Wind and snow poured into the shattered watchtower, where the smells of blood and spore slurry mingled into a nauseating stench.
Veris Calvin stood on the ruined lookout atop the wall, staring at the enormous shape slowly emerging from the snowy mist in the distance.
He tightened his grip on his sword hilt, only to discover that his fingers were trembling.
Even as a high-ranking knight, he could not control the heavy, suffocating dread weighing on his chest.
It was the Brood Hive.
It was larger and stranger than he had imagined.
It resembled an overturned tree trunk, or the spine of some creature that should never have existed, dragging an entire writhing river of insect corpses across the Ice Plains.
Veris gritted his teeth and glanced down at the fief behind him.
He had spent a year slowly building up this little valley.
He remembered every stone road, every house, and every subject's name.
He had shed sweat and blood for this land, personally checking the stone walls' joints at night and hauling log carts alongside his people during the day.
Now... perhaps it would all be destroyed.
He could not help giving a bitter laugh. "Even if the Brood Hive didn't come for me first... my turn was bound to come."
The two fiefs closer to Frostice Valley than his had already fallen.
The reports his scout knights brought back contained little more than indistinct screams and flames. They could not even find an intact corpse. Those fiefs had held out for only half a day.
The Brood Hive had not even bothered wasting time devouring them completely before slithering toward its next prey.
"Can I hold out longer than they did?" he murmured, his eyes somewhat vacant.
Veris knew very well that what he had faced before