which only the thumping of the enemy machines could be heard. Then, finally, the Night-Howler let out a plaintive, mechanical howl. Sk?ll wrenched his golem around.

  The retreat from Wolfsgrund was a torture of fire and blood. While the Barwan golems formed the core of the formation, the remaining Wolves had to cover the flanks. They stumbled over the bodies of their own people, over the wreckage of machines they had maintained for years. Thorsten held the rearguard. He fired the last salvos of his mortars into the charging crowd, laying down carpets of fire to blind the enemy, if only for moments.

  As they passed the east gate, Thorsten saw through the rear cameras as the lead Siege-Crab simply brought down the central tower of Wolfsgrund. The landmark of the North tilted like a dying giant and collapsed into itself in a cloud of dust and sparks.

  The march to Hammerfels, the fortress city of House Barwan, took hours that felt like eons. The night was pitch black, illuminated only by the distant orange glow behind them. Wolfsgrund was burning. The Wolves still in their cockpits remained silent. It was a silence that weighed heavier than any scream.

  Thorsten Barwan felt every one of his many years. The cold of the North seemed to crawl through the cracks of his golem and into his bones. He thought of Burnar. He thought of the strategic catastrophe this loss represented. If Wolfsgrund had fallen, there was nothing left to stop Reyn from leading his armies directly to the gates of Hammerfels. His faith in Caleon was still firm, but it was now coated in a layer of bitter realism. Reyn was no longer just playing cards; he was overturning the entire table.

  Around midnight, they reached the "Pass of Tears," a narrow rocky outcrop from which one could overlook the entire plateau one last time. Hammerfels lay miles to the south, hidden behind massive mountain ridges, but from here, one could look back.

  Thorsten brought the Iron-Fist to a halt. Behind him, Barchas and the other golems also stopped. Sk?ll paused as well.

  Thorsten switched on the external audio amplifiers. He heard nothing but the howling wind of the highlands. He activated his optics' zoom and pointed them north.

  There, where the proud fortress of Wolfsgrund had once stood, only a glowing wound in the darkness remained. The flames shone in an unnatural violet—a sign of Reyn's magic, now consuming the physical remains of the castle. The Siege-Crabs stood like giant dark beetles among the ruins, their lights flickering triumphantly in the night.

  It was not a dramatic sight, not a heroic end. It was simply the annihilation of an old order. The walls were gone, the pack was broken, and the land now belonged to the shadow.

  "Father?" Barchas asked quietly over the radio. "Shall we continue?"

  Thorsten looked at the displays. The fuel was almost gone, the ammunition spent. He looked at the Night-Howler beside him. Sk?ll had lowered the head of his golem. The machine looked like a beaten animal, breathing only out of pure instinct.

  "Yes," Thorsten Barwan said hoarsely. "We go to Hammerfels. We bolt the gates. We prepare."

  He cast one last look back. Wolfsgrund was now nothing more than a distant twinkle in the darkness, a dying star in Caleon's firmament. It was the end of a chapter Thorsten had hoped never to read. He knew that Hammerfels would be the next stop on Reyn's bloody path.

  "Look forward, Sk?ll," he murmured, knowing well that the young man likely didn't hear him. "Today’s pain is tomorrow’s steel."

  Thorsten threw the lever. The Iron-Fist stomped off heavily, away from the burning ruin, into the uncertainty of the remaining night. Behind them, the last light of Wolfsgrund vanished in the thick snowfall now sweeping over the plateau, as if nature itself wanted to bury the traces of this defeat under a cold white blanket.

  They marched on in silence, the Lords of the North, on the way to their bastion, while in the east, the first gray shimmer of a morning drew near—a morning that none of them truly wanted to welcome.