The Prince Who Ran

Chapter Six: The Siege Of Hollow Gate

Chapter Six: The Siege of Hollow Gate

Dawn rose red over Durn’s Hollow.

It was not a poetic red — not the hue of soft promise or summer haze. It was the deep, angry crimson of smoke-touched skies and distant fire. The kind that warned of things already burning.

Caelan stood atop the west watchtower, scanning the horizon through Garrin’s spyglass. His stomach clenched.

Dust clouds. Hundreds of hooves. The glint of armor in the early sun.

They were coming.

“They’ll reach the ridge by midmorning,” Garrin muttered beside him, grim. “And the gates by noon.”

“They’ll expect surrender,” Lyra said. She stood at Caelan’s other side, already armored in light leather and a hardened chest plate, her bow slung across her back. “We’re just a village, after all.”

Caelan’s jaw tightened. “Then let’s surprise them.”

◇

Every hand was called to motion. Mothers passed buckets from wells. Children bundled cloth for the wounded. Old men sharpened fence posts into makeshift spears. The village became a single organism, pulsing with fear — and fierce purpose.

Caelan moved through them not as a prince, not anymore — but as a leader.

He helped lash oil barrels to the ledges. He climbed roofs with Lyra, sighting paths for the archers. He reinforced the barricades with Garrin and Marta.

They lit signal fires in case Lyra’s cousin came from the border.

But they weren’t counting on miracles.

They were counting on each other.

◇

By noon, the Black Banner appeared.

It crested the northern ridge like a wound torn into the sky. The Pretender’s sigil — a crimson boar atop crossed axes — flapped in the wind, surrounded by armored riders and rows of foot soldiers in black and red.

Caelan stood on the battlements.

A rider approached under a flag of truce.

“You will yield!” the herald bellowed. “In the name of Lord Vayne, rightful King of the Lowlands!”

Murmurs rippled through the village.

Caelan stepped forward.

“I am Caelan of Andar,” he called. “Son of King Theran. I do not yield.”

The rider scowled. “Then your people will die.”

“We are not your people,” Caelan replied. “And you will find no crown here — only fire and ruin.”

The herald turned, snarled something to a waiting captain, and rode back.

The siege began.

◇

They came like wolves.

Flaming arrows lit the sky. Shield walls closed in. Rams struck the village gates with iron rhythm. But the defenders of Durn’s Hollow did not run.

They poured oil from the rooftops. They rained arrows from the church bell tower. They ambushed foot soldiers in the alleyways.

Caelan fought in the thick of it.

He wielded Garrin’s old sword, not with royal formality — but the hard-won grit of a man who had trained every morning at sunrise and bled from his knuckles in the dirt.

He fought beside Lyra — back to back, wordless, deadly.

They held the inner square even as the outer fences buckled.

Smoke stung Caelan’s eyes. Blood coated his wrists. He watched a boy no older than twelve drag a wounded man to shelter.

He felt something rise in him then — not the burden of a crown, but the right of it. The responsibility. The honor.

And he screamed his next command not as the prince who ran — but as a man who had chosen to stay.

◇

By dusk, the village was on fire.

They had lost half the homes on the eastern side. The forge had collapsed. Ten defenders lay dead. Twice as many wounded.

But so were the invaders. A third of their force had been cut down. Their general, wounded. Their rams, broken.

But the next wave was forming.

And Caelan knew they wouldn’t survive a second charge.

He stood in the chapel’s shattered arch, catching his breath, sword dangling from his fingers.

“We can’t hold much longer,” Garrin said, wiping blood from his cheek.

“Even if we do,” Lyra added, “they’ll burn what’s left.”

Caelan stared toward the ridge, smoke blowing across his vision.

And then—

He heard it.

A horn.

Low. Deep. Echoing.

Not the call of the enemy.

A different pitch entirely.

Lyra spun toward the sound.

“West side!” she gasped. “That’s Ardin’s banner!”

And then they came.

From the western trail, down the ridge like thunder:

Fifty riders in silver and blue, bearing the sword sigil of the borderland free companies. Among them, a woman with a scar along her jaw and a bow so massive it could have split a man in two.

Lyra’s cousin.

The battle flipped like a coin.

Caught between the hammer of Durn’s defenders and the anvil of the border force, the Black Banner broke.

Some fled. Some fell. Some were captured.

And when the dust cleared, Caelan stood alone in the middle of the square, blinking at the silence.

It was over.

◇

That night, they gathered in the chapel again. Not for strategy — but for mourning. And for memory.

They lit candles for the fallen.

Lyra knelt beside Caelan in the back row, their shoulders pressed together in quiet understanding.

“You led them,” she said softly.

“I tried.”

“You didn’t run.”

He looked at her. “I don’t think I ever will again.”

She leaned her head against his.

And for a while, neither of them spoke.

◇

Afterward, Garrin approached, his eyes heavy but proud.

“You’ve earned a decision,” he said. “You can stay here. Or…”

“Return?” Caelan asked.

Garrin nodded. “Your brother’s dead. The council is weak. If you go now, with the village behind you, with this behind you… You could rebuild.”

“I’m not the prince they remember.”

“No,” Garrin said. “You’re better.”

Caelan looked out at the stars.

Then he took Lyra’s hand.

“I’ll go,” he said.

“But I won’t go alone.”