CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The modest stone walls of Riverhold, a quiet trading town nestled along the Whispering River, stood battered against a sky choked with smoke and ash.
Once a place of bustling markets and cheerful taverns, it now reeked of burning thatch and echoed with the distant clash of steel.
Sir Kellan rode through the splintered wooden gates at the head of a weary column, his armor dented and streaked with blood from the desperate flight from Castle Larkridge.
The journey from the dungeon had been tough and hard fought, but the information he had gleaned on the way was harder to take.
As his small group had been joined on the road, their numbers swelling by the day from members of the Silver and the Shield Guard finding the resistance leader they had been waiting for, for as well as food, weapons, and horses, each brought more tales of woe about what had happened since Kellan had been captured and was still happening.
The nobles’ conspiracy, which had sought to seize the Ring under the guise of stability, had collapsed into chaos.
Rumors abounded that Lord Aldrich had made a pact with Vargul’s barbarian hordes—intended as a theatrical ruse to cement support for his coalition—but it had spiraled into a merciless conquest. Villages and towns had been burned pillaged and looted, what resistance there was, had been trampled.
Refugees had flooded Riverhold’s narrow streets like a river breaching its banks. They had sought safety, only to find it was short lived. Vargul’s hordes had been seen on the horizon.
Kellan reined in his horse, a sturdy bay that snorted nervously at the chaos.
The cobblestone lanes teemed with terrified townsfolk—mothers clutching crying children, traders abandoning stalls of grain and cloth, elders stumbling with sacks of meager belongings.
Shouts filled the air: pleas for help, curses at fleeing militiamen, and wails of despair.
The barbarian war drums thundered closer, their forces getting ever closer to Riverhold’s fragile walls.
Aldrich’s mercenaries had fled like cowards, some cut down in their own betrayals, others slipping into the night with stolen coin.
The so-called “Council of Protectors” was a broken dream, leaving the town exposed.
Kellan refused to let Riverhold fall without a stand. The fight to retake the Ring would start on these very streets. Now, dismounting in Riverhold’s muddy square, he felt the thrill of leading a band of loyal men into battle once again. It was what he had been born for. What he lived for.
“Form ranks!” he roared, his voice rising above the clamor.
His men snapped to attention, their faces gaunt, bloodied but resolute.
They numbered a hundred or more, many had fought alongside Kellan before, but those who hadn’t knew him by reputation.
The Silver, knights of legend who had once been the Ring’s pride made up half of the men.
They had been waiting, they said, scattered by the coup but never broken.
Branded traitors by Aldrich, with a price on their heads and a target on their backs, they had hidden in cellars and outlying farms, watching for a spark of resistance.
In Kellan the Steadfast they had seen that spark and were determined to kindle it into a flame and then an inferno that would sweep across the kingdom they loved and had sworn their allegiance to.
“Riverhold’s our first stand,” he called out to the ranks massed in front of him.
“This is the start of our fight back. The first step in taking back what is rightfully ours and has been torn from our grasp, and the hands of our beloved King and Queen by treachery and deceit, greed and ambition.” He looked at the men stood in front of him, heartened that the soldiers had been joined by farmers and builders from nearby villages, hamlets and from Riverhold itself.
Armed with whatever weapon they could find.
Some clutched rusted swords, other simply scythes or hammers tools of their trade.
It was for people like them that he fought. And it was also people like them that would take back this kingdom.
“We’re outnumbered, kin. Vargul’s hordes are ten thousand strong, by scout’s count. But we stand as one—Silver, Shield Guard, and the people of this great and noble land. For the Ring, for Thorgrin and Gwendolyn.”
A hoarse cheer rose from the gathered warriors, defiant despite their weariness and fear.
Kellan issued orders: patrols to curb looting in the streets, scouts to track the barbarian advance, teams to shepherd the townsfolk.
“No chaos,” he barked. “We hold the walls as long as we can. Guide the weak to the southern trails—toward the coastal forts if possible. We must fight with cunning, not just courage.”
The square became a makeshift headquarters.
Tarps stretched over market stalls served as tents, maps spread on barrels.
Kellan studied them by flickering torchlight, marking Vargul’s progress with chalk.
Eldridge Village was ash, Fort Grimwald’s walls breached, Wavecrest’s port a graveyard of charred ships.
The barbarians moved with chilling precision, not the chaotic raids of savages but a disciplined campaign.
Catapults lobbed flaming pitch, siege towers lumbered across fields, and shaggy northern cavalry cut down fleeing defenders.
Yet the greater challenge was calming Riverhold’s panic.
Townsfolk surged toward the gates, shoving and trampling in their terror.
Kellan climbed onto a cart, his voice booming with a horn-bearer’s aid.
“People of Riverhold! Hear me!” The crowd stilled unevenly, faces upturned—pale, dirt-smeared, eyes wide.
“The barbarians come, yes, but we do not break. The nobles’ treachery brought this, but we are stronger.
Form lines—children and elders first to the carts.
Take only essentials. The Silver will guard you. We fight for our homes!”
The words took root, barely. Lines formed, guards directing families to wagons creaking with weight.
Kellan moved among them, offering a steady hand to a trembling mother, a nod to a grim-faced baker.
“The queen lives,” he whispered to those who knew his face.
“Gwendolyn endures. Hold fast.” Truth or hope? He couldn’t say.
No word had come from the Ashen Plains since her exile.
He had wrestled with the idea of traveling to the plains and finding her.
But deep down, he had known it would be an impossible task.
Looking for one person in such a barren expanse would be worse than searching for a needle in a haystack.
Plus, he knew that that was the last thing Gwendolyn would have wanted.
She would have commanded that he turn all of his attention to her people and to the Ring, instead of embarking on a fool’s errand in an attempt to save but one person.
Night fell, and an uneasy silence fell over the town.
Guards manned to walls and towers, eyes searching the horizon for any sign of Vargul's army.
But thankfully, they were nowhere to be seen.
Some even allowed a flicker of hope to spark within their breasts.
That they had turned their attentions elsewhere.
But most knew that that was merely false hope, and that soon, whether the following day or the one after that, the horizon would turn black with the masses of the oncoming army.
Dawn broke, painting the sky in shades of blood and soot. Then came the first reports—not of barbarians, but of phenomena defying reason. A scout galloped into the square, horse frothing, eyes frantic. “Sir Kellan! From the northern hills—sights beyond belief!”
Kellan looked up from his maps. “Speak, man. What news?"
The scout panted, voice shaking. “Mountains... breaking apart. Far north, past the tundra. Outpost riders swear the peaks split like kindling. Green flames burst from the earth, tombs rising from below. And... creatures. Not breach-beasts, but ancient things—giants of stone and shadow, eyes like molten fire. The ground quakes even here—feel it?”
Kellan paused, and there it was: a faint tremor underfoot, not the march of armies but a deeper shudder, as if the earth itself wept. He met his lieutenants’ eyes. “Madness? Or barbarian sorcery?”
“No, sir,” the scout said. “Other reports confirm. Underground—caves collapsing, swarms of... horrors crawling up. Scaled things with wings like smoke, erupting through mines and pastures. In the east, near the marches, rivers run backward, skies rain ash without cause. Storms whisper names, driving folk to madness.”
A chill gripped Kellan. He was a general, used to fighting battles against men. Not waging war against the earth itself.
Whatever the reports, it didn't change the fact that Vargul's army was poised to attack.
He couldn't allow himself to be distracted by elements beyond his control.
Elements beyond any man's control. He also knew, however, that it was impossible to keep such reports out of the ears of his men, and talk of mountains splitting and of rampant beasts would only serve to weaken the resolve of the strongest warrior, and could easily break the spirit of some, especially those recruited from the fields and builders' yards.
More messengers arrived through the morning, each report graver.
A tanner from the northern vales described the Shadowed Ridge splitting open, a colossal figure striding the tundra, its steps shattering ice like thunder.
Miners spoke of tunnels caving in, revealing chambers where eyeless creatures slithered, their touch turning stone to ooze.
Near the Whispering River, auroras twisted into screaming faces, chanting doom.
Magic ran rampant: fields blackened in moments, wells bled red, winds carried voices of the dead.
Kellan organized as best he could, his mind a storm.
He sent riders to summon loyal garrisons—holdouts in the highlands, remnants along the coast. “Tell them the barbarians are only the start,” he ordered.
“Greater threats awaken. We unite against the unraveling.” Evacuation quickened: wagons rolled south, toward uncertain refuge.
He armed scouts with wards from Riverhold’s small temple, sending them to probe the disturbances.
“Record all,” he said. “If the world falls, let it be known we stood.”
Then, at noon, the barbarian vanguard appeared on the horizon—a dark wave of fur-clad warriors, banners whipping in the wind, wolves snarling at their sides.
Kellan stood on Riverhold’s walls, the Silver and Shield Guard beside him.
Bows readied, pitch barrels stacked. Outnumbered tenfold, their unity was their strength—no scheming nobles, just warriors defending their home.
But as war cries rose, another tremor shook the earth, stronger now.
Dust fell from the wooden walls, and northward, a green glow lit the clouds like a cursed dawn.
Kellan gripped his sword, dread settling like frost. The barbarians were a mere shadow of the true peril.
The foundations of their world were crumbling, ancient forces stirring.
But he would fight, until the end.