The work began before the sun had properly risen. Pale yellow glow split to a shady off-grey as the clouds hung low. It could have been the smoke that would presumably be rising from Dunden, or perhaps the hot, scalding forges of Skaggad beyond that.

  Perhaps they had been re-lit since the cold had taken them.

  Nevertheless, there was work to be done, and axes rang through the cool morning air. Steel bit deep into the piles of pine and alder hauled from the north stand, where the Barston woods pressed thickest against the marsh edge.

  Mav Keddery had told Sludge that there was good lumber here. It had been wise to heed him.

  Each cut and crunch echoed through the quiet valley like the steady toll of a bell. Wood split. Splinters scattered to the town square like a barbers floor. Men cursed under their breath.

  Palisades—sharpened wood by the hundred. The Barston folk had answered with the compliance and urgency of some merry band. Men, women, children—even the dog ran to-and-fro with a stick between its teeth.

  It had been all hands on deck. Hamish, Rand, Esme, Sammy, Agnes. Gus and Sarden had sprung their sawing brace from their cabin and moved with an efficiency beyond their years.

  Tub ferried between groups—bracing where he needed, hauling stacks in-between. Even the Butcher had kicked up his stool and sat with a bundle of dowels and a keen knife.

  Teln moved through the chaos with a carpenter’s eye and a soldier’s urgency.

  “Higher!” he barked, pointing with a soot-blackened finger toward the line of sharpened stakes rising along the eastern road. “Those tops need more bite. If one of these bastards tries climbing them, make sure he loses half a thigh.”

  Rand hauled a timber beam into place with two other men, boots sliding in mud as they wrestled it into the trench line.

  Sammy staggered past them with a bundle of cut stakes slung across his shoulder. His arms shook with exhaustion. His eyes kept drifting toward the low light coming from the marsh and beyond.

  Everyone did—the quiet fear burning a hole in their gaze. It didn't last long enough to settle in, though. Bogheart blazed from Sludge with an affirming glow, and by mid-morning, some of the Barston folk had grown confident enough to elicit a hum and a whistle as they worked.

  Beyond the outer fields the reeds stood silent and unmoving, tall yellow stalks swaying gently beneath the low cloud ceiling. Mist crawled along the water’s surface in long pale ribbons.

  The marsh had grown quiet. Too quiet.

  Tub leaned heavily on his axe beside the half-finished barricade of wagons and grain carts dragged across the road. His wounded leg trembled beneath him.

  “Reckon we’ve done enough?” he muttered. “Those walls look sturdy, aye. But it's wood. That green devil blew the Buckle apart like soft butter.”

  Hamish spat into the dirt.

  “They’re coming,” he said simply. “All there is to it.”

  The sound reached them then. It was faint at first. Tub could've almost believed it was his own belly roiling. A dull rhythm rolling somewhere far out in the reeds.

  Thum…Thum…Thum.

  Sludge stood upon the half-built palisade.

  Halbrecht’s armour had settled across its frame like something grown rather than worn. Plates of dark metal clung to the lumberjack body in layered ridges, red seams pulsing faintly where Mannagoth drank from the residue of battle.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The trapper’s axe rested neatly across its shoulder; frostburn still etched into the fold of its steel. Bogheart burned warm in its chest, but the Cold Prince stirred.

  Something moved in the fog. At first it seemed like some drifting shadow, but after a few moments the shadow grew shape and form.

  Thum… then a pause.

  A tall figure emerged slowly from the grey marsh vapour, boots sinking deep into wet peat with every step, ground cracking beneath him like spent eggshells.

  Stone plates covered his body from shoulder to heel, thick slabs bound with iron chains and twisted roots that seemed to grow directly into the armour. With every step the earth itself shuddered.

  He stopped a hundred or so paces from the village. He lifted his head and studied the watchtower with mild curiosity, then cast his gaze towards Barston proper—where its brave souls stood on wooden beams and lean-tos, propping up the palisades.

  “Cute walls,” he rumbled from afar. “Didn't think to use this, though?”

  With a heave and a laugh, the armoured titan stomped his fists into the ground around the tower. The earth shuddered, then wrenched upwards like a cloth from a table. The tower split clean at the base—thundering to the ground in a cloud of dust and masonry.

  The villagers tightened their grip on spear shafts and axes.

  “Bastard,” hissed Teln.

  As the dust settled, a second shape appeared behind him. This one glided. White cloth trailed through the marsh mist and powdered stone like a drifting shroud. Pale hands brushed the tops of the reeds as the woman moved forward, releasing slow clouds of grey spores that drifted lazily through the morning air.

  Where the spores touched water, the surface blackened. The pale woman smiled faintly at the sight of Barston.

  “Pretty cute, Sodie,” she shrilled. “Tell me why Morg couldn't solo this place though?”

  Lightning cracked across the cloud ceiling as she spoke, then the thunder came a heartbeat later. A third figure landed heavily atop a broken tower beam with the ease of someone stepping from a stair.

  Blue lightning crawled across his armour like restless serpents. He was shorter than the other two—younger—with a streak of white in his soft, cerulean hair. He grinned at the village.

  “Thought he said this place was boring?” He said with a huff of laughter. “Look at them, Sodie. Siege mode. Just standing there… waiting. Weird.”

  Another shadow moved, then vanished, then flickered in the light as it passed from the marsh to the dusty Barston road.

  A figure appeared suddenly beside them, as though she had always been standing there. The dark cloak wrapped around her seemed to swallow the thin morning light.

  She said nothing at first as the other three bristled beside her. Instead, her eyes studied the palisade. Then they settled on Sludge.

  “Save your shit, Sodie. Morgrog despawned here. He definitely didn't get ganked by some NPCs, and Halbrecht is dead dead.”

  She cast another glance at the pale woman and the one with lightning crackling across his armour.

  “Jenna. Kash. Same goes for you two.”

  The fifth arrival came last.

  Flame rolled slowly across the fog behind the others, spreading in a creeping line through the marsh reeds. Smoke drifted low across the water.

  A tall, male figure walked through the burning mist with slow deliberate steps, armour glowing faintly like banked coals beneath black iron.

  “Gods be,” whispered Tub with a shiver. “That's the Pyre. He fought beside the Lord Commander.”

  The one that walked with fire exhaled a long breath. Steam and licks of flame spilled from his mouth.

  “Well,” he said loudly as his gruff voice carried in the wind. “Guess my old GM really had lost his mojo. Don't feel as bad now. The fuck was he cooking up here?”

  The others ignored him as the drums began again somewhere far behind them in the reeds, carrying across the marsh like a heartbeat rising through wet earth.

  Thum…Thum…Thum.

  Each strike rolled over the reeds and the shallow water channels that carved their slow veins through the mire. The mist shifted with the rhythm. It curled and parted around the five figures standing beyond Barston’s outer field like something alive, something slick with a curious vigour, something bored enough to have itself here—a thankless mire in the middle of nowhere.

  Behind them, the fog thickened. Smoke. Smog. Shapes moving within it.

  More silhouettes moved—smaller, hunched, crawling shapes that splashed through the marsh channels and clambered onto the reed banks. Goblins. Mud-runners. Ridge snappers. Creatures stitched together from bone and vine.

  An army, though one held together with rot and some vile, swamp magic rather than discipline.

  The villagers on the palisade shifted uneasily.

  “Saint Gunther…” whispered Agnes, clutching the haft of her spear until the knuckles turned pale.

  Sammy spat into the dirt below the wall.

  “Ugly bastards,” he muttered.

  The one that Tub had called the Pyre rolled his shoulders slowly.

  The sound of grinding steel drifted across the open field as the plates of his smouldering armour shifted against one another.

  “Alright then,” he said, voice carrying easily through the mid-morning air. “Let’s see what smoked Morgrog.”