The march into the village was slow.
Solomon's soldiers stepped carefully over the charred remains of fences and the bloated corpses of livestock. The air was thick with the smell of death—rotting meat, old smoke, and the sickly-sweet scent of gangrene.
The excitement of the bounty was starting to wear off, replaced by the grim reality of what they were walking into. This wasn't a bank vault; it was a graveyard.
Solomon walked between the two phalanxes, his eyes scanning the ruins. Lushen and Lauchlan stuck to his sides like burrs.
"What are you doing?" Solomon snapped.
"Protecting you, my lord," Lushen said, hand on his sword.
"Get back to your men!" Solomon ordered. "You are officers, not nursemaids! Lead from the front! Let them see you!"
Reluctantly, they obeyed. In this era, a captain had to be visible. If the men couldn't see their leader, they assumed he was dead or running.
The deeper they went, the worse the devastation became. Houses were burned to their foundations. The bodies of villagers—men, women, children—lay scattered like broken dolls, feasted upon by flies.
"Steady," Lushen hissed to his front rank. "Shields up."
They reached the center of the village, near the large stone granary. It was quiet. Too quiet.
Then, a scream.
Thwack.
A throwing axe spun out of the darkness of a ruined cottage. It buried itself in the forehead of a lead soldier. He dropped without a sound.
"Ambush!" Lushen roared. "Shields!"
More projectiles flew from the shadows—clumsy wooden spears, stones, another axe. They clattered against shields and armor. It was a weak volley, desperate and uncoordinated.
Solomon felt it immediately. They are weak. They are dying.
"Lushen!" Solomon shouted. "Take the granary! Clear them out!"
"With me!" Lushen bellowed, charging forward. "Kill them!"
His company surged into the granary, swords drawn.
Inside, it was a slaughterhouse. The Burned Men who had stayed behind were barely standing. Their wounds were black with rot, their bodies burning with fever. But they fought like demons. They swung their axes with the last dregs of their strength, screaming defiance as the spears pierced them.
It wasn't a battle; it was an execution.
But Solomon stayed outside. He stood in the square, his eyes narrowing as he scanned a pile of rubble on his flank.
His senses, sharper than any normal man's, picked up a heartbeat. A scrape of leather on stone.
A trap.
The granary was a distraction. The real threat was waiting for the commander.
"Lauchlan!" Solomon barked, pointing at the ruins to his right. "Form line! Facing East!"
Lauchlan didn't ask why. He pivoted his men instantly.
Just in time.
From the rubble, debris exploded outward.
Vok son of Nagga and seven of his best warriors charged.
They weren't trying to escape. They weren't trying to survive. They were a suicide squad, their only goal to cut the head off the snake.
"Vok does not hide!" the giant chieftain roared, his voice thunderous. "Vok does not run!"
"Kill the Lowlander!"
They charged with the fury of doomed men. They ignored the spears. They ignored the arrows. They wanted Solomon.
Vok was a terrifying sight. He was six and a half feet of muscle and scars, wielding a massive battle axe. His eyes burned with hatred.
He expected the Lowlanders to flinch. He expected them to quail before the "Wolves of the Mountains."
Instead, he saw something that confused him to his core.
The soldiers facing him didn't look afraid.
They looked... hungry.
They looked at him the way a starving dog looks at a steak.
In their eyes, Vok wasn't a monster. He was Eighty Silver Stags. He was a new farm. He was a dowry. He was a ticket out of poverty.
"Kill him!" a soldier screamed, his voice cracking with greed.
"Get the head!"
"It's mine! The money is mine!"
The line didn't break. It surged forward.
Men scrambled over each other to get to Vok. They didn't care about his axe. They didn't care about death. They only cared about the bounty.
Vok swung his axe, cleaving a man in two.
"Die, sheep!" he roared.
But another man stepped over the corpse, thrusting his spear. And another. And another.
They were swarming him.
Why? Vok thought, hacking a man's arm off. Why don't they fear me?
He didn't know he was no longer a warrior. To them, he was just a walking sack of gold.
"The head!" Tommen shrieked, lunging with his spear. "I want the head!"
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