Malak Warhammer's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Malak stood at the edge of the training field and watched his best squad face off against a group of visiting warriors. The guests had arrived from a northern settlement, their armor polished and their confidence clear. His soldiers moved into formation, shields raised. The visitors charged. Within seconds, Malak's line broke. His troops scattered, stumbling over each other as the northerners drove through them like paper. The demonstration ended in less than a minute. Malak dismissed both groups and walked alone toward the War Hall. Outside its entrance stood the old victory monument, its iron panels peeling and spotted with rust. Green crystalline corrosion crawled across the troll figure's raised weapon. He stopped and stared at it. The monument honored a battle won generations ago, but no one had maintained it. Time had eaten away at the metal until the warrior's face was barely visible. His own army was heading toward the same fate if he couldn't fix what was broken. He continued past the monument to a stone pedestal that held a shattered warhammer mounted on brownish burgundy rock. The weapon's head had split clean through, its handle snapped in two places. Someone had placed it here as a relic, a reminder of some forgotten battle. Malak touched the broken metal. Even the strongest weapons failed when pushed past their limits. His soldiers had looked just as broken on the training field today. Inside the hall, he walked past the carved figures of ancient warriors until he reached a section of damaged wall. The brownish burgundy stone showed a crack running from floor to ceiling. On one side, a troll warrior stood ready for battle. On the other, an armored raptor lunged forward. The crack split them apart, showing what happened when defenses failed. Malak traced the gap with his finger. His recruits needed to see this. They needed to understand that broken lines meant broken walls, and broken walls meant dead villagers. Tomorrow's training would start here, at this crack, so every soldier knew exactly what failure looked like.