The crash of tribal axes against the Stone Walker line did not sound like victory. It sounded like a hammer striking an anvil—hard, jarring, and desperate.

  Kaelen had broken their formation. He had scrambled their inner ears with the sonic assault. But he hadn't turned their bones to glass. These were veteran warriors, Steel Rank elites who had spent decades breathing the thin air of the high peaks. Even deafened, even dizzy, their muscle memory took over.

  A Black Fang warrior, screaming a war cry, brought a heavy iron mace down on the helmet of a kneeling Stone Walker. The blow should have crushed the skull. Instead, the elite soldier caught the haft of the mace in a gauntleted hand, his movements blurring with the residual speed of Battleforce. With a grunt of effort, he twisted, snapping the Black Fang’s wrist, and drove a dagger into the man’s throat.

  "They aren't stopping!" Zark shouted, hacking at a shield with his axe. "The noise hurts them, but it doesn't kill them!"

  Kaelen gritted his teeth, his own silver aura flaring as he deflected a wild swing from a disoriented Stone Walker. "It wasn't meant to kill them! It was meant to make them mortal! Push them!"

  The battle dissolved into a meat grinder. The sonic resonance continued to ring through the hollow—CLANG, CLANG, CLANG—a maddening rhythm maintained by the reserves. It kept the Stone Walkers from reforming their devastating phalanx, forcing them into individual duels where their numbers worked against them.

  But individually, they were monsters.

  Karsen, the Black Fang giant, found himself locked in combat with two Stone Walkers at once. His greatsword, a slab of rusted iron, sparked against their Deep Iron plate. He roared, taking a mace blow to the shoulder that cracked his pauldron, but he didn't fall. He used the momentum to spin, his blade catching one of the elites in the gap behind the knee. The man went down, but the other slammed a shield into Karsen’s face, sending the chieftain stumbling back, blood blinding one eye.

  "Father!" Derek screamed from the second line, nocking an arrow.

  "Aim for the visors!" Elias bellowed from a rocky perch on the flank. His bow sang a deadly song. Every time a Stone Walker lifted their head to orient themselves through the dizziness, a steel-tipped shaft found the eye slit. Elias was a surgeon amidst butchers, his arrows dropping elites with terrifying precision.

  On the ridge, Krag watched the chaos with widening eyes. His perfect ambush had turned into a brawl. His invincible immortals were stumbling like drunks, yet refusing to die.

  "Why aren't they breaking?" Krag screamed, gripping his axe until his knuckles turned white. "They are Stone Walkers! They are the mountain!"

  He saw a group of Red Hand slingers pelting the ground with oil flasks, turning the shale into a slick trap. He saw the Ash Wolves using hooked spears to drag his men down, where three or four tribesmen would pile on to find a dagger-point weakness.

  Panic, cold and unfamiliar, seized Krag’s heart. He was the son of Gorm. He was the future High Chieftain. He could not lose to a coalition of "lesser" tribes.And more importantly he didn't want to give his brothers a chance to take his place of High Chieftain's heir.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Send the rest!" Krag shrieked at his lieutenants. "All of them! The reserves! Crush them with weight!"

  "But Lord," a lieutenant hesitated, "if we send the reserves into that chaos, they'll be bottle-necked. The footing is—"

  Krag struck the man with the back of his hand, sending him sprawling. "I said send them! Drown them in bodies if you have to!"

  The horn blew—not the deep resonance of the Stone Horn, but the sharp, angry blast of the attack signal.

  Three hundred regular Stone Eater warriors, heavily armored but lacking the Steel Rank aura, surged over the lip of the crater. They roared, a landslide of fresh meat pouring down to reinforce the staggering elites.

  Kaelen saw them coming. He felt the shift in the battle’s weight. The Stone Walkers were tiring, but the arrival of three hundred fresh heavy infantry would break the coalition’s fragile morale.

  "Hold the line!" Kaelen shouted, his voice amplified by his Battleforce. "If they reach the bottom, we are done!"

  He looked at Zarn. "The oil! Now!"

  Zarn whistled.

  From the concealed crevices on the crater walls, Ash Wolf scouts emerged. They weren't carrying weapons. They were carrying clay pots.

  As the fresh wave of Stone Eaters hit the midpoint of the slope, scrambling over the loose shale, the scouts hurled the pots.

  They didn't hit the men. They hit the rock above them.

  Thick, black, rendered bear fat splashed over the scree. It didn't catch fire—Kaelen hadn't ordered flame yet. Instead, it coated the loose stones, turning the treacherous slope into a friction-less slide.

  The first rank of the charging reserves hit the grease. Their feet went out from under them. They fell, sliding uncontrollably downward, crashing into the men behind the Stone Walkers.

  The collision was catastrophic. The fresh troops slammed into the backs of the disoriented elites, knocking them forward into the waiting spears of the coalition. The momentum of the charge turned into a crushing pile-up.

  "Now!" Kaelen roared. "Zark! Karsen! The pincer!"

  The Ash Wolves and Black Fangs didn't meet the charge head-on. They split. Like a mouth opening, the center of the coalition line gave way, allowing the tumbling, sliding mass of Stone Eaters to spill into the empty space in the center of the hollow.

  Then, the jaws snapped shut.

  From the left, the Red Hands. From the right, the Broken Claws. And from the front, Kaelen led the Ash Wolf elite.

  They hit the disorganized pile of enemy troops from three sides.

  Kaelen moved like a wraith. His sword, infused with low-steel silver light, found the gaps that the System highlighted in glowing red. Armpit. Neck. Groin. He didn't hack; he thrust. He fought not with anger, but with an terrifying efficiency.

  A Stone Walker, regaining his balance, swung a warhammer at Kaelen’s head. Kaelen didn't block. He stepped inside the guard, the System predicting the arc of the swing a fraction of a second before it happened. Kaelen’s elbow smashed into the man’s helmet, ringing the bell again, and his sword slid through the visor.

  [Combat Experience Gained]

  [Battleforce Proficiency: +2%]

  Around him, the tribes were fighting with a savagery born of hopelessness. They knew there was no retreat. They stabbed, bit, and clawed.

  But the Stone Eaters were numerous, and their armor was thick. For every enemy that fell, a tribesman died. The snow turned to red slush. The noise was deafening—the CLANG of the resonance tactic, the screams of the dying, the roar of Krag on the ridge urging his men to "kill the rats."

  Kaelen wiped blood from his eyes. He scanned the battlefield. They were holding, but they were bleeding out. They couldn't sustain this attrition.

  He looked up at the ridge. Krag was preparing to descend himself, his own massive aura flaring. If the enemy commander entered the fray, his morale boost might be enough to rally the Stone Eaters.

  Kaelen needed to end this.

  "Elias!" he shouted into the din. "The leader! Can you make the shot?"

  Elias, perched on a high rock, shook his head. "Too far! The wind is swirling in the crater! And his aura is too thick!"

  Kaelen cursed.

  Suddenly, a new sound cut through the battle.

  It wasn't a war cry. It wasn't the clash of steel.

  It was a single, mournful note from a horn. But it didn't come from the coalition. It came from behind Krag, high on the ridge line.

  The Stone Eaters froze. Even the elites, dazed and battered, paused in their slaughter.

  It was the Retreat Signal.