Chapter 248 Fire! Klaus's POV

Chapter 248 Fire! Klaus's POV
The snow fell hard and quiet as we marched down the eastern pass.

Eighty warriors moved in two lines behind me. We walked in the deep shadow of the pine trees, our iron boots wrapped in thick wool rags to muffle the sound of our steps.
No torches were lit. No one spoke. The only sound was the cold wind howling through the granite crags above.

Beside me, Bram carried his heavy battleaxe across his shoulder. Behind us, Valerius led forty spearmen carrying wide oak shields reinforced with iron bands. Every man was cold, hungry, and ready to kill.

Through the blood bond in my chest, I felt Zoey’s presence high up on the eastern ridge. Her heart beat with a steady, lethal rhythm. She was in position. She was waiting for my signal.

We hit the tree line three hundred yards from the river gorge where Vane had set his camp.

I held up my leather gauntlet. The column stopped instantly. Eighty men sank down into the deep snow, their dark wool cloaks hiding them in the shadows of the pine grove.

I crept forward to the edge of the clearing, resting my shoulder against a frozen oak tree.

Below us, Vane’s camp was lit by low timber fires. His heavy cavalrymen slept under dark leather tents, their steppe horses tethered in a tight grove to the west. But near the cliff face, I saw the four timber wagons Zoey had found.

Even in the dim firelight, the iron bands around the powder kegs gleamed in the snow. Vane was sitting on enough explosive black powder to shatter our timber gates and kill half my pack in their beds.

"Vane’s guards are lazy," Bram whispered, crawling up beside me in the snow. "They don't think an army can march down the high pass in a blizzard."

"That is why they die tonight," I growled, my voice low and flat as iron. "Valerius."

Valerius slid up to my right side. "Alpha?"

"Take thirty spearmen and skirt around the west side," I ordered, pointing my blade toward the horse grove.
"Cut the tether ropes. When the explosion hits, drive those horses straight through the middle of their tents."

"Understood," Valerius nodded, signaling his unit with a wave of his iron spear. They melted away into the dark pine forest without a sound.

I turned back toward the cliff face high above the camp.

I reached into my belt pouch and pulled out the iron war horn of my father. I raised the cold metal to my lips, took a deep breath of freezing mountain air, and blew.

The deep, roaring blast of the horn shattered the night sky. It echoed off the granite cliffs like a thunderclap, shaking the snow from the pine branches.

Before the horn’s echo died out, a streak of bright orange fire cut through the black sky from the high ridge above.

Zoey’s arrow.

The flaming broadhead arched through the freezing wind and struck the canvas cover of the first powder wagon. A second flaming arrow slammed into a wooden keg stacked against the iron wheel. Then a third.

For two seconds, there was only the hiss of burning oil.

Then the night exploded.

A blinding flash of orange light ripped open the gorge. A deafening boom shook the ground beneath my feet, throwing a massive cloud of fire, iron splinters, and burning timber into the air.
The shockwave blew the leather tents inside out, knocking down guards and sending burning embers flying across the riverbank.

Before the smoke could clear, a second explosion hit as the other three wagons went up. The rock walls groaned under the blast, raining boulders down onto the camp below.

"Charge!" I roared, drawing my father's broadsword from its sheath. "Leave none of them standing!"

I burst out of the pine grove, my iron-shod boots tearing through the snow.

Eighty North Pack warriors charged down the slope behind me, their bloodthirsty howls echoing off the burning cliffs.

Vane’s camp was total chaos.

Armored riders stumbled out of their burning tents, half-dressed and clutching their curved sabers in panic. Smoke thick as pitch filled the river gorge, stinging my eyes and nose with the stench of sulfur and burnt meat.

A big steppe cavalryman lunged at me through the smoke, swinging a heavy iron saber.

I stepped inside his guard, caught his wrist with my left gauntlet, and drove my broadsword straight through his iron breastplate. He gasped, his eyes going wide as I kicked his body off my blade and swept forward without slowing down.

To the west, a chorus of wild screams broke out as Valerius and his men cut the tether ropes.

Three hundred terrified steppe horses burst into the clearing, stampeding through the burning tents and trampling Vane's dismounted riders into the mud.

"Klaus!" Bram yelled from my left.

He swung his heavy battleaxe in a broad, brutal arc, caving in the helmet of a guard who was trying to rally five spearmen near the river. The guard dropped into the slush, and the remaining five broke rank and fled toward the dark water.

I pushed deeper into the center of the burning camp, my blade cutting down every man who stood in my path.

The blood bond in my chest hummed with a cold, fierce energy. Above us on the cliff, Zoey’s short bow kept singing. Every time a warlord captain tried to gather men to make a stand, a dark arrow found his throat from the shadows above.

We swept through the clearing like an avalanche. In ten minutes, the fighting stopped.

The remaining cavalrymen threw down their weapons and scattered into the dark woods, bleeding and riderless. The air was thick with gray smoke, the crackle of burning supply tents, and the groans of the dying.

I stood near the crater where the powder wagons had been. My breastplate was splattered with blood, my breath coming in hot, heavy gasps.

Bram walked up, wiping his bloody axe blade on his wool sleeve.
"The camp is cleared, Alpha. We took forty horses and twenty sacks of dried grain that didn't catch fire. The rest of their gear is ash."

"Did you find Vane?" I asked, looking around the burning clearing.

"No," Valerius reported, stepping out of the smoke with blood on his iron spearhead. "His main tent was empty. A wounded scout said Vane stayed behind at the Red River bridge with his elite guard of fifty riders."

I wiped my broadsword clean on a fallen cloak and sheared it back into the leather scabbard at my hip.

A soft rustle of snow came from the steep ridge path behind us.

Zoey stepped out of the pine trees, her short bow slung across her back, her face streaked with soot and grease. She walked straight to my side, her dark eyes scanning my armor for wounds before meeting my gaze.

"The powder is gone," she said flatly, looking at the massive crater in the snow.

"Because of your shot," I said, reaching out to cup the back of her neck with my gauntleted hand.

She leaned into my touch for a single second, her warm breath rising between us in the freezing night air. The silver ring on her left hand caught the glow of the dying fires.

"Vane knows we are coming now," Zoey said, looking east toward the river bridge.

"Good," I growled, turning my back on the burning ruins of the camp.
"Let him wait at the river. He wanted a war with the North Pack. Now he gets one."