The ticking siege-engine hissed with deafening fury, its black metal gears grinding behind the smoke of the shattered southern wall.
"Detonate the canisters!" Alpha Viktor bellowed from the breach.
His dragon-scale plate armor gleamed like polished oil under the green fire, his single golden eye blazing with murderous frenzy. He swung his heavy, notched broadsword in a vicious arc, pointing the notched steel straight at the royal platform. "Smash the pillars! Kill every living wolf in this room!"
Before the ticking clockwork could chime its final stroke, the silver archer on the high balcony loosed an iron arrow wrapped in blue fire. The bolt struck the heart of the brass clockwork mechanism, jamming the copper gears and freezing the countdown timer with a loud, ringing spark.
Yet the
