"We don't have time for explanations," Elias snapped. He scooped up a handful of blood from the ground, smeared it across his face, slapped a helmet on his head, and strode back toward the main road.
Willem caught on quick. He clamped his greatsword between his teeth, yanked on the soldier's uniform, and slathered his own face with gore. A grim thrill surged through him—the raw warrior spirit he'd always chased, now smeared in reality.
The disguise held. Caked in blood and grime, their faces were unrecognizable. They slipped openly among the wreckage, poking through shattered carriages like any other survivors.
Soldiers were stumbling out of the woods, answering the frantic calls to regroup. Willem trailed Elias, heart hammering, half-convinced they'd be unmasked any second.
But Elias moved like he owned the chaos. He shoved through the milling ranks, barking orders at anyone in his way. Willem watched, equal parts awe and envy. The moment "Brother Blackwood" ditched his scholar's robes, the mask cracked wide open. The man was born for this—bold as brass, sharp as a blade.
Then it hit: a new sound from the forest, a chittering rustle like an oncoming storm. Elias's head whipped around. His face drained of color.
"Move!" he hissed, yanking Willem's sleeve. He bolted for the nearest iron cage, using it as a launchpad to vault onto the roof. The aspirants inside gawked up at him, faces pale and slack-jawed.
"Up here—now!" Elias barked at Willem.
Willem scrambled after him, hauling onto the precarious grid of bars.
And then the wave crashed from the mist.
Rats. A seething, squealing flood of them, eyes like bloody rubies in the gloom. Pure nightmare, straight out of hell.
The regrouping soldiers shattered into screams, their lines crumbling as they flailed at the swarm. A handful of Guild agents hurled blasts of raw energy, carving bloody furrows through the vermin—but it was like spitting into a gale.
The Rat Tide rolled on, overwhelming everything, teeth and claws gnashing in a frenzy.
Inside the cages, the aspirants lost it. Trapped with no escape, they stomped and leaped like madmen, their howls of pain twisting with the endless chitter.
Willem stared, gut churning, as men ripped at their own skin to pry off the burrowing horrors. He and Elias had the high ground, at least—perched atop the cage, the rats clawed futilely at the bars. A lazy sweep of their blades sent clusters tumbling back into the writhing mass.
Other soldiers caught on, clambering up to join them, turning the cages into makeshift forts.
High in a gnarled tree, Commander Favian and Agent Kaelus surveyed the bedlam.
Master Jiang got it in a flash. Those screams from the woods... the Rat Tide... it was a feint. His archers were under siege. A bowman in a knife-fight was a dead man, and this swarm would chew them to bits.
"Pull them back!" he bellowed, unleashing a pulse of energy that atomized a wriggling knot of rats. He shouted up to Kaelus: "Get your agents in there—support my bowmen!"
Thweee! Thweee! Thweee! Three signal arrows whistled skyward.
Kaelus knew the stakes. Legendary Archers were irreplaceable. "Move!" he roared. A squad of grey-cloaks peeled off, bounding into the canopy to skirt the groundswell of fur and fangs.
Another team hurled bundles of flaming branches dusted with yellow powder around the cages. Thick, choking yellow smoke erupted, stinging the air. The rats recoiled, hissing and fleeing the acrid haze.
Perched on a lofty branch, The Rat Hag tracked the melee. A lone white rat scampered up the trunk and chittered urgently in her ear. She scowled, then hurled herself through the branches.
She cornered White Orchid mid-assault on a pinned archer. "The Black and White Fiends!" she rasped. "What in the nine hells is this? Those aspirants are sealed in iron cages! We can't touch their heads!"
White Orchid froze. "Cages?"
"Don't play coy!" the hag screeched.
"We'll... we'll smash them open," White Orchid stammered.
The Rat Hag's laugh was gravel on bone. "Those that survived Corvus's rocks? You think they'll just yield? It's a lure—they're begging you to try. Go see for yourself before you doom us all for a fool's errand!"
Dread coiled in White Orchid's gut. She dropped the archer with a final strike and led a squad to scout the convoy. It was worse than feared: unyielding iron, forged to defy brute force. The whole scheme rested on a lie. They'd been played.
She winged back to Black Cloud, breathless. "It's a trap," she panted, spilling the details. "The aspirants are bait—locked tight to draw us in."
Black Cloud's features twisted like storm clouds. He glared at the heavens. "Signal Corvus," he growled. "Plan B. Airlift the cages—whole damn things, men and all."
"That's suicide!" she shot back. "He'll balk."
"He has no choice," Black Cloud said, voice like grinding stone. "We're in too deep. All of us. No retreat now."
The yellow smoke clawed at their lungs, but it did the trick. The rats slunk back into the mist, tails low.
The aspirants, fresh from a frenzy of fangs, now hacked and wheezed, eyes watering like open wounds.
Elias had hit his limit. He leaped from the cage, snatched a smoldering branch, and clamped his sleeve over his mouth before plunging into the haze. That fortune in grain wasn't digging itself out.
Willem grabbed his own branch and tailed him, clueless but loyal. Stick with the guy who had a plan—that was survival 101.
They battled through the stinging fog to the luggage section. It was a charnel house: guards and squires pulped under boulders, limbs tangled in the debris like broken dolls.
Willem, who'd only sparred in sunlit yards, gagged at the metallic reek. Real war wasn't glory; it was this—meat and ruin.
He glanced at Elias, methodically sifting wreckage without a flinch, and wondered: What forged a man like that? Ice in the veins?
Calm under fire is Foresight 101, Elias might've quipped. Panic just fogs the sight.
The dead squires hit hard. Was Midge under one of those heaps? Elias shoved the thought aside—grain first. The luggage carriages were gutted, contents flung far and wide.
"Here," Elias said, nodding at a half-intact wreck. "Start digging."
They clambered in, pawing through satchels and crates. Willem fumbled blindly—he'd never packed his own gear.
Elias's fuse blew. "Why the hell did you lug that oversized toothpick into the passenger coach?" he whispered fiercely. "Stow it with your bags, and we'd spot yours in a heartbeat!"
Willem blinked, caught short. The "search for Midge" ruse was crumbling. This was about the grain—twenty pounds of liquid silver.
He almost called it out, but bit his tongue. Damn if it wasn't impressive. Amid the slaughter, with doom circling, "Arthur Blackwood" fixated on the payout. Life or loot—which ruled the day?