Chapter 8 – The Crimson Ditch
The first horns rose before dawn.
A bleak, guttural tone, low and drawn, rolled over the icy ridge east of Stonehollow Ridge like a wounded beast crawling from its den. Lorien, perched atop the frost-laced palisade, didn't flinch. He had been awake long before the horns began.
"They want us rattled," said Captain Veller, one of the original survivors of Blackhold's reclamation. His breath ghosted in the cold. "Woke my men with those damned things two days ago too. Never attacked. Just noise."
Lorien said nothing. His eyes narrowed, fixed on the fog-choked tree line that veiled the broken terrain below. The scouts had already returned hours prior. Three warbands. Over a thousand strong, all bearing the red markings of the Hrothak—barbarians who'd once roamed the northern wetlands before the cataclysm. They had not been seen unified in decades.
Now they came under one banner. Not to raid, but to siege.
The ash-grey clouds overhead stirred as if sensing the tension. Behind Lorien, the fortress of Stonehollow Ridge groaned under its own weight—its wooden beams old but well repaired, its walls reinforced over the past month by hundreds of laborers under Lorien's direct oversight.
The Ashen Vanguard stood ready.
Down below, the first enemy scouts crested a bluff, their furs drenched with last night's meltwater. Lorien recognized the armaments—rusted iron blades, jagged spears, and bone-stitched shields. He also noticed something newer: coordination. One scout whistled and gestured not back toward their own, but to the north, where the Emberborn had reported a second warband preparing to flank.
They had returned from their mission three nights ago. Silent as wraiths, not a man lost. Their captain had knelt before Lorien and laid down the ink-stained hides taken from the chieftain's yurt—battle plans, clan symbols, and blood-oaths scrawled in ancient dialects. The tribes were uniting.
But no noble hand guided this. No southern coin had crossed into the Ashen Marches. This was something older. A memory of vengeance stitched into the skin of those who had once ruled these hills.
Lorien turned from the wall and spoke to his commanders, each now gathered beneath the crimson banner of the Vanguard.
"Hold the ridge until they commit. Then let them bleed in the ditch."
The Crimson Ditch had not existed two weeks prior. Lorien had ordered it carved—a deceptive dip, wide and shallow, that wound through the approach like a broken serpent. Spiked stakes waited beneath the snow cover, and shallow side tunnels had been dug by sappers to allow Vanguard units to rise behind the trapped.
Captain Elar, the Emberborn commander, had advised against it.
"They won't fall for such open terrain," he'd warned. "The Hrothak may be savages, but they know earth."
"They'll charge it," Lorien had replied, "because they think we're arrogant. They've fought lazy governors and drunken border lords. They've never fought me."
Now, the ground trembled as the first true wave began its charge.
They came in two columns. No drums. No banners. Just snarls and the clatter of makeshift arms. The lead warband descended the southern slope like a herd loosed from its pen. Their painted faces blurred in the sleet. Spears glinted, and Lorien watched for the sign.
A single arrow loosed from a Vanguard archer struck the ridge wall—intentional.
The command was given.
And the ditch swallowed them.
The front lines dropped screaming, impaled on frozen stakes. The second wave stumbled, crashing into the dying. Dozens fell before the warband even understood. From behind hidden sallyports along the ridge's base, Ashen Vanguard squads emerged like smoke. They moved in silence, blades low, formation tight. Lorien had drilled them for this—no loose formations, no shouts, only kill.
The Vanguard moved with terrifying precision. Where the barbarians roared and flailed, they struck—throat, knee, gut—then withdrew. Shields turned back spear thrusts. Axes met armor and rang like bells.
From the northern ridge, the Emberborn struck.
They emerged in the flanks, descending like shadows from the crags. Not a single war cry escaped them. They bore no banners, only black armor and curved knives that flicked in and out of vision. The Hrothak did not see them until it was too late.
One Emberborn squad circled a banner-carrier—a hulking brute with twin maces—and hamstrung him from three angles. Another drove the enemy skirmishers back into the ditch, where they drowned in their own blood.
Above it all, Lorien watched.
Stonehollow Ridge held. The enemy was breaking.
By midmorning, the battle had shifted.
The Hrothak, bloodied and screaming, fell back beyond the tree line. Vanguard archers peppered their retreat with precise volleys. Lorien gave no order to pursue. He had learned in his first campaign to never chase a retreat into woodland without control. Instead, he issued a different command.
"Burn the dead. Bury our own. Prepare the second ditch."
Captain Veller stepped forward, eyes gleaming. "A full retreat?"
"No," Lorien said coldly. "A regroup. They'll be back. This was a test."
Veller spat into the snow. "Then they failed."
Lorien looked north, beyond the smoke curling into the winter sky.
"No," he murmured. "They learned something."
By dusk, the battlefield had become a charred memory. Ash pits where corpses had been. Vanguard soldiers stacked shields in careful rows, repaired buckles, treated frostbite and bruises. Inside the war hall of Stonehollow, Lorien stood before the war table.
The Emberborn captain placed new parchments down—freshly sketched.
"They circled north after the retreat," he said. "Three scouts overheard mention of a 'chieftain of bones.' It's a title used only once in the old records. Before the Cataclysm."
Lorien's eyes narrowed. "Which means?"
"They're not uniting by accident. Someone is gathering them using ancient blood-rights. Likely from the northernmost provinces—beyond even the old maps."
"Another warlord?"
"No," the captain said grimly. "Something worse. A survivor of the old tribes, from before Wesid's conquest."
Silence fell.
Later that night, Lorien stood alone on the battlements.
Below, the campfires of his men flickered, undimmed by wind. The Ashen Vanguard had held. The Emberborn had returned unscathed. The enemy was bloodied, but alive.
And somewhere beyond the snow-choked peaks, an ancient war stirred.
He had no aid from the capital. No sanction from the Council. No noble house would send reinforcements—not here. Not to the Ashen Marches.
But Lorien smiled anyway.
He did not need their permission to win.
He needed only time.
And his enemies would bleed until they gave it to him.