Flames danced in the sky as if the heavens themselves were burning.
Screams echoed through the valley, men, women, and children all caught in the fury of a genocide. Blades tore through flesh, fire consumed homes, and blood soaked the earth. Those too weak to fight were butchered. The strong were chained, broken, enslaved.
In the shadow of a burning village, a wooden crate trembled.
Inside, a boy hid, no more than eight, his father curled around him, a hand pressed tight over the child’s mouth to smother the sobs. Thin blades of firelight cut through the slats of the crate. The father’s eyes were calm, but his body shook against his son’s back. The box stank of ash and fear, and the dark pressed close.
Then, the crate was torn open.
A soldier, his face empty of mercy, drove a spear through the man’s neck. Blood sprayed onto the boy’s face, warm, wet, unforgettable. His father’s body collapsed over him, a dead weight pinning him to the boards, and the warmth on his cheek slowly went cold.
The boy did not scream.
He couldn't.
He simply stared at the soldier’s face, the face that would haunt him forever.
And then
He woke.
Darkness. Canvas overhead, not the boards of a crate. A war tent, his own, the brazier burned down to sullen embers. He lay still until his heart stopped slamming against his ribs, one hand drifting to his cheek, to the place the blood had struck all those years ago. His fingers came away dry. They always did. The face stayed anyway, burned behind his eyes, etched somewhere deeper than memory.
He was no longer a child hiding under crates.
He was Draven now. Warlord of King Zafar’s Valen Empire. Something made from memory and fire, and every face he crushed was only ever that one soldier’s face, worn by another man. Another offering to the nightmare he called justice.
He rose. The morning was cold, the air heavy. Piece by piece his silent servants buckled him into his black armour, dark with markings the colour of dried blood. Beyond the tent flap the sky hung grey and swollen, heavy as wet ash.
The generals were already waiting near a big stone table. They were on a hill, looking over the lands of Oakhill, a tribe that used to be loyal but had now turned against the empire. The mood was tense. Everyone was quiet, watching Draven as he stepped forward.
One of the generals spoke, "We should wait for the messenger. Maybe they are ready to talk. We should hear what he says before we go to war."
Draven said nothing. His gaze stayed on the far horizon. The battle was already over behind his eyes.
Then came a sound, slow, painful footsteps. Everyone turned. The messenger had returned. But he looked like a man who had come back from death. His face was bruised and swollen. One eye was shut. His lips were torn. He limped, dragging a broken leg, and leaned on a damaged spear.
He bent down on one knee. "Hail to Zafar," he said weakly.
"Hail to Zafar," Draven replied, his voice cold.
The messenger took a shaky breath. "I went to speak for peace. I gave them your words... your offer of mercy."
Draven stepped closer, his face calm but hard.
The messenger looked up, afraid. "They laughed. At you. At the king. And then..." He hesitated. "They said they would sooner feed their sons to the crows than kneel to Zafar’s dog. That your mercy was a leash, and Oakhill wears no man’s leash."
Silence fell. No one moved. Even the wind seemed to stop.
Draven gave a single nod.
“Prepare the march,” Draven said.
The generals obeyed without a word. Trumpets sounded. Soldiers gathered. Swords were drawn.
The army moved.
That night, fire filled the sky. The Oakhill people tried to fight, but they were no match. Their homes burned. Their soldiers fell. The cries of the dying echoed through the hills. Soldiers showed no mercy.
Only one was left alive, Quinn, the rebel leader. He was captured, beaten, and chained. Blood covered his face. Still, he did not beg.
Draven entered the tent like a storm, his clothes clean, his face unreadable as stone. Behind him came Karan and Shaan, his loyal generals.
And every soldier bowed as he passed.
“Hail to Draven, Hail to Zafar,” they shouted.
Draven raised his hand. Silence fell.
He walked up to Quinn. “I gave you food. I gave you peace. Why betray your blood?”
Quinn coughed and looked up. “You are not peace. You are the death. I am not your slave. I chose my own voice.”
Draven gave a small smile and nodded at Karan.
Karan drew his sword.
In one smooth move, he cut off Quinn’s head.
The body fell. The head rolled across the floor.
“You chose your voice,” Draven said softly. “Now the crows will have it.”
Shaan turned to a soldier. “Hang his head in the center of the city. Let all see what happens to traitors.”
Draven stepped out of the tent.
His generals followed, silent and satisfied. Behind them, Quinn’s lifeless body slumped forward, the chains rattling in a pathetic final protest.
Outside, the winds howled through the valley like mourning spirits. The soldiers stood at attention, eyes fixed on their warlord.
“Burn the village,” Draven commanded. “Salt the earth.”
“Yes, my lord,” Karan said, without hesitation.
Draven’s gaze drifted to a knot of children herded together at spearpoint, small, ash-streaked, silent. For the space of a breath something moved behind his face, some far and buried thing, a boy in a crate watching the world end through the slats. He let it pass. He always did.
“But leave the children,” he added, his voice flat and distant. “They will grow. And they will remember. I want fear to live for generations.”
He did not let himself wonder what such children became. He was the answer, and he did not look at it.
Karan paused for only a moment before nodding. “It shall be done.”
And so Oakhill was burned to ash. The smoke rose high, black against the churning grey sky.
This was no conquest. This was a warning.
The earth shook beneath the march of iron boots.
Thousands moved as one across the ruined fields, their banners snapping in the cold wind, a black wolf's head crowned in crimson, the mark of Zafar, the mark of dread.
At the front rode Draven.
He did not wear a crown. He did not need one.
A simple black cloak billowed from his shoulders, and atop his great warhorse, he seemed less man and more force of nature, a darkness made flesh.
Beside him, Karan and Shaan rode in silence. Karan, the Blade of Draven, his armor gleaming like bloodied steel. Shaan, the Wolf General, his eyes sharp, always hunting for weakness.
Ahead, the ruins of Oakhill still smoldered. Blackened corpses lined the roads. The scent of burnt flesh and scorched earth fouled the air.
Draven did not flinch.
To him, it was the smell of loyalty.
They rode through the ashes. Past weeping mothers, past hollow-eyed children who clutched each other and said nothing. One girl, no more than six, sat in the doorway of a gutted house with a scorched wooden horse clutched to her chest, watching Draven pass with eyes that had not yet learned to look away. Some of the others spat at the ground. Some cursed under their breath.
None dared raise a hand.
Not when Zafar’s banner flew overhead. Not when Draven’s shadow fell upon them.
At the center of the ruins, Quinn’s head hung from a crooked pole, rotting in the open air. Flies buzzed around it. Crows perched nearby, tearing at the remains.
Draven paused his horse and looked up at the grisly trophy.
No words. No prayer. Only a long, silent gaze.
Karan leaned closer. "They learn quickly, my lord."
Draven said nothing.
He did not seek obedience through speeches. He demanded it through memory, memory carved deep into the bone.
A distant sound broke the heavy silence, the hard gallop of a single horse cutting through the ruined fields.
From the haze of smoke and ash, a rider appeared. A Zafar messenger, cloaked in black, his horse lathered in sweat and blood. He dismounted swiftly, boots sinking into the scorched earth, and dropped to one knee before Draven.
“Hail to Zafar. Hail to Draven,” the messenger said, his voice rough from the ride.
Still kneeling, he raised both hands, offering a sealed letter, the sigil of Zafar stamped deep in crimson wax.
Draven took the letter without a word, his gloved hand closing around it with quiet force. With a small nod, he commanded the messenger to rise.
The air seemed to grow colder as Draven broke the seal.
He unfolded the letter and read. Most of it he had expected. The last line he read twice: what sleeps beneath Talen must be ours. He knew exactly what it meant. He knew what Zafar was hunting, and what it would cost the world to take it. He folded the letter away. That truth could wait.
A slow smile crept across his face, a smile without warmth, thin as a blade’s edge.
He spoke, each word falling like a sentence passed.
"Begin the Red March," Draven said, voice low and merciless. "We shall conquer the Empire of Talen."
Karan wasted no time. He turned and gave the signal.
A horn blew, long, deep, and mournful, a sound that seemed to shake the heavens themselves.
Across the fields, the army of Zafar roared in answer.
Thousands of iron boots slammed the ground in rhythm.
Swords were lifted high, flashing under the heavy sky.
Their shout rolled like thunder, wild and fierce.
The ground shook as the great army moved forward, a black and red wave rolling toward Talen, unstoppable, and full of death.
And at the head rode Draven, the Warlord without mercy, cloak snapping in the wind, the fires of Oakhill still burning behind him.
The Red March had begun.
Nothing would stand against it. So they believed.
But somewhere beyond the smoke, unseen and unready, the world had already begun to wake.