The forest air, which until moments ago had been merely damp and cold, suddenly turned heavy with the omen of death. The garrison's vanguard halted before a colossal trunk, an ancient oak spanning the trail like a fallen giant in forced repose – though its rest was to be short-lived.
The moment Lorenzo's first soldiers leapt from their saddles, axes in hand to clear the way, the forest didn't just wake up – it roared.
It wasn't the sound of steel on steel, nor the familiar whistle of goose-feathered bolts, but a dry thunderclasp – a crack that seemed to rise from the very bowels of the earth, followed by a cloud of thick black smoke that reeked of sulphur and the Underworld itself. Crossbow bolts hissed through the haze, but it was the fire that sowed the terror.
– Solarius's wrath! – screamed a soldier, just as his polished steel breastplate was pierced by an invisible impact, hurling him backward with the violence of a mule's kick.
– Sorcery! The gods punish us with fire! – another soldier shrieked.
The garrison's discipline, as polished as their silver-vine overcoats, melted like wax near an ember. Men watched their comrades fall with horrific wounds – black holes in the metal pouring blood and smoke – without an enemy in sight. Panic was a wild horse, galloping free through the ranks of those who had come from Verdejante.
Alistair felt Sarcasm shifting beneath him, the horse's ears pinned to its skull. His heart hammered against his ribs harder than a blacksmith's iron.
– Hold on tight, little Turtle-Man – Alistair hissed, the reins burning his hands as he fought to keep his mount steady. – Seems like the gods decided to make some bloody noise today, and their noise bites with lead teeth.
From the smoke, like demons summoned by the blast itself, the men of the Mad Dog Brigade emerged, hiding no longer. They wore uniforms of a garish, aggressive red – the colour of fresh blood on snow – which contrasted cruelly with the green and silver of the Verdegrande. They brandished arquebuses and hand-cannons still smouldering, but as soon as the thunder ceased, steel took command.
They leapt from the shadows with a collective howl, a pack of wolves in crimson rags, falling upon a dazed prey. The trail instantly turned into a carnage of mud and gore. Where before there was the glitter of peacocks, there was now the crunch of metal crushing bone and the screams of men discovering, too late, that bravery was no protection against fire.
The chaos tasted of ash and iron. Roderick carved a path with his stallion, a force of nature ignoring the cries of the dying, while Alistair – with Lucius clinging to his back like a terrified tick – forced Sarcasm to gallop through pools of blood that were already turning the mud into a crimson bog. Marcus followed close behind, his face a mask of fury and sweat.
They searched for Orlan, but what they found was the end of everything they knew. Out of the corner of his eye, Alistair saw his hired comrades fall. He saw old Joren run through by a spear; young Silas vanish under a mountain of men in fiery rags; young Joren struck in the neck by a crossbow bolt, falling without a sound. Further ahead, two other mates – men with whom he had shared bread and wine the night before – were swallowed by a cloud of smoke and lead. The 'company', that brotherhood of wretches that had marched out of Verdejante's gates with dreams of gold and glory, was being harvested like ripe wheat.
When they finally broke through the curtain of smoke and screams, Alistair looked back and his stomach twisted; only four remained: himself, the lad, Roderick, and Marcus. The rest were just carrion for the crows.
Gasping, lungs burning from the gunpowder-saturated air and faces blackened by greasy soot, the group managed to gallop to the shadow of the fortress walls, but they found no refuge there.
They were surrounded by an escort unlike anything Alistair had ever seen. Their gaze bore the mark of elite men – veterans of dozens of battles, silent and lethal, their armour stained with the residue of firearms. In the centre of the circle, mounted on a warhorse black as jet, stood the sun of that cruel system.
The man was a vision of decadence and power. He wore crimson silks beneath a breastplate of darkened steel, and the acrid stench of gunpowder seemed to emanate from his very pores, as if he were the father of all explosions. When he smiled, what little light filtered through the trees glinted off something metallic and precious.
– I must admit, I'm impressed – the man said, his voice smooth as velvet over a whetstone. – Few would have the audacity or the sheer stupidity to gallop straight into the dog's mouth while their friends are being gutted back there.
He tilted his head, observing them with a curiosity that was almost tender.
– My name is Hector Duvall, and you, my dears, seem to have travelled a very long way just to die in the wrong fucking place.
It was then that Alistair and the group saw, in the distance, that Orlan – the castellan who moved with the precision of a clock – was now broken. His face was covered in blood and his arms bound by thick ropes, being dragged like a sack of grain by two brutes toward the fortress gate.
– Orlan! – Roderick roared, trying to spur his horse, but the spears of Hector's escort instantly dropped against his chest. – What do you intend to do with Orlan Campius, Duvall? He is an official envoy of Viscount Lorenzo Verdegrande!
Hector let out a laugh that made the gold in his teeth flash – each upper tooth was a small golden bar, giving his laugh a predatory and obscene quality.
– What are we to do with little Campius? – Hector turned his gaze toward the gate where Orlan was vanishing into the darkness of the stone. – That, my dear captain, is no business for corpses...
The circle of steel tightened around them, a ring of spears and menacing glares. Hector dismounted with the grace of a predator, his gloved hand resting on the hilt of a thin sabre that looked as if it were made of shadow and thirst.
– So… – Hector said, wiping a smudge of soot from his cheek with an indifference that turned the blood cold. – Who's the first to offer their soul to the gods? Who wants the glory of being the first to rot beneath these roots?
Alistair felt Lucius's gaze on his back – a weight more unbearable than the sword itself. Fear was a cold worm crawling in his gut, but the thought of dying like a coward before those childish eyes was a fire that pushed him forward. He dismounted, stepped ahead with the metal of his doublet creaking, and drew his two-handed steel. The blade felt heavier than ever, a burden of iron against fate.
– Me – Alistair declared. His voice wavered, but he hardened it with the irony that was his only shield. – And I'm warning you, Duvall: my horse is named Sarcasm, and I am his prophet. It would be a supreme discourtesy to kill me before I can deliver my final bloody sermon.
Hector didn't roar or fly into a rage. He laughed – a metallic, obscene sound accompanied by the glint of gold in his mouth.
What followed was not a battle; it was a lesson in cruelty. Alistair lunged – a descending blow that should have split the world in two – but Hector was no longer there. The leader of the Brigade moved like the smoke from his own hand-cannons, fluid and untouchable. Hector's sabre hissed through the air, not to kill, but to mark.
Slash. A cut on Alistair's left shoulder, opening only leather and cloth. Slash. Another strike at the ribs, tearing the new doublet with the precision of a mad tailor.
Hector was toying with him. He was a cat with a wounded rat, circling, lashing out, ridiculing Alistair's every clumsy movement. The mercenary was panting, sweat mixed with soot blinding him, while the weight of the sword felt like it was tearing his arms from his shoulders.
– This is what you call being a prophet? – Hector mocked, dodging yet another slow lunge. – A tired turtle in a leather suit?
Duvall prepared the final blow. He planted his feet in the mud, his sabre drawn back for a thrust that would pierce Alistair's throat like a nail through parchment. However, the gods – or perhaps the mud itself – had other plans.
The moment Hector lunged, Alistair's right foot slipped on a damp root. The mercenary stumbled, falling sideways in a reckless, uncontrolled motion. To any observer, this would have marked Alistair's end, but as he fell, the tip of his two-handed sword described an erratic and wild arc, driven by the sheer weight of the iron and the man's desperation.
There was a wet, thudding sound. The edge of Alistair's sword, by a miracle of bad luck and geometry, kissed Hector Duvall's face. The blade tore through the flesh above the eyebrow, opening a deep gash that stretched across the leader's eye.
Hector's laughter died in a shock-filled yelp. The man dropped to one knee, his sabre falling into the mud. He clapped a hand to his face and, in an instant, crimson blood – dark as the wine of a cursed harvest – began to seep through his fingers, staining the gold he flaunted in his mouth. The silence that fell over the clearing was a monster with ice-cold claws, heavier than the smoke still lingering among the pines. For a heartbeat, the only thing to be heard was the rhythmic sound of Hector's blood hitting the mud: ploc, ploc, ploc.
Alistair, still down on his knees, looked at his own sword with the astonishment of a man who has just discovered that iron can bite back at fate. However, the triumph was a flame that flickered out before it could even warm him.
– Kill them! – roared one of the escort soldiers, his face scarred by gunpowder and his eyes bloodshot with rage. – Gut the lot of them!
The pack in red fell upon them, without honour or duel. It was an avalanche of boots, spear butts, and iron-clad fists. Alistair was struck in the temple, and the world turned into a blur of ash and pain. He tasted iron in his mouth as he was disarmed and pinned against the damp earth. He heard Lucius's muffled cry and the dull thud of Roderick and Marcus being subjugated by the overwhelming number of enemies.
At that moment, Hector stood up. The man who had dismounted with the elegance of a prince now looked like a demon out of a horror ballad. Crimson blood poured down his face from a torn and swollen slit of flesh, soaking his silk collar and forcing him to keep one eye shut. He didn't scream or swear when he spoke, but his voice now had the dryness of a fresh grave, stripped of every trace of the predatory humour he had flaunted moments before.
– Enough – Hector said. The command was low, but his men recoiled instantly, like curs that fear the master's whip.
Hector walked over to Alistair, who was being held by the hair. The leader of the Brigade leaned in, his good eye fixed on the mercenary with an intensity that made death seem like a mercy. The stench of sulphur and blood emanating from him was suffocating.
– Take them – Duvall decreed, wiping the excess blood from his face with the back of his hand in a gesture of terrifying calm. – Throw them in the cells beneath the earth, where Solarius's light cannot reach.
Alistair tried to say something – one last irony to keep the fear at bay – but the butt of a spear slammed into his ribs, stealing his breath.
They were dragged like animal carcasses for the slaughter. The fortress gate, that stone mouth built upon ruins of a time the world had forgotten, yawned open to receive them. As they crossed the threshold, Alistair felt the cold of the walls wrap around his body. The sound of chains dragging across the cobbles was the only hymn they had left.