The tide of bodies stilled. Goblins stopped mid-scream. Trolls held their breath. Ogres knelt, massive heads bowed. Even the lizardmen ceased their swaying.

  From the heart of the horde, Warmonger came forward.

  He walked alone. No guards. No shaman. No translator for his fury.

  His armor was not made—it was grown. Plates of jagged black iron fused with flesh, lashed together by muscle and ruin. Spikes jutted from his shoulders. His helm was carved from a mammoth’s skull, with the lower jaw still attached, swinging beneath his throat like a grim smile.

  In one hand, he carried his infamous demon sword—Ar'Sul—an obsidian blade half as tall as a man, the edge notched from battles so ancient they were sung about by other species. In the other, he dragged a cartwheel smeared with the flayed remains of four knights, still twitching.

  He stepped into the square and spoke a single word in his guttered, grinding tongue.

  “Urah’gash.”

  The orc horde parted into a wide ring—a war circle—stamped into the blood-slick cobblestones.

  Bhraime Montclef stepped forward, helmet under one arm, sword in the other. His face was smeared with blood—some his own, some not. His breastplate was cracked across the ribs. A long cut leaked down one thigh, the mail beneath dark and sticky.

  Still, he stood straight.

  “General…” murmured a young soldier beside him.

  Bhraime didn’t answer.

  He walked into the circle.

  The moment he crossed its edge, the horde erupted with howls, slamming weapons against shields, shrieking war-cries in every dialect the world had feared.

  But no one entered.

  This was the law of the old wars. One against one. Champion against champion.

  Warmonger grinned.

  So did Bhraime.

  The duel began in silence.

  They circled. One slow step at a time.

  Then Warmonger charged—a blur of black steel and fury.

  Bhraime ducked beneath the first swing, the cleaver carving a trench through the cobbles behind him. He lashed out, slashing Warmonger’s thigh—but the wound only made the beast laugh.

  A second strike came, overhead. Bhraime blocked with both hands—steel on bone, the impact knocking him to one knee.

  He rolled left, came up swinging—cutting a line across Warmonger’s side, sparks flying as he struck the armor.

  “Grauhk’tak!” roared the orc.

  He swung again—this time horizontal. Bhraime leapt backward just in time—but not fast enough. The blade grazed his chest plate, carving a long gouge across it.

  Pain lanced through him. Ribs cracked. He clenched his jaw.

  Still standing.

  He advanced.

  Three quick strikes—shoulder, elbow, flank.

  Warmonger howled.

  Blood—thick and black—dripped from the armor’s seams.

  The crowd began to stamp their feet, a slow rhythm, like a drumbeat made of bone.

  Bhraime heard none of it.

  He pressed the attack, driving the warlord back.

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  A feint, then a downward stab—but Warmonger caught the blade in one massive gauntlet, blood streaming from his palm, and ripped it from Bhraime’s grasp.

  The sword clattered away.

  Bhraime reached for his dagger—but too slow.

  Warmonger’s boot met his chest.

  The world went sideways.

  He hit the stones hard, vision swimming, lungs struggling for air.

  Warmonger loomed above him.

  There was no joy in the warlord’s face.

  Only inevitability.

  One massive hand came down—a fist the size of a child’s skull—and the world went black.

  THE SACRIFICE

  The world was still black when he woke.

  But it was no longer the black of unconsciousness.

  It was the black of deep cave-shadow, of firelight dancing across ancient bones. A black that moved.

  Bhraime stirred—gagged, bound, pinned.

  His arms were chained wide across a stone altar, shoulders screaming with the strain. His legs were strapped in place with lengths of thick sinew—orc-hide, if the smell was right. He could feel blood dried against his temples. Taste copper in his throat.

  He tried to speak, but there was something in his mouth—rough cloth. He spat until it slid free, teeth chattering.

  “Gods,” he rasped. “What now…”

  The chamber he was in had once been Osogorsk’s temple of the Mother Flame. He recognized the mosaics—even in ruin, even blackened with soot. Now the sacred dais was covered in skulls. Some still had faces. Others bore the insignias of his own men—Helm crests. Greaves. A child’s boot, bloodless.

  Surrounding him were hundreds.

  The horde. Packed like insects. Goblins, lizardmen, ogres shoulder to shoulder, their yellow eyes gleaming in the firelight. No noise. No breath.

  Only drums.

  A slow, relentless beat, echoing through the broken temple like a heartbeat magnified to the edge of madness.

  Thum.

  Thum.

  Thum.

  And then—he came.

  Shermongrin, the shaman, emerged from the shadows with a slow, slithering grace. His robes were made of skin—tanned, tattooed, and stitched together in a madman’s tapestry. A necklace of tongues swung against his ribs.

  He approached the altar barefoot, mumbling to himself in a language so old it ached to hear.

  Bhraime lifted his head. “You want a prayer, you little shit? You’ll get one. I curse every one of you.”

  Shermongrin grinned with a mouth of rotting teeth. He dipped a hand into a clay bowl, drew out a thick red paste, and began to paint runes across Bhraime’s chest. They burned.

  He screamed.

  The horde remained silent.

  The chanting began.

  First Shermongrin, alone. Then another voice. Then a hundred. Then all.

  It was not song. It was not even speech. It was a sound, a summoning.

  And it pulled him toward something.

  Something cold.

  Something watching.

  Bhraime began to tremble.

  Then came Warmonger.

  He did not roar. He did not speak. He simply walked into the ring of skulls and stared.

  Shermongrin finished the last rune, stepped back, and bowed low face pressed to the stones.

  The drums stopped.

  The silence that followed was total.

  Bhraime forced himself to meet the warlord’s gaze.

  “I killed dozens of yours,” he whispered. “They died screaming.”

  Warmonger said nothing.

  Bhraime Montclef laughed.

  Not the wild laugh of madness, not the thin giggle of fear—but a hard, iron sound dragged up from a man who had buried brothers, burned cities, and marched through blood without once begging the gods to notice him.

  The chains rattled as he lifted his head. Stone bit into his spine. Old runes crawled faintly beneath his skin where the altar drank heat from living flesh. Around him, hundreds of green skins snarled and beat weapons against shields, eager, hungry, waiting.

  His eyes locked on Warmonger.

  “So this is it,” Bhraime said, voice hoarse but steady. “This is the great victory they’ll sing about, is it? Chaining an old general to a slab like a butchered hog.”

  He spat, thick and red, letting it splash against the stone.

  “Look at you,” he went on, baring his teeth. “Surrounded by an army and still you hide behind it. Gods, I’ve buried boys with more courage than you. Boys who stood when the line broke. Boys who didn’t need a thousand screaming beasts to feel tall.”

  A low growl rolled through the orcs. Bhraime didn’t flinch.

  “You think this frightens me?” he snarled. “I have watched cities burn from tower walls. I have heard children cry under rubble I ordered dropped. I have killed men better than you before breakfast and signed their names away before supper.”

  His gaze sharpened, venomous.

  “You are strong,” he admitted. “I’ll give you that. Strong like a storm that doesn’t know why it destroys—only that it can. No vision. No end. Just hunger and noise.”

  He leaned forward as far as the chains allowed.

  “But listen well, beast, because this is the part you’ll remember when you wake screaming in whatever pit waits for creatures like you.”

  The orcs quieted. Even the fires seemed to dim.

  “You will not be remembered as a conqueror. You will be remembered as a wound. A screaming tear in history that bled itself dry. Empires outlive monsters. Stories sharpen heroes. And men like me—”

  He grinned, bloodied and fierce.

  “—men like me make sure someone survives long enough to kill you.”

  A heavy footstep echoed. Bhraime’s smile widened.

  “Do it,” he whispered, voice soft now, almost kind. “Cut me. Burn me. Feed me to your altar.”

  His eyes never left Warmonger.

  “But know this: I die standing taller than you will ever rule. And when the last of your kind rots into the dirt, my name will still be spoken—by soldiers, by kings, by children who learn what it means to stand when monsters come.”

  The chains creaked as he drew breath one final time.

  “Now prove me wrong,” Bhraime Montclef said.

  Warmonger smiled.

  He reached out one massive hand—

  —slammed it against Bhraime’s chest—

  —and punched through.

  Bone cracked. Flesh tore. Bhraime screamed, kicked, gasped—and kept screaming.

  The hand dug deep, past ribs, through muscle—

  —and with a slow, wrenching motion, Warmonger ripped his heart out.

  It beat twice in his fist.

  And then, before the eyes of hundreds of beasts, he bit into it.

  Blood poured down his chin. The horde exhaled as one.

  Shermongrin lifted his arms to the sky. “Zhrag’Akh! Zhrag’Akh!”

  The crowd roared.

  The town burned.

  And the last of Bhraime Montclef, General of the Empire, was devoured beneath the black stars of Osogorsk.