The thunder of thousands of heavy infantrymen marching in perfect ranks shook the night like a storm ripping through the heavens.
Under the pale, ghostly moonlight, the helms of the Grand Aegis soldiers glinted with menace. Each horn was jagged and tipped like the fangs of a beast, casting twisted silhouettes across the field.
On the ramparts, Asher's boots thudded against the stone as he ascended, coming to a halt just shy of a Dragon Head ballista. Four men stood ready—one to aim, one to fire, one to brace the frame against recoil, and the last to reload. They had drilled this dance for months. Yet tonight, sweat trickled down their cheeks and their breaths came shallow.
Reflected in their eyes were the enemies of the sky: the wyverns.
Spiked and scaly, these winged terrors—the closest kin to dragons—rode the air with bat-like wings spread wide. Behind them, even faster and more agile, came the Swiftwings—light-framed aerial mounts with snow-colored fur and lethal grace. Though the men had trained for this, none had faced such a storm in the skies before.
Anxiety clung to the air like a fog, brushing their necks. Some glanced at Asher, hoping the calm in his expression would lend strength to their shaking hands.
He stood unmoving, gazing at the endless tide approaching from the horizon. General Clegane had warned him: the Immortals would be the most dreadful foes he had ever faced.
Because they could not die.
That was the legend. Sword, fire, water—nothing ended them. They simply rose again.
Asher's eyes locked onto a troop in the distance—golden armor gleaming, purple cloaks trailing behind them like royal banners in a blighted wind.
Men who could not die?
No. Every man can die.
His fingers tightened subtly on the wolf-headed hilt. He would find the way.
A voice broke the silence.
"My Lord! If we don't fire now, they'll be on us with full strength!"
Clegane's shout snapped him from his reverie. Asher's sword flashed from its sheath with a metallic hiss, raised high.
Twenty Dragon Head ballistas tilted toward the heavens. With a mechanical crack and shrill whistle, the first volley of barbed bolts tore through the sky.
"Tilt!" came a cry from the enemy.
The wyvern general at the front yanked his reins. His mount veered sharply to the right, folded its wings, and plummeted like a falling star—only to level out and continue its charge.
Other riders followed, smirking. They had dodged.
But the bolts hadn't been meant for them.
Instead, they struck the trailing Intis air cavalry, who had not yet registered the threat.
The first Swiftwing, helm gleaming gold, took a bolt through the head. Blood sprayed across its white fur and onto its rider's face. More followed—a dozen black bolts of death claiming their mark with unerring precision.
A brilliant white flash exploded in the sky, lighting up the chaos. For a moment, night itself vanished. The wyverns and Swiftwings were exposed in full—the monstrous wingspans, the snarling beaks, the glowing eyes.
"Second squad—fire," Asher said, his voice like a blade being drawn.
Thirty more ballistas loosed their payloads.
Two wyverns were impaled midair, spiraling toward the earth. Three more were grazed, screeching in rage.
The wyvern general's eyes widened.
"The light! Don't get hi—!"
Too late. A wyvern beside him took a bolt to the throat. Another blinding flash erupted. He threw up an arm, momentarily blind.
When his sight returned, more wyverns had fallen. The air was thick with smoke, blood, and the fading echoes of shrieks.
Rage overtook him. His wyvern surged forward, wings beating with violent force.
The beast opened its maw and unleashed a river of fire. Like a living flamethrower, the torrent roasted men and machines alike. An upper section of the wall melted under the heat, its stone groaning and collapsing.
"Dark Skies!" General Clegane roared.
Four thousand archers raised their massive longbows—each as tall as a man—and fired into the sky.
The arrows rained upward like a black storm, but most clattered harmlessly off the wyverns' scales.
Still, it was enough.
The ballistas reloaded.
Another wave of bolts launched, even as the Intis cavalry struck from above. Their javelins flashed silver as they pierced the ballista crews, hurling them from the wall in streaks of crimson.
"The siege catapults! Now!" Asher barked, jaw clenched.
But before the order echoed, a shadow closed in.
Larger than the rest. A new wyvern—monstrous in size—soared toward the rampart.
Atop it sat the wyvern general, a baron of House Wyvern, his sneer twisted with cruel satisfaction.
The beast's jaws glowed with inner fire. The moment was near.
Mist poured from his palm, coiling into a jagged shape.
An ice javelin took form.
Just as the wyvern's flames ignited, Asher hurled the javelin with all the force of an ancient-ranked Swordsman.
The wyvern general's eyes trembled when his mount cried out in agony. The ice javelin had pierced deep into the creature's chest, just as Asher ducked behind his obsidian shield.
"Retreat!" the general bellowed, urging his wyvern to beat its wings with desperate power. But the sky was no sanctuary. A volley of ballista bolts found their mark, punching through the wyvern's thick scales — scales said to deflect even sword steel.
As the beast faltered in the air, Asher stood tall, mist swirling from his hand. Another javelin formed. With a twist of his torso, he hurled it — a blur of frost and fury. It tore through the general's gilded helm, split his skull, and continued its deadly arc across the battlefield.
The javelin drove clean through the chest of an Immortal soldier.
The field paused. The wyvern crashed down with its lifeless rider.
Asher's eyes widened for the first time.
The Immortal soldier, pierced through the heart, reached up… and pulled the javelin from his body.
And then, with a hollow, echoing stomp… continued his march.
Is that what they were about to fight?