The valley of the Stone-Fathers had endured conquest so many times that even the mountains seemed tired of remembering. The oldest dwarven tablets spoke of it as a cradle of stone, a place where the world’s bones lay close to the surface and sang when struck. In the age before crowns and councils, the valley had belonged to the first clans—miners and masons who believed the earth itself was alive and that to shape it was an act of reverence. Their halls had once rung with anvils and laughter, their banners thick with soot and pride.

  That age had ended in blood.

  Then came the frost giants during the era of the Split Moon, when the sky itself had cracked and spilled strange light across the world. They had torn the halls apart, dragging dwarves screaming into the snow, leaving behind shattered pillars and frozen corpses posed like obscene monuments. The giants were gone now too, driven back into the ice wastes or slain by heroes whose names no one remembered.

  And now—now the valley bore witness to something worse than either.

  They came without horns. Without songs. Without battle cries.

  They came in silence.

  A long, winding column crept through the valley like a black centipede, its body stretching from cliff to cliff, each segment marching in perfect, unnatural order. Darkly clad riders sat astride steeds that should not have lived—if they could still be called living at all. Grey, rotting flesh hung from exposed bone, sinew stretching and snapping with every step. Some mounts dragged a rear leg uselessly behind them yet did not falter. Others had no eyes left, only empty sockets from which leaked thin streams of black ichor that steamed faintly in the cold air.

  The riders wore armor blackened as if it had been buried for centuries and dug up again only moments before battle. Horned helms, skull-faced visors, and visages carved into mocking smiles hid whatever faces remained beneath. Many had their mouths sealed—rusted wire stitched through lips, strips of cracked leather bound tight across jaws, iron staples hammered through cheeks. Whether this was ritual, punishment, or necessity was impossible to tell. No voices rose from their ranks. No laughter. No curses.

  Only the sound of hooves. Chains. The creak of leather pulled too tight over dead flesh.

  Above them snapped a single banner: a sable shroud stitched with a dark crown shattered into six jagged pieces. The sigil twisted slightly in the wind, as if trying to pull itself free of the cloth. Those who knew its meaning felt a tightening in the chest merely by looking upon it.

  Malekith had come.

  At the heart of the procession rolled the carriage.

  It dwarfed all else around it—an obscene thing of ironwood reinforced with ribs of obsidian; its surface etched with crawling runes that bled dim violet light. Heavy chains wrapped its frame, not to restrain it, but to anchor something within. Each wheel groaned like a wounded animal as it ground over stone, leaving blackened tracks in the dirt behind it. The sound echoed off the valley walls, a low, ceaseless complaint that seemed to burrow into the skull.

  The beasts that drew it were nightmares given form. Reptilian horrors bred in the volcanic pits of Veskareth, their long bodies corded with muscle and scar tissue. Their scales were mottled red and pitch-black, many cracked and flaking as if burned from the inside. Yellow, fever-bright eyes rolled constantly in their sockets, never blinking. With every breath they exhaled a stench of burned meat, sulfur, and bile that fouled the air around them. Each step left behind a faint hiss as the ground beneath their claws smoked.

  Chains bit deep into their hides, but they did not resist. Whatever minds they once possessed had long since been broken.

  Inside the carriage, the world was quieter still.

  The walls were close, the ceiling low, every surface carved with sigils of binding and dominance. A faint violet glow pulsed in time with an unseen heartbeat, illuminating the figure seated at its center.

  Malekith sat upon a throne fashioned of bone and black glass, fragments fused together in shapes that suggested skulls without ever fully forming them. His posture was relaxed, almost contemplative, skeletal fingers steepled beneath his chin. His face was hidden behind a crown of twisted iron, barbed and asymmetrical, as if it had been torn from the ruins of a god’s helm and reforged without care for symmetry or comfort. From the darkness beneath it glimmered two faint points of cold, star-like light—eyes that had seen empires rise and rot.

  He was not alone.

  To one side sat Duke Bournere, elegant and composed, his armor engraved with thorned roses and curling script too fine to be orcish or human. His movements were precise, almost lazy, as he adjusted a silk glove along his forearm. He smelled faintly of oil and expensive incense, a deliberate contrast to the decay around him.

  Across from him loomed General Neera, beautiful in an odd sort of way, her crimson tabard still dark with fresh blood from the day before. She was at ease, hands resting lightly on the pommel of her weapon, eyes forward. Where Bournere was refinement, Neera was purpose—every line of her body shaped by war.

  Near the narrow window leaned Xavert.

  His robes were dark as pitch, layered and heavy, their hems whispering against the floor as he shifted his weight. A bronze veil masked the lower half of his gaunt face, etched with sigils meant to obscure expression and intent. His eyes, sharp and calculating, peered through the slit at the devastation beyond.

  “Everywhere I look,” he murmured at last, his voice low and measured, “there are corpses.”

  No one interrupted him.

  “Dwarves impaled on pikes,” Xavert continued. “Their mouths stuffed with stone, as if someone feared their words might linger. Heads mounted in parodies of honor guards. Cairns of skulls stacked carefully, deliberately… yet no pyres. No rites. No fire.”

  Bournere glanced toward the window without turning his head. “Do not mistake barbarism for a lack of intent,” he said lightly. “These savages prize terror over tradition.”

  Neera’s jaw tightened. “They send messages with their dead,” she said. “Just not to us.”

  Malekith’s fingers shifted, bone clicking softly against bone. “No,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “They speak to the mountain.”

  Xavert turned slightly. “The mountain?”

  “And the mountain listens.”

  The wagon slowed. The grinding of wheels ceased. Outside, the undead ranks halted as one, hooves stamping once before falling still.

  They had reached the gate.

  What remained of the dwarven keep loomed ahead—a vast stone maw carved into the mountainside, its ancient runes of endurance and defiance defaced with blood and crude orcish scrawls. The gates themselves were iron slabs shaped like a giant skull, cracked and dented from siege engines long past. They stood parted just wide enough to admit a procession, darkness yawning beyond.

  Six orcs stood guard, clad in mismatched plate and furs, jagged axes resting against their shoulders. Their eyes followed the undead with thinly veiled fear, fingers tightening around hafts. They had seen death before. This was something else.

  Then another stepped forward—larger, heavier, tusks yellowed and cracked, a slab of muscle that radiated authority earned through violence. Behind him lumbered something even larger: a barbarian of monstrous size, one shoulder bare despite the cold, his body wrapped in chains rather than armor. An axe dragged behind him, its blade gouging furrows in the dirt.

  The big orc spat. “What stinks?”

  “Death,” Asterok answered.

  His voice was flat, emotionless, as he dismounted from his rotting steed. Up close, he was even more unsettling—a towering figure of dead flesh and iron, one eye dull and necrotic, the other burning with cold, necromantic light. Rings of iron pierced his skin; chains looped through scars that had never healed.

  The orc’s gaze swept the column. “This ain’t no normal caravan.”

  “No,” Asterok said. “I bear Lord Malekith, for an audience with the one you call Warmonger.”

  The orc’s eyes flicked to the wagon. He squinted, then froze as his gaze met Xavert’s through the narrow obsidian slit. A shiver ran through him. He looked away too quickly.

  “Wasn’t told of no visitors,” he muttered.

  “You’ll tell him now,” Asterok replied, resting one massive hand on the haft of his axe.

  “The war king doesn’t meet strangers,” the orc said, forcing steel into his voice. “Not without summons.”

  Asterok stepped closer. Chains jingled softly. “Then find someone with a tongue who knows how to speak properly,” he said, “before I make soup of your bones.”

  Murder flashed in the orc’s eyes.

  Before it could turn into action, the ranks behind him parted.

  Shermongrin emerged like a shadow given flesh.

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  He wore a crown of feathers and smoke; his skin painted in sickly symbols that seemed to writhe when not directly observed. Serpent eyes regarded the scene with calm amusement. Red-stained guards flanked him; their armor etched with ritual cuts.

  “Enough, Grukuk,” Shermongrin said mildly. “We will not bar Malekith.”

  “You don’t command the gate,” Grukuk snarled. “You ain’t war king.”

  Shermongrin smiled.

  “Quite right.”

  One of his guards stepped forward—a red-skinned brute with a scar like a shattered star across his face. He drew a cleaver too heavy for most men to lift.

  The blade punched through Grukuk’s gut before he could draw breath.

  Lifted from his feet, the orc stared down at the weapon protruding from him, mouth working silently as blood poured out. He was cast aside like refuse, body hitting the ground with a wet thud.

  The guard wiped his blade on his leathers and returned to position.

  “As I was saying,” Shermongrin continued smoothly, “please proceed into the courtyard. I will alert Warmonger.”

  Asterok remounted. “Waste of breath,” he muttered.

  The gates groaned wider.

  Inside the wagon, Xavert watched the corpse cooling in the dirt. “Brutes,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  “Yes,” Malekith replied, “but they have their uses.”

  “Hard to unite creatures who only understand rage,” Bournere said.

  “And yet,” Malekith answered softly, “this Warmonger has done just that. He does not lash out blindly. He chooses his battles. He strikes only when the blow cuts deepest.”

  Neera leaned forward. “You believe he could be guided?”

  Malekith’s eyes gleamed. “Guided? No. Unleashed, perhaps.”

  The drums began.

  Low. Slow. Measured.

  The keep swallowed them, darkness closing in as stone corridors echoed with the sound of something ancient waking beneath the mountain.

  Malekith leaned forward upon his throne, the light from his eyes glinting like distant stars behind storm clouds.

  “Let us meet the beast,” he whispered, “and see its intentions.”

  The corridor widened into a cavernous hall whose ceiling vanished into shadow. Ancient dwarven pillars lined the space, many cracked or deliberately defaced, their carved ancestors hammered smooth or gouged out entirely. Braziers burned along the walls—not with fire, but with a dull, red glow like embers smothered beneath ash. The air was thick with smoke, sweat, and old blood.

  At the far end rose a dais of broken stone.

  And upon it stood Warmonger.

  He was larger than any orc Malekith had seen since the days when the world still bled gods. Not merely tall, but broad—a living engine of muscle and scar tissue, his presence bending the space around him. His armor was a brutal assemblage of bone, iron, and scavenged plate, hammered together without concern for symmetry or ornament. A massive obsidian blade rested point-down before him, both hands folded atop its pommel as if the sword itself were a throne.

  One eye burned green.

  The other burned red.

  The glow was not torchlight or reflection. It came from within him.

  Around the hall gathered his lieutenants—orc warlords, chained beasts, scarred champions bearing trophies taken from dwarves, men, elves, and worse. Drums had fallen silent now. Every gaze fixed upon the newcomers.

  Warmonger did not move.

  The procession halted at the foot of the dais. Several guards stepped forth barring their way. One got too close to the mighty barbarian and Asterok responded the only way he ever did. He snatched up the offending orc by the throat snapping its neck and tossing it to the side.

  The room flew into an uproar; weapons were drawn and raised with intention. Several orcs started towards the visitors.

  But the laughter coming from the throne stopped all movement. It was loud and deep, with a hint of sarcasm in it.

  The temperature in the hall dropped.

  Warmonger’s lips pulled back slightly, exposing tusks stained dark.

  “So,” he rumbled, his voice low enough to make the pillars tremble, “the dead king seeks an audience.”

  A murmur rippled through the hall. Several orcs shifted uneasily. Others grinned.

  Malekith inclined his head—just enough to acknowledge, not enough to submit.

  Warmonger laughed once, a short bark of sound. “You stink of graves and old lies. Why come here?”

  Xavert stepped forward half a pace, then stopped. He felt it immediately—the pressure. Warmonger’s gaze snapped to him, pinning him in place like an insect beneath a blade.

  Malekith raised one skeletal hand.

  “I come,” he said, “because the world is moving again. And when it moves, it breaks those who stand alone.”

  Warmonger’s grip tightened on his sword. The obsidian blade sang faintly, a hungry sound that made several undead mounts recoil outside the hall.

  “I stand alone just fine,” Warmonger said. “Your kind always needs armies. Schemes. Chains.”

  Asterok snorted softly.

  Neera’s hand drifted closer to her weapon.

  Malekith smiled beneath his iron crown.

  “You misunderstand,” he said. “I do not come to chain you.”

  Warmonger stepped down from the dais.

  Each footfall shook the stone. He stopped only a few strides from Malekith, towering over him. The heat radiating from the orc was intense, like a forge left open too long.

  “You think I don’t know your name?” Warmonger growled. “I’ve heard the old stories. Bone throne. Black crown. Gods bleeding in the dirt behind you.”

  “Stories rot,” Malekith replied. “Truth endures.”

  Warmonger’s mismatched eyes narrowed. “Then speak truth.”

  Malekith’s voice softened.

  “The gods fear you.”

  A silence fell so deep it felt unnatural.

  Warmonger stared at him.

  Then he laughed again—longer this time. “You lie.”

  “No,” Malekith said. “They fear what you are becoming.”

  The obsidian sword throbbed.

  Warmonger’s jaw clenched. “Say what you mean.”

  “You are not like the others,” Malekith continued, unflinching. “You do not burn villages for sport. You break armies. You move your hordes with purpose. You learn.”

  Warmonger circled him slowly, boots scraping stone. “Careful, dead king. Your flattery falls flat.”

  “I flatter like a king,” Malekith corrected. “One who sees another.”

  Warmonger stopped behind him.

  For a moment, many thought Malekith would be struck down where he stood.

  Instead, Warmonger spoke quietly.

  “They call me monster.”

  “They called me worse,” Malekith replied.

  Warmonger exhaled slowly. “What do you want?”

  Malekith turned.

  “I want the heavens to bleed,” he said. “And I believe you may enjoy watching them fall.”

  The red eye brightened.

  The green eye dimmed slightly.

  Warmonger studied him for a long time.

  Finally, he turned and ascended the dais once more, placing a massive hand on the obsidian blade.

  “Sit,” he said.

  Malekith did not hesitate.

  As the lich king mounted the dais beside the orc warlord, the mountain itself seemed to listen—stone straining to hear words that would decide the fate of realms.

  Warmonger leaned forward.

  “Speak,” he said. “But know this—if I smell chains in your words, I will tear you apart and feed what remains to my beasts.”

  Malekith’s eyes glimmered.

  “I would expect nothing less,” he said softly. “From a king who has not yet realized he is one.”

  The Lich-King stood motionless upon the blood-slicked stone, hollow eyes burning faintly beneath his iron crown, his presence pressing outward like winter creeping into bone. Power rolled off him in slow, measured waves—ancient power, layered and deliberate, sharpened by centuries of cruelty and patience. It was not wild sorcery. It was the kind of power that endured.

  Warmonger felt it in his tusks.

  A tingling.

  A warning.

  He said nothing at first.

  Instead, he studied Malekith as one might study a blade laid upon a table—judging its balance, its weight, the damage it might do if turned against him.

  Could he kill this thing?

  Could muscle and fury tear down magic honed across deathless ages?

  The question crept through the back of Warmonger’s mind like frost spreading through stone.

  He had killed kings—men crowned in gold, dwarves armored in star-steel, generals who had sworn oaths to banners older than his people’s memory. He had crushed priests beneath his boots while they begged their gods to answer them.

  None ever had.

  But this was different.

  When Warmonger finally spoke again, his voice was low and even, the sound of a beast choosing whether to strike.

  “What task do you bring me, dead king?”

  Malekith inclined his head, the barest gesture of acknowledgement—courtly, restrained. When he spoke, his voice rasped softly from lungs that had not drawn breath in centuries.

  “I seek what was stolen from me,” he said. “An artifact now being sought out by fools. I would have you provide motivation to find it. And when they do, destroy them. Reclaim what is mine.”

  Warmonger’s lip curled. “You would have my horde chase shadows?”

  His gaze hardened. “Is this thing worth the blood of my kin?”

  Malekith’s eyes brightened, shadow light pulsing within their depths.

  “It is,” he said without hesitation. “I would see thousands burn to reclaim it. With those shards and crown returned to my hand, I will tear the sky apart. Cities will fall. Emperors will die screaming on their own marble steps, and the heavens themselves will know fear."

  Then his gaze fixed on Warmonger.

  “And to you, War king, I offer a kingdom—one no god or man may take from you. A realm where your kind rules in blood and fire for all time.”

  Warmonger laughed.

  The sound rolled through the tent, deep and guttural, echoing off bone and iron.

  “A generous promise,” he said. “But look around you.”

  He swept one massive arm toward the tent’s open flank, where the valley beyond burned beneath orc banners and the charred bones of imperial camps.

  “I am already carving my kingdom from the corpse of this Empire.”

  Malekith chuckled softly, the sound dry as old parchment.

  “Yes,” he said. “But for how long?”

  He stepped closer.

  “A month? Two? Even now your enemies stir. Emperor Gregor gathers his legions. His mages read the stars. Your name is spoken in council chambers and prayer halls alike. Without me, you will be hunted, driven back to the swamps, your bones left to rot in a forgotten field.”

  Warmonger’s fingers crushed into the throne’s armrests. Wood splintered. Iron screamed.

  He reached out and rested a massive hand upon the severed head of King Hramnor, mounted beside his seat—its beard stiff with dried blood, its eyes long gone.

  “You think this is the only king I’ll take?” Warmonger growled. “I will sit the Emperor’s throne in blackened armor and drown his court in blood.”

  A measured voice cut in.

  “A noble ambition,” Duke Bournere said, stepping forward, his fine cloak swaying across the gore-slick floor. “But my cousin is not so easily undone. He will ride himself when the time comes—steel in hand, mages at his side. And you may find the battle less one-sided than you hope.”

  Warmonger rose.

  The air shifted.

  Every greenskin in the tent stiffened as if struck by the same thought. Hands tightened on hilts. Tusks bared. The drums of blood beat once more.

  But then—

  Do not.

  The voice slid into Warmonger’s mind like a blade wrapped in silk.

  Ar’Sul.

  Not yet, War king. This is their game. You are not ready to strike down the Lich. Learn. Endure. When the hour comes, then they will understand their mistake.

  Warmonger’s jaw flexed.

  He breathed in.

  Breathed out.

  Then he turned back to Malekith.

  “We will do as you ask,” he said, the words spat like iron. “When this group sets off, I will shadow them. I will reclaim your trinket.”

  His gaze snapped to Bournere. “And when I return, human, I will carve your cousin’s skull into a wine cup.”

  Malekith nodded, satisfied. “I will notify you when the time comes.”

  He turned to leave, his cloak trailing like a living shadow. Xavert followed. Neera. Bournere.

  As they passed the threshold, Malekith murmured to the silent figure beside him—Asterok.

  “Watch him. He will turn. The shaman loathes him. That one is our key.”

  Asterok gave no reply, but his burning eyes flickered once.

  When the visitors were gone, the tension snapped.

  Shermongrin approached the throne cautiously, robes dragging through blood and ash. “We should heed the Dark King,” he muttered. “He is not a power to—”

  Warmonger’s fist struck him mid-word.

  The blow thundered through the tent. Shermongrin crashed to the ground, teeth skittering across stone.

  “How dare you bring strangers into my hall without my leave!” Warmonger roared.

  A bodyguard leaned close, whispering urgently.

  Warmonger’s head turned slowly.

  “Who killed one of my chosen?” he asked.

  Shermongrin looked up, bloodied, terror breaking through his painted calm.

  Brutuks stepped forward. “I did, Warchief. He dishonored your name.”

  Silence fell.

  Warmonger moved.

  He seized Ar’Sul and buried it deep into Brutuks’ belly. The orc staggered. Warmonger grabbed his tusks, twisted, and tore his head free in one brutal motion.

  Blood rained across the floor.

  “Let this be the price of insubordination!” Warmonger roared. “You are mine!”

  He cast the head at Shermongrin’s feet.

  The shaman stared at it, trembling—obedience masking hatred.

  Warmonger sat once more upon his throne.

  His kingdom of blood was far from complete.

  And his war had only just begun.