Chapter 11: The Cold Night

The world before dawn was colder than death.

Ashthorn Keep crouched beneath the blood-lit sky, its walls no longer bastions but crumbling skeletons. The few torches still burning along the parapets flickered against the wind, defiant but weak — just like the men who guarded them.

Thorne's boots scraped the frostbitten stone as he walked the inner courtyard, pausing at every patrol, every wounded soldier bundled against the cold. Their eyes were hollow now. He could see it. They didn't speak much anymore. Words were fuel, and fuel was running out.

They were waiting for death. And death was waiting for daylight.

But Thorne wasn't.

He reached the war room — if the shattered chapel could still be called that. Maps, blood-smeared and torn, were pinned against the walls with broken blades. Candles guttered low on the war table, the wax long since bled dry. Only one flame remained steady.

Sergeant osric stood there, arms crossed, eye sharp despite the exhaustion.

"The men are ready," osric said quietly. "20 , all who can move silent and shoot straight."

Thorne nodded, No speeches, no last-minute morale boosts. The men weren't fools. They knew what this was.

A knight asked, " but lord what if they attacked?"

Osric, "I don't think so that they will attack tonight, they see us as foder who can't defend themselves,that's why they take long breaks before big attacks"

Thorne's eyes gleamed with a cold, calculating focus. "In their eyes, we've already lost," he said, his voice low but steady. "But we'll strike first, before they can make their move. We'll burn their food wagons, cripple their supplies. When they see their rations go up in flames, they'll be forced to choose between saving themselves and launching an attack. And in the end, they'll pick their food over their weapons."

A raid born not of hope, but of desperation....

He bent over the map, tracing his finger along the outline of the Skarnling encampment beyond the treeline. The supply camp was the heart. If the Skarnlings had one weakness, it was their stomachs. Starve a beast, and it grew reckless. Recklessness was the one ally Thorne had left.

"We move at darkest hour ," Thorne murmured. "No torches. No noise. Once we breach the line, we split into four cells. Osric, you'll lead the second. I want the supply wagons torched, every last one."

Osric gave a sharp nod. There was no argument, only acceptance. In this war, orders were the last kind of certainty.

Outside the chapel, the sky bled crimson as the moon slid lower on the horizon. Time was closing in.

The cold bit through leather and steel as the raiding party slipped from Ashthorn's broken gates, moving like shadows along the frost-laden ground. Each man's breath came shallow and slow, muffled beneath cloth and iron discipline. Even the youngest among them knew that silence was worth more than any sword.

Thorne led from the front, crouched low as they weaved between the jagged stones and dead brush. His body still ached, ribs wrapped tight beneath his battered armor, but his mind burned sharper than ever. Every footfall, every whisper of wind, every distant snarl of the Skarnling patrols — he counted them all.

The Skarnlings had grown overconfident, fat on their victories. Their outer sentries paced lazily in the dark, bone-masked faces turned half to the sky. A hunter that believed itself unbeatable had no need for vigilance.

Thorne's fingers signaled the halt.

Twenty paces ahead, a pair of Skarnlings lounged by a dying campfire, their weapons planted in the dirt, claws idly picking at scraps of dried meat. Two guards — for a camp housing the lifeblood of their siege.

Pathetic.

Thorne raised his fist, then two fingers. The signal flicked through the ranks like lightning. From the dark, two arrows whispered forward, sharp as breath, and the Skarnlings collapsed without sound.

The men advanced.

Beyond the treeline, the supply camp sprawled like a spider's nest. Crates stacked high, barrels lashed in rows, dried meats, iron-forged weapons, black powder, and caged beasts bred for war — everything the enemy needed to finish Ashthorn.

Thorne crouched behind a wagon, watching the torch-bearing Skarnlings shuffle between stockpiles. They were slow. Relaxed. Unprepared.

He counted the steps, the torch rotations, the gaps between patrols.

His mind worked like clockwork, cold and mechanical — years of battle instinct stripping away the man beneath. There was only one truth now: timing.

"Strike on the third pass," he whispered.

The seconds crawled. One patrol passed. Two. Three.

The men moved.

Osric's squad split left, oil-sacks in hand, pouring thick streams across the piles of dried supplies. Thorne's squad went for the weapon crates — hammers shattering locks, blades carving through bindings. Flames didn't need permission to spread once they were set free.

One spark.

That's all it took.

The night burst into life.

Fire swallowed the camp in a sudden, roaring bloom, shadows dancing wild across the treeline as barrels cracked and iron twisted under the heat. Skarnlings stumbled from their tents, half-dressed, weapons forgotten in the panic.

Thorne didn't wait to watch them burn. He signaled the retreat the moment the last wagon lit up. His men pulled back, vanishing into the black before the Skarnlings could organize a response.

Behind them, the enemy's howls rose — this time not in hunger, but in outrage.

The run back to Ashthorn was no march. It was a gauntlet.

The Skarnlings were fast. Faster than any man. They fanned out through the trees, snarling, screeching — the night alive with the hunt. But Thorne's men were disciplined, retreating not in panic but in staggered pairs, each man covering the other as they leaped stone to stone, ditch to ditch.

Osric's voice cut through the dark like a blade.

"Left flank! Cover fire!"

Arrows snapped from behind the rocks, pinning the first wave of Skarnlings in place long enough for the squad to break the treeline. Every man was accounted for — save one.

A young soldier, barely more than a boy, stumbled behind the line. Blood darkened his thigh, slowing him to a limp. The Skarnlings closed the distance fast.

Thorne didn't think. His sword cleared its sheath in one motion, iron flashing under the dying moonlight. He planted himself between the boy and the oncoming pack, shield raised, breath sharp and ragged.

The first Skarnling lunged.

Thorne sidestepped, driving the sword deep beneath its collarbone. Another came from the side, axe raised — Thorne's shield met the strike, sending shockwaves down his injured ribs, but he held firm.

A sharp whistle. An arrow sang past his shoulder, slamming into the Skarnling's throat. Osric .

Thorne didn't look back. He hauled the wounded boy onto his shoulder and ran.

The gates of Ashthorn loomed ahead, broken but still standing. The last dozen meters stretched like a lifetime, every breath burning in his lungs. But the men on the walls had seen them coming.

A volley of arrows rained down behind him, driving the Skarnlings back into the dark.

Thorne crossed the threshold just as the sun's first rays cracked the horizon.

To be continued...…

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Author's Note:

Hey everyone — if you're enjoying the story so far, I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a comment! Your feedback, thoughts, and suggestions help me improve and shape the story for you.

I'll be aiming to upload 2 chapters daily from now on, so stay tuned and thank you for your support!