The sky to the south wasn't grey. It was orange.
"Silt-Edge," Valerius said, lowering his spyglass. "A mining settlement. Three hundred civilians. Unaffiliated."
"Not anymore," Kael said. He stood on the parapet of Iron-Hollow, watching the distant smoke.
"Malakor is burning them to flush us out."
"We can't save them," Valerius warned. "It's a trap, Kael. If we move the army, we expose the Hollow."
"I'm not taking the army," Kael said. He adjusted his gauntlets. "I'm taking the Walkers."
He jumped from the ledge, sliding down the ash-dune. "Horg! Gear up! We have a fire to put out!"
***
By the time they arrived, Silt-Edge was gone.
The hovels were bonfires. The air smelled of gasoline and cooked meat. In the center of the village, a squad of soldiers in heavy, insulated armor were herding survivors into a circle.
Purifiers.
They carried tanks on their backs and nozzles that dripped liquid fire.
"Kneel!" the Purifier Captain shouted. "Confess the location of the Heretic, and your passing will be swift!"
A woman in the crowd screamed, clutching a child. "We don't know him! Please!"
"Heresy," the Captain sighed. He raised his nozzle.
Thwip.
An arrow took the Captain in the throat. He gurgled, stumbling back, his finger clenching the trigger. A jet of flame shot into the sky.
"Now!" Kael roared, bursting from the smoke.
He moved through the flames like a shadow. Kael didn't draw his sword. He used the Void-arm. He grabbed the barrel of a Purifier's flamethrower and crushed it. The tank ruptured.
"Containment breach!" the soldier screamed before exploding in a ball of fire.
Horg and the Iron-Walkers swept in from the flanks, cutting down the confused Purifiers. It was a massacre. Within minutes, the Spire squad was dead.
Kael stood in the center of the burning village. The survivors looked at him—at his black arm, at the violence he had unleashed. They didn't cheer. They were terrified.
"You..." the woman with the child whispered. "You're the one. The Heretic."
"I am Kael," he said. "Get your people. Move north. Go to the cliff face."
"Why?" an old man spat. "So you can bring more fire down on us?"
"Because you have nowhere else to go," Kael said. He pointed at the dead Purifiers. "They aren't looking for me anymore. They are looking for *fuel*. If you stay here, you burn."
He turned away, looking at the horizon.
"We need to move," Kael told Horg. "This wasn't a raid. It was a beacon."
Horg looked at the tracks leading away from the village. Fresh tracks. A scout had escaped.
"They know," Horg said.
"Yeah," Kael said, listening to the distant hum of engines in the clouds. "They know."