While Baronsworth scoured the upper levels of the fortress, climbing ever closer to his fated reckoning with Garathor, below, the battle for the Sunkeep raged on.

  The Sons of Belial had breached the great doors of the main hall—massive timbers now splintered and hanging askew—and their dark ranks poured through in waves.

  Yet within, the defenders stood against the tide of darkness—defiant, unbroken.

  Veterans all, they fought with the poise of men long tempered by war.

  Under the command of Alexander and Siegfried, Gryphons and Asturians fought as one—no longer two companies, but a single brotherhood forged in fire, their movements seamless, their trust absolute.

  The enemy’s numbers swelled ceaselessly as more of the black-armored host surged in from the city streets.

  Still, the defenders had chosen their ground well.

  Here, at the heart of the ancestral keep, they held the high ground and forced the foe into a narrow choke-point.

  Every man among them had faced desperate odds before; every man understood the grim art of surviving them.

  Tonight would be no different.

  The line had fallen back a few paces when the doors finally gave way.

  There the Golden Gryphons braced in the vanguard, shields locked edge to edge, a bulwark of unyielding bronze.

  Behind them, the ancient line of Asturian halberds stood renewed after long silence, each polearm anchored firm as stone.

  Swordsmen interspersed among them waited, blades poised, ready to cut down any who slipped through the forest of steel.

  Together they formed a half-moon—a snare of courage, inviting death only to devour it.

  The Sons of Belial charged headlong, fearless and savage.

  They slammed against the wall of shields with bone-jarring force, hacking and thrusting with brutal ferocity.

  But the Gryphons did not yield.

  From behind their defense, the halberds struck out with pitiless rhythm—thrust, withdraw, thrust again—each blow felling a foe.

  The entryway became a slaughter-ground.

  Men funneled in to die, their bodies piling high where they fell, until the stones themselves ran red.

  Still, the enemy pressed on.

  They always did.

  Karl had a name for such places: “the meat-grinder.”

  A strip of earth—or stone—where men marched in living and left in pieces, where blood became a river and death the only constant.

  Above, Alexander’s rangers manned the grand stair and upper galleries, steelbows whispering death into the press below.

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  Through the narrow slits they struck down those massing in the courtyard beyond.

  Their quivers never emptied; the armory had seen to that.

  And at their heart stood Gil’Galion, fierce and tireless, his bow a living star in his hands.

  Arrow after arrow of light leapt from his string, each one finding its mark, each one severing another thread of darkness pressing in.

  The Sons of Belial began to falter.

  They were bred for shock and terror, famed for their brutal charges that crushed foes beneath sheer weight and savagery.

  Yet here, their might availed them nothing.

  The harder they hurled themselves upon the wall of shields and halberds, the more they broke upon it—like waves shattering on a cliff of men.

  “You see? Numbers mean nothing against true courage!” Karl roared, driving his spear clean through an enemy’s throat and tearing it free.

  “Courage—and discipline,” Fredrick answered grimly, his fiery blade cutting through blackened mail as through wax.

  On the left flank, the two held firm, their presence a rallying point for every man near.

  On the right, Siegfried stood like an oak in a storm, his sword Mercy scything down foes without pause, showing little of the virtue for which it was named.

  And in the center, Alexander himself fought at the fore, his halberd rising and falling in tireless rhythm, every thrust claiming another life, every word of command spurring his men to greater fury.

  The Sons of Belial died in droves.

  For every man that fell, another stepped forward—and fell just as swiftly.

  Still the defenders held, their confidence swelling with each failed assault, until, in that strange crucible of blood and brotherhood, they felt themselves unbreakable.

  At last, the enemy hesitated.

  The relentless tide slackened, then drew back, leaving the threshold choked with their dead.

  The Gryphons struck their shields in unison, a thunderous rhythm that shook the hall.

  Asturians joined them, voices rising in the war-songs of their fathers, fierce and defiant.

  Alexander tore off his helm and strode to the fore.

  Standing tall, arms spread wide in challenge, his voice rang like a clarion:

  “Is this all? Is this the vaunted might of the Sons of Belial? I am not impressed! Lay down your arms now—and perhaps we’ll spare you!”

  For a long moment, the Sons of Belial stood silent beyond the threshold, the defenders’ chanting and shield-thunder rolling through the hall like thunder.

  Then, the storm broke.

  From the enemy ranks came a new force—larger, darker, more terrible than any before.

  They strode forth in black iron, faces hidden behind visors, weapons like instruments of execution: greatswords, axes broad as doors, hammers heavy enough to break stone.

  Belial’s Chosen.

  Hand-picked by Garathor himself, these were the elite of his legions—warriors forged for carnage, trained to destroy no matter the cost.

  And now they came on in a frenzy of howling rage.

  The first impact was like a battering ram.

  Their charge smashed into the front line, and the hall erupted.

  Shields splintered; men staggered, driven back step by step.

  Gaps tore in the wall of steel, and through them the Chosen surged, shattering halberds, cleaving men down with monstrous strength.

  The threshold became a killing ground once more.

  “Hold! Fight on! Give them nothing!” Alexander’s voice cut through the uproar as he fought in the very center, refusing to yield an inch.

  Disarmed Gryphons and Asturians drew their swords, forced to meet the Chosen at close quarters, where brute power reigned.

  Every man knew the legends.

  Belial’s Chosen were dreaded across the world—warriors whose charge could break any line, whose blades had shattered cavalry on the open field.

  And now they threatened to do so here.

  Yet Alexander stood unbroken.

  His halberd moved with a grace that defied the fury around him.

  Where the Chosen were iron and wrath, he was water and steel.

  He turned aside blows that could have crushed a man outright, flowing with their force, twisting it back against them.

  A low sweep felled a charging brute; the follow-through impaled him where he lay.

  Another came with an overhead cleave—Alexander turned it aside, stepped within the arc, and with one clean motion opened the man’s throat.

  Again and again he wove death in the storm, untouchable, unstoppable.

  And his men, seeing him, fought all the harder.

  But the fight had become a brutal grind, chaos and blood on every side.

  Both armies paid dearly in lives for every scrap of ground.

  Above, Gil’Galion turned his bow inward, loosing shafts into the mass pouring through the breach.

  The rangers followed suit, steelbows humming as they felled foe after foe.

  Still the black tide surged, climbing over the mounting heap of dead at the gates.

  And in the heart of it, Alexander fought on—calm as a rock in the flood, but with a single thought burning beneath the steel and blood:

  Baronsworth… end this. Or we are all lost.

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