The world beyond the enclave did not rest.
Three days after the second horde was broken, Kael felt it an unnatural pressure pressing against the edges of his Sight. It was not hunger. Not yet. This was something heavier, older, like a slow drumbeat echoing through the bones of the land itself.
He climbed the watchtower at dawn, the air thick with ash and mist. The horizon trembled.
"They're moving again," he murmured.
The Sight stretched farther than it ever had before, drawn outward as if pulled by an unseen hand. Kael saw lines of soul-light flowing in one direction not chaotic, not wandering....but marching. Entire fields of the dead were being guided, gathered, shaped into something vast and deliberate.
This was not instinct.
This was command.
Kael's stomach tightened. The hunger stirred, sensing the scale of what lay ahead, salivating at the unimaginable power represented by so many souls bound together.
Below, Wardens prepared defenses, repairing walls, sharpening weapons that would be nearly useless against what Kael was seeing. He descended to the Witch of Tallow, who stood at the edge of the enclave, her gaze fixed on the same distant point.
"Someone else is weaving," Kael said quietly.
The Witch nodded. "Yes. A shepherd of the dead. One who feeds without restraint."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then this isn't just another horde."
"No," she replied. "This is war."