The sun rose blood-red over Eldhaven.
From the high ridge where Uthred stood, the capital looked nothing like the stories he'd grown up with. Once a city of white spires and golden domes, it now crouched behind blackened walls and smoke-stained towers. The great banners of Eldhame no longer flew from the citadel—replaced by the jagged wolf-fang sigils of the Viking warlord Sigvard.
Uthred gripped the hilt of his sword as the wind whipped through his cloak. Behind him, the army of the rebellion stood silent—Ironcloaks, Vale's mountain raiders, liberated villagers, deserters from Magnus' failed cause, and battle-hardened rebels from the northern reaches.
More than three thousand strong.
At their head rode Uthred, not yet crowned, but called king in every whispered prayer and battle cry.
To take back his birthright, he would have to break Eldhaven open.
And bury Sigvard inside it.
The siege began with fire.
Under Vale's command, the rebels rolled out siege engines crafted in the mountain forges. Mangonels hurled firepots over the walls by night. Ballistas drove iron bolts through the outer defenses by day. Archers, positioned on every nearby slope and rooftop, harassed the sentries until even peering over the wall became a death sentence.
Sigvard's men responded in kind. Arrows rained down. Boiling oil scorched the earth. Sappers tried to sabotage Uthred's siege towers in the dead of night—but were caught and executed.
Eldhaven screamed, and the world heard it.
The western gate burned first. The enemy lit it themselves—preferring to destroy an entrance rather than risk it falling to Uthred's troops. But it was a mistake.
With the gate ruined, defenders had fewer paths to maneuver. Uthred's forces built barricades of their own outside the smoldering threshold and turned it into a killing zone. Anyone who ventured out from the walls was met with volleys of arrows and burning tar.
The siege was not just about tactics—it was about pressure. For every meal denied to the city, every water barrel tainted, every screaming night of bombardment, Sigvard's strength eroded.
But so did Uthred's patience.
He walked the front lines daily. He stood beside dying men, held the hands of wounded women, and buried children pulled from rubble. He hated every moment.
"I won't be the kind of king who rules from behind walls," he told Vale one evening.
She handed him a cup of warm mead. "You'll be the kind of king who survives to rule."
Inside Uthred's war camp, strategy ruled every breath.
Maps were pored over in candlelight. Messengers galloped through mud-soaked paths. Supply lines from Halgar and the eastern provinces moved night and day to feed the growing army.
Eamon managed logistics with ruthless precision. Vale trained new recruits until their swords moved like extensions of their arms. Jorlan, grizzled and scarred, took the night watches himself, always first to rise and last to sleep.
In the quiet hours before dawn, Uthred often walked alone between the tents, listening.
He heard men whispering prayers. Women sharpening blades. Children coughing in their sleep.
He heard a people risking everything for him.
And he vowed again, in the silence, not to fail them.
Jorlan approached him one morning, both of them looking toward the city skyline.
"You're pushing too hard."
"I can't let them wait," Uthred replied. "Every day the city holds, someone else dies. And Sigvard makes them suffer for it."
"You'll need more than hate to breach that wall."
"I'm not using hate. I'm using memory."
On the fourteenth day, Uthred launched the first full assault.
Vale led a frontal attack on the North Gate with two hundred Ironcloaks while mountain archers rained arrows from the ridge. Meanwhile, a diversion force under Branoc struck the southern watchtowers.
The clash of steel echoed for miles. Fires blazed across the lower city. The North Gate shuddered—but held.
Losses were heavy.
Thirty-three dead. More wounded.
Uthred called the retreat himself.
"We don't waste lives for glory," he said. "We bleed them slowly."
That night, scouts returned with news of a weakness—a collapsed section of the inner wall near the eastern aqueduct. Long buried. Half-forgotten.
A plan began to take shape.
At midnight, Uthred and a team of twenty infiltrators crawled through the old aqueduct tunnels.
Water dripped from above. Rats scattered underfoot. The air reeked of mold and rot.
Ysolde led the way, torch in hand, her eyes scanning every shadow.
They emerged into a forgotten chamber beneath the palace—the remnants of an old treasury vault, long collapsed.
From there, they split into pairs, slipping through servant tunnels and stairwells until they reached the heart of the city.
Uthred walked the streets of Eldhaven again for the first time since he was a child.
The marketplaces were silent. The temples gutted. The houses empty or occupied by foreign soldiers.
And on every wall, defaced and burned, was the sigil of his house—the lion and the snake.
He touched one, fingers trailing the ash.
"I'm coming home," he whispered.
He passed the old baker's square where his mother used to walk with him. The marble fountain was shattered, but the basin still caught rainwater.
Ysolde paused at his side.
"You remember it?"
"I remember all of it," Uthred replied. "And I'll restore it. Even if I have to build it stone by stone."
Sigvard ruled from the High Keep—a towering citadel of black stone that overlooked the entire city. His banners were made of flayed skin. His throne, stolen from Uthred's father, had been defaced and re-forged with dragon teeth.
He was no mere warlord. He was a tyrant.
And he knew Uthred had entered the city.
When the infiltrators regrouped in an abandoned theater, they found a message waiting—pinned to the wall with a dagger.
Come to the throne room. Alone.
Vale argued against it. Jorlan refused outright.
But Uthred gave no room for debate.
"I'll end this. One blade. One life."
"You don't have to prove anything," Vale said. "You've already won the people."
"They deserve justice. Not just victory."
He hugged her, then nodded to Jorlan. "If I don't return, burn the gates."
He entered the keep at dawn.
No guards blocked his path. No traps sprung. Sigvard wanted him to come.
Inside the throne room, the walls were lined with skulls. The floor was smeared with dried blood. And at the far end sat Sigvard—cloaked in dark furs, his crown shaped like jagged horns.
"You've grown," the Viking said. "Like a weed from ash."
"You've ruled with fear," Uthred said. "But fear burns."
Sigvard rose. "Let's test that."
Their swords met in a clash of sparks.
Sigvard fought like a beast. Every swing of his axe cracked the marble floor. But Uthred moved like a storm—years of training, pain, and purpose in every motion.
The duel raged through the hall. Over overturned thrones. Through fire pits. Across the bones of the dead.
Then Sigvard landed a blow—Uthred's shoulder split open. Blood poured. The world dimmed.
But he rose again.
He saw his father's face.
He saw the flames.
And he struck.
One, two, three times—until the axe fell. Until Sigvard stumbled.
Until Uthred's blade found the tyrant's heart.
"I am Uthred of Eldhame," he whispered. "And this is the end of you."
When Uthred stepped from the High Keep, dragging Sigvard's body behind him, the city erupted.
His army surged through the gates.
Citizens rioted. Soldiers surrendered. Bells rang from towers long silenced.
Eldhaven was free.
Uthred climbed the palace steps, bloodied, broken, and triumphant. He raised his sword. Behind him, Vale placed the golden circlet upon his brow.
The people chanted his name.
Not prince.
Not rebel.
King.