The snow fell in thick, wet flakes, clinging to Kael’s grimy fur-lined tunic and melting against the cold metal of his helmet. Another day, another assault. The barbarians, the ‘Rimeborn’ as the officers called them, seemed to have an endless supply of bodies to throw at the crumbling walls of Fort Draven. Their war cries, a guttural cacophony, tore through the biting wind, a sound Kael had grown to associate with the metallic tang of fear and the coppery stench of fresh blood. He hunkered behind a low, makeshift barricade of splintered wood and frozen earth, his heart thudding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The spear in his hand felt like an anchor, its heft a familiar, burdensome comfort. His fingers, numb with cold, tightened around the shaft. He wasn’t a warrior, not truly. He was a farmer’s son, conscripted just last spring, dragged from his fields to this freezing, desolate hellscape where the Empire’s last bastions slowly bled out. “Hold the line, you dogs!” Sergeant Valerius bellowed, his voice raw, hoarse from days of shouting orders over the din of battle. A burly man with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow, Valerius was a bulwark of grim determination, a constant, gruff reminder that death was always an arm’s length away. “For the Emperor! For Draven!” Few echoed the cry. The men around Kael, hollow-eyed and gaunt, merely shifted, gripping their weapons tighter. Hope was a luxury they couldn't afford; survival was the only currency that mattered. The Empire was a rumour, a distant memory of gilded halls and warm hearths, utterly disconnected from the brutal reality of their frosted breath and aching bones. A cluster of Rimeborn, massive figures clad in crudely tanned hides and bone, surged forward, their axes glinting malevolently in the overcast light. They moved with a savage grace, oblivious to the arrows that whistled past them or the spears that found their mark in less armoured flesh. Kael squeezed his eyes shut for a fraction of a second, a silent plea for it all to end, then snapped them open. There was no escaping this. He braced himself as a particularly hulking barbarian, a veritable mountain of muscle and snarling fury, broke through a weakened section of the line a few paces to his left. A scream tore from a comrade’s throat as the barbarian’s greataxe descended, cleaving through shield and flesh alike. Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at Kael’s throat. He thrust his spear forward blindly, a desperate, pathetic lunge. But the barbarian, mid-swing, stumbled. Not a trip, not a slip on the treacherous ice, but a sudden, almost imperceptible lurch, as if an invisible hand had nudged his massive shoulder. The greataxe, instead of burying itself in Kael’s chest, scraped harmlessly against his shield, sending a jarring vibration up his arm. The jolt ran through him, a strange, electric current that left his nerves humming, his vision blurring at the edges for a fleeting instant. The barbarian roared in frustration, momentarily off balance. Kael didn't hesitate. Driven by a raw, primal instinct, he plunged his spear deep into the barbarian's exposed side. The massive warrior gasped, a wet, gurgling sound, and crumpled to the snow, steam rising from the dark, crimson stain spreading across his hides. Kael stared, wide-eyed, at the fallen foe. He hadn’t felt the usual strain, the bone-deep ache of exertion that usually accompanied such a desperate act. Instead, a profound exhaustion settled over him, a cold weariness that seeped into his very marrow, heavier than any physical burden. He felt disoriented, a little dizzy, as if he’d just woken from a deep, dreamless sleep. What was that? How had the barbarian stumbled? Lucky, he told himself. Pure, unadulterated luck. “Good thrust, Kael!” Valerius shouted, slapping him roughly on the shoulder. “Looks like the Gods are smiling on you today, lad. Don’t waste their favour!” Kael merely nodded, too dazed to form a coherent reply. He pulled his spear free, the barb tangled in muscle and sinew, and tried to regain his breath. His lungs burned, not just from the cold air, but from an internal drain he couldn’t articulate. He felt… hollowed out. The fighting surged and receded like a tide, each wave leaving more Imperial soldiers broken on the shore. Arrows rained down from the enemy’s archers posted on the ridges overlooking the fort, a constant, deadly hail. One whizzed past Kael’s ear, close enough to ruffle his hair, embedding itself with a sickening thud into the timber just beside his head. He flinched, instinctively ducking lower. His gaze swept across the chaotic scene, registering the frantic efforts of the engineers attempting to shore up a collapsing section of the wall, the medics tending to the wounded behind the lines, their faces grim and stained with blood. He saw the despair in the eyes of his comrades, the frantic, desperate hope in their last stand. --- The sun dipped below the jagged mountain peaks, casting long, bruised shadows across the snow-covered battlefield. The Rimeborn, after a brutal, hours-long push, finally retreated, their eerie war horns echoing through the twilight. The fort was silent, save for the moans of the wounded and the crunch of boots on frozen earth as soldiers moved to inspect the damage, retrieve the fallen, and reinforce the breaches. Kael dragged himself back to the meagre warmth of the barrack tent, his limbs screaming in protest. The cold had penetrated to his bones, a constant, gnawing ache. He found his usual spot by a sputtering fire pit, huddling with the remnants of his squad. Valerius was there, meticulously sharpening his short sword, the rasp of steel against stone a soothing counterpoint to the day's horrors. The air was thick with the smell of wet wool, stale sweat, and unwashed bodies. “Another day, another miracle,” mumbled Elias, a young recruit barely older than Kael, his face streaked with soot and tears. He shivered violently, pulling his threadbare blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Thought we were done for, when those giants broke through the north gate.” “We’re not done for until the last man falls, Elias,” Valerius grunted, without looking up. “And even then, we take a few of them with us.” Kael leaned his head back against the rough canvas, staring up at the smoke-stained ceiling. His head still felt foggy, a faint thrumming behind his eyes. He recalled the barbarian’s stumble, the strange drain. It wasn’t just that one time. He’d noticed it before, fleeting glimpses of impossible fortune. A dropped shield falling perfectly to block a killing blow. An enemy's bowstring snapping mid-draw. Small things, easily dismissed as coincidence, as the unpredictable nature of battle. But today, the feeling was stronger, the exhaustion more profound. It wasn't just physical fatigue from fighting. It was something deeper, as if a vital part of him had been… siphoned away. He remembered the feeling of that electric current, the blurred vision. It had only lasted for a moment, a flicker, but it had left him utterly spent. He hadn’t felt a specific ‘power’ or ‘magic’, just a sudden emptiness, a profound cold that no fire could dispel. He shivered, but it wasn't from the chill of the tent. A knot of unease tightened in his gut. Luck, he had told himself. Always luck. But how much luck could one man have in a war like this? In a war where luck ran as thin as the Emperor's coin? He looked at his calloused hands, hands meant for soil, not steel, and wondered what strange current had truly passed through them today. The whisper in the chaos, faint and unsettling, had begun to stir. The thought was absurd. Magic was a myth, banished from the Empire centuries ago, its practitioners hunted to extinction. Yet, the memory of that brief, disorienting surge, the subsequent, crushing exhaustion, refused to be dismissed. He closed his eyes, pulling his blanket higher. He was just tired, he told himself. Exhausted. The war was getting to him. It had to be. There was no other explanation. There couldn’t be.

Chapter 1: A Soldier's Luck