The cave was deafeningly silent-save for the rhythmic drip... drip... drip of water falling from the ceiling. Each drop echoed against the stone, a heartbeat in the darkness.

Centuries of erosion had hollowed the rock, loosening soil and shale until the faintest shard of what lay buried beneath was revealed-the soul gem.

In the blackness, an ant wandered in search of food. Its leg brushed away the last grain of dirt clinging to the gem's crust. That tiny touch stirred what had slumbered for millennia. A presence older than memory shivered awake.

The ant froze. In that instant, its spark of life was drawn away. To most, it was nothing-a single mote snuffed out. But to the demon within, it was everything. From emptiness came a flicker of power. His will stretched inches from the gem, fragile but alive. He would wait for the next living thing to wander near.

Years passed. The shard gleamed faintly now-a lure in the dark. A blind cave mouse crept closer, whiskers trembling. The demon's meager strength brushed the creature's mind, tugging it forward. Whether it came to gnaw or explore mattered little. The moment claw touched crystal, its life winked out.

For the first time in millennia, the prisoner tasted more than nothing. The bindings had weakened, if only slightly. His reach grew-to feet instead of inches. Something larger, something stronger, might loosen them further.

Time bled onward. Then came a new sound: claws skittering on stone. From the deeper tunnels crept a gloomcrawler, a pale, many-legged beast whose bulbous eyes saw nothing but whose senses drank the dark. Its mandibles scraped the floor as it crept toward the gem's faint glow. The demon's will, bolstered by stolen sparks, stretched outward. He brushed the creature's simple mind, coaxing, commanding. It hesitated-then obeyed. One hooked claw struck the shard.

The gem drank greedily. The gloomcrawler convulsed, limbs thrashing until it fell still, its husk curling inward like a withered leaf. A faint claw mark remained etched in the crystal's surface- the first scar of rebirth.

Within the prison, the chaos demon swelled with dark satisfaction. Each death fed him, stretched his reach, taught him patience. His whispers now brushed the dreams of the weak- seers, prophets, madmen who mistook his murmur for revelation. Yet he could not command them. Not yet.

If only I could touch something stronger, the thought coiled through the dark, something with magic in its blood.

With such a host, the bindings would crumble. His will would slip beyond stone and shadow, into minds, into flesh, into the living world.

And when that day came, all of Atheron would kneel in silence.

Several days' march to the south of the mountain lay the town of Havenmoor. It was small, quiet, and easily overlooked, a collection of timbered homes and stone workshops gathered around a modest square. Yet it was remarkable in one respect: dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, and humans lived there together. Some called it a glimpse of a better age; others said such harmony could never last.

The river bent around Havenmoor like an arm, its water green-brown and quick over stones. Roofs were shingled in slate or thatch, windows leaded with tiny panes that caught the morning light. The square itself was cobbled and slightly uneven, and when it rained, puddles gathered exactly where everyone expected them to.

The bell tower leaned just enough to make visitors uneasy and locals fond. A sign over the baker's door, "Hearth to Hand," squeaked whenever the breeze changed. Chimneys smoked lazily, carrying the scent of pine ash and rising bread into the early sky.

The night air was still, but Mira Underbough tossed beneath her quilt as if caught in a storm. Her small halfling hands clenched the blanket, her breath ragged. In her dream she stood in darkness that smelled of ash and stone.

A single red light pulsed beneath the ground like a buried heart. When it flared, a voice without words brushed her thoughts, ancient, hungry, certain. She tried to scream, but the sound sank into the black.

Mira woke with a gasp, the echo of that pulse still thudding behind her eyes. Sweat dampened her curls, her chest rising and falling too fast. The mantle clock ticked softly, mocking her with its ordinary rhythm.

"A dream," she whispered to the empty room. "Just a dream."

Her voice sounded smaller than the shadows allowed. She sat very still, letting the silence of the house settle back into place: the soft creak of the rafters, a mouse thinking better of the floorboard, the far-off hush of the river. The darkness behind her eyelids wanted to be red again. She opened her eyes instead.

She reached for her journal but hesitated. The quill hovered above the page, trembling. Red light, gem, no, an eye... None of it felt right. The memory faded even as she fought to hold it. With a sigh, she closed the book and blew out the candle.

"Tomorrow," she told the blank page, as if promises kept time better than clocks.

Morning crept gray and heavy with mist. Havenmoor smelled of fresh bread, coal smoke, and river water. Birds called from the thatch, the same notes repeated until they faded into the hum of morning life.

Captain Dorian Hale had already made his patrol twice before sunrise, his armor dull from use and his eyes sharp as cut stone. The people of Havenmoor trusted him, though most found his manner too rigid for festival day. He watched the caravans entering the gate, noting every crest and color. "No one wants a repeat of the border raids," he muttered to a young guard before turning toward the square.

Mira's bakery was already warm, the oven humming with familiar comfort. Her hands worked from habit, kneading, folding, brushing flour from her sleeves, but her mind drifted back to that dream. She checked the heat with her palm, the way her mother had taught her, feeling for the living breath of the fire, not just its blaze. The oven exhaled steadily, brick-warm and patient.

"Good," she murmured. "Steady is best today."

The walls glowed faintly gold as the first light seeped through the shutters. A loaf cracked open in the oven, sighing as steam escaped, and the simple sound steadied her.

A neighbor leaned through the open door, a human woman with kind eyes and flour on her cheek. "You all right, Mira? You look pale."

"I'm fine," Mira said quickly. "Just short on sleep."

"Well, rest tonight. The feast will keep you busy enough."

The woman sniffed appreciatively. "Saints, that smells like sense. Two seed loaves when you've got them?"

"You'll have them," Mira said, smiling for real. After the woman left, she dusted the bench and shook out her wrists. The dough pushed back at her palms like a stubborn child, elastic and alive.

The feast, Havenmoor's founding celebration, was the highlight of the year, when the five races gathered to honor the fragile peace that kept the town alive. Yet this year the air itself felt tense, like a held breath before a storm.

Out in the lane, someone argued about the price of nails. A cart wheel hit the same loose cobble it always hit and rattled the same complaint. The ordinary sounds of a town beginning its day-hammer strikes, vendors shouting, children chasing one another-seemed sharper, brighter, as though the day itself had been tuned too tightly.

By midday, the square was alive with color and noise. Halfling bakers carried baskets of steaming rolls; dwarves set up anvils to display polished tools; elves hung banners that shimmered green and gold; gnomes tested clockwork lanterns that glowed brighter than any candle. Children ran underfoot, their laughter mixing with the clang of hammers and the hum of trade.

A pair of human guards strolled by, helmets tucked under their arms. "If the speeches run long," one muttered, "I'm eating my own plume."

"Don't," the other said. "You'll choke on the pride." They both snorted, then straightened as an elven dignitary passed within earshot.

Mira wiped her palms on her apron and set a tray of honeyed knots to cool in the window. The mist had burned away, and the square now gleamed in richer tones-banner gold, dwarven steel, and the soft browns of fresh bread cooling in baskets.

For all its cheer, Mira sensed unease. Dwarves muttered that humans delayed payment for iron shipments. Elves frowned at the black smoke curling from human forges. Gnomes whispered that halflings were too sentimental to keep ledgers straight. Mira had lived long enough to know such whispers were the first cracks in stone.

At the forge, Master Garrun Stonevein argued with a human merchant over the price of nails. Sparks flashed as he pounded a glowing bar flat, his voice booming through the market. "You tell Lord Vale his coin is as thin as his patience!" he barked. Two traders paused near Mira's door, voices low.

"...I'm telling you, the road north isn't safe," said the first. "The road is never safe. It's a road," said the second.

"Tracks as wide as my hand," the first insisted. "And not boar."

Mira set out a plate of samples. Both men took them without breaking their argument. Bread softened edges, but it did not erase them.

She carried a tray of loaves to the long communal tables, settling near the end where she could watch unnoticed. Across from her, a dwarven trader grumbled to an elf with copper hair. "Humans promise silver and pay with words," he said.

The elf smiled thinly. "And dwarves never met a coin they didn't polish twice before parting with it."

"Only once," the dwarf said. "The second polish is to see if their face appears in it." He lifted a brow toward the human steward counting tallies three benches down.

The dwarf snorted, but the laughter that followed was brittle.

From a nearby bench, a halfling boy tossed crumbs to a pair of sparrows. "You think the peace will last, Pa?"

The older halfling shrugged. "So long as the ale does."

Someone farther back added, "Then keep the barrels rolling," and several voices answered, "Aye!" like a toast they needed to believe in.

Laughter rippled through the crowd, too loud, too quick. Mira looked down at her plate. The food was good, but her stomach refused it.

She rose to fetch water and nearly collided with a human apprentice from the smithy, his cheeks blackened, his eyes bright. "Sorry, miss!"

"You're fine," she said, steadying the jug. "Busy day?" "Master says so," he puffed. "Says busy means safe."

Mira nodded as if that were a blessing and not a bargain.

As twilight bled across the hills, a faint shimmer caught her eye, a crimson glint on the horizon, there and gone again. For an instant her pulse froze. The same color.

Her fingers tightened around the cup until the wood creaked. She blinked, and the ridge was only a ridge again. Light off slate, a trick of air.

A gnome beside her, his hair a sooty blond and his goggles perched askew, followed her gaze. "Strange hue, that. Almost like fire caught in glass. “Mira’s lips parted. "You saw it too?"

He nodded absently. "Fizzleburn, tinkerer by trade, professional hazard to ceilings. Lovely evening for omens, eh?"

Despite herself, Mira laughed softly. "If that's an omen, I'd rather not know what it means."

"Knowledge is never the enemy," Fizzleburn said, then paused. "Except when it explodes."

Their laughter drew curious glances but eased the tightness in her chest. Still, when the music swelled again and the dancers joined hands, Mira's gaze kept drifting to the darkening hills. The red flash had felt alive, watching.

Fizzleburn tipped his goggles up. "If you see it again, fetch me. I have a lens that might behave usefully before it becomes dangerous."

"That's not encouraging," she said.

"I'm a realist with hopeful tendencies." He bowed, nearly knocking his forehead on the table, and darted off toward a stall where a gnome argued with a dwarf about the correct number of rivets for anything that mattered.

At the edge of the square stood Envoy Syllara Moonglade, an elf draped in pale silver robes that shimmered faintly in the lantern light. She spoke to no one, her gaze fixed on the horizon where mist met the hills. Some whispered she saw omens there, signs written in the clouds.

Later, as lanterns lit the square, a hush spread through the crowd. At the edge of the festival stood a figure wrapped in travel-stained robes, a wandering bard with a silver lute slung over his back. Without a word, he began to play.

The melody was simple but old, rising and falling like a heartbeat. His voice joined it, soft but clear:

"Five hands built this haven fair, Five hearts bound it true;

But should their faith be sundered bare, The flame will burn them through."

When the song ended, no one spoke for a moment. Then applause burst out, too relieved, too eager. Mira felt the words coil around her like smoke. *The flame will burn them through.*

A human woman near the front crossed herself in the way of the river-folk. A dwarf muttered, "Bad luck to sing of fire on feast night." The bard bowed again, expression unreadable, and melted into the margin of the square as if he had always belonged to edges.

Matron Bera Underbough oversaw the halfling bakers, her apron dusted in flour and her scarf bright as spring moss. "Peace is kneaded, not forged," she joked as she broke bread for the crowd.

Later, when she saw Mira's troubled expression, she rested a flour-coated hand on her arm. "Dreams can frighten or warn, dear. Either way, they mean the world is about to change."

Mira left the table and walked to the fountain at the square's center. The moon shimmered on its surface, turning the water red for a heartbeat before the reflection shifted back to silver. She knelt, touching the cool stone edge.

Coins, bright and dull, winked on the bottom where wishes went to sleep. Her mother's wish lay somewhere among them. She had tossed it three summers ago for health, and health had not listened. Mira pressed her palm to the stone until it ached.

By the fountain, Tinkmaster Pindle Cogswright barked at two gnomish apprentices adjusting a clockwork lantern rig. Tiny gears spun as he muttered about inefficiency and candle ratios. "You burn one lumen too high and the shadows take offense!" he snapped. When the lights flickered to life, he nodded in satisfaction, unaware of the sparks beginning to leap between distant rooftops, an omen of what was to come.

Mira turned as Fizzleburn approached, wiping soot from his sleeve even though there had been no fire. "Strange thing," he said quietly. "All that joy, yet everyone keeps glancing to the hills. You feel it too, don't you?"

"Yes," Mira admitted. "Something is coming."

He nodded, serious now. "Then we'd best be ready when it gets here." "Ready how?" she asked.

"By believing our eyes before our pride," he said, surprising her with the steadiness of it, "and by having a plan that involves fewer speeches and more sand buckets."

Above them, a distant rumble rolled across the night, the faintest tremor, almost mistaken for thunder. But the sky was clear. Mira looked toward the mountains, where the darkness seemed to pulse once, red and deep as the memory of her dream.

She wasn't the only one who heard it. The elven banner-bearer turned his head a fraction. The human steward miscounted and swore under his breath. A halfling child climbed into her father's lap and did not ask why.

The noise faded. Laughter rose again, cautious and forced. Havenmoor's lights glowed bright against the gloom, pretending the shadows weren't watching.

"Bad ground sometimes," someone said to no one in particular. "Hollow places." "Rock settles," another agreed, much too quickly.

That night, long after the feast had ended, Mira sat awake by her window. The hills were black shapes under the moon. No red glimmer marked the horizon now, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something waited beyond sight, something patient, older than any peace their town could build.

A horse stamped twice in a nearby stall. The bell rope knocked once against its board and then was still. From far downriver, a boatman sang a line of a work song and then thought better of a second.

She closed her eyes and whispered, "If it was a warning, please, let us listen before it's too late." The wind slipped through the shutters, carrying with it the faint scent of ash. She lay back and pulled the quilt to her chin. Sleep came, then wavered, then came again like a cautious guest. The last thing she felt before it took her was the steady breathing of the oven below, warm through the floorboards, as if the house itself promised to hold heat a little longer against whatever cold might be coming.

Three days' march northwest of Havenmoor, another vision would affect the town of Stonecross. Stonecross had always been a human town, and proud of it. Built where two old trade roads met, its walls had been raised by calloused human hands, its fields plowed by their sweat.

Dwarves might pass through on business, elves might skirt its edges, but few lingered long. Outsiders were tolerated so long as they spent coin quickly and left just as quickly.

The people of Stonecross liked to say their walls kept out orcs and goblins, but in truth they kept out anything that did not fit neatly into a human measure of the world.

Even now, as rumors of visions spread, suspicion colored every mention of dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings who claimed to share the dream.

In taverns and workshops alike, men spoke lower than usual. The markets were still busy, but the noise had changed, not cheerful barter, but wary talk pressed between coin counts. Even the wind that rattled the shutters seemed to listen.

Not but a few hours after the midnight watch patrolled the streets, Eldris woke gasping, sweat chilling his skin. He pressed his palm against the table where parchment lay scattered, half finished words scrawled in his restless hand: fire, mountain, chosen. The crow feather mantle lay waiting, and he drew it over his shoulders, whispering, "The voice calls us. The voice calls men first."

For a long moment he stared at the ink glistening in lamplight, the edges of each letter trembling. Outside, the watch bell tolled once, a hollow sound swallowed quickly by fog.

He tried to recall the precise vision and felt it slipping, like water between fingers. A room of stone, a glow below the floor, a pressure in his chest that was not pain, a command without words. He gathered his quills and parchment and set out for the tavern.

The streets were slick with dew, his boots whispering on cobble. From the forge row came the fading scent of quenched iron. From the baker's quarter, a ghost of heat that made his stomach tighten. The silence of his small home had been too deafening. The tavern, though rowdy, let him think.

When he entered, the air was thick with pipe smoke and laughter half forced by ale. The Copper Flagon always smelled of spilled beer, leather, and the iron tang of men who worked with tools heavier than their words. The hearth spit pine sap with tiny pops. A serving girl threaded through the press with a tray held high and an expression that did not invite foolishness.

Eldris took his usual corner. The crow feather mantle draped across his shoulders made him look broader, shadowed. He ordered wine and cleared parchment space with the flat of his palm. Above the clamor of dice and mugs came the strum of a lute. A bard's voice carried just enough to hush the nearest tables.

"The mountain holds a deeper song than stone that rings within these walls," the bard sang, his voice rising, half music, half the sound of fate.

"In Ironvein's dark and dusty heart, where the dwarven hammers beat, A miner woke, his hands blood starred, from stone cold sleep and heat. He'd crushed his pick of weathered steel, his fingers raw and stained, For in his sleep, the truth he'd feel, the prophecy explained:

The earth did split, not for the ore, no silver vein did glow,

But hell's hot tongue and molten roar, a fire that burned the bone from flesh below! He swore the strike that broke his rest was not his strength alone,

But the Mountain's will, within his breast, carved out of ancient stone."

A few miners muttered uneasily into their mugs, watching the shadows dance across the ceiling beams. One man crossed himself with calloused fingers. Another set his tankard down with care, as if sudden noise might invite something to listen.

The lute thrummed lower.

"And westward, where the moonlight sleeps, upon the moss and pine," the bard went on, his voice softening to a whisper, "a different dreamer weeps.

An elven maid beneath the moon, woke in the dew and chill,

She dreamt the roots would perish soon, the forest hushed and still. She saw the ancient, sacred groves all blackened, bowed, and low,

A voice she heard that sweetly roves, promising power, warning woe. Fair and foul in the same breath it spun, of ruin soon to claim,

Crying out, 'The fight is won, if you but speak the Wildwood's name!'"

The tavern shifted with whispers. Some scoffed, some crossed themselves, others drank harder. Chairs scraped as men leaned closer to one another. A dice game paused and did not resume.

Eldris listened in silence, jaw tight. If dwarves and elves too had visions, then perhaps the call was not his alone. The thought curdled in him. He drained his cup, fire and fear burning together in his chest.

A gruff farmer slammed his mug down. "Elves claim their dreams are clearer than ours," he said. "They have always thought themselves better."

A younger man muttered from the corner, "And dwarves want coin for every tale. If their gods sent visions, they would charge us at the gate to hear them."

Laughter rippled, short, mean, half relief. The serving girl rolled her eyes and kept moving. The barkeep polished the same cup until it shone.

Eldris rose slightly, the feathers of his mantle brushing the lamp's glow. "The elves speak of clarity," he called, voice steady but edged. "But their clarity has always looked down upon us. Will you bow?"

A voice jeered from the back, "Not to pointy ears."

The crowd laughed, hands slapping tables. Encouraged, Eldris's tone sharpened. "The dwarves weigh every word in gold. Their hammers rise only when their purses are full."

A tradesman spat into the dust. "Stone grubbers. Let them keep their coin. We will keep our land."

More agreement, louder this time. Tankards struck tabletops in a rough rhythm.

Eldris felt the room tilt with him, the way heat tilts a forge. "The mountain's call is not for the proud nor the greedy," he said, voice rising, "but for the strong. For man. For those who work the earth and bleed upon it."

Cheers erupted, some from belief, most from drink. But belief would grow in that soil. He felt it even as the bard let his last note die, the string buzzing a fraction out of true.

Late into the night the mistrust of old allies began to bloom like mold. Jokes grew sharper, stories grew crueler, and a few men who would have shared bread with a gnome last month spoke as if they had never done so. It was not until the town guards stomped in to enforce last call that the fever broke. The laughter was brittle again, like glass cooling too quickly.

Eldris half stumbled home, parchment clutched to his chest. The streets shimmered under lantern haze. The moon was a dull coin caught in cloud. Somewhere a dog barked twice then fell quiet, as if scolded by the dark.

As he walked, he muttered to himself, rewriting the speech that had already begun to take shape. He could not stand by and allow dwarves or elves to claim whatever this power was and lord it over men. Tomorrow was market day, a crowd ready for words, hungry for reason to feel chosen.

The square of Stonecross pulsed with life the next morning. Market stalls clattered, the smell of grain and forge smoke filled the air. Children darted between wagons, dogs barked, blacksmiths hammered in the distance.

The rhythm of commerce held the town together like a heartbeat. A woman haggled over onion bundles with the same fierceness she saved for prayer. A cooper thumped hoop into place and nodded to his apprentice without looking.

But when Eldris mounted the steps of the hall, the rhythm faltered. Heads turned. Conversations died in mid coin count. Even the pigeons on the eaves paused their shuffle.

He stood tall, hands clasped, crow feathers gleaming. "You have heard the whispers," he began, his voice carrying with practiced strength. "The dreams. The visions. A great power stirs beneath the mountain. Some hear it faint, some strong. But who among the races has spoken of it first. Who has carried the visions in truth."

Faces leaned closer. Even the children quieted, sensing spectacle. A boy climbed into a cart for a better view and his mother did not pull him down.

"It is we," he declared, raising one hand skyward. "It is man who is chosen."

A murmur ran through the crowd, doubt, awe, and pride in uneven measure. The miller frowned. The butcher smiled like a man hearing news that confirmed his guesses.

A farmer called out, "The elves say the mountain is forbidden. That no hand should touch its heart."

Eldris's eyes burned. "Then why does its voice reach human ears. Why do we dream while others deny. The elves hoard their secrets, the dwarves their gold, the gnomes their toys, the halflings their soil. But we, we are the ones the mountain calls."

He let the pause hang, then struck the next words like iron. "Because we are unafraid to listen."

Cheers burst from the younger men, fists raised, echoing against the stone facade. Not all joined. An old woman kept her arms folded. A mason exchanged a worried glance with his wife. The guard captain shifted his weight like a man who dislikes crowds yet must hold them.

"If orcs hear the call as well," someone shouted from near the well, "what makes us different from them."

"Difference lies in destiny," Eldris shot back without missing the rhythm. "Orcs seek ruin, goblins crave fire, trolls hunger for eternity. They twist the voice for destruction. But men, men build, men lead, men carry the torch forward. It is ours to claim, lest it be stolen."

More voices rose, "The halflings dream too," and, "The dwarves will claim it first with their stone walls."

Eldris lifted both arms. "Halflings dream of soil, dwarves build walls to hide. Men carry the fire. The mountain does not wait. If we falter, we forfeit the gift. If we stand, we claim what was promised. The voice is not for elves, dwarves, or gnomes. It is for us. It is for man."

Applause rolled unevenly, a wave that did not quite know whether to crash or recede. The baker's boy cheered because everyone else did. A scribe scratched notes in a ledger he would later pretend were accounts.

"Will you lead us, Eldris," a tanner called, half mocking, half sincere. "You with your feathers and your wine."

"I will speak what is given me," Eldris answered, keeping his chin high. "And I will not let other tongues speak it for us."

A few men shouted assent. Others looked away. The town went on breathing, though it felt different.

By evening the square was quiet again. The stalls packed away, only shadows lingered. A bent broom leaned against the hall step where someone had forgotten it. The sun bruised the western clouds purple and gray.

An elder approached the steps, leaning heavy on his staff. His beard was gray, his eyes steady. The smell of rain threatened though the sky stayed dry. He had walked Stonecross's streets longer than Eldris had been alive.

"You preach boldly," the elder said. "But take care. Visions are not chains to bind truth. Prophecy bends easily to ambition. A man may believe himself chosen and still lead his people to ruin."

Eldris forced a smile, though his jaw clenched. "And if I speak true. If the call is meant for us alone."

The elder's eyes narrowed. "Then it will prove itself without your shouting." He turned and left, staff striking stone, each tap echoing longer than seemed possible. A stray dog followed two paces then thought better of it.

Eldris remained on the steps long after dusk. The torches guttered. The market smell of bread and smoke faded to damp dust. He looked up at the mountain ridge barely visible in the haze. "It will prove itself," he whispered. "I will see to it."

His words fell flat in the empty square. He spoke them again, softer, to convince the part of himself that still doubted.

That night the vision returned, but changed.

This time the throne was crowded. A dwarf raised a hammer. An elf crowned in flame sang in tongues he could not understand. Gnomes worked with sparks. Halflings sowed glowing seeds. Their hands pushed him back as he reached. He tried to force his way through and felt the floor harden beneath his feet, slick and cold. He woke gasping, fury shaking his limbs.

"If they claim it," he whispered, clutching his quill, "man will be nothing. Less than nothing. Their pets. Their slaves."

He sat, chest heaving, as moonlight struck the inkpot. A fly drifted lazy circles around the lamp and bumped the glass with a faint, foolish sound.

On his parchment he scored through the words the call is for all until the page tore. Beneath it he wrote in bold strokes: The call is for man first.

Ink bled thick, like blood. He wrote again: Unity is illusion. Destiny belongs to those who seize it. If others hear, it is only to test our resolve.

He set down the quill, watching the ink shine wet and dark. "Better to seize a lie," he muttered, "than to be enslaved by another's truth."

Sleep would not come. He lay awake, counting the space between the watch bells. When the fourth struck, the silence was broken by a faint rhythm. At first he thought it his heart. But it grew louder, steady, carrying across the hills.

Drums.

Eldris rose, mantle wrapped tight, and stepped to his window. Ravens gathered on the roofline, black wings silhouetted against the moon. Each beat of the drum echoed in his chest. He did not feel fear. He felt inevitability.

"The call has come," he whispered. "And it will be ours.” He stood there until his legs ached. Then he sat and wrote the opening of another speech, the letters too neat for a man so tired.

In Havenmoor, another felt the mountain's whisper.

In a cluttered workshop lit by sputtering lamps, a young gnome startled awake with a shout. Fizzleburn's hair stood on end, already wild from smoke and grease, and his heart hammered in his chest. The dream clung to him, a mountain split by fire, a hum of power so vast it shook the ground, gears and levers whirring around it like stars caught in orbit.

He grabbed a scrap of parchment and scribbled furiously. Designs to hold it. Harness it. Yes, a dynamo large enough to drink the very fire of the mountain. His quill scratched calculations in margins, notes half legible. He talked to himself because his thoughts sounded sturdier when spoken aloud.

"At least five thousand arcane lumens," he muttered. "Maybe more. I could generate that with a triple reactive compound of saltpeter and ether flux, mixed with, no, no, that ratio will crack

the housing."

There was a boom. A small flask on the bench burst into sparks, singeing his sleeve. He yelped and stomped the tiny fire with a rag that smelled of oil and onions. He coughed, waving smoke from his face, eyes watering.

"No, no, too unstable," he rasped. "What could power it, what could possibly." He stared at the diagram until the lines blurred and doubled. He drew a circle, then another, then a gear that refused to sit where it belonged.

His head sank onto the desk at last, exhaustion dragging him down. The parchment smoldered where droplets of chemical fire had landed. He slapped it out without looking. A spring released itself with a cheerful ping and rolled under a cabinet where nothing good ever returned from.

As his eyes closed, the dream returned.

The same mountain. The same fire. The same voice, calling not only to men, dwarves, elves, or halflings. It called to him, a gnome, with a promise not of crowns or soil, but of invention. It did not speak in words. It spoke in hum and pressure and the feeling of potential before a mechanism moves for the first time.

Fizzleburn twitched in his sleep, whispering, "Power needs a cradle." He reached for a pencil that was not there, his fingers tracing lines on the tabletop. Outside, Havenmoor slept under a sky that pretended to be calm.

Back in Stonecross, a final bell sounded. Eldris did not sleep. He watched the dark and waited for morning to give him a crowd.

The next evening, a meeting of the council was called. Their chamber in Havenmoor was crowded, the air heavy with the smell of wax candles and damp stone.

Representatives of every race filled the long hall, their voices already raised before the meeting even began in earnest. The vaulted ceiling threw their words back at them, multiplying every grievance, the banners of five peoples hung still as if even cloth hesitated to take a side.

The dwarves thundered from one side of the table, thick arms crossed, demanding that humans settle their debts. "You cannot ask us to forge steel for your defenses," one barked, beard rings clinking, "and then pay us in promises. Axes are not bought with words."

The humans bristled at the accusation. "Our farms have been raided," a man in a stained tunic argued, slapping mud from his sleeves as if he could slap away misfortune. "What little coin we have must go to feed our people first. We will pay in time."

That drew a chorus of grumbling. Boots scraped. Benches creaked. A dozen throats cleared like the loading of crossbows. A human scribe tapped his quill on a ledger, then stopped, as if the sound itself might spark a fight.

The elves, seated with quiet distance, spoke next. "Always scrambling, always behind," one said, voice smooth as glass, eyes like winter water. "Your visions are clouded. It is our foresight that reveals the path. Best you leave matters of prophecy to those who understand them."

A younger human captain leaned forward. "Prophecy will not stack grain. Give us arrows and oil, keep your riddles."

The halflings tried to interject with gentler words, voices too soft against the storm. "Peace, friends. The orcs strike us all alike. What good will come from squabbling," murmured Matron Bera, but her plea fell on deaf ears. Even the candles guttered as though tired of listening.

Then came the gnomes, a cluster of quick eyed, fidgeting folk who huddled together, arguing even among themselves. One older gnome cleared his throat. "If we were given leave, we could design defenses, mechanisms, deterrents, things of ingenuity."

Before he could finish, a younger voice cut in, eager and unrestrained. "Or explosions," cried Fizzleburn, his round cheeks flushed with excitement. "If I could harness enough fire salts into a pressurized tube, I could send the orcs flying, safely away from the town, well, mostly safely if everyone stands behind the shield wall."

"Fizzleburn," hissed one of his elders, tugging at his sleeve. Another groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Forgive him. He is still young. Too fond of fire."

Laughter rippled down the dwarves' benches like pebbles falling in a mine shaft. An elf murmured in her own tongue, the word for child too clear to miss. A human treasurer shook his head and made a resigned note.

Fizzleburn shrank back into his seat, nose red with embarrassment, yet his eyes still gleamed with the stubborn light of an idea not yet surrendered.

From the shadowed edge, Raven smirked despite himself. He liked the gnome's boldness, though he dared not say so. Zal, standing among her kin, tilted her head as if amused, her lips giving nothing away. Mira, hands folded tightly in her lap, looked at Fizzleburn with quiet sympathy. She knew what it was to be dismissed for speaking truths others did not wish to hear.

The arguments raged on. Each race clung to its grievances and its pride. The chamber echoed with accusations, who owed whom, whose vision was true, who had the right to lead.

A human captain thumped a rolled map. A dwarf rattled a pouch of broken coins. Two elves exchanged a glance sharp enough to cut parchment. A halfling elder set a basket of bread on the table and no one reached for it.

At last, Bera rose. Her voice was small at first, but steady. "All of you speak of debts and honor, of who shall lead and who shall follow. Yet the visions we bear are not so different. You have all seen it, the crimson fire, the red eye, the shadow that falls over us all. We must heed it, or none of us will stand."

For a heartbeat, silence held. The hall seemed to stop breathing. Wax tear drops froze on a candle lip and did not fall.

Then came the scoffs. Garrun Stonevein muttered about superstitious halflings. Syllara Moonglade waved off Bera's words with a flick of jeweled fingers, bracelets chiming like disdain. Captain Dorian Hale said, not unkindly but without patience, "Visions do not feed bellies or arm soldiers."

Fizzleburn leaned forward as if to speak, but Tinkmaster Pindle pressed a hand to his shoulder and shook his head. Only Zal's eyes lingered on Bera, watching from the shadows, feeling the truth in her words even as others dismissed them.

The council broke once more into a storm of shouting. Mira sat pale and quiet, whispering to herself, "If none will listen, only the fire will teach them." The whisper sounded too much like an omen.

That evening the square outside the hall grew still. The sun had barely faded when Raven noticed how the quiet felt wrong, too thin between the hammer strikes, too light in laughter from the alehouse. A dog barked once to the north and fell silent. Somewhere a shutter tapped twice, then held its breath. He told himself he was being foolish. Havenmoor was safe, that was the wager of building a life here. Still, he kept glancing toward the eastern fields.

The first shout came from the field wall, thin and terrified. Then the bell, one wild clang, a pause, another, not the measured peal for meetings, but the panicked hammering that said run or fight. A cart tipped as a mule reared, grain sacks bursting like loaves split too deep.

Captain Dorian Hale was already moving before the second bell. His command voice cut through the chaos as he rallied men to the northern gate. "Shields up, close ranks," he bellowed, driving frightened farmers into a rough line.

Smoke and fear rolled through the air, but Dorian's calm did not waver. He drew his sword, its edge dulled from years of duty, and added quietly to the man beside him, "If they break this wall, there will not be a second defense."

Raven cut through the forge yard, heat slapping his face. Sparks floated like fireflies, then turned to ash. A bearded dwarf thrust a haft toward him without ceremony. "Grab an axe, plenty on the rack. You there, boy, front with me."

Raven took the weight of it, surprised at its balance, and followed. Behind them, the smiths armed anyone with hands. Iron sang a rough song as tools became weapons and the day became night.

Garrun Stonevein fought like the forge come to life. His hammer swung in wide arcs, sparks leaping with every blow. "Hold the line," he roared, shoulder to shoulder with the humans he had scolded in trade that morning.

When an orc blade shattered against his bracer, he spat into the dirt. "See, that is what happens when you pay for cheap steel," he growled, and smashed the raider flat. His laughter came rough and brief, a sound like iron refusing to bend.

They reached the low stone wall and saw them, orc shapes breaking from the furrows, low and fast, not a charge but a sweep. Knives for rope, clubs for doors, torches for barns. The rows of barley, silver under moonlight, hid them until the last instant. One hurdled the wall two strides from Raven. He barely got the axe up in time. Steel and bone met with a jolt that rang his arms.

He did not think. He stepped right, let the orc's weight pass, and chopped down. The axe bit into shoulder instead of skull, but it was enough. The dwarf beside him finished the job with a downward strike. "Hah," the dwarf barked. "Again."

Then the town erupted. Doors slammed. Shutters flew. People shouted names over one another. A human miller swung a paddle like a spear. An elf on a rooftop loosed a single arrow and vanished. A halfling hurled a brick and swore at how heroic it felt.

To the west, a gnome cried, "Not that lever," and something clanked and hissed. Smoke rolled in low sheets as thatch smoldered on a shed roof.

Mira shepherded two children into a cellar, flour on her sleeves like pale armor. "Inside," she said, voice steady in a way Raven's was not.

A shadow moved at the lane mouth, another raider. Raven sprinted, boots slipping on split grain, and planted himself between the figure and the cellar. He tasted dust and copper. He swung and missed. He took a cut along his ribs that felt cold before it felt hot. He swung again and did not miss.

Matron Bera moved from door to door with her herb basket like a weapon. "Heads down," she called, pressing salve to a split scalp and shoving the boy attached to it toward safety. When a torch landed near a stack of hay, she stamped it out herself and cursed softly at the sky. Later, as flames receded, she was first to light a lamp for the wounded. "No sense waiting on heroes when hands will do."

Syllara moved like a ghost through smoke, her pale robes unmarked by soot. A faint light shimmered from her hands as she wove illusions of flame and shadow, confusing the orcs long enough for villagers to flee. When one lunged toward her, a silver dart of force streaked from her palm and dropped it mid stride. "So much for omens," she whispered, though the faint red shimmer on the horizon made her blood run cold.

The orc before Raven swung a hooked blade. Raven got the axe haft up, wood jarring against iron. They grappled too close for clean blows, elbows and teeth and bad breath. He felt the hook rake his vest and skin break. He slammed his head forward into the raider's brow. The orc reeled. Raven chopped once, twice, until the body went slack. His breath rasped like a bellows set too wide.

A streak of red crossed the lane, not fire, Zal's hair under smoke. She moved past Raven without a word, cut a torch from a raider's grip, and kicked it into a puddle. Their eyes met, hers assessing, his wild, then she was gone, the smoke taking her.

Somewhere behind the line, Fizzleburn appeared with a canvas satchel and an expression of terrible resolve. "I have something that makes loud fiends go quiet," he announced to nobody in particular, then promptly tripped over a bucket. The satchel thumped. He froze, lifted it gingerly, and whispered, "Still friends."

"Not helping," a dwarf shouted as he cleaved at a raider prying boards from the granary.

The pattern showed itself. These raiders were not here for glory. They barely bothered with defenders. They hit the granary doors, the smokehouse, the cooper's yard, the cart sheds, anywhere a winter could be emptied in an hour.

Raven saw pairs dragging sacks, heard the thud of salted meat barrels tipped and rolled, saw a torch pressed to a thatch eave, not to raze a home, but to send owners running and leave the storehouse unguarded.

"Shields up, press," the dwarf from the forge roared, his voice a hammer in the din. He and three others advanced in a staggered line, catching a knot of raiders as they tried to drag a wagon through a narrow lane. Their shields took blows like anvils take strikes. They answered with edges. Raven fell in on the flank, teeth bared though he had not meant to bare them.

A horn bleated from the dark fields, short and ugly notes. The change was immediate. The orcs still within the lanes threw their last torches, grabbed what sacks they could, and broke away in twos and threes. No last charge. No boasting. They moved like crows lifting from a carcass, already turning into the night.

"Hold," the dwarf captain snapped as two young men started to give chase. "Back to the wall. Count your blood before you spill more." His command cracked through panic like a whip.

The bell's frantic hammering slowed. The smoke thinned to a sour haze. Raven leaned on his axe, hands shaking. When he finally looked up, he saw it clearly. The granary doors splintered, the racks in the smokehouse stripped, the cart sheds empty. They had not spared Havenmoor. They had harvested it.

Mira emerged with a lantern, face streaked with soot, curls stuck to her cheeks. She met Raven's eyes, then looked past him to the broken doors. "They did not come to kill us," she said, the words dull with shock. "They came to feed someone else."

Tinkmaster Pindle emerged from a collapsed shed, coughing soot and waving a dented wrench like a banner. "Do not touch that valve. It is pressure locked," he shouted to no one in particular, then began rebuilding a broken signal horn from scavenged pipe. "Two of these and a water barrel could make a warning siren, assuming we survive long enough to hear it," he muttered.

Later, as the council gathered, Pindle unrolled a soot smeared scroll of numbers. "Food stores gone, forges damaged, bridges unsafe. At this rate, we are two winters from hunger if trade does not resume."

People drifted into the square in clumps, coughing, clutching scrapes, counting. The dwarf captain spoke with two human stewards while an elf bound a wound with a strip of banner, green gold turning brown under her hands.

A halfling elder moved from group to group, touching shoulders, saying names as if saying them might keep them.

In the wavering lantern light, suspicion pooled the way shadows did, along every edge. "How did they reach the smokehouse," a farmer demanded. "Who watched the east lane," another asked. "Where were the elves' eyes then," someone said. "Where were the dwarves' hammers," someone else answered. Words sharpened faster than knives.

"Enough," Mira said, more to the air than to anyone in particular. She set the lantern on a barrel and handed out strips of clean cloth. "Bind first. Blame later." For once, people listened. Hands moved, shoulders dropped. Someone began to pray, not loudly, but enough to steady another.

Raven wiped his hands on his vest and found more blood than he expected, some his, most not.

He felt very young and very old at once. The axe was still in his grip. He looked north, where the fields fell away into dark. "They will be back," he said, though no one had asked him. "And more of them."

The dwarf captain's voice carried. "At first light we send riders. Our lords must hear, they must meet. If we wait, we starve." Heads rose. Some nodded, some scowled, but no one argued. Not tonight.

As the last torches guttered, Raven caught a faint glimmer on the northern horizon, a color like banked coals. He told himself it was only his eyes after smoke. He turned back to help lift a broken door and shoulder it into place. The hinge screamed, metal grieving as it met wood.

The council hall, once filled with shouting, now echoed with silence. Ash dusted the threshold like a thin frost. When the leaders returned to their seats, they did so slower, limping on pride and fatigue. Faces were drawn tight, mouths folded around old words that tasted different now. Smoke had a way of changing the sound of a vow.

They argued anew, but the question was no longer whether the threat was real. It was where to turn for aid, and how to bring the races that distrusted each other to the same table without knives under it.

A human steward tallied loss with shaking hands. A dwarf set a broken door latch on the table as if evidence could force agreement. An elf traced the edge of a map with a fingertip, following a road to the mountain with a gaze that refused to blink.

"Send to Lord Vale," a human said, already regretting the humility in his tone. "He will muster men."

"Send to Brogar," a dwarf answered. "He will send steel, if he is paid in honor as well as coin."

"Send to the Seers," said an elf, eyes flicking toward the window and the thin line of dawn. "If visions can turn a blade aside, let them."

Tinkmaster Pindle cleared his throat. "And send for engineers. You can argue philosophy while my apprentices bolt plates to your gates. You will thank us later, or you will not be around to."

At last, a halfling elder said the quiet part. "Summon the kings, elders, and lords to a war council. Not here, they will call this hall biased. At the Arcanum of Dawnfire, the only ground all might accept. Let its wards bind their words if their honor will not."

The idea drew suspicion at once, who would host, whose laws would bind them, but the Arcanum's name softened every argument. The academy had trained mages of all peoples. Its libraries spoke every language. Its vault doors were older than any crown.

Grudgingly, they agreed. They would seek the help of the Arcanum. Upon the Arcanum's request, an official war council could be summoned and the kings and leaders made to attend.

Banners would be called. Couriers would ride. For the first time, the chamber at Havenmoor tasted the bitter air of alliance.

As the leaders dispersed, Fizzleburn tugged at his collar. "Oh, the Arcanum," he said, too loudly to himself. "I have not been there since, well, I'm certain you've all heard.", said Fizzleburn blushing.

Dorian's armor was black with soot. Garrun's hammer still smoked. Syllara's eyes glowed faintly from the last of her magic. Matron Bera sat near the hearth, bandaging hands steadier than most. Pindle stood on a stool beside her, muttering equations while he tied a proper square knot with surprising gentleness.

It was Dorian who spoke first. "Then it is settled," he said, voice low but resolute. "We go to the Arcanum, not as beggars, as witnesses."

No one argued. Raven stifled a laugh when Fizzleburn tried to bow and nearly toppled from the bench. Zal arched an eyebrow that spoke a paragraph. Mira only watched, thoughtful, clutching her shawl.

"Perhaps the Arcanum can herd these cats before they claw each other to ribbons," she whispered into the heavy air. The small smile faded. "If they cannot, all will surely burn."

Outside, the wind shifted. In the east, a thread of smoke lifted, too straight to be a farmer's fire.

The bell rope tapped once against wood as if remembering the alarm. Havenmoor drew a breath it could not release, and somewhere beneath the mountain, something ancient kept its own rhythm, patient as a heartbeat in stone.