When Wolves March

The sky above Valmere's Watch darkened with smoke and victory. The fortress that had stood under the Empire's shadow for a hundred years now bore a new banner black, coarse cloth stitched with the emblem of the wolf, its edges frayed but proud, fluttering high above the keep's tower.

Below, soldiers of Harkoraal cleared the bodies from the field. Pikes were set in rows, fire pits dug, armor stripped, and burial trenches prepared.

Senjar stood in the central yard, cloak thrown back over one shoulder, his boots still dark with blood and ash.

Varrik approached with a quiet nod. "The Watch is secure. Prisoners branded, gates sealed."

Kaelric stood beside him, arms crossed. "They'll be talking about this by dawn from the coast to the capital."

Gavren and the other mages watched from a distance, their eyes shadowed. The toll of battle had not touched them like steel had but even they looked altered. Changed.

Rell arrived next, wiping blood from his bracers. "The Baron's still breathing, hanging from his cage like rotten fruit. I've placed guards, but truthfully, he'll last no more than a week."

Senjar looked up at the banner above the keep.

"Good," he said quietly.

Then, he climbed the old command platform overlooking the yard. The men gathered. Soldiers paused in their tasks. Officers stepped forward. Mages drew closer.

He didn't raise his voice.

"You have won more than a battle," Senjar said. "You've torn the spine from a province that thought us dogs in the dark."

He let that hang.

"The Baron marched to erase us. You broke him. His army lies beneath your boots. His castles now wait for our banners."

Kaelric's jaw tensed with grim satisfaction.

Senjar went on.

"But we do not rest. We do not bury our swords. We raise them higher."

He turned to the east.

"There are more lands. More thrones of stone still clinging to the old law of the Empire."

He pointed toward the far mountains.

"They will look west and see what we've done here. I want them to see fire, not smoke. Steel, not fear."

Then he turned back to his men.

"This night, we bury our dead. Tomorrow…"

A pause.

"We carve our name into every fortress and border from this valley to the governor's gates."

The soldiers shouted once low, hard, resolute.

The mages did not cheer. They stood still, but their silence was not resistance. It was tension. Poised power. Waiting.

Senjar looked to a soldier, who had just arrived on horseback. He held a scroll his decree, freshly written and sealed.

He took it, unrolled it, and read aloud:

"From this hour, all land and holdfasts of Baron Renault are stripped of Imperial claim. They fall under the command of Harkoraal. All towns, keeps, and roads held by his banners are now subject to our law. No tax shall leave this land for the Empire. No messenger may cross its border without permission of the Arl."

He stamped it with the wolf sigil.

"Post it," he told him. "And copy it. By nightfall, I want it in every tavern, gatepost, and church wall between Valmere and the Black Hills."

Then he looked to Kaelric.

"You take two thousand. Ride north west. Take the Baron's keeps before the news reaches them."

Kaelric nodded without hesitation. "Consider it done."

"Varrik," Senjar said next, "you take another two thousand. You'll sweep through the southern ridge and cut off every road that leads to Tavrin and Doresh. Take Rasa and Kirel with you. I want fire on the horizon."

Varrik grinned. "With pleasure, Arl."

Senjar turned to Rell. "You'll remain here and fortify Valmere. Leave Olvar in command once it's secure."

Rell looked confused. "And you, Arl?"

Senjar stepped down from the platform and mounted his horse.

"I ride west," he said. "One thousand cavalry. Light, fast. We move before word can reach the capital. We make camp at the old border ridge. And then… we march toward Iskorith's heart."

The air tensed.

Kaelric said, ""Governor has thousands of men, you will be vulnerable there, Arl.""

Senjar looked up at the wolf banner again, then to the distant western hills.

"I know," he said. "And I am not going to confront him not now."

The north road forked through hills still scorched from last season's fires. Dust clung to every boot and cloak. Kaelric rode at the head of two thousand, his armor marked by the black wolf and his eyes cold as slate. Behind him marched the standard-bearers of Harkoraal, and beside him, Aelynne rode silent, her hood drawn, her hands never far from the water flasks at her side.

Branhall fell without blood.

The lord had fled the day before, his banner lowered in the dark. Only a scribe remained to offer the town's seal to Kaelric at the gate. A simple gesture. The townspeople lined the streets and did not speak.

Kaelric left two hundred to secure it, posted new laws on the town square walls, and burned the old tax scrolls before nightfall.

But Dros Morn would not kneel.

The fort stood atop a steep bluff, its walls of black stone and gate reinforced with steel. A keep with narrow towers overlooked the bridge that connected the northern roads. Inside, Lady Velisse, cousin to the fallen Baron Renault, had rallied three hundred retainers.

Kaelric sent word first.

A chance to surrender. To join under Harkoraal law. It was ignored.

He sent word again.

The response came in the form of a burning Harkoraal banner thrown from the battlements.

Kaelric waited until nightfall.

Then he turned to Aelynne.

"You said you could break them," he said.

"I said I could cripple them," she replied. "And I can."

That night, under a moonless sky, Aelynne crept to the edge of the bluff with three scouts and placed her hand to the stone above the fortress's inner cistern. Whispering in old tongues, she called the water still.

When morning came, the defenders of Dros Morn found their well frozen solid, ice cracking through the stone, their stores brittle and broken.

By midday, Kaelric's siege lines were in place.

By nightfall, they surrendered.

The gates opened, and Lady Velisse was dragged down in chains. She spat at Kaelric's boots and called him a bandit.

Kaelric made no reply. He ordered the commanders executed at dawn and the common soldiers disarmed and fed. The heads of the officers were placed on pikes at the fork of the northern roads, with a sign nailed beneath them:

"Justice by the Law of the Wolf."

Aelynne said nothing as she watched it done.

By the third day, Dros Morn flew Harkoraal's banner.

Kaelric wrote to Senjar with one phrase beneath the seal:

"North secured."

South of the Redwater Hills, where the land broke into long low valleys and forgotten farming towns, Varrik's banners moved beneath a rising sun.

Two thousand strong, his men wore worn cloaks and steel scarred by real use not polished for parades, but tested on real fields.

With them rode Rasa, and Kirel, the fire blooded mage, eyes burning brighter the closer they rode to their next conquest.

Their targets were twofold, Haveth's Reach, an old stone garrison once used to patrol the roads, and Greyledge, a merchant town turned minor stronghold under the old Baron's steward.

They began with Haveth's Reach.

It stood surrounded by broken fields, the outer palisade sagging, manned by no more than a hundred local armsmen and a few retired knights.

Varrik sent no message. No warning.

He let Kirel walk forward.

At dawn, the fire mage stood at the edge of the dry moat and raised both hands.

A roar sounded not from his mouth, but from the ground beneath the garrison. Flames erupted beneath the wall's base, dry roots and hidden rot catching like oil-soaked cloth. Within moments, a third of the outer wall had collapsed inwards.

Varrik gave the order.

His men moved like water fast, merciless. Within the hour, Haveth's Reach was his. No siege. No starvation. Just fire and steel.

He left a garrison of one hundred men and took the rest east toward Greyledge.

This one, he knew, would be different.

Greyledge had coin. Greyledge had walls. And Greyledge had a mage of its own.

A woman named Sira Talven, wind-bound, once a student at the Imperial College.

Gavren advised caution. "She'll see our lines coming a league off."

"She won't see me," Kirel said.

They reached Greyledge by dusk. Camped out of range, Varrik made no move for two days only false drills, broken camps, scattered patrols.

On the third night, Kirel disappeared into the dark.

He returned just before dawn, blood on his sleeve, a scorch on his shoulder.

"She's dead," he said simply.

Varrik raised an eyebrow. "Alone?"

"I didn't need help."

Then he turned, added as he walked away, "She had too much pride. Wind doesn't stop fire. It only spreads it."

Without their mage, the defenders at Greyledge broke quickly.

They surrendered on the fourth day. Varrik hanged the steward from the central square and left the merchants alive under the condition that they open their granaries and pay new taxes to Harkoraal.

He left a force behind to secure the town and its roads, then wrote to Senjar:

"South held. We await your word."