The order came at dawn.
The horn echoed across the forested slopes of the Lag'ranna Mountains...deep, war-throated, rippling through twisted oak groves and lichen-quilted stone. Flocks of mountain birds burst skyward as the call scattered across the treeline.
The Verakhs and the Black Tree Tribe were already awake when the horn sounded. They had been awake for hours...ghosts beneath branches and bracken, war paint drying on scarred skin, blades oiled and bound, breaths quiet as wind through leaves.
The Warg Riders waited.
They always waited.
Mounted thunder was not meant to open a battle...it was meant to finish the first movements of war, strike where uncertainty had already been sewn.
Beyond the skirmish lines, beneath towering firs at the edge of the forest's eastern spur, the only two clans around who still rode true wargs prepared for the hunt:
The Warghen Clan
The Skallser Clan
No others bore the right or the beasts.
