The morning sun was dulled by a hazy curtain of soot. A veil of ash drifted lazily through the air, blanketing the horizon in gray. Smoke clung to the branches of half-burnt trees, rising from the freshly cleared land where the Ash Company had driven their stakes into the ground just days prior.
A fire burned on the ridge—signal fire. The first spark in a symphony of destruction.
Fornos stood atop a narrow cliff edge overlooking the valley below, his black mask unmoving, his cloak drawn tight against the rising wind. He did not ride. He did not march. He observed, as the Ash Company moved like clockwork beneath him.
Six golems—each blackened with smoke and reinforced with scavenged steel. Twenty-two combatants, most hand-picked or collared in earlier raids. Logistics teams and auxiliaries moved like blood through the arteries of a body too large for its origin. They were not perfect, not yet—but they obeyed.
Down in the shallow valley below, a drifting group of scavengers—thirty or more—advanced in loose formation. Light armor, mismatched weapons. But they had two handlers tucked behind a low ridge, operating clunky third-generation golems with rusted joints and dented plating. Dangerous if left unaddressed.
Test them, Fornos thought. Test the structure. Let the system breathe fire.
Behind him, Roa stood with arms crossed, watching the signal flags with narrowed eyes.
"They don't even know who they're fighting," she muttered.
"They don't need to," Fornos replied. "Let them fear the formation, not the face."
"They've got two handlers feeding commands to their front line," she said, eyes still tracking movements through the trees. "If we don't kill them first, those junk piles might do real damage."
Fornos nodded. "Take a team. Make it surgical. Quick."
Roa blinked, surprised. "You're trusting me with a live kill order?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "If you can talk back to me, you can kill for me."
She didn't wait for more. Turning sharply, she whistled low—three short chirps—and five combatants broke from formation, peeling off into the underbrush with her at the lead. Silent shapes in the ash-draped woods.
Below, the main formation began its assault.
An orange flare soared into the air, followed quickly by green. From the treelines, flags snapped in practiced rhythm. Split formation. Apply leftward pressure.
Thornjaw, the lean, black assault golem, slipped into the trees like a jagged blade. Its clawed feet made no more noise than a bird's wingbeat. Craterhoof lumbered behind the central force, handlers camouflaged beneath netting as they adjusted the angle of the twin siege cannons protruding from its shoulders.
Fornos made one precise gesture.
The trap closed.
Twin detonations erupted—one left, one center—launching debris skyward as explosive barrels buried in the brush detonated. The scavenger ranks faltered, men thrown from their feet, some never rising again. Before they could react, Thornjaw came screaming out of the woods, claws flashing. It didn't slash—it ripped.
A salvaged melee golem followed, moving with clunky but devastating momentum. Its reinforced arm blades cleaved through pikes and shields, while auxiliaries fired arrows and scattershot rounds into the gaps.
Craterhoof barked a deep thunder. The first shell landed behind the scavenger line, severing their retreat. A second launched straight into the front ranks, sending bodies flying in all directions. Its scattershot turret buzzed to life and swept across the treeline.
Fornos didn't move. He simply raised another flag—red. Surround.
The combatants obeyed with mechanical grace, splitting into wedges and weaving through the trees like a practiced current.
Chaos consumed the enemy. Confused by the smoke, deafened by the cannons, they flailed. Screams and frantic commands rose above the treetops, but no one could see the enemy commander. No enemy shouted orders. The assault had no face—only rhythm. Cold. Relentless.
In the shadows of a low ridge, Roa and her squad crept within range. The enemy handlers, kneeling beside two crude golem cores, barked at one another while trying to stabilize signal flow. One glanced up—too late. A throwing blade lodged in his throat before he could finish the warning.
Roa lunged in, slitting the second one's wrist as he reached for a flare. She shoved him to the dirt, pinned his head beneath her boot, and drove a second knife into his skull.
"Clear," she hissed.
Two of the combatants immediately began pulling mana cores from the enemy's control units, while another rigged the golems to shut down. The final combatant marked the corpses for recovery—salvage was currency.
Roa paused, breathing hard, blood staining her knuckles.
She turned her gaze toward the valley below—toward the unflinching rhythm of death set in motion by a man who never had to raise his voice.
"Handler team neutralized," she whispered into the relay crystal embedded in her collar.
Fornos acknowledged it with a flick of a flag—green slash over blue. Continue.
By dusk, the scavengers had lost two-thirds of their force. The rest, scattered, attempted to flee toward the western treeline—only to find spike traps laid beneath the brush. A second wave of Ash Company soldiers emerged in staggered lines, herding them once more. No quarter given. No freedom earned.
They ran, but only as far as Fornos allowed.
He raised a final hand—closed fist.
The signal fires were doused one by one.
The sky dimmed. Smoke lingered like a living thing, swirling around the blood-soaked branches.
Roa returned to the cliff, wiping her blades clean with a torn scavenger cloak. She didn't speak, but Fornos noticed the way she watched him—less fear, more calculation now.
"They'll break by sunrise," he said.
Roa didn't argue.
She knew.