Chapter 532

The winds howled low and constant beneath the jagged teeth of the Tekarr Mountains, their breath rolling cold and dry across the cracked plains below. Night had not yet fully fallen, but the sun had vanished behind the western peaks, casting the land in hues of iron and blood. Shadows stretched long across the frost-hardened earth, and the dying light shimmered on the rippling sea of orcish tents.

From a distance, the encampment resembled a siege laid by nature itself...tattered banners dancing in the wind, watchfires blazing like defiant stars in the coming dark, and crude wooden palisades forming a jagged crown around the camp's heart. This was not the ragged remnant the Threians believed they chased...it was the warhost of the old blood, the real stronghold of the orcs, hidden at the foot of the northern Tekarr Mountains.