Chapter 133: Order and Chaos
The hastily built chamber in Hearthglen smelled of raw timber and smoke. The walls were too thin for dignity, and the benches still creaked with unfinished polish. But here they were—what was left of the beastkin alliance. Empty seats gaped like wounds around the crescent table. The banners of fallen clans and slain representatives hung limp from the rafters, reminders of how badly the Pentademonica cult’s fire had gutted them.
Dozens of beastkin nobles and officials argued beneath the dim glow of crystal lamps. Their voices clashed, a discordant symphony of fear and mutual blame. There was no rhythm, no order, only venom and suspicion.
A ramari elder with curved horns tipped with silver rings rose to his feet. He raised his hands in a calming gesture, his voice a weary bleat. "Esteemed delegates, I beg you, restraint. This is not the hour to splinter. The Pentademonica has already succeeded in tearing our bonds. Shall we finish the job for them?"
A lupen with a scarred muzzle and a frayed ear barked back immediately, his voice hoarse with rage. "Restraint? You goatkin speak of restraint while half our clans burn! Where were your merchants when caravans carried strange crystals into our lands, hmm? Who profits from secret shipments if not the ramaris?"
The elder’s nostrils flared, a silent sign of his fury. "That is baseless slander. We trade openly. Unlike you wolves, skulking at borders and snapping at shadows."
"Shadows?" another lupen snarled, his claws scraping against the unvarnished wood of the table. "Foxkin shadows, more like! This reeks of them. Sorcery, deception—it is their way. Tell me, foxkin, how many of your kin sat smiling in this very hall before they blew themselves to ash?"
A sharp intake of breath swept through the chamber. The foxkin delegate—a young female, cousin to Lady Shiri, draped in a pale-blue robe—lifted her chin. Her voice was cold and clipped, a testament to her breeding.
"You dare accuse us? Our families lost lives too. Do not mistake our composure for guilt."
"Composure?" An ursarok rumbled from his seat, his massive arms folded across his chest. His voice was like stone breaking, deep and full of contempt. "You foxes are too composed. Too calm. Bears survived because we endure the flame. Your kind survives because you slither."
The foxkin’s tail flicked in annoyance. "And your kind speaks as though endurance equals wisdom. If the alliance were left to your brute strength alone, we would be nothing but broken walls and burned villages."
The hall erupted in growls and shouts. A smaller kobold representative stood on his bench, his tail tucked nervously.
"P-please! Our villages were raided most of all. Half of the villages in our territory lies in ruins. Shouldn’t we focus on the real enemy instead of—"
"Silence, runt!" a lupen snapped, dismissing him with a wave of his clawed hand. "You kobolds can’t even guard your own houses. Do not lecture us on enemies."
The kobold sat down quickly, his ears flat, as murmurs rippled through the smaller races’ corner of the hall.
One of the frogkin, a male draped in lakeweed garb, croaked loudly. "Hah! And yet you wolves call us bandits, when we bleed the same as you! At least frogkin didn’t sit in the council chambers with cultists!"
That stung. Several lupen stood at once, their teeth bared in a snarl. "You swamp filth! You crawl into any camp that feeds you coin. Who’s to say you weren’t already pawns of the Pentademonica?"
The frogkin slapped the table with a webbed hand. "We aren’t the ones who’ve been hoarding mana-crystals like dragon eggs!"
Gasps filled the hall. All eyes turned back toward the foxkin delegates. The matron’s gaze was sharp enough to cut. "Careful with your tongues. Accusations without proof are worse than lies. The cult could have been anyone’s pawn—perhaps even lupen, hungry for power, or ursarok, blinded by pride."
The ursarok slammed his fist onto the table, the wood groaning under the weight. "Say that again, fox!"
The ramari elder bleated loudly, stepping forward again to plead for peace. "Enough! This venom only serves our enemies. If we descend into bickering and suspicion, the alliance dies here and now."
But his plea fell on deaf ears. One lupen snarled, pointing across the chamber. "The cult wore foxkin robes!"
A frogkin shouted, "But who smuggled their pearls? Ramari merchants!"
An ursarok growled, "Every tongue here drips poison. Perhaps the alliance was never real to begin with."
The chamber shook with clashing voices. Nobles shouted, delegates banged tables, and officials hurled insults across the floor. What had been an alliance was now nothing but a nest of snapping beasts, circling, accusing, and preparing for the inevitable. The last hope of unity had been torn to shreds, and no one seemed to care.
Though the same thing can’t be said for alliance knights who were stationed at the border town of Tallowshade.
The cart rattled to a halt at Tallowshade’s gates, and the young ramari recruit, Ruhk Veylan, gripped the railing until his knuckles turned pale. The town was nothing like he had imagined. It wasn’t the proud bastion he had heard about in stories—it was chaos. The streets teemed with armored men and women of every race, tavern doors swung open with drunken shouting even in broad daylight, and the acrid smoke of forges turned the sky into a grey haze.
Above it all loomed the valley wall, bristling with ballistas and catapults, the last line between the Spinebride forest and the rest of the beastkin lands.
"Off," the driver grunted, spitting a wad of mud onto the ground. "This is where lambs get fattened before the slaughter. Get your gear, kid, and stay sharp."
Ruhk swallowed hard and stepped down, his small pack feeling impossibly heavy on his back. Two ursarok guards loomed over him at the gate. Their armor was dented, their tusks chipped, but their eyes were sharp, scanning the new arrivals with a weary skepticism. One of them shoved a heavy ledger at Ruhk.
"Name."
"Ruhk Veylan," he answered quickly, his voice a little too high.
The ursarok grunted, flipping through the pages. "Another goat, huh? You all look like you’re about to faint. Don’t make me regret stamping this." He pressed a heavy seal onto the page and shoved it back. "Lose it, and you’re not a recruit—you’re a corpse. Now move."
Inside the walls, the town was a storm of noise. A lupen and a frogkin locked arms in a wrestling match atop an overturned barrel while kobolds threw coins into the pot. Brothel girls leaned from balconies, shouting sweet promises to soldiers who laughed and jeered back. Merchants hawked hardtack and stale bread at three times its worth, and no one batted an eye. Ruhk’s stomach sank as he heard the price of a single loaf—three silvers. That was almost a week’s worth of pay back home in his quiet mountain village. He finally understood why the men here looked hollow-eyed but kept drinking anyway.
Still, there was something strange in the air. Ursaroks drank beside lupens without drawing swords. Foxkin shared dice games with kobolds. Frogkin cursed and laughed with ramari. In Hearthglen, such pairings would have ended in blood. Here, it looked like survival had burned the hate away.
By midday, recruits like him were thrown straight into the forges. The clang of hammer on steel beat like a drum, a rhythm of constant, exhausted work. Ursarok smiths, their thick arms corded with muscle, hammered glowing blades into shape. Foxkin carried buckets of water, their slender builds allowing them to dart between the massive bears. Frogkin pumped the bellows, their webbed hands working tirelessly, while kobolds hauled heavy crates of ore, their tails twitching with the strain. The soldiers weren’t waiting for Alliance supply wagons—they were making their own arms.
"See?" muttered another ramari recruit beside him, older but just as weary. "The big talkers in Hearthglen won’t save us. If we want swords, we make them ourselves. If we want armor, we fix it ourselves."
That night, they ate at a communal firepit, huddled in a large, makeshift mess hall. The meat was tough, the bread hard as stone, but a lupen shoved a portion of meat into Ruhk’s hands without even asking his name.
"Eat, goat," the wolfkin grinned, his teeth stained with grease. "You’ll need it when you’re freezing on the wall, praying you can see the orcs through the snow."
Ruhk stammered a thanks, but the lupen just barked a laugh. "Out there, it doesn’t matter what you are. Orc steel doesn’t care if you’re a goat, a wolf, or a bear."
The banter was crude, the air thick with sweat and ale, but there was an honesty here that had been missing from the council debates. No politics. Just men and women who knew tomorrow might be their last.
The drills the next day stripped away any illusions that remained. This wasn’t just about fighting. They were being trained to spot betrayal.
"You want to know what a cultist looks like?" barked the scarred ursarok sergeant, his voice a gravelly roar. He paced before them, his heavy boots kicking up dust. "He looks like your comrade. Like your brother. He’ll march with you, bleed with you, die with you—until the knife slides into your back."
They were tested with loyalty chants, rune checks, and grueling drills so intense that Ruhk’s vision blurred. Twice he stumbled, and twice he was mocked, but he saw the point. Better humiliated here than gutted out there, fighting a foe who looked like a friend.
By week’s end, the generals called for assembly. The headquarters was no grand palace—just stone walls and flickering torches, but the weight of the men and women inside made it feel heavier than any court hall. Ursarok, lupen, foxkin, ramari, frogkin, kobold—generals from every race sat in a circle. Each bore scars, each carried the grim aura of one who had seen too many men die under their command.
General Gorvak of the ursarok slammed his fist into the table, making the other generals wince. "Hearthglen burned because cultists wore noble silk. We won’t make that mistake here. What stops them from wearing our armor now?"
A foxkin general countered, her voice calm and reasoned. "Mana resonance tests will catch them. One spark out of place, one flicker of dark mana, and they’re done."
The lupen growled, his gaze fixed on a distant point. "Your tests can be faked. Discipline can’t. Put them through the drills—real drills—and traitors break under the pressure."
A frogkin general croaked, his voice a low, raspy whisper. "Rune-brand every soldier. No rune, no service. No exceptions. It’s the only way to be sure."
The arguments went on, sharp and heavy. None of it was hatred—not here. It was desperation, the need to draw a line between soldier and monster before more were lost.
Ruhk sat at the back, silent, listening. For the first time, he realized this wasn’t the same Alliance he’d seen in Hearthglen, full of pomp and speeches. These were soldiers stripped bare, united by one thing: survival.
Then the doors opened. The herald’s voice rang out, clear and strong.
"Announcing Baron Silverfury of the Ursarok, and Lady Yulena."
The chamber stilled. The baron entered like a mountain wrapped in steel, his wife a calm, sharp presence beside him. The generals straightened—not from fear, not from politics, but out of respect. And Ruhk, the fresh recruit who had only arrived days ago, felt it too.