HAREM: WARLOCK OF THE SOUTH

The Hollow Pass could not hold its silence forever.

It was a silence stretched thin as glass, trembling with every heartbeat, every uneven breath of the thousands who stood locked in place. Both armies faced each other like statues carved from tension alone, their banners stiff in the wind, their lines unmoving but alive with dread. Every cough, every shuffle of boot, every clink of armor was magnified, felt by both sides like the ticking of a clock counting down toward something inevitable.

It broke with a single sound—sharp, ugly, and unmistakable.

A northern horn.

The note was ragged, shrill, a cry of desperation more than command. It tore through the pass like a crack in stone, and with it, the fragile spell that had kept death at bay collapsed.

The northern line lurched forward with a roar, spears bristling, shields rattling, boots hammering the dirt. Dust rose in choking veils, banners whipped in sudden frenzy, and a single voice of terror and fury became ten thousand, melding into a sound too vast for language.

The storm had come.

Alric's voice bellowed from the southern host, raw and commanding: "Steady! Hold the line!" His sword was lifted high, gleaming with cold fire in the dying light. But even his cry was swallowed by the flood, drowned in the cacophony of men driven past the brink.

Ryon's grip tightened on his blade. He had prayed for one more heartbeat of stillness, one more breath before the collapse. But there was no mercy in the Pass. No choice but to meet the flood.

"Forward!" His own shout cracked the air, his throat torn raw. "Shields up!"

The southern wall shifted, shields grinding into place, spears lowering in trembling arcs of steel. They had barely time to lock together before the wave struck.

The collision was not sound but violence incarnate.

The first clash cracked through the world—wood splintering, iron shattering, men's bodies colliding with bone-jarring force. The impact rippled down the line like a living earthquake. Screams rose, were drowned, and rose again, blending into a storm that consumed all thought.

The northern tide surged with reckless abandon, their fear transmuted into fury. The southern wall bent beneath them, shields pressed inward, shoulders trembling beneath weight enough to crush stone.

Ryon's sword struck first blood—thrust deep into the chest of a northern spearman. Hot spray painted his arm as he ripped free, pivoting just in time to parry a strike aimed at his head. Sparks flared, steel clanged, and already his arms burned with the weight of every blow.

Beside him, Alric fought like a figure wrought from myth. His greatsword swept in broad arcs that shattered spears, crushed shields, tore men from their footing. His voice was a roar above the storm: "With me! Hold!" And men did—rallying to his shadow, their terror steeled into defiance.

The northern commander surged at the fore, his scarred face a grim mask. He wielded his spear not with frenzy, but with surgical precision, each thrust driving his men deeper, his very presence an anchor for the northern advance. His scarred visage rose like a banner of inevitability, a reminder that this battle would not be won by half-measures.

The Hollow Pass dissolved into fragments.

What had been a line became pockets of chaos. Men clashed in clusters, duels swallowed by swarms, screams cut short as bodies vanished beneath trampling boots. Steel rang sharp and relentless, flesh split, and the ground grew slick with blood.

A southern shield wall buckled near the center, groaning like wood beneath too much weight. Panic flickered in men's eyes as the northern press widened the fracture. Alric saw it and hurled himself into the breach, his blade tearing through a northern helm. His men surged after him, shoring the gap with their own flesh, their own lives.

Ryon's world narrowed to inches of steel and the breath of his enemies. Every strike he gave was life preserved, every parry another heartbeat stolen. He ducked beneath an axe meant to take his head, drove his sword through a thigh, and twisted free as the man fell screaming. Another came—he turned the blow, pivoted, his blade slicing a northern jaw open to the bone.

The tide pressed harder.

The Pass became a storm without center.

Blood soaked the dust until it became mud, sucking at boots, thick and stinking. Horses screamed riderless, crashing through the melee, trampling friend and foe alike. A northern banner collapsed, its bearer gutted, the cloth vanishing into the swarm like a drowning man into waves.

Still, the South bent but did not break. Not yet.

Every breath was a wager. Every heartbeat, a gamble.

The sky itself seemed to lower, the air thick with smoke and iron, the cries of the dying bouncing from the cliffs. Ash from burned timbers mingled with the dust, making the very air taste of cinder and death.

Ryon staggered back a step, shield shoving a northern blade away. Around him, he saw the faces of his men—not soldiers, but boys barely older than himself, farmers pressed into armor, fathers clutching spears with shaking hands. Their fear was naked, their courage desperate. Yet still they stood.

And opposite them, the North surged with the same madness. Men screamed not with bravery but terror, striking not to conquer but to survive.

The storm was no longer one side against another. It was a pit into which both had been hurled, each clawing to keep from drowning.

Even the ground seemed to rebel beneath the carnage. The churn of boots and bodies tore the soil to shreds, opening pits of sucking mud where the fallen disappeared, dragged down and trampled beyond recognition. The cliffs above echoed with the cries of carrion birds circling already, their shadows skimming the battlefield as if impatient for the feast.

And even as chaos reigned, a strange balance endured. Neither host gave way, neither wall fully collapsed. The battle see-sawed in pulses, like the inhale and exhale of a dying beast, each surge promising to break the other and yet failing by the barest margin.

The Hollow Pass drank deep of their blood, and still it hung uncertain which host would collapse first.

The knife's edge had given way to chaos, but even chaos had its balance.

And in that storm, neither army yet knew whose fury would outlast the other.

The Hollow Pass bled.

And it would bleed until one side shattered.