Echoes of Ruin, Drums of War

The seasons had limped by, each one a fresh layer of dust and sorrow upon the bones of the Red Kingdom. A full year had passed since the Great Blight, since the last ruby fruit had withered and rotted, taking with it the vibrant heart of the land. Now, only shades of brown and desolate grey painted the landscape beneath a perpetually weary sky. The once-bustling capital, its crimson banners long since turned to tattered shrouds, was a crumbling skeleton of its former self. Its people, those who hadn’t succumbed to famine or despair, were gaunt shadows, their eyes holding the haunted look of those who had witnessed the death of a world.

Among them moved a figure as weathered and worn as the ruins he navigated. Elmsworth, once Lord Regent, the architect of their spectacular ruin, was now merely another survivor, though his was a penance self-imposed. His fine robes were long gone, replaced by patched and threadbare commoner’s clothes. The arrogance that had once defined him had been scoured away, leaving a gaunt, humbled man whose days were spent in tireless, thankless labor. He cleared rubble from collapsed homes with hands raw and blistered, helped tend the pathetic, struggling vegetable patches that were their only hedge against starvation, and often surrendered his own meager portion of thin broth to a child with hungrier eyes. He spoke little, enduring the quiet scorn of some and the weary, indifferent acceptance of others. The memory of his folly was a constant, invisible torment, fueling a desperate, unspoken need to atone.

What little order remained was maintained by Elder Maeve, her wisdom now tinged with an iron resilience, and Captain Valerius, a former officer of the Royal Guard whose pragmatic leadership kept despair from completely overwhelming them. Their resources were a daily accounting of dwindling supplies: a few sacks of mildewed grain, some scavenged tools, and the brackish water from the once-pure Royal River. Every sunrise was a battle for existence.

Into this fragile, teetering world, a new terror galloped. Two scouts, young men who had volunteered for the dangerous task of ranging beyond their immediate, blighted vicinity in search of game or untainted water sources, burst into the central huddle of makeshift shelters, their faces pale with terror, their horses lathered and trembling.

“Dwarves!” one gasped, tumbling from his saddle, his voice cracking. “A host… hundreds… no, thousands! Clad in steel, their banners black and grey, bearing an axe… marching from the Dragon’s Tooth Pass! They move like a storm!”

The other scout, barely older, could only nod, his eyes wide with the image of the approaching column. “They are not traders,” he stammered. “Their faces… grim. Armed for war. They will be upon us within two days.”

A fresh wave of panic, more visceral than any hunger pang, ripped through the assembled survivors. Dwarves. Warriors from beneath the mountains, their reasons unknown, their intent clearly hostile. The Red Kingdom, already a land of ghosts and ashes, had nothing left to plunder, nothing to offer but resistance born of utter desperation. Elmsworth’s head snapped up, the weariness in his eyes momentarily replaced by a flicker of the old, calculating focus – not for gain this time, but for survival. The drums of a new war were echoing across their wasted land, threatening to extinguish the last embers of their broken world.