Garren turned and saw her immediately. An older woman, maybe fifty, grey streaking through dark hair loose from its braid. Her magic was different from the fire mage. More controlled.
Wind whipped around her in a spiral, visible as distortions in air and debris it carried.
Leaves and dust and small stones orbiting her like planets around sun. Brother Garrett charged with sword raised and war cry on lips.
An invisible hand picked him up like he weighed nothing and threw him backward. He hit a building wall with a sickening crack and slid down, leaving a blood smear on wood. Didn't move again.
The woman stood before a root cellar entrance, door hanging open behind on broken hinges. She was protecting something, someone, standing guard despite overwhelming force. Face set with grim determination, the look of someone who knew exactly what was coming but refused to run.
Valdric and Marcus engaged from the front but she was powerful, more skilled than the fire mage. She kept them back with precisely controlled wind blasts, each strong enough to stagger an armoured man. Debris flew like projectiles, forcing Wardens to keep distance and watch for attacks from multiple angles.
Garren moved again, same flanking approach that worked before. Kept low between buildings, using structures as cover, boots quiet despite urgency. The wind mage focused entirely on threats ahead, on Valdric's measured advance and Marcus's attempts to circle left. She was good, disciplined, tracking multiple attackers while maintaining defensive position.
Didn't see Garren coming from her right.
He closed to ten feet before she sensed him. Some instinct or magical awareness made her head snap toward him. Eyes widened with alarm and she thrust her hand without hesitation. Garren saw air distort around her palm, felt pressure building as she gathered power. Hair on his arms stood up from static charge.
He dove forward and sideways, rolling, trying to get under the blast before it formed. Wind screamed past, strong enough to catch his cloak and nearly yank him off his feet, but he kept grip on his sword through stubborn will and came up in a crouch.
Not close enough yet. The woman was already turning fully toward him, hands moving in complex patterns, wind gathering like a shield. Air pressure dropped, making his ears pop. Small objects started lifting off the ground around her.
But she'd taken focus off Valdric. Fatal mistake.
The Commander moved with speed that belied his age and bulk, closing distance in three long strides. He threw something Garren recognised from drills. A weighted net designed for mage combat, meant to tangle limbs and trap hands mages used to focus power.
It caught the woman across shoulders and arms, weights wrapping with the force of Valdric's throw, pinning her hands to her sides. She tried to push back with wind but the net tangled in hair and clothes, restricting movements, breaking concentration. The wind shield flickered and died.
Marcus was on her instantly. His sword came down brutal overhead, catching her across the skull. She fell without sound, net still tangled around her body.
Garren lowered his sword, breathing hard. Fourth kill, though Marcus struck final blow. But Garren had helped, created the opening by forcing her to divide attention. That was how it was supposed to work. Coordinated combat.
Fighting sounds faded quickly, like someone turning down volume on chaos. Militia had broken completely, those who could still move fleeing into fields or forest, abandoning weapons and wounded. The square grew quiet except for crackling burning buildings and moans of the wounded.
Garren looked around, taking stock. Six Wardens still standing, including himself and the Commander. Four down. Brothers Petran and Garrett dead, bodies sprawled where they'd fallen, already attracting flies. Thomas dying, burned body still smouldering, barely conscious and making sounds that didn't seem human. More like animal whimpers. Another Warden, Jerem, badly wounded with an arrow through his gut. Marcus was trying to stop the bleeding with field dressings.
Garren looked down at his greatsword. Blood ran along the fuller and dripped from the point, spattering his boots. His hands were sticky with it, arms splattered to the elbows with blood already drying and cracking.
Three people dead by his hand in minutes. Two villagers and a mage. He'd followed every technique and tactic without hesitation. Been efficient, competent, effective.
He should have felt sick. Should have felt guilt or horror at taking lives.
Instead, he felt proud.
This was what it meant to be a Warden. What he'd dreamed about during long nights at Elderoth. Protecting people from magical corruption, from those who'd use power to hurt innocents.
The villagers who died had been defending mages, harbouring them, protecting them from justice. That made them complicit. Made them enemies of order.
"Secure the village," Valdric said, his tone flat and businesslike. He wiped blood from his sword with cloth torn from a dead militiaman's shirt. "Find any others hiding. Bring them to the square."
The remaining brothers moved methodically, kicking in doors, searching buildings. Garren moved with them, sword still drawn, combat high still singing in his veins. He was part of something larger now, something important. The Wardens of Vorrath, holding the line against chaos.
They found villagers hiding in cellars, attics, under beds where they'd tried to make themselves small. All terrified, some too shocked to cry, faces blank with horror. Wardens weren't gentle pulling them out, herding them like livestock. One old man tried to resist, clinging to a doorframe with desperate strength. Marcus hit him hard enough to break his jaw with a casual backhand.
They gathered everyone in the square. Maybe thirty people total. Old men with grey beards, women of all ages, children ranging from teenagers to toddlers. They huddled together seeking comfort from each other even though there was none to find. Some cried quietly. Some were too shocked for sound. A few prayed to Vorrath, invoking the Iron Judge's mercy in whispers.
Valdric surveyed them with cold eyes that showed nothing. Then he nodded to Marcus.
Marcus left briefly and returned, dragging the Hound by its chain. He gave the leash a sharp jerk and the thing stumbled forward, falling to its knees before gathered villagers. The Hound's bandaged head turned left and right, movements jerky and unnatural, like a puppet controlled by an apprentice.
Marcus yanked the chain again, metal links rattling. "Up."
The Hound struggled to its feet, swaying unsteadily, bare feet trying to find purchase in blood-soaked dirt. It raised one trembling hand and began moving it slowly across the crowd, bandaged head tilting at odd angles as it sensed for mana in the way only broken mages could.
The hand stopped. Pointed at an older man near the back.
The man's face went white. He tried to run, spinning and pushing through the crowd in blind panic, but only made it steps before two Wardens grabbed him. They forced him to his knees before Valdric.
The Hound's hand moved again, sweeping slowly across terrified faces. Stopped. Pointed at a young woman, maybe twenty, with dark hair and frightened eyes darting for escape.
She screamed and tried to back away but there was nowhere to go. The crowd behind pushed her forward, wanting distance from the mage among them, survival instinct overriding community or compassion. Wardens grabbed her and forced her down beside the man.
A third time. The Hound's hand stopped, pointing at a teenage boy with sandy hair and thin frame. He didn't try to run. Just stood there, face resigned, like he'd been expecting this his entire life, always knew it would end this way.
Wardens dragged him forward anyway and made him kneel with the others.
The Hound's hand dropped. It made a sound, not words since its tongue had been cut years ago. Just a guttural noise from deep in its throat that might have been satisfaction or pain.
Three apostates. Exactly as the report said.
"Two are dead," Valdric said, voice flat and emotionless as stone. He gestured to the bodies of the fire mage and wind woman, both still lying in spreading blood pools. "Bind the third."
The teenage boy's hands were wrenched behind his back and tied with rough rope. He didn't resist. Didn't even flinch. Just stared straight ahead at nothing.
Garren watched, sword still in hand, blood still dripping from blade. The mission was complete. They'd identified and eliminated apostates, done what they came for. Now they just needed to execute the last one and return to Elderoth with their report.
Then something happened that made the air change, made the moment feel wrong in a way Garren couldn't name.
During the initial ambush chaos, when arrows had been flying and militia fighting desperately, one arrow had gone wide. It had caught the Hound in the shoulder, punching through tattered rags into thin flesh beneath. Garren hadn't noticed when it happened, too focused on fighting and staying alive.
But he saw now the Hound had collapsed. It lay on ground near gathered villagers, unmoving, arrow still jutting from its shoulder at an odd angle.
Marcus walked over to check it, boots squelching in bloody mud. He crouched beside the Hound, touched its neck with two fingers, waited for a pulse that didn't come. After a long moment, he looked up at Valdric and shook his head once.
Dead.
The villagers didn't understand why that mattered, didn't grasp the significance. Garren wasn't entirely sure himself. Just a Hound. Broken, expendable, easily replaced. They could requisition another at the next garrison, same as arrows or rations.
But Valdric's jaw tightened in a way Garren had never seen. Something cold and hard settled into his expression, something that made him look like a stranger wearing Valdric's face.
"Kill them all," Valdric said, voice quiet, almost casual. Like he was ordering someone to fetch water. "Burn everything."