Ember and Iron
769 Words
The days that followed the lighting of the Beacon were filled with motion, fire, and forged resolve.
They came from all corners of the realm—riders bearing banners older than kingdoms, swordmaidens with blades of molten steel, monks who sang flame-chants through cracked voices, and outcasts cloaked in ash. The Flamebound answered, not to a crown or creed, but to the ember calling them home.
Lyra stood at the heart of the Vale, now transformed into a makeshift stronghold. Camps spread like stars across the hills, each fire a story rekindled. She moved among them, listening, learning. No longer merely a leader of the Emberguard, she had become something else—a beacon in flesh.
Kalen oversaw strategy, his sharp mind piecing together the broken maps of war. Caelin trained the newer Emberbearers, her touch soft but her flames fierce.
Among them all, one stood apart.
The Flamewrought smith.
A grizzled dwarf named Rurik Emberthane, who once forged weapons in the depth of the Broken Spire. His hands were black with soot, and his forge roared with embersteel heat. He had come when the Beacon flared, drawn from self-imposed exile.
Now, he shaped weapons and armor that sang with emberlight. Not just steel, but living flame bound in iron.
Lyra approached him one evening, just as the sun kissed the mountains. "How many can you arm?"
Rurik looked up from his anvil. "Enough to win, if you don’t plan to lose."
She smiled faintly. "Then I’ll make sure we don’t."
Across the field, scouts arrived breathless. They knelt before Kalen.
"The Hollowborne have reached the Ember Wall."
Silence fell.
The Ember Wall was the last barrier before the heartlands. A monolith carved with flame wards, it had never been breached.
Until now.
"They move faster than we thought," Caelin said grimly.
Lyra turned to the gathered commanders. "Then we march at dawn. We meet them before they reach Emberhold."
"With what army?" someone muttered.
She raised her hand.
The Flamebound gathered.
Thousands now.
Blades raised. Embers glowing.
Not soldiers of a realm.
But warriors of a purpose.
Rurik emerged from his forge, carrying a banner unlike any before—a black field with a phoenix of flame.
The sigil of the Reforged Flame.
"Let the Hollowking come," Lyra said. "We’ll meet him with ember and iron."
And the hills echoed with the roar of fire reborn.
---
The March of Reforging
The valley thundered with footsteps as dawn broke over the Vale. Flamebound warriors stood in ordered ranks, their armor catching the first light of day. Banners of once-forgotten houses now rippled above them, woven anew with fire sigils that had not flown in centuries.
Lyra led the host at the vanguard, her blade Flamewrought sheathed across her back, its heat thrumming like a heartbeat. At her side rode Kalen, stoic as ever, and Caelin, her ember aura pulsing with quiet intensity. Behind them, the Reforged Flame stretched in a crescent across the hillside—not an army of conquest, but one of memory and purpose.
The road to the Ember Wall lay ahead, winding between scarred ridgelines and valleys where Hollowborn scouts had already made their mark. Scorched fields. Lifeless streams. Silent villages.
They rode through it all.
At midday, they met the remnants of the old Emberwatch sentinels. Burned, scattered, nearly broken. Their commander, a woman named Thessa, staggered before Lyra.
"We tried to hold them," she gasped, blood drying on her armor. "But he—he walks with the Rift. Not behind it. Inside it."
Lyra helped her up. "Then we close it. Together."
They added the survivors to their ranks. Every flame mattered.
That night, campfires burned across the hillside like stars rekindled. Songs of the old flame were sung in halting voices. Emberbearers shared visions of unity. Rurik passed out the last of his forged blades, each engraved with the mark of the Phoenix.
Lyra stood before them as the stars emerged.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we reach the Ember Wall. The Hollowborne think they’ve broken us. That the flame has dimmed. But they do not understand what ember truly is."
She drew Flamewrought.
"It is not just light. It is not just heat. It is memory. It is hope. It is us."
The army roared.
Kalen leaned toward her. "That was almost poetic."
Lyra allowed a rare smile. "Let’s hope poetry can burn."
As the first fires of dawn touched the Ember Wall, the Reforged Flame stood ready.
And behind them, the Vale blazed with a light not seen since the Age of First Flame.
The march was over.
The reckoning had begun.
- Writer
