Adam's men waited in the yard, packs strapped, weapons ready. Supplies were stacked ready for the march and in the process of being loaded into heavy duty wagons and carts draped with camouflage. Ammo, water, food, and iron for the wards moved quickly into their allocated spaces and as much as vehicles would have been quicker to move everything to the battleground, they wanted the element of surprise and vehicles were just too loud amongst the high walls of the valleys that they would be passing through.
Orders were left for resupply and reinforcements and the soldiers stood in silence, watching the palace doors. Still, Adam didn't go to them first.
He went to Ann.
She lay pale against the sheets, healers watching her closely. Her breathing was steady, but too shallow for his liking. Adam sat at her side and took her hand. He kept his voice low, meant for her alone.
"I'll end this, Ann. For you and for the pups. You'll never see their shadow again. Our sons will grow in a world that doesn't fear the Lycan King, Ely or the evil that they ally themselves with."
He pressed his forehead to hers and stayed there a minute longer than he should have. Then he let her go.
When he stepped into the yard, silence rippled through the ranks. Wolves clawed at the dirt, restless and Lycans shifted heavy packs higher on their shoulders. Magick users checked the ink lines etched onto their arms and the satchels slung across their backs. Scouts waited at the flanks, already tensed for the signal to move. No one questioned him. No one spoke. Adam's fury set the pace, and they carried it with them as they marched for the border.
The march was steady and boots struck the road in an almost comforting rhythm, the column moving without a word. Wolves padded ahead, their ears flat, keeping to the edges and assigned scouts ran ahead and returned, passing signals with sharp gestures instead of speech.
Magick users held their abilities close, conserving what they would need when the clash came and readying what they could. The Lycans bore the heavier packs without complaint, weapons slung and ready. Even the veterans moved sharper, their wolves excited by the promise of battle.
Adam walked at the front, every step filling him with more determination and fuelled by the memory of Ann's shallow breaths. He didn't look back often, but when he did, no one faltered. Not one soldier let his eyes slip from him.
By midday the borderlands came into sight, a mess of scarred earth and blackened stone marked the line where Ely's forces had crossed tome and time again. Old wards lay broken in the dirt, their lines cracked and iron melted through in places. Smoke curled faintly in the distance where villages had been stripped bare.
Adam halted at the edge of the brushline, and saw the enemy gathered below. Handlers clutched chains tightly, their eyes wild as the constructs lumbered aimlessly. Corrupted wolves paced among them and corrupted lycans shuddered, half-flesh and half-something else, as if desperate to be unleashed.
Magick circles were burned on the ground, and their glow was a sickness for the earth that Adam wanted to rip apart with his own claws.
He raised his hand and his men held still behind him, coming to a silent stop as they waited for his commands.
Fury rolled through his chest, his wolf straining to break free, but he kept it in check long enough for the order to be given. His voice carried clearly, with a grim resigned determination.
"We take the frontline, no retreating, only pushing forward until they fall or they break."
The answer came in the silence that followed, sharp and absolute. Not one man questioned him. Not one voice broke.
Adam dropped his hand and with devastating efficiency, the attack began.
The wolves broke first, their claws and teeth tearing into the enemy's front ranks. The corrupted wolves met them head-on as soon as they realised what was happening, their jaws snapping and chains clattering behind them as their handlers struggled to free them from their leashes. Blood soaked the earth in less than a few seconds.
Lycans slammed forward next, breaking through the heavier troops and makeshift barricades. Bone and metal crumpled under the impact of their colossal forms. One Lycan grabbed a handler by the spine and snapped him clean in half with a furious roar then hurled the body into the construct behind him.
Magick users let loose their vast abilities as one, as their wards etched in ink flared to life, searing brightly as they cut across the ground. A bolt of flame struck a construct in the chest, the flames spreading to engulf it completely as the fire devoured every inch of flesh until nothing was left but a smoking heap of ash on the floor. It screamed, the sound more metal than flesh until its throat was burned away and only ashes remained, as wolves swarmed over it, scattering the ashes as they tore into the handler behind piece by piece.
Adam was already among them and his wolf's claws opened the throat of the first handler in reach. He spun and ripped through the next, driving him to the dirt with a snap of his jaw. Chains went slack as their corrupted beasts faltered without command.
Another surged at him, metal fused into its limbs. Adam's wolf answered, rising to his full height as the crack of impact was drowned under his own roar. His fur bristled, claws lengthened, and he tore the creature's throat out in one brutal wrench.
Constructs with saw-edged arms hacked at anything in reach as wolves dragged them down by the legs and Lycans crushed their cores under their sheer weight thrown behind strength.
A corrupted wolf lunged at Adam and he could see clearly that its eyes were clouded black. Steel rods jutted through its torn ribs and his stomach turned as he caught it mid-air and slammed it into the dirt. His jaws closed on its spine, snapping it clean before he flung the carcass aside. It was brutal, it was devastating and it was sad. But there was no time for emotion here. He could break afterwards and take time to recover from the horrors he witnessed, now, all that mattered was keeping his family, his people safe.
Handlers tried to rally, raising sigils and whistles. One lifted a carved rod and shouted for his beasts to turn. Adam's claws severed his arm before the order could finish. His teeth crushed the man's throat a heartbeat later.
Behind him, magick users fought in pairs. One carved circles into the ground while the other pressed power into them. A wave of light surged outward, catching a cluster of corrupted wolves and searing them to ash. The stink of burned flesh spread across the field, but not one person faltered.
As he raced between confrontations, Adam saw that they moved as a unit. Wolves cut low, hamstringing the larger horrors so Lycans could drive through their chests. Magick users sealed gaps in their defenses and managed a mix of healing what they could on the fighters and providing ranged magick to hit targets before they could overwhelm the front line. When one soldier fell, two more closed in to cover the space.
A construct with bladed forearms charged through a gap and cut a wolf across the ribs. The wolf staggered but held the thing in place long enough for a Lycan to hit it from the side and drive it into the ground. A magick user dropped a circle over it and burned through the torso until it stopped moving then turned to the wolf and with his pair, began to knit the wound together.
A wave of corrupted wolves slammed into the flank, snapping at anything that moved. For a moment the line wavered, bodies buckling under the weight and Adam lunged into the gap himself, his wolf tearing down the lead beast in a storm of claws and blood.
"Hold the line!" he roared, his words thundering across the battlefield. His soldiers answered without hesitation, driving in behind him until the line locked again.
Hours blurred into one another. Strike after strike, blood soaked into the dirt until the ground turned slippery. Wolves staggered with wounds and still fought. Lycans bled from gouges and refused to fall back. Magick users burned through their strength, collapsed, and were collected by the medical teams and brought back to the wagons to rest, eat, drink and replenish their strength enough to return.
Adam gave no ground at all.
A squad to his left began to fold under a tangle of limbs and metal and Adam cut across the chaos, slammed the construct off them, and raked through its throat until it stilled.
"Get up," he snapped, and they rose and fell in on his heels.
Evening dropped the light levels over them, but the only ones affected were the magick users as their night vision was poor. The enemy pushed one last time, throwing everything forward and Adam met it head-on. His claws tore, his teeth broke bone and still his unrelenting rage drove him until nothing in reach moved.
At last the surge faltered and constructs fell still with their handlers dead. Corrupted wolves lay in pieces and Adam and the men and women who followed him without question stood heaving, covered in blood, but alive.
The enemy staggered back into the dark, dragging their wounded with them and leaving the battlefield littered with bodies. The magick users would see to it that the enemy were incinerated and their own fallen were recovered so that Ely could not twist them to use against them in battle..
Adam stood at the front of them, his chest rising and falling heavily. His claws dripped with blood and black ichor but he didn't care about any of that.
His eyes still burned with rage that had nowhere left to go now that the enemy had retreated and grief coiled tight in his chest, but it didn't break him. It only fuelled the fire inside of him.
He looked once across the field at his men and they stared back, waiting, their eyes bright in the failing light. No one dared to speak as the eerie silence pressed in on them from every side.
The sound tore free before he could stop it.
His howl ripped across the night, raw and jagged. It wasn't a call to fight, it was raw emotion. Grief. Fury. Defiance. And the certainty that they would never bow to the evil that wanted to destroy them.
His people didn't hesitate. One by one, their voices joined his. The howls rolled across the battlefield, over the dead, and through the night, shaking the ground.
They howled for the fallen. They howled for the blood they had spilled. And above all, they howled for their queen.
In that sound, raw and terrible, they were not weary soldiers. They were pack, bound to him in unshakable loyalty and in their shared devotion to Ann, The Alpha Queen who had stood for them all when the nobles would not.