Darkguard Hellion

The Darkguard spent weeks earning this moment.

They marched north under the banner of alliance, fought alongside the ulund and the Order of the Silver Shield, bled beside them, held lines beside them. The ironwings smashed through Palifala's defenders with their massive shields. The empusae waded into mercenary formations laughing, axes red to the hilt. Esper Shadowbeak dropped from the sky on priority targets and was airborne again before anyone saw him land. The blue wyrm travesty lumbered through the worst of the fighting, drawing fire that would have broken the Silver Shield's line.

All of it was preparation. Every defender killed was one fewer body between the Darkguard and their true objective. Every week of alliance built trust that was always going to become a weapon.

The ironwings pivot first, shields swinging into the ulund fighters closest to them. They spent weeks identifying the strongest, the most dangerous, the ones who would react fastest. Those go down first. The rest take a moment to understand what is happening, and in that moment the empusae are already moving, axes redirected at Silver Shield knights who were allies seconds ago. They don't need a reason to switch targets. They just need the moment, and the moment is now.

Esper Shadowbeak climbs, shadow wings carrying him toward Palifala's position with fire crackling around his bill-hook. Slow and vast and implacable, the blue wyrm travesty turns toward the Silver Shield's heaviest infantry. The hellions read the battlefield the way they read everything: through hunger. When the ironwings pivot and the empusae turn and Esper rises, the hellions feel the shift before they see it. They launch from the ground and rise over the shield wall, dropping onto the rear positions where the confusion is worst, feeding on death and growing stronger with every kill.

In the chaos, Palifala Weslinath slips away.

She was the entire point. Every alliance forged, every position taken, all those weeks of patience, all in service of isolating a time mage whose power Barashkukor, Lord of Darkness and ruler of the Belurocian Empire, intended to claim. And in the chaos of the betrayal, with the ulund and the Silver Shield suddenly fighting on two fronts and Esper diving toward Palifala from the sky, the time mage finds a seam in the fractured timeline and vanishes into it. Esper's bill-hook cleaves through empty air.

Malthraksis stands in the carnage with his objective gone and his cover destroyed. The Darkguard controls the battlefield. The ulund are broken. The Silver Shield is bleeding.

Palifala is nowhere.

Barashkukor will want an explanation. Malthraksis does not have one.