The siege engines were completed in six days. Altan had promised seven. Daalo, iron-scarred chief of the fabricators, handed him six—and a final warning.
"Don't ask for eight next time."
There was no ceremony. No speech. Just the sound of hissing pressure rigs winding down under dark canvas. Their silhouettes loomed like hunched monsters as the sun fell, ribs flexing under layers of steam-dampened hide and iron.
They weren't towers. They weren't keeps on wheels. These were siege weapons forged for a singular purpose: to kill a wall in one motion. Timber ribs arched like plated vertebrae, forged from bonewood soaked in iron sap. Coils of pressurized aurichalcum hissed across spines reinforced with blacksteel ligature. The design came from Altan—half-mad schematics scratched in soot on the backs of maps, inspired by ancient war machines and battlefield instinct, drawn by a man who didn't care if they looked impossible.
Daalo stared at the first draft for a long time. Then he muttered, "It's not a siege tower—it's a fucking battering raptor. Or bull. Maybe both."
Altan didn't look up. "But it works."
"I'll build it. But if it eats my engineers, I'm throwing you in next."
They built five. And they didn't mount them on wheels. They were carried.
Each siege weapon was fused to the back of a war-beast bred for annihilation: part bull, part bison, part mammoth—genetically bred and alchemically enhanced in the beastworks beneath the Qorjin camps. Towering over twenty feet at the shoulder, each creature bore a harness of blacksteel sunk into muscle and bone. Their hides were layered in bone-knots and shagged black fur, matted by ash-baths and battle-conditioning. Tusks jutted from their mouths like siege rams; some curved, others blunted like piledrivers. Their breath steamed. Their eyes burned low amber.
They were not tame. They were not loyal. They were broken.
Chains still hung from their flanks, and sometimes they thrashed with memory alone. Each step carved craters in the stone. Their names were branded in glyphs on reinforced skull-plates:
Urgalok. Khash-Duum. Moltren. Two more left unnamed.
Daalo stood beside Altan the day they emerged beneath stormclouds.
"Mad bastard," he said, as steam hissed from ribs and aurichalcum plates flexed under living breath.
Altan didn't smile. "But you built it."
"I follow blueprints. Doesn't mean I like what crawls out of them."
From that moment on, Daalo never spoke praise aloud. But his hammer struck true for every lunatic design Altan conjured—because they worked. And in siegecraft, function was god.
Mist blanketed the field as the beasts began to move. Plated. Chain-bound. Breathing.
Each war-beast carried the siegeframe like a second spine—massive breach-bridges reinforced with aurichalcum mesh and pressure valves. Steam hissed from shoulder vents. Pulses of heat shimmered off their sides.
No reins. No saddles. They answered only to scent markers and war drums. Inside their armored carapaces, Stormguard squads waited in crouched formation—still, silent, breathing slow.
Altan stood above the ridge, watching the silhouettes emerge like giants out of smoke. Beside him was Stormwake, the tamer-chief of the Qorjin-Ke. A cracked war drum hung from his chest. His eyes were pale and hollow.
"You trust them?" Altan asked.
"They don't need trust. They hear the drum. That's all."
Another figure stepped forward—silent, first into every breach.
Chaghan.
The First Stormguard.
His helm, forged of darksteel and aurichalcum alloy, bore no face—only narrow slits for vision, a blank mouth grate, and the heavy stillness of inhuman poise. His shield was clipped to his left forearm. His saber rode the curve of his spine.
Ten squads followed in tight formation. No sound. No words. Just motion.
Their armor glinted dully—blacksteel-plated helms, no sigils, no exposed skin. From afar, they looked like silent golems, war-statues given motion. They moved with purpose. They struck without flourish. Finality was their doctrine.
The drum sounded once.
Urgalok reached the moat first. Steam jetted from its sides. The breachframe fired forward like a spear. With a thundercrack, it drove into the enemy bank. Aurichalcum veins lit red. Lock runes pulsed.
One down.
Four followed. Five bridges deployed in under sixty seconds.
Flame surged from Zhong walls. One fireburst slammed into Khash-Duum's flank. The beast bellowed and nearly collapsed.
Inside, a Qorjin handler never broke rhythm. He chanted—slow, guttural, old tongue. Pain didn't matter. Rhythm did.
Stormwake struck a sharper beat. Faster. Meant for momentum.
Altan raised his hand.
"Two legions per bridge. Go."
Chaghan raised his saber. He did not shout.
Five thousand Stormguard advanced behind him—fifty squads of ten per legion. Shields locked. Steps disciplined. No cries. No hesitation.
Up the ramps. Into flame.
The Zhong halberdiers met them first. Blades rang. Bones broke.
Chaghan moved like a storm of inevitability. He smashed the first defender's jaw with his shield. Stepped through the second—angled his saber up, tendon over knee. The third swung high. Chaghan ducked under and answered with a thrust to the ribs.
Each strike was a lesson in finality.
Stonewheel Reversal—redirected a spear and shattered the wielder's elbow.
Mirror Edge—cut behind the pauldron and tore clean through the clavicle.
Iron Reversal—met a warhammer mid-swing, broke the wrist, drove the shield through the throat.
Behind him, Stormguard advanced without pause. One took a blade through the gut. Another lost a leg at the knee. Formation closed over both. No voice called for help. None given.
Moltren was next to hit.
A glyphmine detonated beneath its chest. Screams echoed as its plating twisted. Steam vented wild.
Daalo shouted from the ridge. "Pressure reroute now! If it fails, the ramp goes with it!"
Inside, the handler never stopped. Chant met beat. Stormwake's rhythm shifted again—lower, steadier.
Moltren groaned. But the ramp extended. Lock runes sealed.
Path held.
Six minutes passed.
All bridges up.
Stormguard on the walls.
Regulars followed. Screaming. Dying.
The wall turned red.
Arrows pinged harmless against blacksteel. Pikes snapped against shields. Sabers cleaved through flesh and mail. Blood slicked the ramps. Feet slipped. Then rose again.
Mages tried to cast. Died before the spell finished. Throats slit. Spines broken.
Engineers still clambered under fire—patching leaks, hammering seals.
Daalo himself was halfway up Moltren's flank, hammer in hand, slamming a loose valve shut.
Above, Chaghan drove a Zhong officer off the parapet. The body hit stone with a hollow crack.
The defenders screamed.
The Stormguard never made a sound.
Chaghan returned from the front. Visor bloodied. One gauntlet cracked to tendon. Not limping.
"Ramp coils held. Flame mostly deflected. Three dozen down. We're holding the ramps."
Altan didn't answer immediately.
A Zhong mage exploded. Too much glyphcharge. His torso painted the walls.
The ramp stayed standing.
Altan exhaled. "Good."
Then came the bell.
One note. Deep. Slow. From inside the palace.
Not panic. Not surrender.
A signal.
Figures stepped from the inner bastion.
Black armor. Curved blades. No insignia.
Elite.
Not defenders. Killers.
Altan watched the smoke rise from Moltren's back. Engineers still clung to its ribs. Arrows clattered down.
Nothing from here would be fast.
Or clean.
He turned to Chaghan.
"Reinforce second tier. We take it inch by inch."
Chaghan didn't speak.
He nodded.
Then walked back into fire.