The dirt road leading away from Cigan Pass toward Purran Village was a scar of gray dust and jagged stone, but as the Eastern soldiers rode like demons possessed, it became an altar of devastating grief. Timicin, Och, and the ten riders tore away from the outpost, their horses' chests lathered in thick, white foam. Farther down the winding mountain trail, the distant, frantic thunder of approaching hooves echoed through the canyon—Khunbish, Khenbish, and Azad's twenty Salran Hill bandits were still miles away, desperately surging forward from the direction of the inn. But for Timicin and Och, the world narrowed to a sudden, horrific standstill as their mounts skidded to a violent halt in a spray of gravel. There was no time to wait for reinforcements. The air was already thick with the scent of ozone, approaching winter, and the heavy copper stench of fresh slaughter.
Timicin and Och quickly dismounted the moment their eyes caught the motionless form lying in the center of the path...
Timicin and Och quickly dismounted the moment their eyes caught the motionless form lying in the center of the path, while their eight soldiers pushed their mounts further down the road to secure the perimeter.
It was Muunokhoi. His body was entirely still, his heavy broadsword still clutched stubbornly in a white-knuckled fist. His chest and abdomen were a ruined canvas of deep, jagged sword cuts, his lifeblood slowly freezing into the unforgiving earth. His eyes were wide open, staring blankly up at the vast, uncaring sky—but the fierce, wildfire spirit that had defined the young warrior was completely gone. He had drawn the enemy's blades to his own flesh, standing his ground until his heart finally stopped beating.
Calling out to their fallen brother, Timicin and Och rushed forward. They knelt in the dirt beside Muunokhoi. Och tightly held his cold left hand, while Timicin, his fingers trembling, painfully and slowly reached over Muunokhoi's face to close his staring eyes.
"Timicin!" a soldier shouted from further down the road, his voice echoing sharply in the heavy stillness of the mountain pass. "Come quickly!"
Timicin and Och threw themselves back into their saddles and rushed a few yards ahead. There, crumpled helplessly against the base of a massive, jagged boulder, was Od.
His massive frame was completely peppered with black-feathered imperial arrows, making him look like a fallen titan pinned to the stone. The dirt around the boulder was soaked a horrific, deep crimson.
"Od!" Timicin shrieked, throwing himself off his horse before the beast had even come to a halt. He crashed to his knees in the mud, his black leather armor clattering violently as he reached the fallen giant. "Od! Stay with me! Look at me!"
Od's eyelids fluttered, heavy as iron gates. Through the thick film of blood and impending death, he recognized the distinct black leather of the Eastern unit. With a brutal, rattling gasp that sent a fresh wave of crimson spilling past his lips, Od weakly lifted his left arm. His thick, calloused fingers hooked into the collar of Timicin's heavy armor, gripping it with a sudden, desperate strength born of a dying man's final, unyielding will.
He violently pulled Timicin down, bringing his face mere inches from his own. Every single breath was an agonizing battle against the blood pooling rapidly in his lungs.
"Bro-brr-brothers..." Od wheezed, his voice a fractured, scraping whisper that tore at the hearts of the men standing over him. "Listen to me..."
He knew he was dying. The only reason he had forced his eyes to stay open, refusing to surrender to the darkness, was because his heart was still burdened by a desperate worry.
"Don't speak! We are getting you to the pass!" Timicin cried, his lips trembling violently as tears finally spilled over his eyelids, washing clean lines through the dust on his cheeks. "The medics are right there, Od! Just hold on!"
"Hold on, Od," Och whimpered, tears streaming down his face as he grabbed tightly onto Od's other hand. "You are the strongest of us. We will get through this together."
"No..." Od choked out, a faint, tragic smile touching his bloody lips as he weakly shook his head against the stone. He knew his time was measured in heartbeats. His grip tightened on Timicin's armor, his knuckles turning stark white. "My father... he is old... his bones are brittle... he has no one left in the village..."
Od's chest violently heaved, his shattered right shoulder shifting against the jagged boulder and causing a spasm of pure, unadulterated agony to rip across his face. But he refused to let go. He stared straight into Timicin's soul with an urgency that shook the hardened Timicin to his core.
"Please..." Od pleaded, a single tear cutting through the grime on his temple. "Look after him... promise me, brothers... tell him I died an honorable Hamagol warrior... tell him it was fast... and painless..."
Timicin and Och's hearts utterly shattered in their chests. Timicin clapped his own hand tightly over Od's blood-slicked fingers, locking them against his armor.
"I promise you, brother! By the eternal sky, I promise you! Your father will never want for food; he will never want for shelter. He is a father to the entire Vanguard now. We will look after him," Timicin swore fiercely.
"Your father is our father," Och choked out through his sobs. "Go without worry, brother."
"Chinua..." Od whispered, a gurgling stream of blood escaping the corner of his mouth.
"She made it," Timicin said instantly, his voice heavy with solemn pride. "Because of you, she is safe."
"Good—" Od whispered.
His eyes remained fixed on his brothers-in-arms, but the light behind them gently faded. His heavy eyelids slowly closed, and a serene, peaceful smile appeared on his bloody face. His head tilted gently to the right, a final breath escaping his lips.
Timicin pressed his forehead against Od's cold, blood-stained armor, his shoulders shaking violently as a low, guttural roar of pure, unbridled agony escaped his throat. Beside him, Och pressed his forehead against Od's head, his lips trembling as muffled, broken sounds escaped his throat. The raw, agonized sounds of their mourning echoed through the desolate canyon, carrying the weight of a broken vanguard into the winds.
Down the hill, the thundering rhythm of their horses' hooves suddenly felt completely out of sync with the frantic, terrifying racing of their own hearts.
From the distance, as Khunbish and Khenbish charged down the winding mountain road, their sharp eyes cut through the rising haze of gray dust. They didn't need to see the military banners; they knew right away that the figures ahead—both the frantic riders on horseback and the desperate silhouettes gathered on the ground—were none other than their own people.
But as they drew closer, the horrific details of the trail began to unspool before them.
The dirt road was heavily scarred. Deep, violent drag marks ploughed through the mud, flanked by a sickening, continuous spray of fresh crimson that painted the jagged rocks alongside the path. It was a trail of pure, unadulterated slaughter. Then, through the swirling dust, they spotted the cluster of black leather armor. Two warriors were kneeling in the dirt, their shoulders shaking violently as they held a fallen soldier tightly in their embrace, stubbornly refusing to let the body touch the cold earth.
A cold, paralyzing dread gripped Khunbish's throat. Beside him, Khenbish's grip tightened on his reins until his leather gloves creaked and his knuckles turned ghostly white.
Their minds instantly flashed to the unimaginable, worst-case scenario. The sheer size of the fallen soldier was obscured by the huddle of grieving men, and in that split second of agonizing uncertainty, only one terrifying thought consumed them: What if the person in that bloody embrace is Chinua? The fear that their fierce commander—the very soul of the Vanguard—had finally fallen in the dirt spurred them into a reckless, breakneck gallop, their eyes wide with panic as they raced toward the unfolding tragedy.
"Timicin?!"
Khunbish's voice echoed through the canyon as he violently reined in his horse right before the huddle of warriors, throwing up a wall of gravel. He leaped from the saddle before the animal had even fully stopped and rushed through the settling dust. As he forced his way through the circle, his eyes mapped the massive, arrow-riddled body in the dirt.
The person Timicin and Och were holding was not Chinua. It was Od.
As tragic and devastating as the giant warrior's death was, a dark, involuntary sigh of relief breathed out of Khunbish's chest. The core of their Vanguard still lived.
"Chinua?" Khenbish asked, his voice raw and raspy with worry as he dismounted right behind his brother. "Where is Chinua?!"
"Chinua is—" Timicin began, his voice breaking, but the words were abruptly cut off by the sudden, aggressive clatter of approaching hooves.
Minister Gegeen and his surviving imperial guards rode arrogantly into the clearing, their horses snorting as they surveyed the bloody road. Gegeen looked down from his high saddle, his sharp, calculating eyes scanning the bodies.
"What happened here? Where is the Fourth Princess?" Gegeen demanded, his tone perfectly balancing aristocratic concern with an underlying edge of icy computation.
"Chinua... she..." Timicin said softly, his head dropping as he looked down at the blood-stained earth, utterly consumed by the weight of the morning's sacrifices.
To Gegeen, that broken silence was the ultimate victory.
A sudden, overwhelming surge of pure happiness rose inside the minister's black heart. He felt as if a physical mountain had been lifted from his soul, his body suddenly feeling lighter than a feather. His number one enemy—the greatest threat to his grand political ambitions—had finally died in these mountains. In the beginning, he had never truly wanted to be an enemy of Hmagol's most beloved princess. But it was she who had been too greedy. It was she who had insulted and humiliated him in front of the empire's elite during one of their most critical discussions—an important, private matter discussed behind closed doors inside the late King's personal study. Since that day of unforgivable humiliation, Gegeen had sworn an oath to the gods that he would do whatever it took to erase that stain on his honor.
And today, he believed he had finally succeeded.
A tiny, cruel smile escaped the corner of his lips for a fraction of a second before he caught himself. Forcing his face back into a flawless mask of mourning, he looked sadly down at the weeping commander. "Childe Timicin... what tragedy has befallen Her Highness?"
"Chinua—"
Timicin's grief vanished in a heartbeat, replaced instantly by a blinding, volcanic rage. With a movement so fast it blurred, he reached down, violently yanked a black-feathered imperial arrow straight out of Od's dead chest, notched it into his bow, and drew the string back to his ear in one fluid, lethal motion.
TWANG.
The arrow flew with terrifying velocity, driving straight into Gegeen's right chest. The sheer, kinetic force of the impact violently ripped the minister clean out of his saddle, sending him crashing backward into the hard dirt with a breathless shriek of pure agony.
"Attack!"
In that exact same heartbeat, a volley of arrows erupted from Och and the eight Eastern soldiers, raining down upon Gegeen's escort. The opening strike knocked several imperial guards straight to the ground, wounding them instantly, while the uninjured riders panicked, desperately pulling their horses backward to escape the sudden ambush.
Seeing Timicin's decisive, brutal action, Azad and the Salran Hill bandits didn't waste a single second. With a collective, savage roar, they spurred their mounts forward. The bandits effectively weaponized their heavy horses, completely encircling the clearing and creating an impenetrable wall of steel that ruthlessly separated the wounded Gegeen on the ground from his panicked, retreating imperial guards.
The battlefield fell into a tense, suffocating silence, broken only by the ragged, pathetic groans of the wounded minister.
Timicin gritted his teeth so hard they threatened to shatter. He slowly, deliberately walked across the blood-splattered road toward Gegeen, who was clutching his bleeding chest and writhing helplessly in the dirt. Timicin stopped right above him, looking down with cold, murderous eyes.
"Chinua said..." Timicin hissed, his voice trembling with a terrifying, suppressed fury. "...she wants you alive."