As the night grew, the army’s chatter faded from the forest. Fires were snuffed. Blankets drawn. Guards posted. All settled into a quiet slumber, fearing little and drawing comfort from their fellows and the protection of their tribal demons. By this time, Kyembe the Spirit Killer had erased those demons from this world and all others, but none here could know that.

Nor did they know the budding danger in the dark.

Looming figures stalked the woods beyond the sight of the sentries, their inhuman eyes shining as they cut through the blackness. Ears twitched, nostrils flared and hulking shapes drifted closer to the camp. They rumbled to each other in their rough, grinding tongue, and great horned bodies pulled their way up the tree trunks to peer at the bold and foolish folk below. Bold to bring such a force so deep into the sea of rising trunks.

Foolish to slumber in the midst of their predators.

Some bounded north with long limbed strides to gather more of their brethren, returning by the guards’ shift change.

Avernix's horde was not alone.

Towering, horned figures massed about the army, moving with predatory purpose and driven by bottomless hunger.

Crack. Crack.

Groaning branches and snapping twigs filled the darkness.

The Garumnan sentries eyed each other and the trees, but did not raise alarm. After all, they were under their demons’ protection and would draw only jeers and ire for waking their comrades because of odd sounds in the dark. Yet, this was the Forest of Giants, where half the most dread tales told to them in childhood had taken place. Memories emerged of elders waving gnarled fingers as they spat horror stories through missing teeth, telling how the horned denizens of the wood would come and drag away children who did not obey.

They shuddered those tales away. They were grown now. Strong. They had ravaged and pillaged their homeland until their king called none equal. They were the ones that should be feared. It was this thought that burned in their minds as unseen eyes stalked them. As twisted, clawed hands drew up stones the size of women’s torsos. As one of those hands raised a war-horn of hollowed mastodon tusk to a fanged maw.

And the note of doom sounded.

Whooooosh!

The stones came first.

Cast from hidden perches by monstrous thews, they cut through the branches - some glancing off and missing their mark - and flew into the clearing with the force of falling stars.

Crunch!

The first screams spiralled skyward, but they were drowned by a peal of roars from vast throats and the stampede of titanic, taloned feet. The sentries were still turning in confusion when the press of colossal, grey-skinned bodies charged from the wood, howling and cursing in their monstrous tongue. Caught by surprise and forsaken by their demons, the guards were bowled over and trampled.

The ogre horde surged into the camp.

Veterans of Avernix’s grand campaign stirred awake, only to be stomped into crimson mash beneath gigantic feet and bestial laughter. One man, stuporous from sleep, half-rose from his bedding only to be smashed back down by a club bearing the weight of a battering ram. Savage, alien eyes burned above fanged maws as the mammoth rush raged on. In mere breaths, scores of the overlord’s mighty horde lay crushed into the earth, never knowing what came for them.

“Attack!”

“To arms!”

Cries rose and warriors staggered to their feet, desperately grabbing for spears and shields, leaving their armour where it lay. Thin bronze could do little to ward against blows that fell like catapult stones.

“What is this?” The Overlord of Garumna sprang from his tent, bronze axe in one hand and shield in the other, gaping at the catastrophe that had befallen them. “By the Three! Arise! Arise you layabouts, we’re being slaughtered!” His voice rose above the din like an off-pitch bull-horn in a cattle market. “The ogres have come for us! Fight! Fight for all you have! Fight for your lives!”

He sprang forward with his bodyguards.

Lukotor the Wise scrambled from his own tent, dazed with horror and incredulity. “No…no…no…” he murmured as a lost child would. “This cannot be…it cannot!”

The ancient man rushed back inside and seized his objects of power. He brought forth a clay amulet carved with symbols demonic and soaked in the blood of a hundred sacrifices. His trembling hand hesitated at what it had taken to create it, but seeing no choice, he squeezed, crushing the charm. The magics within rushed out as a reddish mist he quickly struck with a spark from his pyromancer’s ember. It roared into green witch-fire hanging in the air before him, and vomiting a column of unnatural black smoke.

“Three Who Dwell in Ash!” he cried. “I have cracked the pact amulet! Come! Serve!”

His voice rung through the air, but no presence answered. “Come! Serve!”

The column of smoke remained empty, and the old wizard began to quake as he had not since boyhood. From outside, the din grew more dire. “Serve!” he cried. “Serve, damn you all, seeeeerve!”

Spells upon spells had been worked into the charm at terrible cost: enchantments that would call and compel the Three for one day’s passing without choice or bargain.

Yet, they did not come.

The eldritch energy hung limply, like a fishing line in an empty pond. It was not possible. If another had called them or even held them, at least this magic should have touched them. This silence could only be if…if…

“Dead…?” he gasped. “They’re dead?”

How could this be? Was their protection gone? Were they alone?

With his heart pounding as though it would burst, he rushed from his tent with the Vessel of Altak-Tur grasped beneath one arm and his pyromancer’s ember gripped tightly in the other hand. Muttering words of power, the ember flared as its magics were drawn to his spell. It flared like the sun in miniature as he pointed at one of the looming, horned silhouettes rampaging through the dark.

Boom!

A roaring comet blazed from the ember, trailing flame through the night. It exploded against the giant chest, consuming the howling creature in a roiling fireball. Flesh charred and bone cracked, and the conflagration rose into the sky, revealing the battlefield in a brief, terrible instant.

“No!” Lukotor cried.