The wagon tore down the road in a way no sane group ever should travel. Wheels screamed as they struck stones at full speed, axles shuddering under stress they were never built to bear. Harness leather bit deep into flanks already slick with sweat. Hooves struck earth in a relentless, thunderous gallop with no room for hesitation or correction.
Agnes rode hard at the front, body low over the saddle, reins clenched white-knuckled in her fists.
"Keep those buffs and enchantments stable!" she shouted back, voice tight and fraying. "If either drops, we crash—do you hear me?"
The horse beneath her snorted, foam flecking its bit as she leaned further forward, daring it to give more.
Behind her, chaos moved in barely controlled lines.
"Why are we—?" Bran yelled from beside one of the wagons, gripping the side rail as it bounced violently. "What the hell happened back there? What are we running from?!"
No one answered him.
Agnes didn't look back. "Sawyer is dealing with it." she snapped. "Questions later—we need to get to Ridgeholt as quickly as possible!"
The words weren't cruel. They were terrified.
Aluna stood braced in the rear wagon, one hand gripping the rail, the other raised despite the violent sway. Her voice cut through the chaos, steady where everything else was not.
"Easy," she murmured—not to the people, but to the horses. "Just a little longer. I will not let you fail now."
Light gathered around her palm, pale and warm, threading itself into the air like invisible reins. The Song surged outward to meet her prayer, carrying it forward through sweat, muscle, and breath.
The horses responded.
Fatigue dulled. Burning legs found another reserve they should not have had. Their breathing evened—not calm, but enduring.
Faust nearly lost his footing as the wagon lurched again.
"Gods—this is a terrible idea," he muttered, one hand clamped to his mouth as color drained from his face. "I—I need everyone to stop bouncing the wagon like that or I'm going to—"
He swallowed hard, forced his focus back into his hands.
"Just—just hold it together for a second," he gasped, tracing shaking symbols in the air. "I can make it lighter. I can. Just don't—don't jolt me—"
The spell snapped into place as he slammed his palm against the wagon frame.
"Weightless!"
The change hit instantly.
The wagon lifted into motion wrong—not floating, but no longer fully burdened by gravity. The horses surged forward as the strain eased, hooves striking with renewed force.
Faust slumped against the side rail, breathing hard. "I swear," he muttered weakly, "I really need to improve my stamina."
Kristaphs held the railing at the front of the wagon with unsettling ease, glanced back and forth between the group, brow furrowed.
"This doesn't make sense," he called out, voice raised but oddly calm. "Those numbers, that was a full on Goblin nest."
Bran shot him a look. "You noticed that now?!"
Kristaphs shook his head slightly. "A nest this close to a fortified settlement means one thing—"
The pace did not slow.
But something else settled.
Between the five of them—amid the screaming wheels, the thunder of hooves, the tearing wind—a silence took shape. Not emptiness. Understanding. No one said it aloud, but it passed between them all the same, carried in glances, in tightened grips, in the way no one argued anymore.
They had crossed a line.
Bran was the one who finally gave it words.
"A raid." he said, voice low, stripped of anger now and left raw with certainty. He stared ahead at the road, knuckles white where he held the wagon rail. "This was a warning."
No one asked him to explain.
"Ridgeholt will be attacked."
Agnes didn't answer, but her jaw tightened. Faust's shoulders slumped a fraction, as if the thought had finally finished sinking its claws into him. Kristaphs narrowed his eyes, gaze distant, already turning the idea over like a blade testing for balance. Aluna bowed her head briefly—not in prayer, but acknowledgment.
They all nodded.
Once.
That was enough.
"Let's hurry," Kristaphs said after a beat. "If we push like this, we can reach it before twilight ends."
"And if we don't," Bran muttered, "He won't last."
"Then we push," Agnes said. No hesitation. No room for doubt. "We rally the guild. Every blade they'll spare us."
Faust dragged in a shaky breath and straightened despite the pallor on his face. "I can… maintain the spell a little longer. Not forever. But long enough."
Aluna's hand tightened on the wagon rail as she looked ahead, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion threading through her posture. "I'll keep the blessing steady," she said. "They won't fall. Not yet."
The decision locked into place.
Everything else—fear, questions, guilt—was pushed aside and trampled under forward motion.
Agnes leaned lower over her horse, reins biting into her palms. Her fingers brushed cold metal as the mount surged again.
Sawyer's gauntlets.
She was still wearing them.
The leather creaked softly as she tightened her grip, eyes burning as she stared down the road, refusing to let it blur.
Stay alive.
The thought wasn't a prayer.
It was a command to absolution.
The road vanished behind them.
Far away, a forest became silent.
The Song was gone.
Not faded. Not distant.
Gone.
Sawyer felt the absence like pressure lifting from his ribs—sudden, disorienting, and freeing in a way that bordered on dangerous. There was no cadence guiding his steps now, no subtle correction smoothing the margins of error. Only breath. Weight. Distance.
And enemies.
The goblins came on screaming, blades raised, confidence renewed by numbers and noise. Smoke rolled low across the road, clinging to ankles and knees, turning everything below the waist into shadow and motion.
Sawyer stepped into it.
Steel whispered free of its scabbard.
The arming sword settled into his right hand with familiar certainty—balanced, alive, an extension rather than a tool. His left hand dipped once, quick and practiced, and the dagger appeared as if it had always been there, gripped orthodox, knuckles tight.
He did not wait for them to reach him.
The whistle held naturally by his curled lips.
A sharp trill cut the air.
The sound wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It slipped between screams and snarls, a thin, piercing note that sliced straight through the chaos.
The first goblin flinched.
That was enough.
Sawyer moved.
He advanced in a smooth diagonal, sword snapping out in a clean horizontal cut that opened a throat before the goblin could even raise its weapon. Blood sprayed hot and sudden. Sawyer didn't slow. The dagger followed, punching forward into the ribs of the next creature as he passed, twisting hard before he ripped it free.
Another trill echoed.
Another note.
Higher this time.
The goblins winced. Several at that moment were cut down immediately.
Two rushed him together, one high, one low.
Sawyer stepped between them.
The sword rose in a short arc, catching the high attacker's wrist and severing the hand cleanly. The dagger struck downward at the same time, sliding into the low goblin's eye socket with brutal precision. Sawyer used the collapsing body as cover, twisting his shoulder as a third blade scraped uselessly along his coat.
He shoved forward, shoulder-checking the attacker back into the air.
The whistle rang again.
A goblin lunged, but went limp while in the air.
Sawyer pivoted, sword reversing grip mid-motion, and drove the pommel into the creature's face with bone-breaking force. He didn't stop to see it fall. The dagger was already moving, slashing tendons, opening bellies, striking fast and close where the sword couldn't reach.
This wasn't fencing.
It was weaving.
Every step carried purpose. Every sound—steel, breath, whistle—was placed.
The abyssal style did not overwhelm.
It unraveled.
Another trill—short, sharp.
The goblins surged at the sound, drawn like animals to a signal they didn't understand. Sawyer met them head-on, blade work tightening as the space compressed. His sword became a lever, a hook, a wall—parrying crude strikes and turning them aside while the dagger did its quiet, efficient work.
Thigh. Throat. Eye.
He flowed forward, backward, sideways, never still, never retreating far enough to lose pressure. When one goblin tried to grapple him, Sawyer let it—just long enough to bury the dagger under its jaw and shove the corpse into its allies.
The whistle sang again.
This time he sustained it.
The goblins all knelt to the ground.
Sawyer stepped and cut down every single one, blade slicing clean through shoulder and chest. He executed all those who knelt before him.
The sound ended. He took a long breath of air from his nose. Followed up by a relaxed exhale, his stance clearly primed for anything.
The goblins did not rush him again.
They froze.
Those that still stood stared across the road in mute horror, yellow eyes wide and glassy as they took in the scene before them. Bodies lay everywhere—piled, broken, cut apart in ways that spoke not of frenzy, but of control. The road was no longer brown or gray, but dark and slick, soaked through with blood that steamed faintly in the morning light.
Sawyer stood at the center of it.
Tall. Still.
His arming sword hung low at his side, edge dark and dripping. The dagger rested loose in his left hand, its point angled downward, ready without tension. His coat was torn in places, stained deep along the hem and sleeves, but he did not sag beneath it. His breathing was slow. Measured.
Alive.
The whistle remained between his lips.
He did not blow it again.
The goblins shifted uneasily, feet scraping backward through mud and gore. One dropped its weapon. Another stumbled over a corpse and scrambled away on all fours. None of them advanced. None of them dared.
Then the horn sounded.
Not close.
Distant—deep in the forest, muffled by trees and earth, but unmistakable. A long, drawn call. Commanding. Final.
The goblins flinched as one.
Fear broke into motion.
They turned and ran—tripping over bodies, shoving past one another, abandoning the road without dignity or order. Some vanished into the smoke. Others fled screaming into the treeline, branches snapping as they tore through undergrowth.
Sawyer watched them go.
He did not pursue.
Only when the last sound faded—when even the forest seemed to hold its breath—did he lower his weapons fully. He reached up, removed the whistle from his mouth, and let it hang from its cord against his chest.
The silence afterward was immense.
No shout.
No cries.
No movement.
Only the Song creeping back in.
Just the road, broken and red, stretching empty in both directions.
Sawyer exhaled once more, slower this time. The tension bled from his shoulders. His grip loosened. He looked down at the bodies—not with triumph, not with regret, but with quiet confirmation.
Time had been bought.
He turned at last, facing the direction the caravan had gone.
And began to walk. But before he could get far a vision of the woman snatched in front of him to flash. Please protect her— echoed in his mind.
He turned again…and chased.