The Steppeborn: The Art of War and the Broken Path

The wind had changed.

Not the cold mountain air that curled through the steppe valleys. Not the shifting scent of smoke and blood. This wind was something else. Something felt. It crawled across the skin like the breath of old ghosts.

Wen Tu felt it first. It whispered through the grass beneath his steps, curled around his ankles, and touched the back of his neck. The earth here was different. Stained. Sick. The very soil beneath the shaman circle pulsed faintly, like a wound that refused to scab over.

He looked to Nyzekh, walking beside him without sound.

The dark elf did not speak. He didn't need to.

Ahead, the fire circle loomed.

A wide ring of black stone and bone had been carved into the steppe itself. Fires burned in pits fed by fat and sinew. Totems of bone hung from pikes, painted in old blood, twitching as if alive. Shamans moved through the circle like insects around a carcass. Dozens of them. Goblin blood-callers. Orc witch-priests in iron jewelry. War-ragers daubed in curses and ash.

This was no sacred place. It was a ritual engine.

And now, it would be broken.

Nyzekh raised one hand.

His squad spread outward, silent. Eight Stormguard, cloaked and masked. Two Qorjin Ke, wolves flanking. And Wen Tu, calm eyed, fingers brushing the air as he began to hum a quiet chant beneath his breath.

"Root take blood. Blood feed breath. Breath return."

The moment shattered when Nyzekh struck.

He didn't wait for a signal.

He simply vanished from view.

He reappeared behind the first goblin shaman with a blade through its spine. No scream. Only a shudder as the body fell, twitching, to the ground. The void energy around Nyzekh distorted light, bending the flames, unraveling the wards carved into the stones nearby. He cut again. Then again. Three shamans dead before they even turned.

A horn wailed.

Wen Tu stepped forward and slammed his palm into the ground.

Vines erupted from the soil, jagged with thorns, wrapping around the legs of a goblin priest mid spell. It shrieked and tried to claw free. A root drove through its open mouth and out the back of its skull.

The fire pits flared brighter.

Orc war shamans raised their hands and began casting.

Nyzekh walked through their chants like wind through paper.

One orc shouted a curse, his arms wrapped in flame. Nyzekh rolled beneath the first bolt, stepped through the second, and jammed both sabers into the orc's ribcage. The steel hummed. Voidlight rippled outward. The fire died with a sputter. The shaman's bones cracked inward. He collapsed with smoke leaking from his eyes.

Another priest shouted in fear.

"Void born!"

Nyzekh didn't stop.

He became the break between rhythm.

Wen Tu followed behind, his chants growing louder. Roots danced with blood. Mist flowed in thin veils, hiding the squad's movement. Every time a caster tried to light a fire rune, Wen Tu snapped a sigil with a gesture, shattering the spiritual thread. His resonance pulsed with calm. Where he stepped, the ground steadied, but around him, the storm grew.

A goblin lunged from the fire, knife high. Wen Tu moved like water, catching the wrist and pulling the creature face first into the ground. He didn't strike. He let the soil do the work. Roots opened its throat before it screamed.

"More coming," whispered a Qorjin Ke scout.

From the far side of the circle, reinforcements ran. Not just shamans. Orc bodyguards. Brutes. Tattooed berserkers with teeth for earrings. They didn't chant. They roared.

Stormguard met them.

Blades clashed. Flesh tore.

One Stormguard was split from shoulder to hip by a war axe. Another shoved his sword up beneath a charging berserker's chin and twisted until the jaw came loose. Blood sprayed like boiling water.

Wen Tu took a blow to the ribs, fell, rolled, and slapped a glyph to the ground. A surge of healing mist burst around him, then spread to the nearest fighters. Wounds closed. Pain dulled. It lasted seconds. Enough.

Nyzekh didn't go to the reinforcements.

He went deeper.

Into the center of the pyre circle where the elder shaman stood.

It was hunched. Massive. Eyes white with cataracts. Flesh strung with bone charms and writhing leeches. It turned as Nyzekh entered the firelight, and it saw not a man, but a shape of shadow holding curved blades that shimmered with a light that devoured light.

The elder raised its staff and screamed a death word.

Nyzekh moved faster.

The word cracked the air and turned stone to sand.

Nyzekh ducked, spun beneath it, and carved upward.

The staff snapped in two.

The second blade followed and caught the shaman across the throat. Black blood sprayed like ink. The shaman's mouth opened in a last word, but no sound came.

Nyzekh's sabers crossed.

The head dropped before the body.

Then came stillness.

The fire in the pits died. The air dimmed. The wind moaned.

Wen Tu stood across the circle, chest heaving, eyes wide.

"It's broken," he whispered. "The circle's dead."

Nyzekh looked down at the elder's corpse, its blood pooling across cracked stone.

He said nothing.

Behind him, Stormguard stood, breathing heavy, many wounded. But standing.

A silence spread through the camp.

Far off, Kael's team was falling back from the drumline. Ryoku's flank was already regrouping. The horde didn't move in unity now. It staggered. It lurched. It screamed, but without focus.

They had cut out the heart.

And now, only the limbs remained.

Wen Tu approached Nyzekh, blood on his robe, hand pressed to his side.

He looked down at the elder's body.

"What now?"

Nyzekh sheathed his sabers.

His voice came soft.

"Now we show them what fear really is."