The dawn that broke over the Valley of Bones was not one carrying hope; it was a pale thread of gray light seeping through thick clouds, as if it feared to unveil the feast the fates had prepared for the crows. Alaric stood at the vanguard of the Sixth Battalion, his body stiffening inside his armor, which he now felt as a second skin—alien and cold. Behind him, five hundred men stood in funereal silence, their breaths rising like steam in the cold morning air, their eyes fixed upon his broad back, which loomed like a great monolith amidst an impending storm.
One of the young soldiers, named Leon, spoke, his voice trembling and broken by the chattering of his teeth from cold and fear:
"Sir Alaric… the mist is swallowing everything before us. We can barely see our horses' hooves. Do you think Borick will send the support he promised? Or are we waiting for a miracle that will never come?"
Alaric turned slowly, his features—once bearing a trace of nobility—now a canvas of harshness and brutality, his eyes holding a deep gleam like the glow of embers in a deep well. He replied in a melodious tone, laced with enough severity to silence the wind:
"Death cares not for mist, Leon, nor for promises made over wine tables. Borick has given his orders, and the earth accepts only blood to bloom. Do not look back for banners of support; behind you lies nothing but dust. Look ahead, where an enemy awaits who will grant you immortality… either in songs or in graves."
A profound silence fell, broken only by the clatter of armor. Suddenly, the ground trembled. It was no earthquake; it was the beat of the northern tribes' drums. Massive, rhythmic beats that penetrated the bones before the ears. Alaric continued, drawing his broadsword from its sheath, the sound of steel scraping like the cry of a tormented soul in hell:
"The war drums have beaten… Prepare yourselves, for demons do not knock before they enter."
The mist parted abruptly, as if an unseen hand had pulled it away to reveal a horrifying spectacle: thousands of northern fighters, clad in bear and wolf hides, their faces painted with ash and blood, charging down the slope like a torrential flood. Alaric roared a single word that shook the valley's foundations:
"Steady!"
The ranks clashed. The impact was devastating. Spears shattered, armor tore, and the cries of men and the neighing of horses rose in a cacophony. Alaric fought with a strange mechanical fury, his sword sweeping away heads and limbs as if reaping wheat. But numbers began to overpower valor. Leon fell beside him, screaming as he clutched a deep wound in his chest:
"They've betrayed us, sir! Borick has left us to die! There's no Seventh Battalion behind us!"
In that moment, Alaric felt a searing heat emanating from his left arm. The black tattoo was no longer mere ink; it began to boil beneath his skin. He felt a pain tearing through his muscle fibers, as if thousands of red-hot needles were piercing his marrow. His veins swelled, and his eyes took on a deep purple hue. Alaric spoke in a thunderous voice that no longer sounded human, but rather a demonic roar:
"Back away from me, you scum! Today, I will teach you the meaning of annihilation!"
Alaric plunged into the midst of hundreds of enemies. He was no longer a knight; he had become a whirlwind of death. His sword, once requiring effort to lift, now swung with the lightness of a feather and struck with the force of a hammer. Each blow cleaved through two or three bodies. The blood that splattered on him did not run off; he felt as though the pores of his skin absorbed it, fueling his ferocity and madness.
One of the northern chieftains spoke, witnessing Alaric shatter the ranks of his elite warriors with wild yet deadly strikes:
"Fall back! This is no man! It is a forgotten spirit summoned by the southerners to scorch the earth!"
Alaric did not utter a word in reply; he leaped a tremendous leap, shattering the ground beneath his feet, and drove his sword into the northern chieftain's skull, piercing through helm and bone down to the chest. In that moment, a sudden silence fell upon Alaric's mind. He heard not the cries of the wounded, but the whisper of old Merlock: "A crown needs a foundation of skulls."
As the sun tilted towards dusk and the horizon turned the color of ash, the valley settled into a terrifying silence. Alaric stood alone amidst hills of corpses that covered the face of the earth. His armor was shattered, his face caked with mud and clotted blood, and his left arm still pulsed with a thick darkness from which a faint vapor rose. Of the five hundred soldiers, only ten men survived, standing at a distance, trembling in fear of their commander more than they had feared the enemy he had annihilated.
Alaric muttered, gazing at his palm which still shook from the excess of adrenaline and dark power:
"We crossed the valley… but we left our souls at the bottom."
Old Merlock appeared suddenly from behind a massive boulder, as if he had been watching the spectacle from a comfortable seat. He spoke with a yellowed smile revealing decayed teeth:
"A breathtaking performance, my Ash King. Today, you tasted the first drop of power's bitter wine. Tell me, does loyalty to Borick still reside in your heart? Or has the blood washed away that filth?"
Alaric's voice hardened, and he pointed his bloodied blade at the old man's throat:
"Borick wanted us to be sacrifices for his greed. He left good men to die so he could keep his accursed seat. Speak… did you know this would happen?"
Merlock replied coolly, not even flinching before the blade:
"I do not know the unseen; I only know the nature of souls. Borick thought he was burying you in this valley, not realizing he was planting the seed of his kingdom's destruction with his own hand. Return to him, Alaric… Return to show him that death refused to receive you because you have become its master. Return and don your armor, for the distance to the seventieth chapter is still long, and filled with more corpses than your eye can count."
Alaric walked back towards the camp of Northhold. Each step drove the sole of his boot into the mud soaked with blood, and each beat of his heart proclaimed the death of the knight who had served the king and the birth of the tyrant who would burn the world to sit upon a throne of ash.