They told me the Arch-Ruin could not be taken. Scouts came back with numbers instead of reports — walls that swallowed armies, garrisons that never thinned. For weeks I only watched it from the edge of my lands, counting losses I had not yet suffered.
Then I stopped counting.
The first waves were sacrifice, and I knew it when I sent them. Siege engines cracked against stone that had stood since before any of our banners existed. My scouts died learning the shape of the defense. Every ruined regiment bought me one more line of truth about what waited inside.
I was not alone. Barimen answered when I asked, and he did not ask what it would cost him. His troops struck from the other side while mine held the breach — the kind of help that isn't calculated, only given. When my line bent, his held. When his did, mine did.
The final assault went in at once, from two directions, with everything left.
The Arch-Ruin did not fall gracefully. It fell the way old things fall — slowly, then all at once, taking a good part of both our armies with it into the rubble. When the dust cleared there was nothing left standing where it had stood, and the reports came in, and I read them twice because the first time I did not believe them.
Final battle reports:
- 1.png (414.25 KiB) Viewed 2 times
- 2.png (374.43 KiB) Viewed 2 times