Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
The shadows swallowed them whole.
They rose in a tide around him, vast and endless, the ancient shadow of the wall gripping tight to his skin, his bones, his mind. It whispered to him, insidious, dragging him into madness, into the edge of a berserker’s rage.
How dare they betray me?
Through the swirl of darkness, his gaze cut to the rear of the horde. Kardoc. His brother. Charging forward with a roar, tusks gleaming, eyes wild. Of course it was him. Kardoc could never stand to see him change the course of the war, never allow him to take this from him.
But how had he convinced their father?
Not the time.
Rakhal pulled the shadows tighter, wrapping them around his limbs as he drove through the horde. Orcs shouted, swung, tried to strike. Some of the stronger ones—shadow-blooded like him—saw through the veil, catching glimpses of where he was.
“Hold back,” he growled, his voice echoing in the dark. “Or you’ll die.”
But few listened.
They knew him. They knew what he was capable of. Still, they pressed forward. Orcs obeyed orders, even when it meant their deaths.
The ancient shadows pressed harder against his mind, seething. Kill them all. Tear them apart. Spill their blood. Feed us.
The temptation sank deep into his bones. He could. He could lose himself to it.
But no. He didn’t want them all. Not tonight.
He wanted to drive them back. Break their spirit. Show them fear enough that they’d never dare return.
And he wanted one more thing.
To reach his brother.
To get to Kardoc and…
Do what? Kill him? His own blood?
There.
He saw him.
Rakhal pulled the shadows tighter around himself and vanished into them, sprinting across the churned earth as fast as the wind. To most eyes he was invisible, to others perhaps only a blur, a ripple in the darkness where no man should be.
His hand tightened on the hilt at his side, sword drawn, shadows coiling like serpents along the steel. It took more of his strength—more of his will—to contain the ancient, seething shadow that writhed within him. But he needed it. Needed its malevolent power now.
And there was Kardoc.
Huge, broad-shouldered, tusks gleaming. Fury in every line of him as he roared at the men behind him, his voice cutting through the clash. “Kill them! Traitors!”
His eyes burned with hatred.
Rakhal reached him first.
He let the shadows break. Released them all at once.
And in the sudden rift of darkness, he revealed himself.
Standing tall before Kardoc, blade in hand, his presence was a declaration: that he could pierce their lines at will, that no wall of steel or flesh could stop him.
The brothers locked eyes.
Rakhal took in the sight of him—Kardoc, broad as a warhorse, shoulders straining against leather armor that clung to his frame.
Muscles thick with years of brutal combat.
Blades strapped across his chest, a heavy axe gripped in one massive hand.
His long hair was unbound, wild, streaming down his back like a dark banner.
He glared at Rakhal, tusks bared, hatred burning hot in his eyes.
And then—he smiled.
Kardoc’s words cut like an axe.
“So this was your intention all along,” he sneered, voice a low, poisonous thing. “To betray us? To these humans who have slain so many of our kin? They said the shadows were turning you mad, brother. I defended you… I was a fool. You’ll die for this, Rakhal. You and that cursed queen.”
Rage flared through Rakhal like wildfire. He tasted iron on his tongue and felt the shadows coil tighter around his pulse, whispering sweet, brutal counsel: Kill them. End the traitors. Feed the dark. His hands clenched on the sword until the leather bit the palms.
He remembered his father’s face—the promise, the assurance Draak had given him when Rakhal had first spoken of peace.
Trust me, his father had said. Do this my way.
If Draak had indeed turned his son’s words into a snare, then the betrayal cut deep.
Now the choice would not be only his; every man here would be forced to pick a side.
Rakhal could have stepped back, surrendered to the easiest path: fall in line, bow to Kardoc, melt back into the war they’d always known.
He could have swallowed his oath to Eliza and let the fires of hatred burn unchecked.
But the image of her—barefoot on Maidan soil, braids at her nape, the city behind her—seared through him.
If he retreated now, the war would not cool.
It would rage hotter than any of them could survive.
The thought of that—of children burned, of villages razed—pushed him forward like a blade.
Kardoc loomed above him—bigger, crueler, the kind of beast who delighted in broken things.
Rakhal noted the fine details with a calm that surprised him: the scar that cut through Kardoc’s eyebrow, the old nicked axe at his hip, the way his breath came ragged and eager.
The hate in his brother’s eyes was simple and raw. It wanted blood.
Rakhal let the ancient shadow wash over him once more, tasting its terrible promise and then, with measured cruelty, denying it. He would not become the thing the wall urged him to be. Not tonight. Not for the price of everything he might yet build.
He straightened, the dark clinging to his shoulders like a mantle, and spoke so that the men around them could hear—not rage, not pleading, but cold, absolute command.
“Kardoc,” he said, and his voice carried across the churned earth, “you will stop this. Lay down your hatred and your axe. This ends tonight—my way.”
Kardoc laughed then, a sound without humor. “Your way,” he spat, and charged.
Rakhal met him without flinching.
The first clash rang out like thunder: steel on leather, a savage roar, shadows exploding in a spray of black that licked and recoiled as Rakhal met the first swing.
He moved with the terrible grace of a thing half-orc, half-dark, letting the shadow shield his advance, letting it take the brunt of the blows he meant to answer.
Around them, the horde hesitated, then surged, the line between brother and brother thinning to a single, brutal collision.
In that moment—the scrape of Kardoc’s blade, the hot breath, the raw intent—Rakhal understood the price of his choice: blood would fall. Betrayal demanded a reckoning. He would make sure it bled into something endable, not endless.
He struck back.
His blade found its mark, piercing Kardoc’s shoulder.
The bigger orc staggered back, bellowing, his axe swinging wide.
Kardoc had always been stronger, broader, built like the mountains themselves.
But Rakhal was faster—and the shadows gave him more.
Not to blind his brother completely—no, Kardoc, like many shadow-blooded, could see through them—but enough.
Enough to give him speed, enough to trick the eye, enough to land the strike.
He could have gone for the heart. He hadn’t. Not yet.
Now his brother reeled, blood soaking through his leather armor.
“Tell Father he will live to regret his decision,” Rakhal said icily, his voice ringing across the battlefield. He knew, as the words left his mouth, that he had crossed the point of no return.
Through blood and pain, Kardoc smiled again. Mocking. “Not possible. Father is dead.”
Rakhal froze. Just for a heartbeat.
And in that heartbeat, an iron bolt tore into his shoulder. He staggered, snarling at the pain. A human crossbow bolt. Fired at the horde. Of course—they could not tell him apart from the enemy. Eliza’s orders, no doubt. He could not blame her.
“What?” he gasped, the shadows flickering around him.
Both brothers swayed, bloodied, wounded.
Still grinning, Kardoc spat the words out like venom. “I know you didn’t kill him. But the Varak—the entire clan—thinks you did.”
You snake, Rakhal thought, fury blackening his vision. He surged forward, shadows writhing around him, reaching to engulf Kardoc. To kill him for this deception. This was not the orc way.
Another bolt hit him, this time in the back. He staggered, shadows flaring wild. Around him, more orcs fell under the hail of iron. Another rushed him, axe raised.
Kardoc retreated into the chaos, his laughter trailing back.
Rakhal’s vision blurred. He had no choice now. He had to pull back.
He fell back toward his line, the shadows snapping around him like broken chains, and let Shazi and her soldiers take up the charge.
“Shazi!” he screamed, as he wrapped the shadows around himself, pulling back toward the wall. Energy drained from his body with every step. The shadows were seeking their advantage now, pulling at his will, whispering of surrender.
He ripped the bolts out with a growl and bound the shadows tight around his wounds, stemming the bleeding with their unnatural grip.
Shazi and her troops streamed into the chaos, cutting through the press of enemy orcs.
“Kardoc!” someone shouted in the distance, and Rakhal’s gaze snapped that way just in time to see his brother stagger and fall.
“Retreat!” Kardoc bellowed, even as orc soldiers swarmed around him, lifting his bulk and carrying him away.
The betrayers fell back, running fast into the dark.
Shazi turned toward Rakhal, motioning with her axe: follow?
She wanted to hunt them down.
But Rakhal’s mind tightened with caution. I don’t know what waits out there on the plains… the entire Varak clan has turned against us now. And the humans before us aren’t friendly either.
He lifted his arm and signed the signals they had exchanged countless times in battle: Go after them, but only if it is safe. If you lose them… do not return to the stronghold. Make safe. Wait for me.
He fell.
The shadows wrapped around him, cradling his body as he hit the earth. Spent. Drained.
Shazi and her troops did as commanded—they vanished into the night, safe, away from the Maidan.
But he remained. Wounded. Vulnerable. His plan unravelled by Kardoc’s treachery and recklessness. His power frayed, hanging by the thinnest of threads.
And the shadows here… they were different. Tempting. Ancient. Dangerous.
They wanted him. He could feel their hunger coil through the marrow of his bones. They had longed for one such as him, a vessel for their old rage. He hadn’t realized until now just how steeped in lore and blood this city truly was.
This human city—once an orc stronghold. Long ago, before the humans came, before his clan lost what had been theirs.
Their land.
But now it belonged to humans. And his fate—his very life—was at the mercy of their queen.