The sun continued to shine over the outside world, but not the slightest trace of it remained over the Douglas Duchy.
Ninety-five thousand men advanced resolutely toward that abyssal darkness. Ninety-five thousand souls wielding steel; a colossal war machine that would have made any kingdom tremble. Banners covered the horizon: armored knights, heavy infantry, clerics, theurgists, and enraged faithful marching beneath hundreds of divine symbols.
The liturgical chants still echoed throughout the rear ranks:
—For the gods!
—For humanity!
—For the Light!
The voices intertwined until they became an imposing roar.
—They say the Douglases are demons.
—Then we'll kill demons.
—Do you think there'll be a reward?
—If I survive, I'll buy a house.
The veteran marching ahead heard them and let out a bitter laugh.
—If you survive ten minutes, consider yourselves lucky.
Then the first soldier in the front rank crossed the stone marker... and abruptly stopped singing.
The darkness enveloped him like icy water. He took an uncertain step. Then another.
—Where is everyone else? —he murmured, suddenly shivering.
There was no answer. He spun around, but saw no one: neither his squire, nor the centurion, nor the golden banners. Only dense shadows.
—Commander! —he shouted.
His voice died out only a few yards away, swallowed by the void.
Suddenly, he heard something behind him. The dry crunch of a pile of fallen leaves. He turned sharply, raising his sword.
Nothing.
Another snap. Much closer.
The soldier raised his wooden shield, feeling his heart pounding against his ribs.
—Who's there?!
A feathered arrow shot out of nowhere and pierced his throat from side to side. The man collapsed into the mud without making a sound.
And then, screams erupted all along the vanguard.
—ENEMY! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!
The formation disintegrated within seconds. Soldiers raised their shields in every direction, gripped by panic, spinning around without knowing from which flank death would come.
One arrow. Another. Another.
Men began falling like wheat beneath the sickle. Some desperately tried to light torches with flint, but the flames sputtered for an instant before being immediately snuffed out by the stagnant air.
—Hold the line! Form the shield wall!
—We can't see a damn thing!
—Where are the damn Douglases?!
A silhouette emerged silently behind a heavily armored infantryman. A short blade slipped between the joints of his armor. Before the corpse even touched the ground, the attacker had already dissolved into the mist.
Another Douglas warrior emerged from behind the trees. Then another. Then an entire platoon.
They did not fight like a conventional army; they hunted like a pack in its natural element. The abyssal darkness was their domain. While the Crusaders were unable to see more than ten yards ahead, the men of the black lion knew every ravine, every root, every ditch, and every firing angle of their homeland down to the smallest detail.
And above all... the night recognized them and guided them.
A Crusader captain desperately attempted to regroup his unit:
—Shields together! Close ranks! Don't let them flank us!
A shadow dropped violently from a high branch. The captain raised his blade instinctively.
CLANG!
The clash of metal was brutal; the impact nearly dislocated his shoulder. He staggered backward. His opponent wore hardened leather armor and dark plates; the Douglas lion was subtly emblazoned across his breastplate.
—A Douglas! —the captain roared, launching a furious thrust.
The enemy soldier calmly deflected the blow and counterattacked. Another clash. And another.
The Douglas warrior gave ground by one step. The captain smiled fiercely, seeing an opening.
—I have you!
But before he could drive his sword through, he felt a searing cold pierce his back. A second Douglas soldier had emerged behind him without making the slightest sound. The blade passed completely through his abdomen.
The captain fell to his knees, spitting blood. The first warrior withdrew his blade calmly, without wasting a second.
—Next —he muttered.
Both silhouettes dissolved back into the void. And, across miles of the battlefield, the first line of the Crusade began collapsing into its own blood.
Alejandro tightened his grip around the hilt, feeling the vibration of the clash still running through his forearm. The Douglas warrior had not wasted time on traditional combat stances; instead of attacking again, he took half a step backward, and the mist of the duchy seemed to swallow him without leaving the slightest trace of footprints.
—Show yourself! —Alejandro demanded, spinning around with his sword raised.
Silence was the only answer. A heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by distant clashes of metal and the muffled screams of the imperial troops still being torn apart several yards behind him.
A faint whistle cut through the air beside his neck. Alejandro dodged instinctively; the edge of a hand axe grazed the visor of his armor before disappearing back into the shadows. Not a flash of mana, nor the slightest hint of murderous intent beforehand. These men did not rely on sight or aura: they moved guided by their absolute knowledge of every inch of their land and by the pulse of a night that had claimed them as its own.
Alejandro exhaled a freezing breath that immediately condensed in the darkness.
—They're not soldiers defending a wall... —he whispered, feeling a knot of apprehension tighten in his stomach—. They're the wall itself.
These men were not fighting for glory.
They were defending their home.
And that made them far more dangerous.
Farther back, Emily kept her arms extended, trembling with tension.
A sphere of sacred mana floated above her head, emitting a white radiance that barely managed to carve a narrow path through the mass of shadows.
—This way! —she cried, her voice ragged—. Prioritize the wounded!
Two clerics dragged the bloodied body of a militiaman toward her. Emily placed her palm against the soldier's chest. A warm flash burst from her fingers, and the torn flesh began sealing itself before their eyes.
—Breathe —she urged, breathless.
—Thank you... —the man managed to whisper.
A second body collapsed heavily at her feet. Emily froze: a projectile had pierced straight through his jugular. She hadn't arrived in time either. She closed her eyes for a moment, clenching her teeth.
—I'm sorry...
Kara moved to her side.
—Emily.
—How many do we have left?
Kara glanced backward but said nothing. There was simply no way to see.
The warrior raised her head, scanning the edge of the darkness.
—We have to retreat. Now.
Emily stubbornly shook her head.
—We can still hold the line and push forward.
—No. Look. —Kara pointed toward the edge of the forest with the hilt of her weapon.
Emily followed the direction of her gesture. Amid the opaque mist, tiny golden lights began flickering: one, two, ten, hundreds of torches lining up in perfect discipline.
The Douglas infantry had surrounded them completely. They were not merely a containment force; the darkness distorted their silhouettes, making the Lion Guard appear like an endless horde.
Kara clenched her jaw until she felt it crack.
—We didn't push them back... they deliberately allowed us to come this far.
An icy shiver ran down Emily's spine.
—For what purpose?
—Because this is our domain —a deep voice echoed from the darkness.
The banners of the black wolves emerged among the ancient trees.
And at the head of the line of steel... Lusian.
He advanced at an unhurried pace, carrying the colossal Dainslein resting against his shoulder. There was no trace of anger, fury, or haste on his face; only absolute composure. He regarded the invading legions as one might regard prey that had just snapped the jaws of a trap shut around itself.
Alejandro, wounded and covered in soot, raised his blessed sword toward him.
—LUSIAN!
Lusian lifted his eyes. Their gazes met in the darkness. For several seconds, the battlefield seemed to hold its breath.
—Withdraw —the duke ordered in a murmur that cut through the air.
Alejandro clenched his fists until his gauntlets dug into his flesh.
—Never!
Lusian surveyed the devastation: thousands of corpses scattered across the mud, thousands of soldiers desperately searching for an escape route, and the Heroes regrouping with difficulty through the mist. Even so, Lusian did not order a massacre.
—I have no intention of exterminating you.
The words acted like poison upon Alejandro's pride, making his blood boil.
—Your family executed my parents! They wiped out my bloodline!
Lusian frowned slightly, bewildered.
—I have no recollection of you or your House.
That indifference was the final trigger. Alejandro roared in fury and charged at full speed, sword raised.
Emily stepped forward, raising her right hand.
—Alejandro, stop!
Lusian nodded and disappeared into the darkness.
Hours later, the Crusade began retreating in complete disorder.
There were no pious chants left. No proclamations of salvation, no hymns to the Light. Golden banners lay torn and half-submerged in the marshes. Armor was dented and covered in mud, soot, and blood. Priests staggered along, serving as supports for the maimed; some soldiers threw their shields to the ground to lighten their load, while others ran in terror without daring to look back.
Thirty thousand men had been left behind forever within the Douglas domain. They would never return to their kingdoms.
Yet victory had not come without a price for the defenders either. Three thousand soldiers of House Douglas lay dead among the ravines and undergrowth.
Despite the tragic toll, the six peripheral cities of the domain remained standing. The outer walls were still intact, and the strategic heart of the Duchy had not even been scratched.
The first wave had been repelled mercilessly. The Crusaders had arrived convinced that they were the redemptive host of humanity; now they returned having learned a far more earthly and brutal lesson: they had blindly entered the bowels of a trap, and the enemy had been waiting for them for months with his sword raised.
From atop the battlements, Lusian watched the last scattered columns disappear into the distance. Beside him, Commander Albert stood upright, his armor splattered with dried blood.
—Thirty thousand confirmed enemy casualties —Albert reported in a hoarse voice.
Lusian said nothing.
—Three thousand of ours fell in the battle.
Silence once again settled over the walls. Lusian closed his eyes for a moment. He felt no reason for celebration in those numbers; only the crushing weight of the carnage.
But when he opened his eyes and gazed toward the horizon beyond the borders of the domain, he understood the gravity of the situation: this had been nothing more than the vanguard. The gods had mobilized a force of ninety-five thousand men for this first assault... and the real battle had only just begun.