The eastern flank was dying.
Even before they reached it, the smell hit them the acrid tang of burnt leather, the cloying stench of old blood, and something far worse: the bitter, caustic reek of Kruul rot. The wind shifted, briefly clearing the smoke enough to reveal what awaited them. Dozens of Threshen crawled low to the ground, twitching with hunger, blackened limbs dragging through mud, teeth slick with ichor. And behind them, Kruul warriors not mere soldiers, but hardened veterans covered in blood-forged armor and stitched hides that were clearly not their own. Their blades, fused from bone and metal, glinted cruelly as they moved with frightening, inhuman coordination.
"They're forming wedge lines," Luken muttered, leaning heavily on his staff, chest heaving.
Valen drew his blades with a grim smirk. "Good. Makes them easier to break."
Elira didn't waste time. "Fan out," she commanded sharply. "Nyra, you're with me. Valen, Luken take the left crest, cut into their backline. We hit the wedge from both sides and collapse it inward." She spun her glaive once, the blood dripping from its haft spattering the muddy ground. "Hit fast. Don't let them adapt."
Valen offered a mocking salute. "Love when a plan ends in screaming." Luken rolled his eyes, but he followed swiftly, already conjuring flame in one hand.
Nyra stood beside Elira, gripping her axe tightly, muscles tense and ready. Neither hesitated. The instant their boots hit the muddy slope, the Threshen surged forward to meet them, shrieking and bounding over corpses like beasts drunk on gore.
"Now!" Elira roared, and they collided in a fury of violence.
Elira's glaive met the first beast mid-leap, splitting it cleanly down the centre, its halves sliding wetly apart as they hit the ground. Without breaking stride, she drove the haft into the throat of another, shattering bone and crushing its windpipe before finishing with a vicious upward slash.
Beside her, Nyra bellowed a war cry as deep as the creatures they fought. Her axe fell like thunder, shattering skulls and cleaving bone, carving a deadly path through the horde. She spun through three Threshen at once, movements wild yet precise, her face locked in a fierce warrior's snarl.
"They just keep coming!" Nyra shouted, breath ragged.
"They always do," Elira spat back. She kicked away a Kruul who'd drawn too close, then drove her glaive into its chest, twisting sharply as it fell.
Then thud.
Not close. Distant, behind the Kruul lines, somewhere in the smoke. Heavy. Wet.
Another thud. Then a sharp, meaty crack.
Something massive tumbled through the haze above the enemy a Threshen torso, severed messily at the waist, entrails trailing like ribbons. It crashed into the mud between two Kruul warriors, flattening one, sending the other sprawling with a shattered shoulder.
Elira twisted mid-strike, searching the smoke. "What "
Another projectile whistled overhead. A leg this time, still booted, bone jutting from the thigh. It hammered into a Threshen's back, driving it face-first into the mud with enough force to crack its skull.
The Kruul wedge faltered. Warriors turned, confused, staring backward at an enemy they couldn't see.
"Someone's hitting their rear," Nyra breathed, axe half-raised.
Elira didn't know who. The fog shifted again, revealing nothing just smoke and shadow and the distant sound of impact, rhythmic and heavy, like someone pounding nails into wood.
"Press!" she barked. "While they're scattered!"
They drove harder. Valen slipped among the distracted Kruul like smoke himself, blades carving through armor gaps. Luken's fire surged, scorching the undergrowth, forcing Threshen into the open where Nyra's axe waited. The wedge crumbled, discipline failing, warriors breaking formation to search for the source of the rain of dead but then the rain stopped.
Elira spun her glaive through a final Threshen throat, panting, and risked a glance toward the smoke. Nothing fell now. No more impacts. Just silence, settling wrong over the battlefield.
"Did they stop?" Nyra asked, still coiled, ready.
"Or run out of ammunition," Valen offered, wiping ichor from his cheek.
Elira didn't answer. Her skin prickled. The quiet felt deliberate like a held breath.
Then came the shift.
Not a tremble of siege weapons. Something heavier. Rhythmic. Building like footsteps far too large for this battlefield, but slower now. Measured.
The fog to the west parted.
Something skidded through the haze. A body whole this time, a Threshen, mangled and crushed, bones jutting grotesquely from its ruined back. Not thrown. Ridden.
It hit the earth with a wet crunch that echoed down the trenches, limbs flailing uselessly, still twitching as it came to rest in front of the battle line.
Thal crouched low upon the corpse, one hand sunk deeply into its twisted spine, the other dragging through the mud to steer. He rode it like a beast of burden, calm as a man arriving to a feast, his face half-shadowed by short, scorched hair. Before the body had even come to a full stop, he leapt off, landing in a crouch that cracked the earth beneath him.
Steam curled off his skin, soaked in dried blood and charred black in places. His torso was bare, his only clothing a ragged strip of cloth tied around his waist once part of a cloak, now reduced to a makeshift wrap. His body was scarred, lean, and cut like stone. No fat. No softness. Just dense, brutal strength.
Elira didn't speak. Couldn't. She had fought monsters before. Fought alongside monsters. But never had she seen something arrive like this silent, casual, inevitable.
Beside her, Nyra's mouth fell open slightly, but no words came.
Thal stood slowly, golden eyes half-lidded beneath singed bangs as he scanned the battlefield. He didn't acknowledge them. Didn't wave. Didn't speak.
He just turned and ran straight into the fray.
The first Kruul warrior barely had time to react before Thal's fist slammed into its chest. The sound was sickening a wet, explosive crunch as ribs collapsed inward and something deep within popped violently. Without looking, Thal hurled the broken body aside, letting it collide into two others, sending them sprawling in the dirt.
Another Kruul charged, blade raised. Thal's massive hand closed around its face, fingers crushing into flesh and bone. Effortlessly, he lifted not just upward, but over himself before driving the warrior headfirst into the earth with enough force to crater the ground. Bones shattered, and the Kruul didn't rise.
"Gods," Elira whispered.
Nyra's grip on her axe tightened noticeably. "He's angry."
"Isn't he always angry?"
"No," Nyra said softly, almost reverently. "Not like this."
A Threshen lunged from the side. Thal caught it mid-air, fingers gripping its jaw from beneath its fangs. With a guttural twist, he ripped away its lower face, leaving it shrieking and exposed before driving his knee upward into its skull, silencing it instantly.
He didn't stop. Didn't slow.
Elira took a step back. "We let him clear that side. Don't get in his way."
Nyra didn't answer. She was watching Thal with a look she hadn't worn in years. Not awe. Not fear but worry.
Mud sucked at boots with every step, tangled roots and discarded corpses turning the battlefield into a mire of blood and steel. The air hung thick with rot and fire, and every breath burned like poison in the lungs. Around them, soldiers struggled to maintain formations, shouting over the din of metal and dying screams. Any semblance of strategy had fallen to the wayside it was a matter of survival, of holding the line long enough for reinforcements that weren't coming.
Luken's staff blazed with heat, fire dancing from its tip as he scorched the undergrowth to deny it to the enemy. The swirling illusion still covered his Kruul traits, his eye and horn concealed behind a glamour that shimmered subtly when he moved. His breaths were shallow, movements tight. He was tired burning through reserves he didn't have but he forced his magic forward, flame after flame casting the forest in a flickering, hellish light.
Valen was ahead of him, blades flashing in and out of shadow, a blur of precise violence. His strikes were economical, his footwork graceful, but his face was set, his usual smirk nowhere to be found. Every time he dropped a Kruul or sidestepped a Threshen's claw, his gaze flicked around searching for the next threat, or maybe just keeping tabs on where his friends were.
"Flank's giving!" one of Elira's soldiers shouted desperately. "We need to pull back!"
"No," Elira barked sharply, driving her glaive through a Threshen's throat. "We hold! We hold, or we burn with it!"
Soon, more corpses began flying from the smoke again, landing among the soldiers, splattering them with mud and gore. Some of Elira's men panicked, breaking ranks. One screamed, another dropped to his knees, babbling frantic prayers. The others stood frozen not staring at the enemy, but at the figure tearing through them.
From the flank, Valen caught sight of Thal's rampage and shouted incredulously, "Tell me again why we're still fighting?"
Luken didn't reply. He couldn't. His eyes were locked forward, fixed upon the brutal spectacle, witnessing something he didn't quite want to believe.
Thal, still soaked in blood, tore through another set of Kruul. Two tried to surround him. He ducked beneath one's swing, drove his elbow into its throat, and then turned calm, measured and headbutted the other so hard it dropped before its body even registered the impact.
Elira turned, blood still dripping from her gauntlet, sweat streaking her dirt-caked jaw. Her shoulder throbbed from where a Threshen's claw had nicked her armor, and she could feel the heat of too many fights wearing her thin. Nyra was beside her, breathing hard, chest rising and falling with adrenaline, her axe still slick with blood. Behind them, Valen was sheathing his blades, one hand resting lightly on his hip, the other rubbing the back of his neck. Luken leaned on his staff a few paces away, his illusion still intact, his eyes shadowed beneath exhaustion but alert, fixed on the surrounding trees. The eastern flank was momentarily quiet. The shrieks had dulled. The fog shifted but no longer screamed.
"Alright," Elira said, voice gravel and grit. "We regroup. There were survivors from the northern barricade that pulled back along the gully. If they're still alive, we can pull them into this line and shore it up."
Nyra nodded, already turning. "We'll need to move fast if they're pinned."
They broke into a jog Nyra and Elira at the front, Valen and Luken behind. The terrain sloped upward, a shallow ridge curling around the battlefield's edge like a shield. If any troops had survived the last wave of Threshen and Kruul, they'd have retreated here to hold the higher ground. The fog clung low across the brush, hiding the details until they crested the ridge.
Then they saw it.
The entire slope was covered in bodies. But there was no fighting. No soldiers calling for aid. No clatter of metal. Just silence. Kruul, Threshen, even twisted beast-like war hounds strewn in grotesque, shattered forms. Bones jutted from ruptured skin, heads crushed like fruit, limbs torn off or bent the wrong way. The dead were everywhere. Piled into corners. Smashed against trees. Some still smouldered from recent fire. Others frozen mid-scream, as if death had come too fast to understand.
Elira took a cautious step forward, boots crunching over blackened leaves. "No survivors…"
Luken stared wide-eyed, whispering, "This was recent."
Valen lowered his voice. "How recent?"
Nyra crouched near a body, placing a hand on its still-warm chest. "Minutes. Maybe less."
Then they noticed it at the far end of the field: drag marks. Massive, heavy trails carved through the mud, leading back the way they'd come. Straight toward the path Thal had entered from.
Valen didn't need to say it. Luken's throat went dry. Elira stared out over the dead. Her voice, when it came, was low and steady, but not without edge. "He already came through."
They hadn't seen it. Hadn't heard it. But Thal had already passed this way. Already killed them all. Alone.
"Gods," Valen whispered. "This wasn't a skirmish. It's a grave."
Luken rubbed his temples. "How does he move that fast? That quiet?"
"He didn't have to be quiet," Elira said, her tone colder now. "No one lived long enough to scream."
Nyra stood slowly, her hand clenched tight around the haft of her axe. Her eyes swept the carnage again so much death, and not one of their allies among them. Only enemies, broken and cast aside. Her stomach turned. There was no glory in this kind of slaughter. Only silence.
Elira turned from the field. "Come on. Let's fall back to the others. Thal already did the work."
Valen muttered, "We're starting to sound like an afterthought," but no one disagreed.
They headed back moving quick, eyes flicking toward every rustling branch or shifting shadow. But nothing else came. Nothing dared. And when they returned to the forward line, they found Thal already waiting leaning against a broken stone pillar like nothing had happened. His body was caked in dried blood, his hands still twitching faintly as if remembering the violence.
He didn't speak. Didn't boast. Just nodded once as they approached, the silence saying enough.