Chapter 14 – Blood in the Pines
Snowfall came early.
The northern pines stood tall and silent under the weight of it, muffling the distant clash of steel and the death-cries of men. A soft white shroud stretched over the churned mud and trampled brush, thinly veiling the violence that unfolded beneath. Where once the Greywatch had been the border, Lorien's forces now pressed into Vokari lands, and with each league gained, the resistance grew more savage.
Lady Sera of Thornvale stood atop a ridge flanked by two of her militia captains. Her breath steamed in the air as she looked down into the ravine where the Vokari counter-ambush had been sprung. Crimson stains already seeped through the snow.
"Their scouts are adapting," she said quietly. "They're learning our rhythm."
"Still too little, too late," muttered Kael, who approached behind her, huddled beneath a black-fur mantle. "The Vanguard crushed them in under an hour."
"But it cost us." Sera pointed. "Two dozen dead. Rhyven's second nearly lost a leg. If this keeps up, the price will climb."
Kael frowned and said nothing more. Snowflakes gathered in his beard as he followed her back toward the makeshift command post—a ring of low palisades at the clearing's edge. Fires burned in steel braziers, guarded by soldiers in damp cloaks, all faces drawn with exhaustion. Four days past the Greywatch, and the cost of momentum was beginning to weigh on them.
At the center of the camp stood Lorien.
He was bent over a war-table, a cloth map spread wide, with sharpened pines marking key positions: their current forward camp, the hill-fort of Korav's Spine to the west, the Vokari war paths threading between them like veins. Emberborn markers—jet-black tokens—were placed at three points: confirmed enemy concentrations.
"You're late," Lorien said without looking up.
"Delayed by another ambush," Sera replied. "They're starting to pull in loose clans. Fighting with more coordination."
Lorien nodded. "Which means Korav's Spine will not hold alone. We strike before they merge their warbands."
Kael shifted. "We'll have one shot. If they reinforce Korav's Spine, we lose the initiative. And if we overextend…"
"They'll bleed us in the woods." Sera finished grimly.
Lorien raised his head. "Then we won't overextend. We draw them out."
He moved a pine marker toward a narrow pass east of Korav's Spine.
"Here. Emberborn call it the Hollow Way. Rocky trail through a defile, easily fortified. We feint a march toward their high camp. Make it look sloppy, desperate. They'll send their fastest clans to flank us."
"And walk right into an ambush," Sera said, smiling faintly.
Lorien looked to Kael. "Write the orders. Rhyven leads the bait column. The Emberborn will guide his flanking units. I want the pass prepared by dusk."
Kael gave a brisk nod and vanished into the tent.
Sera remained. "You trust them a great deal."
"I do."
"And if they fall?"
"They won't."
---
That night, the Hollow Way became a killing ground.
Rhyven's column marched under torchlight, loud and slow—deliberate bait. Emberborn moved ahead unseen, silent as frost, carving paths through the upper ridgelines. The Vokari came as predicted: two clans worth of painted raiders, descending through the narrow defile with screams and bone-clubs raised.
But the pass had already been fortified. Palisades waited beneath tarps. Stakes buried in snow. And from the heights, Lorien's bowmen unleashed ruin.
The screams turned to confusion, then to slaughter. Snow ran red and black.
Rhyven charged the rear with a hammering wall of shields, while Emberborn assassins emerged from shadow to strike the rear ranks. In the span of fifteen minutes, the ambush had become a rout.
Sera watched it unfold from a vantage above the pass, jaw clenched.
"Still think they're adapting?" Kael murmured beside her.
She said nothing.
---
By morning, the hill-fort of Korav's Spine stood ringed in siege lines.
Lorien had not waited. Even as scouts cleared the remnants of the night's ambush, he had pressed forward—staking a perimeter and calling for siege ladders, sappers, and engineers.
The fort itself was cruder than any Wesidian bastion—wooden walls reinforced by ice-packed mud, high atop a narrow ridgeline—but its defenders were fierce. Vokari warhorns sounded at irregular intervals, unnerving howls echoing through the pines. Painted figures manned the parapets with bows and fire-jars.
"They'll try a night assault," Rhyven warned as he joined Lorien at the foot of the ridge.
"They'll try everything," Lorien replied. "But they won't break us."
His gaze shifted to the Emberborn, who stood apart beneath the trees—twelve of them, including Sarin Vale, their captain. She said nothing, merely nodded once as Lorien caught her eye.
"Take the western bluff," he ordered. "There's a narrow game trail. Clear it. I want their scouts blind by sundown."
Sarin vanished into the forest.
---
The siege began not with fire, but with silence.
A creeping tension as men dug trenches, erected barricades, and positioned ladders. Snow fell thicker now, muting the world. Lorien spent hours moving between lines, speaking little, ensuring morale held.
On the second night, the Vokari attacked.
They came screaming from the treeline, torches in hand. But they found no chaos—only a wall of Wesidian discipline. Arrows broke their charge. Pikes shattered their formation. Emberborn struck the rear in silence.
Come dawn, the ridge was littered with corpses.
Sera stood beside Lorien as the sun rose, its red light turning the snow to fire.
"They'll know, now," she said. "The Greywatch wasn't a raid. It was a crossing."
Lorien said nothing.
Instead, he turned to Kael.
"Write a report to Vesdil. Let the Council know: Korav's Spine will fall within the week."
"And after that?"
"We burn a path straight through the Vokari heartland."
---
Far to the south, the Imperial Council would soon read the words.
But their reaction? That would be its own battlefield.