Then, one of the scouts came back, there were more enemies than expected but still no clue as to why they were coming this way. Chinui asked for the information to be relayed and waited again. Not long after, someone came in to inform him that the emperor had grown restless from the last news.

He told the messenger to send any high ranked officer to reassure him while he awaited more conclusive information. He could go see him himself but he didn't want any delay if the scouts brought bad news.

An hour later, a second scout came in. They found a survivor from Burnston, he said he saw giant wolves. Why would there be giant wolves there? Wondered Chinui. Just in case, he asked for the general Averton, in charge of the right wing to place troops at the border of the rocky maze. The wolves would not be put off by it but could instead use it as an advantage and flank them. He still needed this information to be confirmed, he waited again.

Finally, a last wave of scouts came back as a dust cloud formed by the herd trampling could be seen rising from the other end of the pass. Cursed-bloods riding giant wolves were spurring the keradons onward. There was around two hundred of them. This was the explanation, The herd had been guided to act as a weapon for the cursed-bloods. The original plan would be fine, the herd could be easily contained and at worse, the cursed-bloods would try to flank them.

He went outside and barked the necessary orders.

"Every company at their assigned position in the line, the break is over! Archers wait for the signal to fire!"

The ground in the pass was too flat meaning he could not see the front line from where he stood but he expected his troops to act in a well coordinated way like usual. He advanced slowly towards the tip of the V where the brunt of the enemy force was expected to hit. The moment he got on the frontline, he saw that something wasn't right.

First, he saw arrows raining down on the enemy from the right side, from the rock maze. Then, he saw the not so distant wolf riders detach from the herd and charge into the maze after the archers that should not have been there.

Chinui scanned what he could see of the battlefield, looking for the missing soldiers. He quickly found it. There was a gap in the line on the right side. Someone had failed to lead his company to its designated place and somehow found themselves in the maze. A messenger came running to him with the news.

"Sir great general, sir! The twelfth company isn't at its post and can't be found, General Averton requesting reinforcements to fill in the breach."

The twelfth? It was his brother over there trapped with the wolves! He needed to rescue him, he felt the urge to run there himself, but, thousands of other men were awaiting his orders to fix the unexpected mess. He had to focus on the battle.

A single look was enough to know that if he sent reinforcements there, they would never make it in time before the enemy got in. They were charging full speed ahead and were about to reach the end of the line.

"No time. Make the whole line move to the right to fill it! We move to the right! Reserves take the middle point! Tell Averton to move the maze line into it to rescue the lost company!"

Sending in part of the right wing was the best he could do for his brother right now. Voices of soldiers echoed in the pass.

"Move to the right!"

"Fill the gap! Faster, they'll get in!"

"They're here! Move!"

Chinui watched with a mix of sorrow and anger as the eleventh company ran into the breach to fill it. They did not have the time. The whole herd saw the gap and turned to face it, ramming headfirst into the unprepared spearmen.

"Release the arrows, fire!"

"Turn the formation! Face the enemy!"

"They're getting through!"

"Charge! Fill the gap at all costs!"

The army was quickly getting cut in half with the right side sandwiched between the herd and the wolf riders. The general Averton, seeing his whole line collapse signaled the retreat into the maze and the wolf riders, trying to get his men out of the way of the charging keradons. Between a bunch of giant wolves and hundreds of charging giants woolly rhinos, he chose the wolves.

Hundreds of soldiers moved in the narrow passages, walking on each other's feet and destroying their formation instantly. Stuck there with no space to move, they desperately tried to go forward to let in those that still tried to get in. A large and incoherent group of disorganised soldiers clumped the side of the pass as they tried to get out of the way of the herd.

Arrows poured down from the left wing killing dozens of keradons but they were not enough to slow down the herd. They advanced so quickly that Graube was forced to used the reserves as a second line in the back to contain them instead of filling in the center. The choc was brutal as the keradons charged through the spear wall and trampled over the men.

Taller and larger than any horses, their short legs made them hard to topple. They had a long and smooth horn sprouting from their forehead but they didn't need to use them in their mad charge. They only needed to walk over the soldiers, crushing them under two tons of meat and fur.

Few would have ever believed that an usually so peaceful creature would become the Artefine army's nightmare

Chinui Led a charge from the side in an attempt to slow down the herd. The keradons, pushed from one side was displaced towards Averton who did his best to reform his remaining troops into the maze while defending from all sides.

Chinui used his long sword Day to cut down the legs of the passing beasts, slowly moving forward in a field of dying mountains of flesh. On either sides of him, hundreds of spearmen planted their weapons into the sides and necks of the animals slowly thinning out the herd.

The smell of wet fur and musk filled the air and overpowered the usual smell of blood one would expect from a battlefield. The shouts and orders could barely be heard over the rumbling of the earth as thousands of waist thick legs pounded into it without pause. the thundering pass itself only made it worse as, true to its name, every sound made here echoed again and again producing a deafening thundering sound.

Every time a keradon died, it blocked the path of the others behind it, forcing them to push the body out of the way or run around. Since they were so densely packed, it often resulted into them ramming the corpse of their brethren and getting stuck there.

It was at this time that more bad news came into his ears from screams echoed around the battlefield.

"Bear tribe warriors running down the left hills!"

"Enemies about to hit the left wing!"

"Archers move forward! Spearmen in the back!"

"Don't let them charge the archers!"

This entire battle was a disaster. The duke Jasay on the left reacted in time and the bear tribe was intercepted by spears and swords but the right wing was worsening.

The herd finally stopped its mad charge, stuck behind twice as many dead keradons, but still blocked the way between the center and the remnants of Averton's troops. Once the echoes of their charge finally died, the screams of agony coming from the maze made themselves heard through the pass.

In the maze, it was almost impossible to see the wolves coming. They were using a hit and run tactic with great effectiveness, killing off the soldiers one by one while the spears of the humans got stuck everywhere in the narrow passages.

Averton ordered many times to use the swords but the soldiers were afraid to attack something twice their size with swords. and often got their arms bitten off before they could react.

In the maze, the advantage of number did not exist, the many winding passages were too narrow to let more than one or two soldiers through at a time, forcing them to fight off the wolf riders alone. Worse, they were so many and so densely packed they hampered each other and prevented their comrades from opposing any meaningful resistance.

The wolfs on the other hand were nimble and flexible, fast and fearless. They squeezed through the smallest of paths, taking soldiers by surprise before running off again. Often, they just jumped over the rocks and came at the soldiers from above, changing paths as they pleased while the soldiers got stuck in a thousand dead ends.

There was no one left to send their way to help since Graube's reserves where in taters as well after they had absorbed the charge of the keradon herd. The only thing Chinui could do was force the herd to turn around to free a way for him to rescue the right wing.

When the herd finally managed to turn around on itself and ran from whence they came to escape this death trap, Averton finally managed to get back out of the maze and fix the ranks of his troops. Chinui ordered all remaining archers from this side of the battlefield to shoot at any wolf riders that would come on top of the rocky labyrinth. Then, he advanced with the center and led the first company into the jagged labyrinth. The first company wasn't afraid of the maze nor the giant wolves, they were not the first for nothing.

On either sides of the soldiers, rocks of all shapes and sizes formed walls and holes no man would dare brave alone. Every couple of feet, they were forced to go around a new rock, and another one again. They would have lost themselves quickly if not for their comrades advancing with them.