Chapter 63: Infernal Siege
The night sky roared, a cauldron of heat and fury, as the first flaming projectile tore through the darkness. It blazed like a dying star, trailing molten embers that hissed in the wind. From the frost-rimed towers of Blackthorn Fortress, Kael watched its descent—a harbinger of ruin streaking toward the eastern wall. The impact was cataclysmic: a deafening boom as stone shattered and fire erupted, the shockwave rippling through the ramparts under his boots.
"Infernal artillery," Ashira hissed, her voice cutting through the chaos. She stood at Kael's side, her cloak snapping in the smoke-charged gusts. Her amber eyes glinted like embers, narrowing as another fiery bolt screamed across the horizon. "Fire runes—ancient, forbidden. This isn't a siege. It's a reckoning."
Kael's jaw tightened, his pulse hammering as the second projectile obliterated the outer courtyard's watchtower. Timber exploded into a pyre, its flames clawing at the sky. Screams—raw, desperate—echoed as soldiers stumbled through the inferno, their silhouettes swallowed by swirling ash. The air reeked of charred wood and seared flesh.
"They're not just breaching walls," Kael growled, his voice low but resolute. "They're torching our spirit."
Below, the fortress garrison fought like ants against a flood. Bucket chains snaked from the inner wells, water hissing into steam as soot-streaked soldiers battled the flames. Kael's rigorous drills, once mocked as paranoia, now held the line between survival and annihilation.
A bone-rattling roar shattered the night. A massive infernal bolt slammed into the granary, unleashing a firestorm that painted the sky crimson. The blast hurled soldiers to the ground, their cries drowned by the crackle of burning grain. Weeks of rations—gone in a heartbeat.
"Damn their precision!" Thalor stormed up the ramparts, his armor smeared with ash, blood oozing from a gash above his brow. "They're targeting food, defenses, morale—everything!"
Kael's eyes flicked to Ashira. "How?"
She raised her staff, its tip pulsing with arcane light. A shimmering violet disc materialized before her, a scrying lens revealing the distant enemy lines. Her face twisted in disgust. "Demon-bound siege engines—hulks of bone and cursed iron, powered by infernal spirits. That's why their shots are so precise. This is sorcery, not strategy."
Kael's gaze turned to steel. "Then we gut their sorcery."
Thalor snorted, wiping blood from his face. "Charge those lines? You'll be ash before you reach them."
Kael's eyes dropped to the courtyard, where his elite Blades of Loyalty assembled. Their armor gleamed under flickering torchlight, crests of snarling wolves and coiled serpents etched into polished steel. These were no mere soldiers—they were forged in blood, tempered by fire.
"Not a charge," Kael said, his voice a blade's edge. "A shadow strike. We hit their crews under night's veil. Ashira, your sharpest mages. Thalor, your shieldwall braces for their counterblow."
Ashira's lips curved, a spark of defiance in her eyes. "I'll weave cloaking runes. They'll never see us coming."
---
The fortress gates stayed sealed as Kael's strike team slipped through a forgotten tunnel, its damp stone walls carved by desperate hands centuries ago. They emerged in a frost-kissed wood, the enemy's siege camp blazing like a wound in the night. Its glow cast grotesque shadows—hulking siege engines that loomed like titans, their frames of blackened metal and bone pulsing with crimson runes. Flames writhed beneath them, alive, serpentine, hungry.
Kael led the way, his cloak a wraith in the dark. Ashira and her two Arcanists flanked him, their forms shimmering under illusion spells. Behind, two squads of Blades of Loyalty moved like specters, blades glinting faintly in the starlight.
Ashira's voice was a whisper. "We target the fuel runes first. Break the bindings, and the demons implode."
The first engine was lightly guarded—five soldiers and a warlock, their silhouettes stark against the firelight. Ashira's fingers danced, casting a dome of silence. The Blades struck like vipers: blades flashed, blood sprayed, and bodies crumpled without a sound. Ashira and her mages surged to the engine, carving glyphs of banishment into its shuddering frame. The runes flared, then flickered erratically.
"Move!" Ashira barked.
They dove as the engine detonated, a violet supernova of flame and shrapnel that shook the earth. The blast sent shockwaves through the enemy camp, shouts of alarm rising like a tide.
"They're awake now," Kael said, his voice steady.
"One more," Ashira replied, her eyes blazing. "We have to."
The second engine was a fortress unto itself, guarded by a demon-bound brute—ten feet of scorched steel and twisted muscle, its crimson eyes scanning the dark. Kael signaled Verrin, a Blade whose footsteps were whispers. The assassin melted into shadow, reappearing only as a black dagger pierced the brute's throat. It fell with a gurgling roar.
But the guards were ready. A warlock unleashed walls of flame, his staff a beacon of dark power. Kael charged, his sword a silver arc that carved through enchanted armor like parchment. His strikes were surgical, each blow finding a seam, a weakness, as if guided by instinct honed in a hundred battles. The warlock fell, his staff clattering into the dirt.
Ashira's mages disabled the second engine, its collapse a smaller but no less satisfying eruption. But horns blared now, and torchlight flooded the camp. The enemy was mobilizing. Kael's team fled under Ashira's cloaking runes, slipping into the tunnel as a patrol's boots thundered mere yards away.
---
Dawn broke over a transformed battlefield. Two siege engines lay in smoldering ruin, their demonic cores reduced to slag. The remaining engines fired sporadically, their aim faltering. Inside Blackthorn, morale soared. Soot-stained soldiers cheered as southern reinforcements arrived, bearing bandages and quivers of arrows. The fires were tamed, the fortress unbroken.
Thalor grinned, arms crossed on the ramparts. "They're spitting mad now."
"Good," Kael said, his voice a low burn. "Let them choke on it."
Ashira joined them, her face streaked with soot but her eyes alight. "Their remaining engines are unstable. Push them to fire too fast, and they'll tear themselves apart."
Kael's gaze swept the courtyard. "Then we bait them. Stage a fake assault—make them think we're charging. They'll panic and overload their weapons."
---
That night, Kael's plan unfolded like a predator's strike. Fires flared in the outer camps, cavalry thundered near the north wall, and war drums pounded a defiant rhythm. From the enemy's ridge, frantic orders echoed. The siege engines groaned, their runes glowing hotter, brighter—too bright.
Ashira, peering through a scrying mirror, smirked. "They're unraveling."
The first engine fired, its projectile overshooting the fortress and exploding in a distant valley, a harmless burst of light. The second misfired catastrophically, its demonic core rupturing in a fireball that consumed its crew. The third engine buckled under its own power, collapsing into a crater of twisted metal and ash.
---
At sunrise, Kael stood atop the walls, his cloak billowing in the dawn breeze. The enemy's artillery line was a graveyard of scorched wreckage. What began as an infernal siege had crumbled into a humiliating rout.
Thalor laughed, a rare sound. "You played them like a lute."
Kael's eyes remained on the horizon, unyielding. "They'll come again. But now they know: we don't burn. We bite."
Behind him, Blackthorn's banners snapped in the wind, untouched by flame, defiant against the rising sun.