Chapter 13 – Across the Greywatch
The river frothed red beneath the morning fog, a cold and ceaseless torrent that twisted like a living thing between the banks. The Greywatch was not wide—barely seventy paces at its narrowest—but its current ran swift and deep, fed by snowmelt from the Ironspine Mountains to the east. A barrier, a spine, a boundary that had held for decades. Until now.
Lorien stood beneath the tattered banners of his forward command, wrapped in a thick wool cloak, eyes narrowed as he watched the opposite bank through a spyglass. Thorned trees crouched like sentries amid the mist. Somewhere behind them lay the holdings of the Vokari Confederacy—fractured, brutal tribes who had never bent to the Fire Throne nor to any banner save their own blood-forged ones.
But the Emberborn scouts had returned two nights prior with new intelligence: infighting among the Vokari, a weakened northern warlord, and a chokepoint pass left only lightly held. A rare moment. A vulnerability.
Lorien lowered the spyglass.
"Captain Talan," he said.
The man stepped forward, cuirass strapped tight, helmet under one arm. "My lord?"
"Signal the Ashen Vanguard. First wave crosses at second bell."
Talan hesitated only briefly. "We still lack full pontoon reinforcement. The engineers need—"
"I'm aware. But we move now. If we delay, the Vokari will regroup. The Emberborn say they're already dispatching messengers south."
Talan gave a brisk nod and vanished into the ranks. Horns called through the crisp air moments later—three long notes followed by a sharp, rising trill. The vanguard began to move.
Behind Lorien, the field camp buzzed to life. Soldiers jogged to their positions. Archers checked lines of fire from makeshift siege towers constructed over the past week. The Ashen Vanguard formed ranks with precision—five cohorts, handpicked from among the most disciplined and brutal of Lorien's rebuilt forces. Grey-plated scale armor glinted faintly. Ash-black cloaks snapped in the breeze.
At the river's edge, ferries and raft-bridges began to slide into the water, aided by engineers who barked orders and locked cross-timber joints into place. On the opposite bank, distant horns sounded—shrill, disorganized. Someone had seen them.
Lorien turned slightly. "Send the Emberborn."
---
They moved like whispers, twelve of them, hooded and unmarked. Across the half-finished pontoon, through the fog. No metal, no sound, even their breath held close. One by one, they vanished into the trees across the river, fanning out to find and eliminate sentries. They would not return until the crossing was secured—or until death claimed them.
They did not often die.
---
At the third bell, the first cohort surged forward.
Commander Rhyven led them, a grim veteran with more scars than years behind him. Shields tight, spears forward, they rushed the half-completed bridge with trained momentum. Arrows from the western bank began to fall—but most missed, whistling into river or catching harmlessly on tower shields held aloft.
The fog had not lifted. It favored them.
Then came the drums—Vokari war signals, irregular, furious. Lorien could just barely make out shapes forming in the trees across the water. Three hundred? Four? No real cohesion. That would change soon.
The first Ashen cohort struck the shore and spread out into a shallow semicircle, forming a beachhead under arrow fire. Return volleys followed from Lorien's side of the bank, his archers loosing in steady rhythm from their elevated platforms. Two of the Ashen fell—hit in the thigh, another in the throat—but the rest advanced unshaken, splitting apart to clear landing room for the next wave.
Rhyven drove his spear through the throat of the first charging tribesman. The man fell without a sound, crimson mixing with the river's edge.
Lorien watched it unfold with a steady expression. These were not the legions of the central empire—drilled for parade and display, hollowed by decades of complacency. These were his men. Blood-forged. Shaped in the crucible of exile.
---
By midmorning, four cohorts had crossed.
The Vokari resistance was scattered but vicious. Small bands counterattacked in waves—yelling, painted in bone-white ash, armed with jagged axes and long knives. But without unified command, they shattered against the Vanguard's iron discipline. Every charge was met with a wall of shields, followed by a brutal, silent counter-rush that left corpses piled high beneath the trees.
Lorien finally crossed at the sixth bell, escorted by two Emberborn and a cadre of his officers.
The landing site was held. Fortified now by hastily raised palisades and entrenched stakes. Behind them, supply wagons rolled onto the banks—sappers already setting up perimeter fires and small cook tents.
Ashen Vanguard soldiers parted as Lorien passed, saluting with right fists to chests. He returned the gesture with a nod, stopping only when he reached Commander Rhyven, who stood over a cleared map table assembled from two overturned crates.
"Report," Lorien said.
Rhyven didn't waste words. "They didn't expect an assault this early in the thaw. Broke easily. No full warbands spotted. Emberborn confirmed light guard presence only."
"And casualties?"
"Nineteen dead. Forty-three injured. Mostly from the initial arrow fire."
Lorien exhaled. For a river crossing under enemy threat, those numbers were astonishingly low.
"And the Emberborn?"
"All returned. Four with minor wounds. Targeted elimination successful—no coordinated signal fires, no scouts escaped."
"Good." He scanned the map. "We hold here through nightfall. Rotate watches, begin trench fortifications. I want cavalry across by morning."
Rhyven nodded. "We'll be ready."
As the sun finally broke the fog—pale and indifferent—Lorien looked westward into Vokari territory. Hills rolled beyond the forest edge. Somewhere beyond them lay three warbands, still unaware that the Greywatch had been breached for the first time in living memory.
They would learn. And too late.
---
That night, under the veil of flickering campfires, Lorien convened his officers.
The war table was lit by lanterns and surrounded by handpicked commanders—men and women who had risen through merit, not name. Rhyven. Kael the scribe-turned-strategist. Lady Sera of Thornvale's rebuilt militia. Even the Emberborn captain, a silent woman known only as Sarin.
Kael spoke first, gesturing at the map. "We have a window. Three days, maybe four, before they consolidate. This road here," he pointed, "runs directly to the Vokari's hill-fort at Korav's Spine. Lightly garrisoned by the Emberborn's report. If we take it quickly, we cut off their eastern flank entirely."
Lady Sera frowned. "And expose our own flank if they regroup from the west."
"We'll fortify the riverbank. Leave two cohorts to defend it," Rhyven said. "Let them try to retake it—our archers will gut them in the open."
Lorien nodded slowly. "We move at dawn. Second wave strikes Korav's Spine. Emberborn will clear the path again. I want the hill taken by the third day."
The officers exchanged grim, ready looks. None spoke of fear. Not here. Not after what they'd built in the ashes.
As they dispersed, Sarin lingered.
"You move quickly," she said, voice quiet.
"I don't believe in wasted moments," Lorien replied.
"The Vokari believe this river sacred," she said. "They will not retreat again."
"Good," Lorien said, meeting her eyes. "Then we'll crush them completely."
---
The next morning, the Ashen Marches moved. A new phase. Not merely defense. Not rebuilding. But expansion—iron and discipline marching westward through enemy woods.
Behind them, the Greywatch churned, restless and red-streaked.
But for the first time in decades, it no longer marked the edge of the empire.