The Silver Axes moved in silence, their usual war cries replaced by the muted shuffling of weary bodies. The firelight flickered against their faces, sweat mixing with blood, grief mixing with exhaustion. They carried their king—not as a warlord, but as a fallen brother.
Jhon walked beside them, his boots sinking into the bloodstained sand. His fingers were numb, his heart heavier than it had ever been. He had seen death before, had waded through rivers of it. But this... this was different.
They laid Torgo down in the center of the camp, beneath the towering bones of what had once been a great sea beast. His body was covered in deep gashes, his golden tattoos still glowing faintly, flickering like embers struggling against the wind. The light of a king, fading.
Kalthar, the eldest warrior among them, pressed a hand to Torgo's chest, his fingers trembling. The others followed, kneeling beside their fallen leader. Some murmured prayers. Others whispered his name like it was too sacred to be spoken aloud.
Jhon swallowed hard. He had never knelt before any king, never mourned a ruler. But as he looked at Torgo—a man who had fought not just with steel, but with the fire in his soul—he felt the weight of what they had lost.
"Torgo…" Jhon's voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.
The healer, a woman with dark braids and silver rings piercing her brow, pressed herbs and ointments against his wounds. But there was no stopping it. No miracle to be found in this cursed land.
Torgo's breath came in short gasps, his once-mighty chest barely rising. His golden eyes, now dulled, flickered open. A king should not die like this.
"Jhon..." His voice was weaker than before, but still firm. Even now, he carried the weight of a thousand battles.
Jhon leaned in. "Save your strength," he muttered.
Torgo smiled—a faint, knowing smirk. "No strength left... to save." His fingers twitched, reaching for something unseen.
The camp was silent, waiting, hoping. Torgo exhaled, long and slow. His golden tattoos dimmed completely. His hand dropped, lifeless.
For a long time, no one spoke. The fire crackled, the desert winds howled, but among the warriors—only silence.
Then, Kalthar let out a low, keening wail—a sound that carried the grief of generations. Others joined, their voices rising into the night, howling like beasts mourning their alpha. Some beat their chests, others slammed their axes into the earth, marking his passing with steel and sorrow.
Jhon clenched his jaw, his hands curling into fists. He had fought alongside Torgo, had seen the fire in his eyes, the unbreakable spirit that had burned through war and bloodshed. And now, just like that, the fire was gone.
He had come for vengeance. He had come to turn enemies against each other. But now, as he stood among warriors who had lost more than he ever had, he wondered if this had ever been his war to begin with. Jhon closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of blood, sweat, and burning wood.
The Silver Axes did not bury their dead. They did not weep over graves or whisper prayers to unseen gods. Their kings did not rot beneath the earth—they burned, so their spirits could ride the wind and their strength would never fade.
The warriors gathered around Torgo's body in a perfect circle, each one kneeling with their axes planted firmly into the bloodstained ground. The firelight danced across their faces, illuminating the golden tribal tattoos that now seemed dim without their king's radiance.
Kalthar stood at the head of Torgo's body, his bare chest streaked with white ash—the mark of mourning. His massive frame trembled as he unsheathed a curved dagger, its hilt carved from the bone of a long-dead leviathan.
"Torgo the Indomitable, King of the Silver Axes, Guardian of Sol-Minora, Master of the Beastborn." Kalthar's voice boomed across the desert night, his throat raw with grief but his stance unyielding. "You have fought, bled, and conquered. Your hands have shaped our fate, your fire has burned through our enemies. But even the strongest must return to the sky."
At these words, the warriors began to chant—a low, rhythmic hum that made the very air thrum with sorrow and reverence.
Kalthar knelt beside Torgo and, with steady hands, cut deep into his chest, carving the sacred spiral of release—a ritual to free his spirit from the confines of his body. Blood seeped from the wound, dark against the golden glow of his skin, and the warriors did not look away. To bear witness was an honor. To turn away was to betray their king.
Jhon watched in silence. He had seen death in many forms, but never had he seen it embraced with such reverence, such love.
Once the spiral was complete, Kalthar wiped the dagger on his forearm and stood. "Bring the pyre."
The Silver Axes moved as one, dragging massive logs of petrified driftwood—the hardest and rarest in Sol-Minora. They stacked them with precision, forming a towering structure that would burn for days. At the heart of it, they placed Torgo's body, his golden tattoos reflecting the torchlight one last time. The warriors stepped back. The time had come.
Kalthar raised his axe. "Blood of the Silver Axes, to fire you return! Ride the storm, burn the sky, and never be forgotten!"
The warriors roared in unison, a sound that shook Jhon's very bones. Then, one by one, they cut their palms and smeared their blood onto their axes, lifting them toward the heavens. The pyre was lit.
Flames roared to life, swallowing Torgo's body in golden fury. The fire twisted and writhed, as if the spirit of their fallen king raged one last time before embracing the sky. The scent of burning wood, oil, and flesh filled the air, and yet no one turned away. They watched, until nothing remained but embers.
Then, the warriors did something Jhon had not expected. They laughed. Not in mockery, not in madness—but in celebration. Because Torgo had died as he had lived: in war, in glory, in defiance of fate itself.
They drank, they sang, they clashed their axes together in tribute. The night was filled with a furious joy, a grief that refused to kneel. They mourned, but they did not break.
The battlefield had grown still. The fires had died down, leaving behind only smoldering embers and the scent of charred flesh. The Iron Foot had lost much, but they still stood.
Boris sat atop a broken war drum, his hulking frame illuminated by the dying torchlight. His armor—once a gleaming fortress of iron—was now cracked and smeared with blood, both his own and that of his enemies. The stump where his left arm had once been was crudely wrapped in thick cloth, the pain dulled only by his exhaustion.
His warriors moved quietly, gathering what remained of their fallen, salvaging weapons from the wreckage, and reforging their encampment. There was no celebration, no songs of victory. Only the mechanical routine of survival, the grim determination of men who had fought for power and had gained only corpses in return.
Boris exhaled sharply, his breath fogging in the cold night air. His two crows—perched on a nearby post, watching him with silent, knowing eyes.
"Was this worth it?" he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. His remaining fingers tightened around the handle of his great war axe, its massive blade resting against the dirt. The crows gave no answer.
Boris closed his eyes, the echoes of battle still roaring in his mind. The clash of steel, the screams of dying men, the laughter of Torgo as they fought… and then the silence that followed his death. He had won the land. He had driven back the Silver Axes. But had he won the war?
For the first time in his life, he wondered if this was all there was. Endless war. Endless bloodshed. A cycle that neither side seemed willing to break.
His father, Greythor Redbeard, had always told him that power was taken, not given. That to rule meant to crush all who opposed him. Boris had lived by that creed, had built his legend upon it. And yet, staring at the fractured remnants of his own army, at the graves of his best warriors, he felt… hollow.
His crows cawed softly. Boris opened his eyes and stared at the distant horizon. Somewhere beyond those dunes, the Silver Axes mourned their king. Somewhere, Jhon Rackham still lived.
And somewhere in the dark corners of his mind, a small voice whispered: "What if we had chosen differently?"
The wind howled through the barren dunes, carrying with it the distant echoes of mourning and the bitter scent of scorched earth. The Iron Foot warriors moved like weary ghosts, stacking broken weapons, reforging their palisades, and tending to the wounded beneath the bleak glow of torchlight.
Boris sat still, his gaze lost in the distant horizon, his mind heavy with thoughts of war, loss, and the ever-churning wheel of fate. But then—the ground trembled.
At first, it was subtle. A faint, rhythmic vibration beneath their feet, like the heartbeat of some ancient god awakening beneath the sand. Warriors paused, their hands tightening around their weapons, eyes darting toward the dunes.
Then—the earth exploded. A geyser of golden sand shot into the air, swallowing entire tents in an instant. The night was shattered by screams as men were thrown like ragdolls, their bodies slamming into rock and wood with sickening cracks.
And then it emerged. The Sand Hydra. A beast of nightmares, its six monstrous heads erupted from the shifting dunes, each one as massive as an ox-cart, their maws lined with jagged fangs longer than swords. Its eyes burned with a sickly yellow glow, its black, scale-plated hide shifting like the dunes themselves, blending into the desert as if it were made of the very earth.
It moved like a storm—sudden, violent, unstoppable. One of its heads snapped forward, its colossal jaws clamping around a watchtower and tearing it from its foundation as if it were dry twigs. A second head lunged into the camp, impaling a warrior on its fangs before whipping him into the sky. The body twisted unnaturally, bones snapping like brittle wood, before crashing into the sand in a ruined heap.
Another head struck like a viper, swallowing two men whole in a single gulp. Their screams were muffled within its throat before being silenced forever. Warriors scrambled, some drawing blades, others running for cover—but it was chaos.
One man tried to strike at the hydra's thick, sand-coated hide with his war axe. The blade barely scratched its scales. In response, one of its heads snapped downward, coiling around him like a constrictor. His scream turned into a gurgle as his ribs caved under the monstrous pressure, blood spurting from his mouth before his lifeless body was tossed aside like refuse.
The hydra's massive tail erupted from beneath the sand, sweeping across the encampment like a battering ram. Dozens of warriors were sent flying, some landing in jagged debris, others crushed beneath collapsing wooden structures. The ground itself split apart beneath the sheer force of its wrath.
Boris stood frozen, his breath caught in his throat. His warriors—battle-hardened, ruthless killers—were reduced to nothing more than prey before the beast. It was as if the gods themselves had sent this monster to punish them, to remind them of their insignificance. For the first time since he took his father's throne, Boris felt true fear.
Boris inhaled deeply, feeling the weight of exhaustion clinging to his bones like iron chains. The Sand Hydra's monstrous roars shook the battlefield, the ground trembling beneath its fury as it devoured warriors and crushed structures with horrifying ease. This was no mere beast—it was a calamity incarnate. But Boris was no ordinarywarrior.
He clenched his fists, feeling the surge of raw power building inside him once more. His body hardened, twisted, and transformed—black iron veins pulsing beneath his skin, fusing into a living armor of steel. His muscles expanded, his form growing monstrous as his plated warlord frame reshaped itself into Iron Vein, the demon-clad warrior of legend. But this time, he wouldn't be reckless.
He turned to his remaining warriors, his voice a thunderous command over the chaos. "Run! Call the Silver Axes! Tell them the Sand Hydra has risen! If they don't help, we all die!"
A few of his men hesitated, torn between duty and fear. Boris grabbed the nearest one by the collar, lifting him off his feet. "MOVE!" he roared, his burning red eyes searing through the man's soul. That was all it took.
Several warriors sprinted toward the ruined palisade, pushing through the destruction, their legs carrying them toward the distant Silver Axes camp. Whether they would make it in time was another question.
Now, it was just Boris and the Hydra. The beast turned its attention toward him, its six heads snarling, its mouths dripping with fresh blood. It had devoured enough warriors to fill its belly, but something in its primal instincts recognized this one was different.
Iron Vein cracked his neck, his iron-plated fists flexing. "Come on, you overgrown bastard. Let's see who breaks first."