Merchant mercenaries hurried into position, forming rows of halberds before the battlements—a secondary steel wall atop raised mounds reinforced with jagged wooden spikes. The disparity in armaments was striking. The mercenaries gleamed in plate armor, while the Keesh garrison made do with chain mail and battered helmets.


    The roar of bullhorns echoed through the city as Sir Bradfrey and the other war leaders ascended the central tower. From its highest vantage, they surveyed the growing chaos below—witnessing a sight unseen in generations.


    As if the gates of hell had been torn open, unleashing Satan’s offspring upon the far-side hill. Scattered masses of underworldly creatures intermingled with hardened Steppe warriors, their ranks swelling with the jagged battle lines of tribal warlords and Vasierian turncoats.


    A tide of the demonic, the bereaved, and the hell-bent, rising to overwhelm the defenders in both numbers and ferocity.


    “Finite resource, you say,” Eberstein murmured, his expression tightening as he took in the sheer scale of the enemy force.


    “They’re certainly not shy about showing their hand,” Davos added, his tone edged with a gleeful foreboding.


    “COVERRR!”


    Panicked screams erupted from the lower parapets as the first wave of explosions ripped through the sky—spheres of shrapnel hurled from the pagan camp, colliding against an invisible wall of magic before raining down upon the city. Not munitions of stone and debris, but broken templar helmets, shattered breastplates, and mangled mace heads. The shrapnel reached as far as the central tower, crashing against the parapets like a surging wave.


    Bradfrey crouched, brushing away dried blood from a dented helmet to reveal the inscription etched into its surface: IN GOD’S NAME.


    His throat tightened. “How many did you say were at their rear?”


    “Five thousand, at least,” Eberstein said, his knuckles white as he clenched a mangled fragment of a soldier’s metal cross.


    “Do not trouble yourselves,” Davos said dismissively. “This is not a battle of men, but a test of faith. Whatever they unleash, God will protect us.”


    Behind them, Arcadius’s blind monks had been whispering deep Nordic hymns, their guttural voices weaving through the air like a slow-moving curse. The white bandages over their eyes were now streaked with black, the stains bleeding down their cheeks like inked tears.


    The monks’ demonic chants droned on, a low, writhing hum beneath the tension threading through Bradfrey’s soft-spoken composure. “Faith is no substitute for preparation.”


    “Then by all means, Sir Bradfrey,” Eberstein murmured, his head bowed over a mangled cross, “show me how preparation will keep our entrails from lining Vasier’s walls—just as my men now line ours.”


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    Arcadius interjected smoothly. “Your pragmatism is commendable, Sir Bradfrey, but it will only take us so far. An army of this scale needs something more... unifying. That is why Davos will take command.”


    Bradfrey’s scoffed. “Is this a joke?”


    “Don’t be so alarmed,” Amos said, stepping in to diffuse the tension.


    “This army will not kneel to a mere lord,” Eberstein added. “Nor have they come by the queen’s decree. Victory will rest on our shared beliefs. When chaos erupts, it is Davos who will lead them to salvation.”


    Bradfrey could only laugh through the bitterness. “Livestock to the slaughterhouse. With a pat on their backs and a ride to the promised land.”


    Amos shrugged. “A war of attrition. After all, didn’t you say we lacks the supplies to sustain such an army?”


    Arcadius pressed on. “Then there’s the matter of Castell’s banner—and whether you wish to tether yourself to the house of a traitor.”


    “My father chose redemption over his family’s welfare,” Bradfrey replied stiffly. “No one respects a house that can’t pay its debts. Nor did I intend to inherit it. If not for Castell, nether you or I would be standing here.”


    “By redemption, you mean the crusades?” the bishop asked, his tone polite yet deliberate—nudging Bradfrey toward the only answer they would accept.


    Bradfrey ignored the jab. “He had a lot to atone for. Now, I assume there’s a point to all this?”


    Davos smirked. “How about Anneliese and the son of Burtrew?”


    Bradfrey blinked, bewildered. “Honestly? After everything I’ve done for the queen?” His voice hardened. “If you truly believe they’re on the other side of those battlements, I’ll bring back whatever remains of them for judgment.”


    “Easy there, boy,” Eberstein warned as his squire arrived, a leather-bound satchel in hand. Its content was known to all but Bradfrey.


    Arcadius remained unmoved. “We’re not asking you to relinquish your land or your titles,” he said. “But Castell’s banner cannot stand. Renounce the House of Castell and reclaim your father’s crest. Only then will Duke De La Bradfrey truly rule the north.”


    Eberstein unfastened the satchel and drew out a black-and-white surcoat, bearing the crest of the House of Bradfrey—a shield divided by a chevron, adorned with three white stars.


    Bradfrey took it without hesitation. The fabric felt coarse, foreign in his hands. “If I do this, will I retain command of the army?” he asked.


    “When dawn breaks and the pagans are defeated, yes,” Davos replied, his tone dripping with quiet superiority.


    Bradfrey stared at the alien garment, his fingers tightening around the fabric. “And how, exactly, does that improve our chances?”


    Arcadius didn’t answer.


    Instead, he turned to the parapet, inhaling the culmination of his life’s work. Then, his eyes ignited, faint tendrils of smoke curling into the dim air, barely visible in the low light.


    From the depths of his being, he unleashed his inner ancient—a shadowy serpent slithering free, unseen by mortal eyes, vanishing soundlessly into the tower’s stonework.


    Bradfrey let out a hollow chuckle, his expression twisting with disbelief and disgust. Still, he forced a smile as he drew his dagger to his neckline.


    “What’s a life worth if not to be sacrificed for the greater good, right?”


    He sliced clean through the orange surcoat, discarding the honorable House Castell—left to litter the streets alongside the fallen five thousand.


    His graceful demotion was met with a firm pat on the back from Eberstein—a gesture of praise for his quiet surrender.


    For several minutes, Bradfrey seethed in silence, wearing the mask of a lesser lord—subservient, compliant, and without protest.


    When all was said and done, he swallowed the bile in his throat and returned to his post along the northern river turrets. He observed the crossbowmen tightening their strings, the peasants ferrying supplies, the trebuchets grinding into position.


    He detached himself from the present.


    The rhythmic click of trebuchet cogs filled his ears, and his mind turned to cold calculations—the number of soldiers, the distances, the prevailing winds, the slope of the terrain.


    In the end, they were all just cogs in a vast and merciless machine. Interchangeable. Expendable. Already in motion.