The sound hit them first.

It should have been the clash of steel or the roar of battle cries - those would have been clean, almost dignified.

But no.

This was something uglier. The wet crunch of bodies breaking. The screams that started human and ended animal. The constant, grinding noise of violence that had lost all pretense of glory and become pure mechanical slaughter.

"Bloody hell," Torrgh whispered, his scarred face going pale. "How long has this been going on?"

"Does it matter?" Zara's voice was flat, but her silver eyes were calculating trajectories, counting combatants, measuring the chaos. "They're locked in. Neither side can disengage without giving the other control."

Liam studied the fortress through the Cognitor's enhanced vision.

Vor'esh's walls were intact but contested. Demons held the eastern ramparts, paladins the western. The courtyard between had become a killing ground—a space neither side controlled, filled with the bodies of those who'd tried to cross it.

[Tactical Analysis: Stalemate]

[Demon Forces: Approximately 80, Diminishing]

[Radiant Empire Forces: Approximately 120, Diminishing]

[Combat Duration: Estimated 8 Hours]

[Projected Outcome: Mutual Exhaustion, Winner: Whoever Has Reinforcements]

Eight hours of continuous combat. No wonder both sides looked more like corpses still moving than soldiers.

"The demons are losing," Koth said quietly. "Not quickly, but inevitably. They're outnumbered and the paladins are rotating fresh soldiers to the front while they can't."

"Then we even the odds." Liam started forward, but Zara's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Wait. Look at the demon commander."

She pointed to the eastern ramparts, where a massive demon in battered armor directed soldiers with mechanical efficiency. No passion or fury. Only cold, dead-eyed calculation as he fed his forces into the grinder.

"That's Commander Thrak," Zara continued. "Three hundred years old. Veteran of forty campaigns. Known for two things: absolute tactical precision and complete emotional detachment." Her voice dropped. "They say he lost the ability to feel fear or joy two centuries ago. Now he just... exists. Fights because it's what he does. Holds positions because those are his orders."

"And the problem with that is?"

"He won't adapt. Won't take risks. Won't deviate from doctrine even when doctrine is obviously failing." She gestured to the grinding stalemate. "He's been in this exact situation seventeen times before. Lost it twelve times. Won it five. And every single time, he fights the same way—hold the ramparts, contest the courtyard, wait for the enemy to make a mistake."

Liam processed this. A commander who'd become a machine. Who'd fought so long that warfare had become routine, devoid of creativity or passion.

The opposite of what Liam had been doing at Krazax and Dra'kul.

He wouldn't simply accept their strategy.

"Then we give him what he doesn't have," Liam decided.

"Which is?"

"A variable he can't predict. A piece that doesn't fit his calculations." Liam's grey eyes studied the battlefield. "We don't help him hold the ramparts. We take the courtyard."

Koth's molten eyes widened. "Lord Azra, that courtyard is a death trap. It's why both sides avoid committing to it fully. Crossfire from both walls, no cover, exposed on all sides—"

"Which is exactly why no one expects an assault force to enter it deliberately." Liam pointed to a section of the western wall where paladin defenses looked thinnest.

"They're focused on the eastern ramparts, on pushing the demons back. They're not watching their own rear because they assume the courtyard's protection enough."

"So we enter the courtyard from the south," Zara said slowly, her analytical mind catching up to his logic. "Use the chaos as cover. Hit the western wall from inside the fortress instead of outside."

"And collapse their forward position," Liam finished. "Without their western ramparts, the paladins lose their ability to rotate fresh soldiers. They'll be forced to commit everyone to holding what remains, which means—"

"They stop pressing the demon position," Koth concluded. "Thrak gets breathing room. The stalemate breaks in our favor."

"If we survive the courtyard crossing," Torrgh added, his voice holding doubt.

"We'll survive." Liam's hand found Igar's Shard's hilt. "I have a good feeling about this one."

He looked at his twenty-three fighters—veterans from Krazax who'd followed him through Dra'kul's midnight assault. They'd already survived one impossible mission.

Time to see if they could survive another.

"Here's the plan," Liam began.

---

[Current Time: 14:23]

[Estimated Time to Contact: 7 Minutes]

They approached from the south, using a collapsed section of outer wall as entry point. The sound of combat grew louder—not just weapons, but voices. Curses in demonic and human voices. Prayers. Pleas. The verbal component of violence that most forgot existed.

The courtyard spread before them like a portrait of hell.

Bodies lay in heaps where they'd fallen—demon and human mixed together, some still moving weakly, most still forever. Blood painted the stones in abstract patterns.

Broken weapons littered the ground like metal flowers growing from carnage.

And through it all, soldiers from both sides still fought. No fresh fury of new battle, only the exhausted determination of those who'd been killing for so long they'd forgotten how to stop.

"Stay tight," Liam ordered. "We move fast, we move silent, and we don't stop for anything. Wounded enemies, dying allies, doesn't matter. We get to that western wall or we die trying."

Twenty-three nods. Twenty-three demons who'd decided Lord Azra's impossible missions were better than certain death through attrition.

"Now."

They entered the courtyard at a run.

The first twenty feet were easy—no one was watching the southern approach. The demons on the eastern ramparts were focused on holding their position.

The paladins on the western wall were focused on taking it.

No one expected a third force to simply walk into the kill zone.

The next twenty feet were harder.

A demon, wounded and delirious, grabbed at Torrgh's leg. The veteran kicked free without breaking stride, face set in grim determination. Behind them, a paladin noticed the movement, started to raise his bow.

Zara's thrown knife took him through the throat before the arrow left the string.

Fifty feet into the courtyard now.

Halfway to the western wall. Bodies were denser here—the point where both sides had committed hardest before pulling back.

They had to climb over corpses, feet slipping on blood-slicked stone.

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