Down the road a shape appeared: a horse running wild, its rider slumped forward, one arm hanging loose. The horse’s flanks were dark with blood. People shouted. Men ran from the tavern. Luk’s father dropped his scythe and sprinted to the road.

The horse reached the village square and stumbled, nearly throwing its rider. The man somehow stayed in the saddle until the horse crashed to its knees. Luk saw the soldier’s armor then—Lionroar crest, dented and scorched. He was young, barely older than Valen. His face was white beneath the blood.

“Goblins,” he rasped. “They’re—” The rest vanished in a cough thick with red. “Eastern pass… burned outposts…”

Someone screamed. Not the children, not yet—an older woman who had seen a raid before.

The horse collapsed. The soldier tumbled free and lay still. No one went to him. They all stared east, where the road vanished between low hills. The horizon looked wrong: a thin haze climbing against the sky, dark at the bottom and brown-gray at the top... Smoke!

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“Inside, now!” Luk’s father grabbed them both by the arms, shoving them toward the cottage. “Pack what you can carry. Nothing heavy. Go!”

Anna was crying before they reached the door. Luk wanted to ask questions, but the words caught behind his teeth. His father moved through the room like a man half-asleep, pulling clothes from chests, dropping tools into a sack. “If the bells change to the siege rhythm, run for the wall. You hear me? Don’t wait.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll find your mother.” He paused, looked at them as though trying to memorize their faces. “Stay together.” Then he was gone, out into the noise.

The bells were closer now, answering each other across the valley in a rhythm that made the air itself tremble. Smoke drifted in from the east; it smelled of pitch and meat.

Luk shoved bread, a flask, and Anna’s blanket into a bundle. The cat bolted through the open door. Anna called after it once, then stopped when she saw Luk’s face.

“We have to go,” he said.

───────────────

They joined the stream of people heading west toward the city. Farmers, children, traders—all running, some pulling carts, some barefoot. The road was a single river of noises. Overhead the sun dimmed behind a veil of ash.

At the first rise Luk looked back. The village roofs were smaller now, the fields behind them painted orange by the fire crawling over the far hills. The smoke towered higher than the church steeple. His father was somewhere in that direction.

He didn’t let himself think about it.

───────────────

They reached the gates by late afternoon. The walls of Westernlight filled half the sky, stone so pale it looked white gold in the fading light. The gate towers were manned—archers on every parapet, crossbows ready. The air smelled of oil and steel.

A guard shouted for people to move in order; another pushed them back, yelling that the gates would close at sundown. No one listened. The crowd surged forward.

Luk saw soldiers on horseback forcing a path through the mob. One of them wore the Lionroar crest engraved in gold—Commander Delun. His armor was blackened at the edges; his face unreadable. He spoke briefly to the gate captain, who shook his head. Delun’s reply was short. The captain’s expression crumpled. Then the great portcullis began to descend.

“No!” someone screamed. “There are still people out there!”