SILVER FANG SUTRA THE DOCTOR OF WAR

Chapter 5: The Twelve Shadows

Silver Fang Sutra: The Doctor of War

Chapter 5: The Twelve Shadows

The snow had barely swallowed the last embers of the Fleshbound’s corpse when the silence broke again.

A horn sounded across the valley—deep, guttural, unnatural. It wasn’t a warhorn of men; it was a sound crafted from bone, cursed to rattle the marrow of those who heard it.

The wolves froze where they stood. Even the wind seemed to falter.

Azael lifted his head, chest still burning from broken ribs, his cloak heavy with black blood. His instincts told him what the horn meant before his mind could form the words.

This wasn’t their true strike. It was only the opening cut.

Shadows in the Fog

From the treeline, shapes began to emerge. Not clumsy, not chaotic like the first horde—but precise, deliberate. Twelve figures, each cloaked in darkness, their faces hidden beneath bone masks carved in grotesque forms: serpents, hounds, ravens, and beasts unknown.

They moved as one, their steps silent despite the snow, their presence heavier than the Fleshbound’s roar.

The emissary’s voice echoed faintly, though his body was gone.

“The Fleshbound was the scalpel. These… are the surgeons.”

Azael’s hand tightened on his sword. His wolves stirred nervously, their cheers now ashes in their throats.

Serik spat blood, raising his axe with trembling hands. “What are they?”

Azael did not blink. His voice was grim, steady. “The Twelve Shadows. The Council’s generals.”

The First Exchange

The Shadows did not rush. They circled. One of them, tall and thin, moved forward, mask shaped like a stag’s skull. In his hand was a chain of curved blades, dripping with frost.

Without a word, he lashed out.

The blades hissed through the air, wrapping around one of the younger wolves. The boy screamed as the chain pulled him off his feet, dragging him toward the masked figure.

Azael moved.

In a blur, he severed the chain with his silver blade, catching the boy before the stag-masked general could pull him in. The force of the clash rattled his already cracked ribs, but he did not falter.

The stag-mask tilted its head. Then, almost lazily, it withdrew, rejoining the circle.

Testing him.

Wolves in the Snare

The Shadows moved as predators, never striking all at once, but cutting away at the pack. Each time a wolf broke rank, a masked general was there—slashing, pulling, tearing—without killing, but wounding, weakening.

Azael’s mind raced. They weren’t here to end this battle quickly. They were here to bleed him, to break his pack piece by piece until only he remained.

“Circle tighter!” Azael roared. His wolves obeyed, forming a ring around him, shields raised, weapons drawn. Blood dripped into the snow, steaming in the cold.

One of the Shadows, mask like a wolf’s skull, stepped forward. His weapon was a massive hammer made of black stone. He slammed it into the earth, shattering the ground and breaking their formation.

Through the gap, another Shadow slipped in, twin daggers flashing, carving a wolf’s throat before Azael could reach him.

The boy fell, gasping, blood pouring from his neck.

The pack howled in fury.

Azael caught the killer mid-strike, their blades clashing in a storm of sparks. The Shadow did not flinch, even as Azael’s silver edge burned against its weapon.

Cold eyes gleamed behind the bone mask.

The Healer’s Fury

Pain and rage surged together in Azael’s veins. He had been a healer once. He had sworn oaths to preserve life, not witness it slaughtered by butchers in masks.

And yet here he was, drenched in blood, his sword humming with the Sutra’s fury.

He drove forward, his strikes no longer precise incisions but brutal, sweeping cuts meant to tear flesh and bone alike. His silver blade sang as it carved across the Shadow’s chest, slicing through cloak and armor.

The figure staggered but did not fall. Instead, it melted back into the circle, the others tightening their noose.

“Twelve surgeons,” Azael muttered under his breath, his voice hoarse. “Twelve ways to cut a man apart.”

The Wolf Pack’s Defiance

The wolves were bleeding, broken, but not cowed. Serik’s axe cracked another Shadow’s mask, sending shards flying. Two younger wolves pinned a third general with spears, though both paid for it with their lives as its claws gutted them before it fell.

The snow was red now. Bodies lay in pieces around the courtyard.

Still, the wolves howled, voices ragged but unyielding. They were not soldiers of the Council. They were Azael’s pack. And a wolf, no matter how torn, bites until its last breath.

Azael felt something stir in his chest—a memory of nights beneath the stars, when his pack had sworn themselves to him not as soldiers, but as brothers.

He lifted his sword high, silver veins burning brighter than before.

“You want the Sutra?” His voice thundered across the courtyard, echoing against broken stone. “Come and carve it from my bones!”

Clash of Twelve

The Shadows moved.

All at once.

The courtyard erupted into chaos as the generals struck from every side. Blades sang, chains whipped, hammers cracked stone. Wolves screamed, fought, died.

And at the center of the storm stood Azael, his silver sword flashing in deadly arcs, his body breaking but his spirit unyielding.

Every strike he made was a cut meant for surgery—precise, merciless, tearing through flesh and finding weakness. One Shadow fell, throat opened by a silver edge. Another staggered back, arm severed at the elbow.

But there were still more. Always more.

End Scene

The snowstorm thickened, howls and screams blurring into the wind.

By the time the blizzard cleared, only seven Shadows still stood, their masks cracked but their bodies unbroken.

And in the center, Azael was on his knees, blood dripping from his wounds, his wolves lying in heaps around him.

He spat crimson into the snow, raised his sword again with shaking hands, and whispered the words of the Sutra.

“I do not kneel to shadows.”

The seven generals closed in.

And the night bled on.

[Chapter 5 Ends]