Chapter 51: Dark Goes the Border
Runt called it the Nightfall Protocol because killing someone’s eyes was the same as killing their light.
The operation started on Day 350, twelve days before the army would march. Thyrak’s border intelligence network — such as it was — consisted of seven Beastmen runners who traveled set routes between the border villages and The Stamp, carrying information about movement, trade, and anything unusual. They ran weekly. They followed the same trails. They carried no weapons beyond a hunting knife.
It was the laziest intelligence apparatus Runt had ever seen. And he’d been doing this for six months.
The Shadowfang Scouts had grown to twelve. The original team — Fang, Creel, Pip — plus eight new recruits who’d been trained in Runt’s specific brand of silent, methodical observation. Four Gnolls, three Kobolds, one Human — a former poacher named Wren who moved through forest like she’d been born in one, which she had.
Runt split them into three teams of four. Each team was assigned two runners. The seventh runner — the one who covered the route between Thornwatch and The Stamp — was already neutralized. Thornwatch had converted. Their runner had simply stopped running.
"Rules," Runt told his teams before they deployed. He crouched in a circle with the eleven scouts, drawing in the dirt with a claw. The command post had maps now — Aldric had started producing proper ones on treated leather — but Runt still preferred dirt. You could erase dirt with your foot. Maps kept secrets.
"Track your runners for three days. Learn their pattern. Confirm their route. On the fourth night, intercept." He looked at each scout in turn. "You do not kill them. You do not injure them. You approach, you identify yourself, and you give them the offer."
Fang’s ears flattened. "And if they don’t take the offer?"
"Then you take them to Fangscar. Grimjaw holds them. Comfortable. Fed. Not prisoners — guests who haven’t decided to leave yet." A pause. "One way or another, the information stops flowing. The method is up to them."
The teams deployed at intervals — two hours apart, moving south along different routes. They wouldn’t see each other again until the operation was complete. Each team carried ten days of rations, signal flags for emergency extraction, and a sealed letter from Krug in the Beastman trade tongue explaining that the bearer was a friend of Fangscar. Insurance, in case something went sideways.
Runt watched them disappear into the tree line. Twelve scouts against seven runners. The math was generous, but Runt didn’t trust math. He trusted repetition. He trusted preparation. He trusted the three months his scouts had spent learning every trail, every ridge, every blind spot between here and The Stamp.
The border didn’t know it was already dead.
***
The first interception happened on Day 352. Creel’s team.
The runner was a wolf-beastman named Torq — young, lean, fast on his feet, slow in his head. He ran the route between Fangscar and The Stamp because his father had run it before him and his father’s father before that. The information he carried was typically nothing — border quiet, no unusual activity, tithe collected. He’d been carrying the same report, with minor variations, for three years.
Creel and Pip materialized out of the forest ahead of him on a narrow trail. Behind him, Fang stepped out of a thicket. Three scouts, visible, arms at their sides. No weapons drawn.
Torq stopped. His hand went to his knife. He looked at the three figures — two Gnolls and a Kobold, none of them wearing Thyrak’s colors, none of them carrying iron weapons.
"We’re not here to hurt you," Creel said. "We’re here to talk."
Torq’s hand stayed on his knife. "About what?"
"About the fact that the village you’re running reports from has already changed gods. About the fact that the god you’re running reports to has never given you a blessing, a healing, or a single thing beyond the permission to keep breathing. About the fact that if you keep running this route, the information you’re carrying will be false, because the people you’re collecting it from are now lying to you."
Torq processed this. It took a while.
"You’re from the swamp settlement," he said.
"We are."
"The one with the Lizardman priest."
"That’s the one."
Torq looked behind him — Fang had moved closer, not threateningly, but present. He looked ahead — Creel and Pip, calm, waiting. He looked at the trail beneath his feet. The same trail he’d been running for three years, carrying reports nobody read about a border nobody cared about for a god who wouldn’t recognize him on the street.
"What’s the offer?" Torq asked.
"Stop running. Come to Fangscar. Convert or don’t — that’s your choice. Either way, you eat better and nobody puts a hoof through your door if the tithe is light."
Torq’s hand came off his knife.
"Show me the way."
They walked to Fangscar together — the three scouts and the runner who’d stopped running. Torq didn’t ask many questions. He asked one: "The priest who heals. Will he heal my mother? She’s got a cough that won’t clear. Three months now."
"He’ll heal anyone who needs it," Creel said. "That’s how it works."
Torq walked faster after that.
***
Over ten days, the Shadowfang Scouts intercepted all seven runners.
Four converted immediately. They were the easy ones — young, unhappy, loosely bound to a god who’d never acknowledged their existence. They came to Fangscar or Thornwatch, ate a proper meal, and signed on to Ordinism with the casual ease of people who’d never had a real reason to worship Thyrak in the first place.
Two refused the offer but accepted custody. Both were older, with families deeper in Thyrak’s territory. They understood the situation — the border was changing hands, slowly and quietly — but they weren’t ready to commit.
The harder one was Brant — a bear-beastman who’d been running the eastern route for eleven years. Wren’s team intercepted him on a ridge trail at dusk. He didn’t reach for his knife. He didn’t run. He sat down on a rock and looked at the four scouts surrounding him with the exhausted patience of someone who’d been expecting something like this.
"I know what you are," Brant said. "The villages have been talking for weeks. The Lizardman priest. The swamp god. The healing."
"Then you know the offer," Wren said.
"I know the offer. And I can’t take it. My wife and sons are in Ironhollow — that’s two days inside Thyrak’s core territory. If I convert, Thyrak’s priests will know. And they’ll visit my family before I can reach them."
Wren looked at Runt’s standing orders in her mind. Don’t force. Don’t threaten. Offer.
"Then come to Fangscar as a guest. You don’t convert. You don’t run. You wait. When the situation changes — and it will change soon — we’ll help you get your family out."
Brant considered this for a long time. The stars came out. An owl called from somewhere in the canopy.
"Guest," he said finally. "Not prisoner."
"Not prisoner."
He stood, picked up his pack, and followed Wren’s team south. He didn’t look back at the trail.
Grimjaw housed them both. He did it grudgingly but he did it, because Krug had asked and because Krug had healed his granddaughter and because debts like that don’t expire.
The seventh runner — the Thornwatch runner — had already stopped weeks ago. She’d been the first to convert when Maren turned the village.
By Day 360, the intelligence flow to The Stamp went dark. Completely. No reports. No runners. No information from the border. Seven channels of communication, all silent at once.
In the command post, Vark studied the timeline. "They’ll notice."
"They’ll notice eventually," Runt corrected. "The question is when. Weekly reports are expected. The first missed report might be blamed on weather. The second will be blamed on laziness. The third — maybe — will trigger a response. A squad dispatched to investigate. Three days’ travel time. They arrive to find converted villages, no runners, and no intelligence. By then—"
"By then, we’re already marching," Vark finished.
Runt nodded. The border was dark. Thyrak was blind. The army would move through captured territory, past friendly villages, along routes marked by Shadowfang scouts who’d been walking them for months.
Grimjaw arrived at Ashenveil’s gate eight days before the army marched. He came alone, carrying nothing but the stonesteel knife Krug had traded for smoked venison and a leather pack with everything he owned, which wasn’t much. Harsk saw him coming from the watchtower — a lone wolf-beastman walking through the morning mist with the deliberate stride of someone who’d made a decision and was done arguing with himself about it.
"Elder Grimjaw," Harsk said from the gate. "Krug said you’d come."
"Krug talks too much." Grimjaw walked past the Gnoll alpha without stopping. He looked at Ashenveil — really looked. Stone buildings. Paved roads. The forge smoke rising steady. The training yard where three hundred soldiers drilled in formation. The Chapel with its gold light visible through the windows even in daylight.
This was what a god built when he gave instead of took.
Grimjaw walked to the Chapel. He knelt before the altar. The gold flame brightened.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The system registered the conversion:
[NEW BELIEVER: Grimjaw (Fangscar Elder)]
[TIER: Devoted]
Not Provisional. Not Casual. *Devoted*. The highest faith commitment a new believer could offer. Because he hadn’t been convinced. He’d convinced himself.
Through the bond, Krug felt the Voice pulse — a warmth that said I told you so without words.
The border was Ordinist. The army was ready. The Constrictor was about to close.