The horn blew once — long, low, and heavy enough to rattle dust from the beams above.
A summons, not an alarm.
Not yet.

By now, pale daylight had crept across the ramparts. The blizzard had passed, leaving a gray sun suspended over the Bastion and its wind-swept fields. From the battlements, the land looked endless — a patchwork of snow, pine, and frostbitten earth stretching all the way to the faint shimmer of the frozen bay.

The new arrivals were gathered alongside a handful of veteran soldiers near the western wall. Armor clinked, boots stamped against the stones, and breaths came out in pale plumes. Among them, Captain Varn was barking orders in a voice that could’ve cracked ice.

> [color=#8b8b8b]“Archers to the left flank! Keep your lines tight! You’re not shooting crows today!”[/color]



He turned when he spotted the newcomers approaching — Rachel with her faint air of reverence, Bromann at her side, Axol’s massive blade gleaming dully on his shoulder, Andrea’s cloak stirring like ink in the wind, and the mechanical Ironbelle trailing Curly with a hiss of steam.

> [color=#8b8b8b]“Ah. The volunteers.”[/color]
He spat over the side, then nodded toward the parapet.
[color=#8b8b8b]“You wanted to earn your bread, did you? Come have a look.”[/color]



The soldiers shifted to let them through. Beyond the wall, the view opened — a frozen valley of muted white and gray, dotted by pines and the ruins of a few old farmhouses. For a heartbeat, it seemed calm.

Then, something moved.

It began as a ripple through the snow — far out, halfway between the treeline and the bay. The motion spread like a wave as the wind lifted, sending thin sheets of ice tumbling across the plain.

> [color=#5c7085]“By the gods…”[/color] murmured one of the guards, voice tight.



Shapes began to emerge from the haze. Not men, not beasts in any familiar sense.

The first were Ironfangs — bear-sized lupine creatures with jagged plates of frozen metal fused into their hides, their breath steaming through serrated maws. Behind them lumbered a Skrynn, a bipedal monster with the body of a stag and the face of a skull, antlers blackened and dripping frost like tar. It moved with a terrible, deliberate grace, each step leaving cracks in the ground.

Worse still were the smaller things — dozens, maybe hundreds, of hunched figures skittering through the snow on too many limbs. They moved in bursts, like insects trying to mimic wolves, their hides pale enough to vanish until they were nearly at the wall’s shadow.

[color=#8b8b8b]“Saints preserve us…”[/color] whispered a soldier.
[color=#8b8b8b]“That’s not a hunting pack.”[/color]
[color=#8b8b8b]“No.”[/color] Varn’s voice had gone low, grim. [color=#8b8b8b]“That’s a migration.”[/color]



The horn sounded again — two short blasts this time. The wordless message carried down into the keep: Form the line.

From the gatehouse, Lord Roderic strode out, cloak snapping in the wind. His expression was stone, but his eyes were sharp as cut glass.

[color=#5c7085]“You see them now,”[/color] he said quietly, as if to himself, before addressing the gathered group.
[color=#5c7085]“We’ve sighted a horde coming from the west. They’ll reach the lower fields by nightfall, sooner if they’re driven.”[/color]



His gaze lingered briefly on the new arrivals — weighing, calculating.

[color=#5c7085]“I’ll not ask untested strangers to stand the first wall. But I will ask for eyes and steel where mine can’t be.”[/color]



He pointed toward the valley below, where the faint dark line of the old watch road cut between the drifts.

[color=#5c7085]“There’s an outpost halfway down that ridge. Our scouts were meant to return from it two days ago. I need to know what happened to them — and if that road still holds.”[/color]



Captain Varn grunted.

 [color=#8b8b8b]“You’ll want to move quick. The things down there hunt by vibration. If the snow goes still, they’ll hear your heartbeat.”[/color]



A silence hung after that, broken only by the groan of the wind and the faint, distant shriek of one of the Ironfangs below.

The monsters were still a mile out, but the ground already trembled under their weight.