The Hollowbound surged.

  Steel on dirt. Arcane limbs twisted with impossible angles. The air howled with unnatural heat.

  Ealden met the first wave with blade drawn, slashing low—his strike cut through a Hollowbound’s core. Sparks burst. The creature dropped without sound.

  Another took its place.

  And another.

  “Fall back now!” he shouted. “Pull the wounded west!”

  Azure wind guards scrambled behind him, blades drawn, eyes wild. Smoke choked the air. The line buckled—not from lack of courage, but from sheer pressure.

  Behind him, Kivas emerged from the haze, axe in hand, fending off one of the Hollowbound with trouble.

  “We can’t hold this, Ealden!”

  “You’re not supposed to,” Ealden growled. “You need to leave!”

  Kivas froze. “What?”

  “Get the kids, get the carts—run. Go now, to the city’s gate!”

  “And leave you?”

  “I’m holding the line, reinforcement is coming soon, quick, go!”

  Kivas looked over Ealden’s shoulder—the line was breaking, staggered. Hollowbound slipped past. One guard screamed as he was dragged into the dirt.

  Ealden caught his gaze again.

  “Get them out!”

  Kivas didn’t argue this time. Just a sharp nod.

  He turned and ran—shouting orders as he went.

  “Pack everything! Move! Eastern slope’s lost—cut west, follow the road!”

  Ealden exhaled once.

  Then raised his sword again as three Hollowbound charged.

  “Come then,” he muttered. “Let’s see how far you get.”

  Down the slope, the evacuation had turned frantic.

  Kivas stood near the western line of wagons, shouting over the rising chaos. One hand dragged a crying child toward the carts, the other pointed with his axe toward the city’s distant outline.

  “This way! Keep the line moving—don’t stop for anything! Pull two carts per ox, drop the light ones!”

  Smoke rolled past the tents. The ground trembled again—distant at first, then closer.

  Elsha was near the back, blade in hand, slashing at two Hollowbound closing in. Her sleeve was torn, blood running down one arm. She pivoted, kicked one off balance, then shouted:

  “Kivas! We’re being flanked!”

  “I see it!” he yelled back. “Cut north with the second row—get them out!”

  Then—

  THUD.

  THUD.

  A heavier rhythm now.

  The sound of metal not clanking—but striding.

  From the smoke came a towering silhouette.

  It wasn’t a Hollowbound.

  It didn’t rush—it walked.

  A wall of plated brass and iron, steam hissing from piston-joints, heat pulsing from its core. Arcane lines glowed beneath its armor. Its mask was slatted like a furnace grate, featureless—just heat and hiss.

  One of them.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  One of the Crimson Hand’s elites.

  The Hollowbound near it slowed—then stepped aside.

  The brute raised a massive arm, some kind of piston-powered hammer clamped to its forearm. It vented steam with a roar.

  Kivas turned—eyes locking on the thing.

  He pushed the last child behind a cart.

  “Go.”

  Elsha turned, saw it too.

  “Kivas—!”

  He stepped forward.

  “I’ll hold it,” he said. “Get them to the city.”

  Then he raised his axe—two-handed—and met the monster head-on.

  The ground was smoke and screams.

  Wagons toppled. Children cried. The ring of steel and the hiss of flame blurred into one.

  Elsha spun, blade a streak of light, cutting down a Hollowbound that had leapt the broken fence. Its core flared violet, then burst—and still, three more were coming.

  “Push west! Stay with the carts!” she shouted. Blood streaked down her arm, but she didn’t stop moving.

  Somewhere behind her, someone screamed. Another tent caught fire.

  Then—

  THUD.

  A sound too heavy, too measured.

  She turned, mid-strike—and saw it.

  Not a Hollowbound.

  Not anything they’d seen before.

  The elite walked through the chaos like it didn’t belong to the same world. Plated brass and steam-fed limbs. Mask glowing like a forge behind slats. The Hollowbound parted around it like waves.

  It strode straight toward the evacuees.

  Straight toward the children.

  And Kivas saw it too.

  He was halfway through dragging two wounded toward a cart when he stopped. His eyes locked on the shape. He didn’t hesitate.

  “Renn! Take them!” he barked, shoving the injured into the arms of a younger guard.

  Then he turned.

  Smoke curled around his boots. The heat pulsed. And Kivas stepped forward—toward the monster.

  Elsha caught sight of him just as her sword clashed with another construct.

  “Kivas!”

  But she couldn’t move—she was already locked.

  He didn’t even glance back.

  The elite raised its hammer-arm, steam blasting from its piston joints as it charged.

  Kivas didn’t flinch. He stepped in with both axes raised, meeting the charge head-on. The first blow came down like a forge-press—he caught it cross-blade, but the force sent him staggering back.

  One axe flew from his grip, spinning across the dirt.

  He dropped low, rolled, came up hard with the second axe—but the elite blocked it, its plated forearm absorbing the strike with a hiss of steam.

  Kivas pivoted—spotted a fallen spear near a shattered cart.

  He dove, grabbed it, snapped the tip clean against the crate’s edge, and rose again, holding it like a heavy-handled axe.

  The two collided a second time in the broken clearing—metal shrieking, wood splintering.

  Kivas moved fast, faster than he looked. He ducked low, drove the shaft into a weak seam under the elite’s side. It sparked—stumbled.

  The Hollowbound around them hesitated.

  Kivas pressed in—elbow, knee, everything he had. The thing struck him once, square in the ribs, sent him staggering.

  He spat blood, turned, slammed the blunt end of the spear into the monster’s core.

  A flash. The light flared—but it didn’t stop.

  The elite grabbed him by the front of the coat, lifted him like weightless cloth—and threw him.

  Kivas hit a wagon spine-first. Wood cracked. Something gave way inside him.

  He didn’t rise.

  Not right away.

  But the elite didn’t move either—its shoulder dented, one arm slow.

  Elsha couldn’t reach him.

  Every step forward met another Hollowbound—relentless, swarming, each one a wall of metal between her and that shattered wagon.

  She slashed through the next. Then the next. Her blade arm shook. Her breath came fast and ragged.

  Kivas rose again in her sight—unsteady, hunched, spear clenched in one hand.

  He didn’t look back.

  Didn’t call for help.

  He just charged.

  Straight into the elite again.

  Elsha’s chest burned.

  Her boots hit the dirt harder.

  She wasn’t thinking—only moving.

  The distance between them wasn’t far, but every second was longer than it should’ve been. Another Hollowbound fell. She was almost clear.

  And then she saw it.

  The elite caught Kivas’s second strike—caught it mid-thrust. Steel shrieked as the weapon bent. The brute’s free hand cocked back—steam vented.

  She knew.

  It was going to end.

  “Kivas!” she screamed—but the word felt thin, useless.

  He didn’t turn.

  Just stared the thing down.

  And smiled.

  Elsha broke through the last Hollowbound with a cry that ripped her throat.

  But she was too late.

  The hammer came down.

  And the night cracked open.

  Something inside her broke.

  Not with a scream.

  Not with fire.

  But with silence.

  A focus so sharp it cut through everything.

  Elsha stepped forward—and the first Hollowbound never saw the blade. One slash. Its core split clean.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  The world narrowed. The chaos faded. She didn’t hear the screams. Or the crackling flames. Only her heartbeat—steady. Measured.

  The elite still stood over Kivas’s body.

  It turned toward her.

  Too slow.

  She came in low—silent and fast—blade angling under its arm, where steam hissed from the earlier fight. Metal shrieked. She slid beneath a hammer swing that could’ve crushed bone and rose behind it, carving deep into the arcane lines down its back.

  It staggered.

  She didn’t stop.

  A third strike—under the chestplate, into the pulsing core.

  Then a fourth.

  The light inside flickered. Once.

  Twice.

  And died.

  The elite collapsed like a felled pillar, limbs twitching, mask aglow with dying heat.

  Elsha stood over the body—chest heaving, blood trailing down her arm, blade shaking in her grip. But she stood.

  “You…” she said—voice trembling, half a breath, half a question.

  The man inside, scorched and wide-eyed, said nothing.

  Her blade moved once more.

  A clean slash across the throat.

  Then she dropped to her knees beside Kivas.

  “Kivas,” she whispered.

  Nothing.

  Just smoke.

  And silence.

  Footsteps behind her.

  “Elsha—?”

  Ysar’s voice cut through the burning haze.

  He stopped cold when he saw her.

  Then the wreckage.

  Then Kivas.

  Karin arrived just behind—panting, fists still faintly lit with flame.

  She saw.

  And the fire in her hands dimmed.

  No one spoke.

  The battlefield groaned, still crackling with distant heat and ruin.

  But what burned more than anything—was Elsha.