The sun rose over the Bridge of the Twins, but it brought no warmth. It was a pale, cataract eye staring down at a world that had been broken during the night.
The bridge, a massive architectural spine of white stone connecting the Kingdom of Gaan to the Kingdom of Dolbey, was usually a artery of commerce. Merchants, pilgrims, and diplomats would cross the churning grey waters of the Serpent River, exchanging grain for iron, prayers for protection.
Today, the bridge was a scar.
It was choked with the debris of a panic that had no name. Overturned carts, trampled silk, and the crushed bodies of those who had not been fast enough to escape the capital were strewn across the cobblestones. The Dolbey Legion had established a blockade at the midpoint of the bridge. A wall of grey shields and grim-faced soldiers stood immovable, their spears lowered, facing the smoking ruins of their Sister Kingdom. They were not there to let refugees in; they were there to keep the infection out.
On the Gaanish side, the silence was deafening.
The Capital City of Gaan, the oldest city of men, the seat of the Church of Dawn, was a smoking husk. The Southern Wing of the Royal Palace had collapsed into a mountain of rubble, sending a plume of dust into the stratosphere that coated the white marble of the city in a funeral shroud of grey. The great Bronze Bells, which had rung every morning for a thousand years to signal the favor of the Gods, hung silent in their towers.
The Gods were not ringing bells today. They were holding their breath.
High above the city, in the shattered remains of the Throne Room, the wind howled through the breach in the wall.
Ragnaur, the Wolf of Dolbey, sat on the edge of the dais. He had cleared a spot amidst the debris of the Sun King's throne and was sharpening his massive black iron greatsword with a whetstone the size of a brick.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
The sound was rhythmic, calm, and utterly at odds with the devastation around him.
General Kaelen walked into the room, his boots crunching on the glass of the destroyed mosaic map. He looked tired. His grey armor was stained with soot.
"Report," Ragnaur rumbled, not looking up from his blade.
"The city is secured, Lord," Kaelen said, though he didn't sound secure. "We have established martial law in the Outer Ring. The looters are being... discouraged."
"And the rats?" Ragnaur asked.
"The Gilded Company claims they killed the Beast," Kaelen said, skepticism dripping from his voice. "They said they cornered it in the lower courtyard. They said it was broken, crawling like a worm. They claim it fled into the sewers."
Ragnaur paused his sharpening. He looked at the hole in the wall where he had kicked the monster.
"They didn't kill it," Ragnaur said softly. "If they had killed it, they would be parading the head. If it ran... it means it's hungry."
"Should we send squads into the tunnels?" Kaelen asked.
Ragnaur shook his head. "No. The sewers are a maze. If you send men down there, you're just sending lunch. Seal the grates. Weld them shut. If the Dog wants to come out, make him dig."
Ragnaur stood up. He walked to the breach in the wall and looked East.
The horizon was dark. Not with clouds, but with dust. A living carpet of movement was spreading across the Badlands, marching toward the river. Thousands of banners, black and jagged, fluttered in the wind.
"The Iron Horde," Ragnaur noted. "They are early."
"Ten thousand strong," Kaelen confirmed. "Orc-kin, goblin-wargs, and human exiles. They saw the Holy Barrier fall when the Pope fled. They know the larder is open."
Ragnaur cracked his neck. "Good. I was getting bored waiting for supplies from home."
He looked West, toward Dolbey. The sky over his homeland was clear, blue, and peaceful. But Ragnaur frowned. He had sent three messengers to King Valdemar in the last twelve hours requesting reinforcements and siege engines. None had returned.
"Why is the West silent, Kaelen?" Ragnaur murmured.
"Perhaps the King is mourning his nephew," Kaelen suggested. "Leonus... he was family, after all."
Ragnaur snorted. "Valdemar doesn't mourn. He calculates. If he's silent, it's because he's plotting. Or..."
Ragnaur didn't finish the thought. He felt a phantom itch between his shoulder blades. An instinct. The same instinct that told him when a storm was coming.
"Double the watch on the bridge," Ragnaur ordered. "Facing both ways."
Miles away, across the river, the Kingdom of Dolbey woke to a morning that felt heavy.
Dolbey was not like Gaan. It was not a land of marble and gold. It was a land of iron, brick, and industry. The cities were built low and thick, designed to withstand the harsh winters and the monsters that occasionally roamed down from the northern mountains. It was a pragmatic kingdom.
But at the edge of the military encampment, the Iron Crematorium stood silent.
Usually, the four great smokestacks belched black smoke day and night, processing the waste of the army and the city. Today, the stacks were cold. No smoke rose. No heat shimmered in the air.
A lowly gravedigger named iven approached the heavy iron doors of the loading bay. He had a cart full of plague-ridden sheep carcasses to deliver.
"Hello?" Iven called out, banging his fist on the metal. "Open up! I've got a delivery!"
There was no answer. The heavy thrum of the furnaces was gone.
Iven put his ear to the door. He expected to hear the roar of fire, the shoveling of coal, the shouting of the workers.
Instead, he heard a sound like dry leaves skittering across a stone floor. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.
And then, a voice.
It wasn't a human voice. It sounded like the wind blowing through a flute made of bone.
"The fire is hungry, Iven," the voice whispered from the other side of the six-inch iron door. "But not for sheep."
Iven backed away. The hair on his arms stood up. The air around the crematorium felt impossibly cold, sucking the heat right out of the morning sun. Frost began to web across the iron door, spelling out patterns that made Iven's eyes hurt.
He turned and ran. He left his cart. He left his job. He ran until his lungs burned, fueled by a primal understanding that something had been born in that oven—something that should have stayed ash.
In the space between the worlds, the Envoy watched.
He did not have a physical form, merely a perspective—a shadow cast by a light that wasn't there. He hovered over the map of the Eight Kingdoms, looking down at the board.
The game had changed.
For three thousand years, the Gods of the Dawn had maintained their order through the Tithe. They had kept the Queen (The Hag) leashed in her grove, feeding her just enough suffering to keep her quiet. They had kept humanity weak, farming them for faith and souls.
But the board had been flipped.
The Hag had stopped playing by the rules. She had taken a broken pawn—Alaric—and turned him into a wild piece.
And now, the Void had entered the game.
The Envoy looked at the Crematorium in Dolbey. He saw the purple, necrotic light pulsing in the heart of the furnace. He saw the soul of Leonus, twisted and flayed, screaming in the dark, bound to the will of the Hunger.
He looked at the sewers of Gaan. He saw the red, angry pulse of the Dog, dragging its broken body through the filth, refusing to die, fueled by a spite that rivaled the Gods themselves.
And he looked at the Titan, Ragnaur, standing on the wall, a relic of an older, more violent age, unaware that he was trapped between a rot and a void.
"The balance is broken," the Envoy whispered to the empty air. "The Farm is closed. The Slaughterhouse is open."
He faded into the ether, leaving the mortals to their meat-grinder.
The War of Kings was a petty squabble over borders and taxes. It was over.
The War of Monsters—a war for the very soul of the biological world—had just begun.
END OF PROLOGUE