The sky was no longer a canopy of light; instead, deep veins of orange and crimson bled across the horizon, casting a ghostly glow over a battlefield that had lost its purity. Beneath Chinua's horse, the earth was no longer soil, but a slick mire of mud and the broken forms of her own vanguard—the brave men who had been the first to taste the Paayasian steel.
Chinua felt the biting chill of the approaching night. She knew that as the gray shadows lengthened, her window was closing. If the North Gate did not shatter within the hour, the darkness would swallow her tactical advantage. Jeet, Zhi, and Khawn would be forced to retreat into a defensive crouch, and Siqi's team would be left like ghosts, trapped and hunted inside the city's heart until dawn.
The air around her was thick with the rhythmic thrum-crack of arrows splintering against her raised shield. It was a deadly metronome. Each time the wood-on-wood percussion fell silent, she felt the shift in the air—the signal for Naksh and his archers to rise like a sudden tide and pour a counter-volley into the Paayasians cowering behind the stone ramparts.
But as she braced for the next impact, her gaze caught a flicker of movement far to the South. Against the dying embers of the sun, dark silhouettes were cutting through the air—gliding shapes that moved with a grace that didn't belong to the chaos of the streets.
Just as Chinua reached within a hundred yards of the foot of the wall, the sky darkened with a fresh Paayasian volley. Arrows rained down like iron sleet, wounding and killing the men around her. But Naksh's team answered instantly, their final volley of the hour screaming over the Magoli lines to suppress the defenders on the ramparts. At that same moment, the final boulder from the catapults slammed into the stone with the force of a falling mountain, sending jagged, zigzagging cracks blooming across the city's face.
As the Paayasian soldiers retreated to reload, the window opened. Six siege towers, twenty escalades and two massive battering rams finally reached the base of Kark City.
"Break that gate!" Dawa's roar echoed from just a few yards away.
The air was filled with a series of heavy, metallic cracks that seemed to shake the sky itself. Chinua looked up, squinting through the dust and the fading orange light, to see the six massive siege towers drop their bridge platforms in unison. The iron hooks bit deep into the stone teeth of the wall, locking the wooden giants to the city's ramparts.
Almost spontaneously, the twenty escalades followed suit, their grappling mechanisms hooking onto the jagged masonry with a relentless, rhythmic clatter. Kark City was no longer a fortress; it was being pulled into the embrace of a machine.
Chinua didn't wait. She dismounted in one fluid motion, the silver of her armor flashing in the twilight. She drove her spear deep into the blood-soaked earth, the shaft vibrating with the force of her conviction—a silent promise that she would not leave this spot until the city fell.
She grabbed a fifty-foot wooden ladder beside her, bracing one side while a soldier gripped the other. With a combined, rhythmic lift, they heaved. The ladder swung into the sky and slammed against the cracked masonry. Before the wood had even stopped vibrating, the first Magoli soldiers were already scrambling upward, blades clenched between their teeth.
On the top of the wall, the doors of the siege towers burst open. A storm of arrows shot out in unison from the internal archers, cutting down any Paayasian defender who tried to reach the bridges. The North Gate was no longer a wall; it was a slaughterhouse.
A wounded soldier, his armor slick with his own blood, braced himself against the side of the ladder bridge where Chinua stood. "I got this," he gritted out through the pain.
Chinua tapped the soldier's shoulder gently in silent thanks. She fixed her bow across her chest, wrenched her spear from the blood-soaked earth, and began her ascent. She climbed with a predator's speed, moving up the fifty-foot span within ten breaths. As she reached the top, she vaulted over the final rungs, landing lightly on the stone ramparts.
The city wall was a vision of hell. The narrow walkway was a graveyard of bodies from both sides, though the lacquered red of the Paayasian uniforms far outnumbered the Magoli.
To her right, near the shadowed stairwell, Chinua saw Kulu. He was a whirlwind of violence, his heavy spear knocking back every Magoli soldier who dared approach. Without a second's hesitation, Chinua sprinted forward. Her spear slammed into Kulu's chest with the force of a battering ram. Kulu managed to block the blow, but the sheer momentum caught him off guard, sending him staggering backward until his heel hit the very edge of the inner wall.
Kulu lunged to the side, narrowly avoiding a follow-up strike that whistled past his ear. As he steadied himself to counter-attack, he realized he was facing an opponent whose strength matched his own and whose spear-work was that of a legend. Then, his eyes caught the token hanging at her waist. The shock of recognition froze him for a heartbeat.
Chinua did not waste that heartbeat. She swung her spear forward in a blinding distraction. Before Kulu could react, she anchored the end of her spear firmly into the stone, used the shaft to vault herself upward, and lashed out with a double-kick. Her right foot was a feint, but her left foot landed with a sickening thud against Kulu's ribcage.
The impact sent Kulu reeling several yards away, gasping in agony. In one fluid motion, Chinua landed, gripped the shaft of her spear with both hands, and swung the heavy staff in a powerful arc. The wood connected squarely with Kulu's right shoulder; the sound of his shattering clavicle lost in the roar of the falling city.
"Captain!"
Four Paayasian soldiers shrieked, rushing to Kulu's aid. While two struggled to haul their broken leader to his feet, the other two lunged at Chinua with bared steel. Chinua, still low to the ground from her vaulting kick, didn't hesitate. Her left hand snatched the bow from her chest as her right blurred to her quiver.
Thrum-thrum.
Two arrows whispered through the air, punching through the skulls of the charging soldiers before they could even scream. As a third attacker closed in from her left, Chinua didn't reload. She swung the bow like a club, hooking the frame around the man's neck, stepped into his shadow, and wrenched the bowstring back. The high-tension cord snapped through flesh and bone, decapitating the soldier in a spray of crimson. Even as the bow began to slip from her grip, she snatched a third arrow, caught the bow mid-air, and loosed a shot that took down a fourth man jumping from her right.
Kulu, supported by his remaining men, was already scrambling toward the inner stairs. Chinua surged after them. She unsheathed her dagger, carved through two more interceptors, and drew three arrows in a single motion. The first two found the throats of Kulu's guards; the third buried itself deep in Kulu's left shoulder blade.
Chinua didn't stop. She sprinted and drove her knee into Kulu's chest with such force that his defensive spear-staff snapped like a dry twig. The impact sent Kulu reeling backward, falling into a free-fall over the inner edge of the city wall.
Below, the North Gate finally groaned and shattered. Dawa's battering ram surged through the wreckage just as Kulu's body slammed onto its heavy wooden roof. Chinua leaped after him, silhouetted against the fire-lit sky. As she fell, she loosed two more arrows, the shafts pinning Kulu's shoulders to the roof of the ram.
Chinua landed perfectly over him, her bow drawn, the tip of a fresh arrow leveled directly between Kulu's eyes.
"A thousand words from others cannot be compared to witnessing it with my own eyes," Kulu wheezed, blood bubbling at his lips as he looked up at the legendary warrior. He managed a defiant, dying scoff. "Not bad... for a female warrior."
"I was not kidding when I told your King," Chinua said, her voice like grinding stone. "If he dares to step foot in Pojin, I will take it back a hundred times more than he can ever pay."
Kulu accepted his fate with a final, bloody smile. Chinua released the string.
At the exact moment the North Gate splintered under Dawa's command, the South Gate descended into a hell of glass and flame.
Siqi was the first to land, his boots hitting the stone ramparts with a heavy thud. The lead unit of the soldiers Captain Nib had left behind rushed him instantly, their swords bared and hungry. Siqi didn't hesitate; his own blade was already clenched in his fist as he sprinted forward to meet the Paayasian line head-on, holding the bridgehead just long enough for his soldiers to land a few yards behind him.
Below on the street, the world shattered. The ceramic liquor jars smashed against the cobbles, the finest and most expensive spirits of Kark spraying across the crowded thoroughfare, soaking the defenders in a flammable dew.
From the shadows of the nearby houses, Nachin and his hidden Magoli unit struck. They loosed a volley of fire-arrows directly into the oil-slicked crowd. The transition was instantaneous—panicked screams filled the air as the liquor ignited, turning the street into a river of fire. From the single open window on the fourth floor of the central inn, a plume of thick, red smoke rose high into the evening's grayish sky.
Outside the South Gate, Jeet watched the signal rise. He turned to Zhi with a rare, knowing smile. "Hye was right," he said softly. "To leave such a task to the young ones was the only way."
No sooner had the words left his lips than the South Gate of Kark was hit. A sound like a thunderclap echoed through the valley as the gates were blown wide, and the Magoli tide finally rushed in to meet the fire.
While the screams of war and the clash of steel echoed through the gates of Kark City, the bamboo rafts—laden with their grisly cargo—finally came to a halt at the confluence. The narrow stone bridges, designed to funnel the river's flow, proved too small for the grim procession. The first raft struck a pylon horizontally, and the others began to pile up, creating a floating graveyard that choked the water.
The constant, hollow thud of bamboo rafts hitting against each other echoed over the steady rush of the confluence. It was a rhythmic, jarring sound, broken only by the sharp cries of crows that had begun to circle the rafters, their dark wings fluttering as they tore at the flesh of the fresh dead.
In the city of Ngabo, high atop a stone watchtower, the sound of the crows made a Paayasian soldier turn toward the confluence. He squinted against the fading light, then nudged his partner. "Hey, look over there," he said, pointing at the distant, dark mass clogging the river. "Are those... rafts?"
"Looks like it," the other replied, squinting against the fading light.
"Soldiers," a deep voice rumbled from the doorway.
The two men spun around, snapping to attention. "General!"
General Phia stood there, his presence heavy. "Time for the shift change," he said, his eyes scanning their nervous faces. "What are you looking at?"
"General," one soldier said, gesturing out the window. "There seems to be a pile of rafts caught at the confluence."
Phia stepped forward, his gaze hardening as he looked where the soldier pointed. "Tell the gate guards to ride out and investigate. Now."
Phia watched the rafts for a moment—steady and silent against the river's current—before descending the stairwell. By the time he reached the city gate, the scouts had already returned. One man leaped from his horse, his face ashen, clutching a piece of white cloth stained with dried, dark blood.
"What did you find?" Phia asked.
"Gen-General," the scout stammered, his voice shaking. "The rafts... they are filled with our dead. Captain Daiji, one of General Leej's and Captain Nhia of General Jietang's, are among them." He held out the blood-stained cloth.
Phia looked at the jagged script, then raised his voice. "Who among you can read the Magoli tongue?"
An elderly civilian passing by stopped and bowed humbly. "General, I can read it."
Phia handed the cloth to the man with a small, weary smile. "Thank you."
The old man took the fabric, but as his eyes scanned the words, his hands began to tremble violently.
"What is written there, sir?" Phia asked.
The elder looked up, his lips quivering. "The text says: Kark City has fallen. Surrender to the great Hmagol Kingdom and release their captain, or Ngabo City will be turned to rubble." He practically thrust the cloth back at Phia and hurried away toward his home.
Phia sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to carry the weight of the entire kingdom. He realized then that the "hundredth steps" had begun, and the city he guarded was directly in the path of that terrible vow.
"Send a message to His Majesty," Phia said, staring at the setting sun through the open gate. He realized this might be the last sunset he would ever enjoy in peace. "Tell him that the Hmagol Eastern General has come to claim her promise."