Iron and Flesh Beneath the Blood Moon

Frontline commander Edwin Losa stood on the cliff above the Sacred Flame Altar, looking down over Ashen Fief.

He had served in the Most Holy Church's Whiteflame Lancer Order. A Third-Tier knight, he had survived three Blood Moon Seasons.

In his experience, a defensive line needed high walls, Sacred Flame, and ranks of heavy shields—

But Ashen Fief looked too empty, like an undefended wasteland. It unsettled Edwin.

When Bishop Castian had seconded him here a few months earlier, he had thought little of Blackpine Fief's approach of "digging holes and burying iron."

But he had watched Blackpine's engineers hollow out and transform this run-down river valley. By now, his opinion had shifted somewhat.

Ashen Fief's defenses were not on the surface. They were underground, inside bunkers cut into the rock walls, in echoing short codes, and on Shien's Sand Table.

Several decoy braziers, for example, were scattered across the valley floor. Each held a measured dose of alchemical reagents that, when catalyzed by the Blood Moon Law, would release the hot scent of blood and draw monsters closer.

At the end of that route lay the main kill zone. Three shallow Rending Fang Trenches were buried along the outer edge of the valley entrance.

Iron-clad sharpened stakes lined their bottoms, their tips coated with Holy Silver Powder and corrosive acid.

Several half-enclosed gun emplacements had been carved into the rock walls on either side, their firing ports hidden behind gray cloth and dead branches.

Those were far from the only weapons Shien had deployed, and the drills over the past few months had indeed been impressive and smooth.

Still, Edwin had his doubts.

Could all that iron buried underground really work as Shien expected against a proper Blood Moon army?

After all, these tactics had never been blooded against