Ashes Of War [v1.0] 【Free Forever】

Bram spit a dark glob of phlegm into the snow. "How many left, Captain?"

"They aren't coming back for it, Silas," a voice rasped through the fog.

Silas looked back at the small, shivering cluster of campfires tucked into the ruins of a collapsed watchtower. A handful of hollow-eyed refugees and three wounded soldiers were all that remained of a proud garrison. Ashes of War [v1.0]

Silas pulled a heavy leather skin from his belt and uncorked it. Instead of water, it contained a thick, shimmering oil—rendered from the fat of the fallen beasts that now stalked the ruins. He poured a single drop onto the shield's surface.

Instantly, the oil sizzled. A faint, ethereal glow emanated from the rust, casting a sickly blue light across Silas’s gaunt face. This was the residual echo of the magic that had ended the war. The world was dead, but the weapons still hungered. Bram spit a dark glob of phlegm into the snow

They called it the Ashing. It had been seven years since the Great Compact was shattered, and the skies had never truly cleared.

Silas knelt in the black mud, his fingers tracing the rusted edge of an old infantry shield half-buried in the frost. He wiped away a layer of grime to reveal the faded crest of the 4th Legion—a roaring lion, now blind and scarred by pits of corrosion. A handful of hollow-eyed refugees and three wounded

Bram grunted, leaning heavily on a walking axe that had long since lost its edge. "Scraps won't buy us bread in the Lowlands. Assuming the Lowlands haven't burned just as bright as the Ridge."