Rain hammered the slope in slanted sheets, turning the earth beneath Lore's boots into something that barely qualified as ground.
"Hold the line!" a voice barked from upslope—older, hoarse, already tired.
Lore slid the last few feet on his side, bracing with one gauntlet as something screamed overhead and burst against the treeline in a flash of heat and splintered wood. The impact thudded through his chest even from this distance. He forced himself upright, breath ragged, armor heavy with water and mud.
Smoke hung low over the settlement below, clinging to collapsed rooftops and broken fencing like a living thing. What had once been neat rows of farmland had been churned into blackened trenches and trampled earth. A barn smoldered at the edge of the fields, its roof half-caved in, timbers glowing dull red beneath the rain.
Shapes moved between the buildings.
Not charging.
Not retreating.
They moved slowly. Methodically.
Lore felt a chill crawl up his spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
"They're not attacking," he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the rain.
A Knight crouched beside him, shield raised, helm dented along the rim. He followed Lore's gaze, jaw tightening.
"Doesn't matter," the Knight said. "Orders are to secure the ridge. We don't break formation."
Lore swallowed.
A scream tore through the village—high, panicked, human—and cut off abruptly.
Lore's fingers tightened around the grip of the field blade. It didn't warm to him. It didn't answer him. It was just steel.
Too quiet.
"They're looking for people," Lore said. "They're taking their time."
The Knight shot him a sharp look. "You're a Squire."
Lore nodded once. "Yes."
"Then stop thinking like you get a say."
The words weren't cruel. Just procedural.
An explosion went off farther down the ridge, followed by a shouted confirmation—enemy movement suppressed, sector holding. The ridge mattered. Lore knew that. If it fell, the road behind them opened. Supplies. Refugees. Reinforcements.
Doctrine made sense.
The village didn't.
Lore shifted his weight, peering through the rain again. He spotted movement near the well—something dragging itself upright, wrong-limbed, hunched. A human shape stumbled backward into the mud, slipping, scrambling.
Too slow.
"Signal flare?" Lore asked.
The Knight shook his head. "Command said no deviations. We draw attention, we pull more in."
Another scream, closer this time.
Lore's heart began to pound—not fast, but heavy, each beat pressing against his ribs like it wanted out.
He wasn't in charge.
That was the problem.
If he moved, it wasn't leadership.
It was disobedience.
If he stayed, it was obedience at someone else's expense.
A Paladin farther down the line glanced back at him, eyes meeting Lore's for just a second. There was no question there.
Only acknowledgment.
Lore exhaled slowly, the way Alaric had taught him—control first, fire second. Mana stirred beneath his skin, restrained by the armor, eager but contained.
"Stay on the ridge," Lore said quietly.
The Knight stiffened. "Squire—"
"I'm not giving an order," Lore said. "I'm stating what I'm doing."
He rose from his crouch.
The Knight grabbed his arm. "If you break formation—"
"I know," Lore said.
Rain streamed down his face, mixing with soot and ash. He looked once more at the village, at the smoke, at the shapes moving with terrible patience.
Another scream didn't come.
That was worse.
Lore pulled free and started downslope.
"If command asks," he said over his shoulder, "I slipped."
He slid the embankment hard, boots skidding in the mud, hit the flat, rolled once, and came up running.
The first creature charged him.
It moved wrong—not fast, not slow, but uncertain, as if its body hadn't agreed yet on how it was meant to function. One leg dragged. The other bent too far backward at the knee. Its arms were mismatched, one thick and corded, the other thin and trembling, fingers twitching like they were still learning how to close.
It screamed.
Lore met it head-on.
Steel bit into flesh with a wet resistance that sent a jolt up his arm. The field blade didn't glide the way his real sword would have—it jarred, shuddering as he tore it free. The creature staggered, swung wildly, claws screeching across Lore's cuirass in a shriek of metal on bone.
Lore twisted aside and vented heat instinctively. Fire burst from his gauntlets in a tight, controlled pulse, slamming into the creature's chest and hurling it backward into a collapsed fence.
It didn't burn like it should have.
The flesh split and blackened, and beneath it—
Lore froze for half a heartbeat.
Beneath torn skin was something layered. Knotted. Not bone. Not muscle.
The creature convulsed, dragged itself upright again, breath rattling through a throat that hadn't finished forming.
That wasn't corruption.
That was construction.
Lore ended it with a downward strike through the skull.
Three more shapes emerged from between the houses.
They didn't rush him.
They spread.
One limped. One dragged a half-formed shoulder. The third stopped and tilted its head, staring at Lore—not at the blade, not at the armor, but at his face.
A sound crawled out of its throat. Not a scream.
Something closer to recognition.
Lore's stomach tightened.
"You don't want this," he muttered, not knowing why.
The creature lunged.
Lore moved, fire flaring again, driving it back toward the well as another rushed him from the side. A claw scraped his helm, pain bursting white across his vision. He staggered, caught himself, and struck again.
A door burst open behind him.
A man stumbled out, clutching a blood-soaked arm. "Knight—!"
The third creature shrieked and turned instantly toward the sound.
"No!" Lore snapped.
He reacted without thinking, venting raw mana outward. The blast slammed into the creature mid-leap and smashed it into the stone well hard enough to crack masonry.
The man collapsed, sobbing.
Lore hauled him up and shoved him back toward the doorway. "Inside. Barricade. Do not open it for anything."
The door slammed.
Lore turned just in time to block another strike, sparks flying as metal met warped bone. He drove the blade up under the creature's jaw. It spasmed and fell.
As it hit the mud, Lore saw its eyes.
Not glowing.
Not empty.
Terrified.
The last creature hesitated.
It stepped back.
Its mouth opened, and something tried to come out—not words, not quite. A sound like breath being shaped into speech and failing.
Lore felt something cold settle in his gut.
These weren't soldiers.
They were attempts.
The creature screamed and charged.
Lore ended it quickly.
When the body stilled, the village felt unnaturally quiet. Only rain remained, tapping against stone and ash.
A horn sounded from upslope.
Once.
Then again, closer.
Lore turned as figures descended the embankment—Knights first, shields raised, then a Paladin. They took in the scene without speaking. Bodies. The well. The barricaded door.
"…You were right," the Knight muttered.
Lore didn't answer. He was staring at how one corpse hadn't quite settled into the mud, limbs still wrong even in death.
"This wasn't random," Lore said. "Someone is learning."
They regrouped on the ridge an hour later.
Not in retreat.
Not in victory.
Just reassembly.
The dead were dragged aside. The wounded redistributed. Orders passed in murmurs, shorter now, clipped.
When Lore was summoned forward, the rain had thinned to mist.
"Report," Commander Threx said.
Lore gave it. Clean. Precise. No justification.
Threx listened, expression unreadable.
"You broke formation," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"You diverted from your assigned sector."
"Yes, sir."
"You engaged without authorization."
"Yes, sir."
Threx stepped closer.
"You don't get to decide which deaths are acceptable."
Lore met his gaze. "No, sir."
"Then why did you decide?"
"Civilians were being taken," Lore said. "Not killed."
"And that changes your orders?"
"It changes the situation."
"No," Threx replied calmly. "It changes your emotions."
A pause.
"You will receive a formal reprimand," Threx said. "Entered into record. No reduction in duty."
Lore nodded.
"You will not be commended," Threx added. "Your initiative will be recorded as a risk factor."
The words landed heavier than the reprimand itself.
"Return to formation."
Lore did.
No one looked at him.
Except the Paladin, for just a second—concern flickering before discipline smothered it.
They moved again before the mud had time to dry.
A runner spoke quietly with Threx. Orders shifted. A detachment peeled away.
"Sergeant Keth," Threx said. "Canal road. Eyes only."
Keth nodded.
"Head Squire," Threx added, without looking. "You're attached."
Attached.
Not trusted.
Not empowered.
They moved east along the canal road, where water pooled thick and dark and reeds whispered against armor. The air smelled wrong—rot and iron.
They found the first body just past a bend.
Then another.
Then another.
All Magic Knights.
Opened cleanly.
No civilians.
That, somehow, was worse.
A low sound drifted through the reeds ahead.
Quiet. Restrained.
Testing.
Lore tightened his grip on the field blade.
This wasn't reconnaissance.
It was bait.
The reeds parted ahead of them.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Something stepped onto the canal path.
At first, Lore thought it was a survivor.
The silhouette was close enough that his mind tried to fix it—broad shoulders, upright posture, armor still hanging where it should. The thing moved with the weight and balance of someone trained to wear steel.
A Magic Knight.
Keth raised his shield. "Hold."
The figure stopped.
Mist clung to its armor, darkened by old blood. The cuirass bore a deep gouge across the chest where a blade had struck hard and true. A Magic Knight's strike.
Lore's stomach tightened.
The helmet was missing.
The head lolled slightly, neck jerking as if the muscles hadn't yet learned how to keep it upright. Skin stretched too tight across the skull, pale and slick, veins crawling across the temples in patterns that didn't belong there. One eye tracked the detachment.
The other stared at nothing.
"That's one of ours," someone whispered.
The creature lifted its arm.
The movement wasn't smooth.
It stuttered—a hitch, a correction, like a marionette whose strings had been yanked in the wrong order. The hand clenched and unclenched twice before it remembered how to close.
A sigil burned faintly beneath the torn sleeve at its forearm—the mark of the Magic Knight Order, warped and incomplete, as if something had pressed it into flesh that didn't understand what it was supposed to mean.
Lore felt cold spread behind his ribs.
"They didn't just kill him," he said quietly. "They're testing something."
The creature lurched forward.
Not charging.
Repeating.
Its stance shifted into a guard position—imperfect, off-balance—but recognizable. A half-remembered drill, dragged up from dead muscle and forced into motion. The creature swayed as it moved, correcting itself too late, too often.
Keth braced. "Shields—!"
The thing struck.
The blow was heavy, but clumsy, crashing into Keth's shield at the wrong angle. The impact still drove him back a step, mud spraying as his boots skidded.
"By the Source—" someone breathed.
"It's copying," a Paladin said.
Lore stepped in, fire flaring instinctively as he caught the next strike. Steel screamed as blades met—but the creature didn't react to the pain, didn't recoil properly. It overcorrected, twisted too far, nearly toppling itself before jerking upright again.
It didn't know why it was fighting.
Only that it was supposed to.
The creature turned its head toward Lore.
Its mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The jaw worked uselessly, muscles straining as if trying to form a sound it no longer understood how to make. Breath hissed through broken teeth, wet and uneven.
Lore felt bile rise in his throat.
"There's no one in there," he realized aloud.
The creature attacked again, repeating the same sequence—high swing, low cut—but slower this time, sloppier. Lore slipped inside the motion and drove his blade into a seam in the armor where flesh had been forced back together.
The creature shrieked.
Not in pain.
In failure.
It staggered, limbs spasming as something inside it unraveled. The sigil at its forearm flickered and went dark.
Lore struck again, harder this time.
The body collapsed into the mud, twitching, movements degrading into meaningless spasms before finally going still.
Silence pressed in.
Rain tapped against armor. Reeds swayed gently.
Keth stared down at the corpse. "That thing didn't know what it was doing."
"No," Lore said. "But it knew what it was supposed to be."
He knelt beside the body, studying the warped sigil, the twisted joints, the places where flesh and mana had been forced into alignment.
"This wasn't a weapon," Lore said quietly. "It was a prototype."
A bad one.
A first attempt.
Which meant the next one would be better.
He rose slowly.
"Every Magic Knight who falls out here," Lore continued, "isn't just a loss."
No one interrupted him.
"They're material."
The word sat heavily between them.
And somewhere beyond the reeds, whatever had made this thing was already learning why it failed.
The body was burned before nightfall.
Not ceremonially.
Not reverently.
Efficiently.
A message arrived less than an hour after the detachment returned to the ridge. No runner this time—just a sealed strip of treated parchment delivered by a courier who didn't meet anyone's eyes.
Commander Threx read it once.
Then again.
The expression on his face didn't change.
"New standing orders," he said, voice carrying just far enough for the officers to hear. "Effective immediately."
The column stilled.
"All fallen members of the Magic Knight Order are to be retrieved if possible," Threx continued. "If retrieval is not feasible, remains are to be rendered unusable."
Someone shifted. "Sir?"
"Total destruction," Threx clarified. "Fire. Acid. Mana disruption. Whatever is required."
Silence followed.
"These orders supersede all other battlefield considerations," Threx added. "No exceptions."
Lore felt the words settle like ash in his lungs.
Retrieve… or erase.
Not bury.
Not return.
"Enemy interference with remains is to be assumed," Threx went on. "Any indication of tampering is to be reported immediately and classified."
Classified.
Threx folded the parchment and handed it to a subordinate without looking at Lore.
"The Order will not be weaponized against itself," he said flatly. "That is all."
The command staff dispersed with practiced efficiency, already discussing logistics—signal markers, recovery teams, incendiary ratios.
Lore stood where he was.
This wasn't a response.
It was confirmation that command already feared this.
A Knight brushed past him.
"Good eye, Squire," the man muttered, not unkindly. "You caught something important."
Then he was gone.
No commendation.
No inquiry.
No pause.
The war adjusted around the discovery and moved on.
Lore found himself at the canal again later, watching smoke curl where the body had been destroyed. The mud was blackened, scorched clean of any trace that something once wearing Magic Knight armor had stood there.
Semir appeared at his side without announcement.
"You saw it first," the Knight Lord said.
"Yes, sir."
Semir watched the smoke dissipate. "And yet these orders would have come whether you spoke or not."
Lore said nothing.
"Do you know why?" Semir asked.
Lore hesitated. "Because command already suspected."
"Because command already planned," Semir corrected. "You confirmed a hypothesis. You didn't create it."
That stung more than Lore expected.
Semir turned to face him. "You want your actions to matter."
Lore met his gaze. "I want them to mean something."
Semir nodded once. "They do. Just not the way you think."
He gestured toward the blackened earth. "You accelerated a decision. That's all."
"All," Lore repeated quietly.
Semir's expression was unreadable. "In war, acceleration is often the highest form of contribution."
He paused.
"You'll receive no citation for this," Semir said. "No mark in your favor. At most, a notation."
Lore's jaw tightened.
"But you'll be watched," Semir continued. "More closely now."
Semir stepped away.
"Rest while you can, Head Squire," he said over his shoulder. "You've just helped redefine what dying means for the Order."
Lore stared at the scorched ground long after the smoke faded.
He had identified a threat no one wanted to name.
He had forced the Order to change how it treated its dead.
And the war did not slow for even a heartbeat to acknowledge it.
Lore clenched his fists, feeling the armor respond, steady and impersonal.
If this was what accomplishment looked like—
Then whatever came next would demand more than recognition.
It would demand endurance.