“My Lord, the warg armies remain surrounding the hillfort. However, we have lost a few of our own scouts to their scouting parties. The problem is, we can’t outrun them, so if they catch us, it is essentially a death sentence.”

  “I understand,” Mark said to his kneeling scout. “Call off the scouts and regroup. We have a good enough idea now. It isn’t worth losing any more people over.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” the scout bowed to the ground and left the tent.

  “Well, they certainly know we’re here,” Yelinda said.

  “They were always going to figure it out. There's not much we can do about that. But they haven’t broken the siege; that’s what’s important. At least we’ve confirmed where their priorities are.”

  “But will they attack it?”

  “I think we’re in a better position than it might seem,” Mark replied. “They are faced with two armies. If we can deceive them into believing that they have a chance to end the siege quickly, they might just take the opportunity. Think about it from their perspective. If they can march through the fort and defeat the clans, then they can quickly turn around and do the same to us. If we apply our pressure correctly, we should be able to draw a reaction out of them.”

  “You assume they think like us.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I’m not sure,” Yelinda sighed. “What I know of wargs comes from old tales passed down from generation to generation. Most people who told those tales had never even seen a warg before, let alone a warg army. Who knows what was lost over the years and what was embellished to stroke our egos?”

  “Yes, well, we can only work with what we have. Maybe this will fail spectacularly, but indecision effectively accepts our doom.”

  Yelinda nodded wordlessly.

  “Trust me on this.”

  “I already have,” she replied.

  **The Fort**

  The siege saw little action on most days. Arrows were flung back and forth, achieving little. But that suited the wargs fine. They knew their prey grew short on rations. They just needed to hold out.

  One morning, during an exchange of missiles, the defending clan warriors shot a barrage of flaming arrows with tiny clay pots tied to them. As they landed, they exploded into flames across the warg camp. However, several fell short, seemingly mishandled by the archers who shot them, erupting into flames across their wooden barricades.

  The barbarian clans rushed into chaotic action, trying to douse the stubborn flames as they spread across their defenses.

  On the other hand, the warg camp was spread out, and most of the fires harmlessly scattered across the snowy ground or caught on trees.

  Several of the wargs stood upright, watching the spectacle as more and more clan warriors hurried to try and fight the fire. But they looked helpless against such powerful flames eating their way across the dried timber they had made their defenses out of.

  Calling for their masters, the wargs pointed out the scene ravaging across the hillfort, who then went in search of their masters.

  Within minutes, the warg army’s highest commanders took in the sight, pointing and muttering among themselves. A minute later, they blew horns that sent chills down men's spines.

  Charging out of their camps, the wargs spent little time organizing or getting into formation. Once they had cleared their camp, they paired up into groups of a couple dozen or so and charged up the hill. This was how wargs fought battles. Strategy and tactics were not central. They relied on their overwhelming strength and speed.

  Even against the hill's incline, the wargs charged up it in seconds, catching the clan warriors off guard as they fought flames. Or so they thought.

  A cascading line of explosive flames set off as the first wargs reached them, setting some of the giant wolves alight with persistent flames and others recoiling as the clan warriors dashed back to form a line of shields.

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  But the attack had already begun, and the wargs who led it did not want to be known as the cowards who broke the charge, so they bit down and growled as they pressed on, charging through the flames and kicking up snow where they could.

  Still, without the wall, the clan warriors stood with little more than iron weapons and wooden shields against the huge, muscle-ripped wolves who crashed down on their ranks with devastating consequence.

  Arrows loosened, and spears stabbed forth, but their enemy only grew stronger as more wargs charged into action.

  A bellowing roar echoed through the air, and the defenders had their attention stolen as giant men who stood twenty feet tall or higher stormed up the opposite side of the fortifications, ripping palisades straight from the ground with their bare hands and tossing them through the air.

  As one of the giants turned its deep-set brow on the defenders, a bolt of lightning crackled through the sky, blasting into the side of its head and sending it toppling over, followed by a blur whizzing past as a throne ship ascended back into the sky.

  Cries of alarm echoed through the warg army, no doubt fearing their Imperial enemy had returned. Still, before decisions to retreat could be made, another army appeared, marching out from the surrounding treelines and heading straight for their flanks.

  “Finish them!” A warg commander screamed over the chaos of battle, waving his rusty weapon above his head as he drove his warriors onward. They now had one option: massacre the clan warriors on the hill as quickly as possible and turn their forces around to meet the new threat.

  From a third angle of attack came mammoths, their riders firing arrows as they approached. Their giant tusks were plated in spiked steel, and the clumsy swaying of their heads tore the timber defenses away effortlessly as the trunks caught hold of wood and pulled it from its fastenings.

  Forced to split their armies, the defenders sent warriors to meet these new threats, raining down both arrows and flames on anybody daring enough to attempt breaking into the fort.

  Pushed back, the front lines of the clans began to crumble. Arrows and spears cut into the wargs, and even a few frontline warriors managed to steal a kill or two with sword and axe, but for every warg they slayed, several of their own were cut down.

  Another blast of thunder burst through the air as the throne ship made another pass. The lightning slammed into one of the mammoths, sending sizzled men to their deaths and the giant beast toppling over, crushing dozens of their own warriors in the process.

  As Mark’s army neared the warg flanks, he raised his hand from atop Biscuit and shot lightning out across the battlefield, roaring into the flanks of the wargs who pressed against each other to get at the barbarian army.

  He desperately eyed the battlefield for a sign of the warg leader. At the very least, his attacks would thin the enemy’s numbers, but he hoped for more. He hoped that it might draw their enemy leader out and expose itself.

  “No sign of their leader,” Yelinda sneered, sitting in front of Mark as they rode atop Biscuit.

  “Doesn’t matter. We don’t have much choice now. We charge for their flanks. Let me worry about the leader.”

  Yelinda nodded and waved in the air for the charge to commence.

  The disorganized charge that the barbarian matriarch let loose was at odds with the disciplined approach of Mark’s army, but he couldn’t help but be impressed.

  Bears, warriors, war wagons, and armed chain gangs shot across the snowy landscape, lit up by the flashes of lightning that burst from Mark’s hands and crashed into the warg flanks with devastating consequences.

  Archers stopped once in range and loosened arrows, aiming for the thick of the enemy that was pinned between the two armies.

  A single arrow would struggle to kill a warg, but the relentless barrage quickly added up, covering their mostly unarmored enemy in wounds within seconds.

  Biscuit threw hulking wargs across the snow and crushed their bones as he bit into the beasts that looked small in comparison. At the same time, Yelinda used her mastery of the wind and threw the wargs from their feet as the armies clashed, refusing them the opportunity to dig in and resist their charge.

  With a flick of her wrist, whirlwinds traveled through the warg ranks, picking their warriors up and flinging them through the air, but most importantly, causing utter chaos to reign through their army as they were battered from all sides.

  Mark fired again, charring several wargs who held stiff resistance to his army and allowing his troops to break through, but he had to resist the urge to use more energy as he scanned their ranks.

  Where is he? This is as important as winning the battle.

  Mark spotted it to the left of the enemy’s forces, surrounded by the only armored wargs he had seen. A giant, hulking warg covered in fur as black as night.

  The huge warg was almost as big as Biscuit, with gnarled fangs and teeth as long as short swords.

  How the…

  Mark shook his head. Taking this thing down with lightning was one thing, but how on earth was he going to do it with a sword?

  The armies pressed on as the battle raged around, warriors from all sides pressing into the chaotic melee.

  Sabretooth warriors proved their dedication to their martial lifestyles as they bested wargs in one-on-one combat.

  Imperial shield formations that had held back from the initial charge pressed in as worn-out barbarian warriors fell back to catch their breaths, moving forward in an orderly fashion with spears extended.

  Some wargs tried to take chase against the retreating barbarians, only to find themselves caught against the spears of these formations and cut down by swords if they forced themselves forward.

  Clay grenades filled with Greek fire were thrown at the pinned-down army. As the armies moved closer and the wargs pressed against the shields of the Imperial formation, the barbarians, who had taken a moment to rest, engaged, pushing through the disciplined ranks that parted to make lanes through their formation with precision so that the barbarians could easily charge back into action.

  Wild, unarmored chain gangs flailed into battle, swinging crude weapons and lumping atop wayward wargs and battering them to death.

  War wagons circled through the snowy battlefield, firing arrows at the auxiliary armies that attacked the hilltop from other angles and fleeing before they could counter.

  Trolls showed off their prowess, overpowering wargs, cutting them down, and healing the wounds left by their claws in minutes.

  I have to do this before the battle reaches its conclusion.

  Mark exhaled, eyeing his target. It was now or never.