Chapter 85: Iron Fortress

He walked over to the extinguished fire pit.

With a flick of his wrist, a burst of dark, controlled mana ignited the logs, bathing the camp in warm, orange light once more.

He didn’t return to his command tent.

He didn’t order the knights to disperse.

He sat down on the dirt, right next to Seraphina’s log, ignoring the fact that his expensive leather trousers were getting dusty.

"Give me the stick," Kaelus grunted.

Seraphina handed him the stick with the marshmallow.

The Archduke of the North, the Reaper of the Vanguard, held the stick over the open flames, meticulously, silently roasting a marshmallow to a perfect, golden brown.

At the same time, three massive knights watched him with a mixture of smug satisfaction and lingering judgment.

"Here," Kaelus muttered, handing the perfectly roasted confection back to her.

Seraphina took it, smiling a bright, genuine smile. "Thank you, Papa Duke!"

Kaelus didn’t look at the knights.

He just looked at the fire. "Eat your sugar. We’ll cross the border tomorrow. The peace and quiet of the mountains is ending."

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Two days later, the landscape finally broke.

The jagged, ascending crags of the Western frontier crested, revealing a massive valley basin below.

But it was not a valley of green grass and sparkling rivers.

As the mythril carriage crested the ridge, Seraphina pressed her face against the glass and gasped.

It looked like the mouth of hell had opened up and swallowed the earth.

The Duchy of Voran, the Iron Marches, was an industrial nightmare of awe-inspiring proportions.

The sky over the massive basin was not blue; it was a permanent, choking ceiling of thick, dark gray and sulfur-yellow smog.

Hundreds of towering brick smokestacks jutted out of the earth like rotting teeth, belching endless plumes of black ash into the atmosphere.

The rivers that snaked through the valley were not full of water.

They were glowing, sluggish streams of molten slag and industrial runoff, casting an eerie, hellish orange glow against the dark, soot-stained rocks.

The sound of the territory reached them even from the high ridge, a constant, rhythmic, deafening CLANG-CLANG-CLANG of ten thousand hammers striking anvils, vibrating the very bedrock beneath the carriage wheels.

"It’s dirty," Seraphina observed, wrinkling her small nose as a faint whiff of sulfur penetrated even the carriage’s magical insulation.

"It is the forge of the Empire," Kaelus replied, standing behind her, looking out the window with an expression of cold disdain.

He had donned his full, heavy combat armor again, the mythril plates glowing softly in the dim, smog-filtered light. "It is a place devoid of art, devoid of silence, and devoid of basic human decency. Duke Reginald Voran believes that progress is measured in tons of processed ore. He does not care how many lungs his smokestacks fill with ash, as long as his vaults are full of gold."

Kaelus reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small, intricately carved piece of dark wood attached to a silver chain.

It was an enchanted talisman, designed to filter out toxic particulates from the air.

He leaned down and slipped the chain over Seraphina’s head, tucking the wooden talisman securely under the collar of her navy dress.

"The air in his capital city, Iron-forge, is heavily polluted," Kaelus instructed, his tone shifting into a protective command. "Do not remove this talisman. If you feel dizzy, if your throat burns, come and tell me anytime. Do not try to be brave. The smog here is lethal to a developing respiratory system."

"I won’t take it off," Seraphina promised, patting the shape of the talisman under her dress.

As the convoy descended the ridge, entering the suffocating atmosphere of the Iron Marches, the mood of the Vanguard shifted entirely.

The doting, passive-aggressive uncles who had argued over dolphins and dire goats vanished without a trace.

In their place returned the terrifying, blood-soaked executioners of the North.

Sir Lucas pulled his helmet over his scarred face.

Sir Boris hoisted his massive war hammer onto his shoulder, his single eye scanning the smog-choked roads for ambushes.

Sir Gallahan drew his pristine white cloak tight around his armor, looking like an avenging angel descending into the abyss.

They were entering a hostile territory.

They were entering the domain of an abrasive, unpredictable industrialist who commanded an army of mercenaries and owned the largest weapons stockpile on the continent.

The road to Iron-forge was paved not with cobblestones, but with massive slabs of dark iron.

The carriage wheels ground against the metal with a harsh, grating screech.

As they passed the outer mining settlements, Seraphina saw the people.

They did not look like the cheerful, plump citizens of Oakhaven.

They were gaunt, their skin stained permanently gray with soot, their eyes hollow and exhausted.

They wore heavy leather aprons and carried pickaxes, coughing violently as they trudged toward the gaping maws of the subterranean mines.

When they saw the Black Bastion, they didn’t point and whisper in awe.

They simply lowered their heads, stepping off the iron road and into the acidic mud, terrified of making eye contact with the Northern reapers.

"They look sad," Seraphina whispered, her heart aching for the workers.

"They are property to Voran," Kaelus said coldly. "He pays them just enough to buy bread, and charges them rent for the hovels they sleep in. It is slavery wrapped in a legal contract."

The capital city of Iron-forge did not have walls.

It was built directly into the side of a hollowed-out volcano.

The architecture was entirely utilitarian, windowless fortresses of iron and black brick.

The heat radiating from the city was palpable, baking the air and causing the smog to shimmer with thermal distortion.

The convoy halted before the iron-wrought gates of Duke Voran’s personal citadel.

The gates did not open immediately.

Instead, a contingent of Voran’s private mercenaries, men clad in heavy, bulky, steam-powered mechanical armor that hissed and spewed white vapor, marched out to block the path.

"Halt!" the mercenary captain bellowed, his voice amplified by a brass speaking tube built into his helmet. "You stand before the Citadel of Iron! State your business and surrender your primary weapons before entry!"

Inside the carriage, Kaelus let out a low, dark chuckle that vibrated the glass.

"Surrender our weapons," Kaelus sneered, the sheer audacity of the demand genuinely amusing him. "He is trying to establish dominance? He wants the Bastion to walk into his forge looking like declawed kittens?"

Kaelus pushed the carriage door open.

The squeaky hinge Sir Boris had ’fixed’ shrieked loudly, slightly undercutting the dramatic entrance, but Kaelus ignored it.

He stepped out onto the iron road, the smog swirling around his dark form.

"I am Kaelus von Nacht," the Archduke’s voice didn’t need a brass speaking tube.

It boomed across the courtyard, laced with a heavy wave of dark mana that hit the steam-powered mercenaries like a physical shockwave.

Several of them staggered backward, the gauges on their armor shattering from the sudden spike in atmospheric pressure. "I am here on the direct orders of the Imperial Crown to audit the ledgers of Reginald Voran. If you demand my sword again, I don’t mind tearing the wall down with my bare hands."

The mercenary captain, realizing he had just provoked the apex predator of the continent, immediately abandoned his posturing. "I-I apologize, Your Grace! We didn’t know the Vanguard was to come here today! O-Open the gates! Make way for the Northern Vanguard!"

The massive iron doors groaned open, revealing the searing, blinding light of the inner courtyard, which was dominated by a colossal, functioning blast furnace that roared like a captive dragon.

Kaelus turned back to the carriage, reaching his hands in.

He lifted Seraphina out, setting her gently on the iron paving stones.

"Stay directly behind my legs," Kaelus ordered softly. "Do not look at the furnace; it will burn your corneas. And do not speak to Duke Voran."

Seraphina nodded, grabbing a handful of his thick, midnight-blue mantle.

She peeked around his mythril-plated thigh as they marched into the citadel, flanked on all sides by the towering, silent wall of the Vanguard’s shields.

Waiting for them at the top of a wide set of iron stairs was the master of the Iron Marches.

Duke Reginald Voran was exactly as Kaelus had described him: loud, abrasive, and devoid of any aristocratic grace.

He was a man built like a fire hydrant, short, wide, and packed with dense, rolling fat and muscle.