The first arrow fell at dawn.
It hissed through the grey air and buried itself in Blackhollow’s wooden palisade with a dull thud. Then came another, and another, until the sky darkened beneath a storm of fletching.
The siege had begun.
---
The Roar of the Host
Malrik’s drums thundered from the valley below, shaking the very stones. Siege towers rolled forward, massive and groaning, their hides wet with pitch. At the center of the host lumbered The Breaker, the monstrous ram crowned with a steel crow’s beak.
Tens of thousands of voices rose as one, chanting, Crow! Crow! Crow!
From atop Blackhollow’s battlements, Cael stood with his cloak of antlers whipping in the wind. Mira was beside him, bow drawn, her face grim and pale. Garrick barked orders down the wall, rallying archers to th
