The night fell thick and heavy. Smoke from the smoldering gates mingled with ash drifting from the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gray and red. Kael patrolled the walls, spear in hand, eyes scanning the wastes for movement.
Then he heard it: a tolling, deep and resonant, unlike any bell he had known. The sound carried across the plains, echoing in the skulls of the living and dead alike. The very earth seemed to shiver beneath its weight.
Varen joined him at the parapet, his face drawn. "The Black Bell," he said softly. "It has not tolled in centuries. Wherever it sounds, the dead will gather, and something worse follows."
Kael's chest tightened. The Sight flared. A thousand souls lit the horizon, moving with singular purpose. The Black Bell had awakened something ancient, something hungry.
The dead advanced, slower than the last wave, but deliberate, their formation unbroken. Among them, shapes moved differently...bigger, taller, shadows bleeding into light, souls burning with unnatural intensity.
The enclave stirred. Arrows were nocked, spears readied, but even seasoned Wardens felt the weight of the omen. Fear twisted through them, unspoken but palpable.
Kael stood silent, eyes wide, the hunger rising. The Bell tolled again, vibrating through his bones, calling to him, promising power if he would only reach out. He clenched his jaw, resisting, though a piece of his soul ached with longing.
The night stretched on. Kael remained vigilant, sensing the dead like threads on a loom, each pull and shift of the horde made clear by the Sight. He understood their patterns before the living could even react. He could feel the hum of every soul, the rhythm of the gathering army.
And in that moment, Kael realized that the war was far from over. The Black Bell had marked the beginning of something beyond walls, beyond mortals, beyond gods. The hunger stirred within him, whispering in tongues older than time, and Kael knew that to survive, and perhaps to save the enclave he would need to embrace it fully. Or risk being consumed.