CHAPTER 8: The Siege of Duskwatch – Part II
Duskwatch Fortress – The Second Day
The sky was bruised with smoke. Arrows still drifted like black snow. And through the scorched southern breach, Kael Sovereign marched.
The night's fires had carved a wound in Duskwatch's outer wall. Now came the deeper cut—the heart of the fortress. Its gate remained intact, iron-banded and locked behind three layers of stone.
Kael stood at the front, flanked by Myrren, Dren, and Seyda. Behind them, a tide of hardened rebels waited. Some gripped pikes. Others bore axes salvaged from dead imperials. Many had no armor—only ash-marked cloth and eyes that no longer feared death.
"Time to open the door," Kael said.
Phase One – The Gate-Breaker
They rolled it through the mud like a beast in chains—a battering ram, improvised from felled oak and braced with melted iron from the old mines.
Dren rode it in, shouting curses as sparks flew from the gate's reinforced frame.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Arrows rained from the murder holes above. Rebels dragged wooden mantlets forward as cover. Screams rang out from the wounded, but the ram didn't stop.
"Brace for oil!" Myrren shouted.
But there was no oil.
Seyda stepped forward, raising both arms. A thin veil of fire shimmered above the gatehouse. The Red Veil had lit incense beneath the stone in the night, seeding heat inside the fortress. When the imperials tried to pour burning pitch—they burned themselves first.
Their screams echoed like devils in the stone.
BOOM.
BOOM.
CRACK.
The gate finally split. The central bar shattered. The hinges screamed.
The gate fell inward like a toppled god.
Phase Two – Into the Courtyard
Kael didn't wait.
He surged through the open gate, sword drawn. His cloak billowed like smoke behind him as his rebels flooded in.
Duskwatch's inner courtyard was a killing ground—tight walls, a statue of a lion-king at the center, and crossbowmen on every ledge. But Kael had planned for that.
"Red Veil, left wall. Pike line, forward. Archers—fire on the towers!"
The response was fluid, brutal, precise.
Seyda and her Red Veil swept the left flank, setting fire to a supply cart and using its explosion as cover. Screaming imperials fell from the ledges, armor ablaze.
Myrren led a wedge through the center, her axe hewing limbs like wheat. She caught a lieutenant mid-swing and drove his helmet into the paving stones, splitting it open with a grunt.
Kael met Captain Vaedren near the lion statue.
Steel rang on steel. Vaedren was older, more refined—but Kael fought like he'd never feared death. He broke Vaedren's guard with a feint, slashed his thigh, and ended it with a stab through the gorget.
"I don't kneel," Kael growled, yanking the blade free.
Victory
The last defenders fell by the well. A trumpet tried to sound surrender—but it choked in the horn bearer's throat.
And then it was quiet.
Duskwatch Fortress—one of the Empire's oldest inland holds—had fallen.
Kael stepped onto the central platform. He raised the banner of Ravencair, now marked in iron flame. Black on red. Sovereign's sigil.
The rebels below chanted his name.
"Sovereign! Sovereign! Sovereign!"
Aftermath – Duskwatch's War Room
Kael stood over the fortress map table. Blood still dripped from his boots.
"We hold the River Road now," said Myrren.
"Word will spread faster than riders," added Dren. "They'll call this the first kingdom."
Kael said nothing.
Seyda approached and bowed—not like a servant, but like a priestess at the altar of a god who finally arrived.
"This was your baptism," she said. "Now the fire spreads."
Kael nodded once.
"Let it."