"The frost does not care about your logistical complaints, General," Tharven Koss hissed, leaning over the map table with his silver mask gleaming in the amber light. "The king has spoken. If the iron spheres are brittle, heat them until they run liquid. If the smiths are coughing blood, work them until their lungs stop entirely. We do not negotiate with heretics who corrupt the very essence of imperial metal."Mavren Kald’s glare could have cracked stone, but he did not strike the priest. Instead, the general straightened his heavy wool coat, his eyes locked on the southern horizon where the dark silhouettes of Red Ridge’s stone walls loomed against the pale sky. "You want an abattoir, Koss? You shall have one. But when the walls come down, my soldiers take the streets, not your masked fanatics.""Take whatever corpses you like," Koss spat, turning sharply on his heel and marching out of the tent, his acolytes trailing behind him like a flock of crows. "As long as the forge-master Ka

"It’s coming in too fast!" Lira shouted over the deafening shriek of the incoming payload, her hands slick with a pungent, gray-green paste as she hurled another cloth bundle directly onto the outer stone parapet. "Brace yourselves! The trajectory is locked on the western corner!"Kaedron didn't look up from the quenching vat, his forearm muscles straining as he dipped a glowing, heavy-gauge dampening hammer into a bubbling barrel of salted brine. The hiss of steam nearly drowned out the ground-shaking impact that hit the outer fortifications a hundred yards away. Stone exploded into the air, raining down like sharp gravel across the courtyard."That wasn't a standard ball!" Rhovan roared, stumbling backward against the wooden timber frame of the barricade, blood leaking from a fresh scrape across his forehead. He gripped a heavy iron-headed club with white knuckles, his eyes wild and fixed on the boiling red mist rolling past the shattered gate. "They’re using the high-yield slag rou

"Hold the line!" Rhovan’s voice cracked over the roar of the collapsing tower, his battered iron-headed club sweeping out to catch a charging imperial vanguard soldier squarely across the breastplate. The impact sent a dull, echoing shock up Rhovan’s arm, but he didn't flinch, planting his boots firmly in the thick, choking dust that billowed from the ruined western gate. "They’re through the breach! Do not let them form ranks!"Imperial veterans poured through the shattered stone opening, their faces blackened by soot and twisted by the relentless, high-pitched hum of the tainted shortswords in their belts. Close-quarters combat erupted instantly in the narrow, debris-choked streets of Red Ridge, fought not with grand military formations or tactical discipline, but with the brutal, desperate desperation of hammers, knives, and heavy iron clubs."Rhovan, on your left!" Lira screamed, hurling a small clay jar filled with concentrated vinegar and coarse salt directly into the face of a

"You should have stayed in the cellar, little clerk!" Tharven Koss snarled, his armored hand lashing out to backhand Lira across the cheek before she could bring the heavy iron wrench around.Lira stumbled sideways, crashing hard against a stack of unburned timber crates as the metallic ring of her dropped tool echoed sharply against the rubble. "Koss! You won't make it ten paces past the square!" she gasped, wiping a smear of hot blood from her lip with the back of her sleeve."The only thing waiting for me in the square is a terrified smith who has run out of tricks," Koss laughed, a wet, rattling sound that seemed to vibrate directly against the iron plates of his chest. He stepped over her sprawling form without a second glance, his gaze locked entirely on the smoking, half-ruined frame of the Red Ridge town hall fifty yards ahead."Going somewhere, inquisitor?"Koss halted abruptly. Standing framed in the scorched, splintered double doors of the town hall was Kaedron. The master

"Then you should have stayed in the capital where you belonged!" Tharven Koss roared, closing the distance between them with terrifying speed.The inquisitor lunged forward, his dagger flashing through the drifting gray smoke like a stroke of jagged lightning. The raw, pulsing ore of the blade hummed with a high-pitched, vibrating shriek that seemed to drill directly into Kaedron’s temples, threatening to rattle his teeth loose from his gums.Kaedron reacted on pure, hard-earned instinct, bringing his heavy double-faced smithing hammer up in a desperate arc to parry the downward thrust.CLANG!The impact sent a violent, bone-shattering shockwave vibrating straight up Kaedron’s forearms. The sheer concussive force of the tainted metal striking ordinary steel was like being struck by a falling timber; sparks erupted in a blinding shower of white-hot fury, searing the air between their faces. Kaedron’s boots skidded backward through the wet ash and soot, carving two deep trenches into th