Chapter 44: “A An-Gidheamh, the Briar Ghoul”

They had been quite helpful over the course of the two weeks, and even though Torin remained vigilant, Elspeth seemed to have taken quite a liking to the place, even venturing through the area daily in what seemed to be wonder or interest.

Staring at the whole area, which was slowly coming alive, made Bramm’s heart swell with pride, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Just as he admired the scenery, he saw a group of warriors returning through the open gates, led by Keren. When they reached the cabins, the others split off, while Keren hurried toward Bramm.

’Something is wrong... he looks quite anxious,’ he noted as he saw Keren move with his brows furrowed.

"Tell me, what’s wrong?" Bramm asked as Keren reached him.

"We took our usual route, m’Lord, but there wasn’t a beast to be seen for two kilometers around us. It felt wrong, dead quiet... so we ventured deeper in, and that’s when we stumbled right into it."

He gave a quick, sharp salute, his voice dropping into a blunt, rapid beat.

"A proper bloody scrap between House Morvayn and House Draken. We kept our heads down, hid on site, and didn’t go near ’em. They were at it tooth and nail, bodies fallin’ left and right, and just when the whole mess was about to end...itshowed up."

Hearing him speak, Bramm tensed and glanced toward the horizon. That wasn’t a far distance for people like them, and if they were battling nearby, the fighting could spread their way, possibly dragging them into the conflict.

"What appeared?" His voice hardened.

"A An-Gidheamh, the Briar Ghoul" with frightened eyes, he began retelling the tale...

***

"We’d been out checkin’ our usual lines, expectin’ nothin’ but the quiet creak o’ the pines, when the air suddenly went foul. It wasn’t a scent; it was a heavy, chokin’ weight that pressed right against the ribs. Pure, raw Vitre, so thick it made the hair on my arms stand straight up. I threw a hand out, signallin’ the lads to drop low, and we crawled through the thick brush up to the lip of a moss-slick valley."

"The canopy didn’t just sway under the pressure above us—it was splinterin’..."

Down below, the whole damn forest was being torn to shreds. House Morvayn and House Draken had slammed together tooth and nail. It was like watchin’ a massive iron grindin’ machine collide head-on with a pack of rabid mountain wolves.

"Gods above," one of my men breathed beside me, his hand white on his hilt. I just gripped his shoulder, shushin’ him.

On the eastern slope, the Morvayn Guard were formin’ up, lockin’ their massive blue-and-white bulwark shields into the damp earth. Spikes at the base bit deep into the dirt, makin’ a wall of pure steel. Their High Sergeant was roaring over the din, his Vitre throbbing a dense, bruised Dark-Red that flowed right down into his heavy military pick.

"Hold the line! Advance like the mountain!" the High Sergeant screamed, his face twisted and manic.

Then came the storm. A hail of heavy recurve arrows whistled out from the dark trees, launched by the Draken Forest-Stalkers. Those bleedin’ shafts were superheated with Red-tier energy, hittin’ the Morvayn wall with the force of ballista bolts. Wood and iron groaned under the impact. Right in front of us, a stray shaft caught a Morvayn infantryman straight through his iron visor. His internal energy flared violently for one split second, blindin’ly bright, before goin’ completely dark. The lad collapsed backward into the mud like a felled oak.

"Break them! Tear ’em down!" came a savage voice from the opposite tree line.

Before the echo even died, the Draken Stalkers vaulted over the fallen logs. Ten Dark-Red Stalker-Leads were out in front, swingin’ hooked Draken-Glaives with a speed that made my stomach turn. They didn’t bother with lines. They moved like vipers through the undergrowth, their internal power pushing their legs to superhuman limits as they leaped directly onto the Morvayn shields.

One of the Draken leads slammed his hooked blade right over the top of a bulwark, catchin’ an infantryman by the throat-guard and yankin’ him forcefully out of the formation. The poor bastard lost his footing, and before he could even blink, three more Draken blades hacked downward, tearin’ through his chainmail and paintin’ the green moss a sickenin’ crimson.

But the infantry of Morvayn didn’t panic. They responded with a chillin’, practiced thrust of broad-bladed spears from behind the shields. Five spears, backed by the explosive internal thrust of Red-tier Vitre, lunged through the gap, skewering two Draken attackers straight through their scale mail and throwing them back into the dirt with pierced lungs.

But the real terror was in the center of the valley. That’s where the earth was literally rupturin’ beneath the commanders.

A plume of blue feathers whipped through the air as a Morvayn High Warden—a proper Orange-tier captain—danced through the chaos. His white-and-gold armor looked pristine, and his longsword moved in a perfect, dazzling arc. Every step he took left cracked bedrock beneath his boots, his refined Vitre supercharging his perception until the whole battlefield looked like it was movin’ in slow motion for him.

A Draken regular lunged at him with an axe, and the Warden didn’t even look. He just pivoted slightly, his blade tracin’ a flawless crescent that severed the attacker’s arms at the elbows before a back-slash opened the man’s throat.

Suddenly, a suffocating, violent weight dropped onto the center of the clearing. The air turned heavy, tasting of ash and ozone.

Out of the shiftin’ smoke stepped a Draken Dread-Commander. Three massive, jagged crown-horns on his helmet caught the filtered sunlight, and his ragged mantle of resin-treated crimson wool whipped violently behind him. His Orange-tier Vitre burned thick and wild, actually fracturin’ the air around his blackened, spiked plate armor. In his heavy gauntlets, he held a massive, notched black-iron greatsword.

The two orange-tier titans locked eyes, their conflicting pressures collidin’ in the space between ’em, causin’ the low-hangin’ branches above to snap and wither from the sheer density of their energy.