The air in Pojin was no longer air; it was a thick, cloying shroud of ash and the sweet, heavy scent of decay. Just before the pre-dawn light could touch the valley floor, Drystan and Azad stood in a pocket of absolute silence. They were positioned deep within the skeleton of a collapsed storehouse—far enough from the flickering Razaasia torches to remain ghosts, but close enough to witness the living nightmare in the square.
Below them, the true scale of the massacre was laid bare. The Razaasia had not left the dead where they fell. Instead, the bodies of the Pojin citizens had been dragged into three massive piles. It was a gruesome mountain of the young and the old—a chaotic tangle of those taken by the blade and those charred black by the "Red Smoke" fires.
Near the center of this graveyard, ten civilians remained alive, tied to heavy wooden poles. They were a mix of the young and the middle-aged, their heads hanging low in exhaustion or prayer. Drystan noted with a shiver that the wood of the poles was stained a deep, permanent crimson—a sign that the ten people standing there were not the first to be bound to them, and likely would not be the last.
"They are 'culling' the village," Azad whispered, his voice trembling with a rare, cold fury. "They kill the weak and the old to save on rations, and they keep the rest for... whatever the Razaasia calls 'fun'."
Drystan's eyes tracked a Razaasia guard walking past the poles, idly striking a captive with the butt of his spear. The "Soldier in Armor" that Chinua had spoken of in the capital felt a world away from this place. Here, there were only predators and the broken.
"We can't wait for the army," Azad muttered, his hand creeping toward the hilt of his blade. "If we wait for the dawn, there won't be ten people left to save."
"Then we strike now, when their men are still half asleep," Drystan whispered, his hand sliding down to grip the handle of his small axe. The steel felt cold, but his blood was boiling.
"Let's regroup first," Azad suggested, his voice tight with caution, but his suggestion fell on deaf ears. He saw where Drystan was staring—a gaze so fixed it could have pierced stone.
In the middle of the cluster of poles, Sarnai's head hung low, her dark hair shielding her face. At her feet, the gray ash of the square had been turned into a thick, dark mud. The ground was soaked red from the blood still dripping from her chest, where the Razaasias' dagger remained visible, wedged deep in her flesh like a jagged splinter.
"Other people might have time, but Naksh's wife doesn't," Drystan said, clenching the handle of his axe until his knuckles turned white. "Losing a son and then a wife... that would be something that would break Naksh forever. I won't let that happen."
Azad knew there was no turning back. He looked at the guards, then back at the shadowed ruins. He pressed his lips together and let out a low, haunting sound—the hooting of an owl. It echoed three times in a rhythmic row, a signal born from the mountain woods.
At the sound, the twenty bound soldiers—those still alive in the shadows near the poles—slowly lifted their heads. Their eyes, clouded with pain and exhaustion, began scanning the pre-dawn light. They knew that sound. It wasn't the forest; it was a promise.
Drystan didn't wait for the guards to react to the silence. He shifted his weight; his eyes locked on the Razaasia guard holding the oil pot. To save Sarnai, they would have to move faster than the flame.
The first Razaasia soldier stood by the post, the heavy oil pot swinging idly in his hand. He looked at the young teenager tied there—the same girl Koorush had earlier threatened to ignite.
"Tsk—it makes me wonder why our general doesn't let us sleep with them before killing them," the soldier laughed, his voice a low, gravelly rasp in the pre-dawn quiet. "It's a shame to die a virgin."
The second Razaasia soldier glanced toward the unburnt stone house where Koorush had retreated, then scanned the square. Most of their comrades were slumped against walls or dozing by the dying fires. "Hey," he said, a wicked light dancing in his eyes. "I'll keep watch for you. How about you turn this girl into a woman before she dies?"
The first soldier licked his lips, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face. He reached out and pinched the teenager's chin, forcing her to look up. "Yeah... how about I turn you into a woma—"
The sentence was never finished.
From the dark corner of a ruined house, an axe came spinning through the air—a blur of rotating steel. It struck with a sickening, wet thud directly in the center of the Razaasia soldier's forehead. His eyes rolled back, and the pot of oil slipped from his nerveless fingers, hitting the ground with a low, heavy crack as the liquid began to pool in the ash.
The second soldier stood frozen in shock. Before he could even draw a breath to scream, a hand reached out from the shadows behind him. His head was yanked back with violent force as a dagger sang across his throat. Azad didn't stop there; he drove the blade twice more into the side of the man's neck, ensuring the wound was fatal before dropping the body into the soot.
Without a word, Azad lunged toward the teenager. His blade sliced through the rough hemp ropes, and as she slumped forward, he caught her. He pressed a spare dagger into her trembling hand.
"Free the others," he whispered, his voice a command that reignited the spark in her eyes. Despite her wounds and her weakened state, she began to crawl toward the next post, her blade flashing.
Meanwhile, Drystan was already at the center. He didn't waste time on the Razaasias' corpses; he moved to the ten captives sitting tied together on the ground. His hands worked with frantic precision, cutting the binds that held the village's heart captive.
"Move," Drystan hissed, his voice cutting through the fog of the captives' terror. "Get to your captain and leave now!"
But the silence of the village was a fragile thing. The scraping of boots and the frantic whispers of the freed prisoners acted like a cold bucket of water on the sleeping Razaasia guards. They jolted awake, their hands fumbling for their hilts as they realized the "ghosts" had entered their camp.
"Magoli!" the soldiers began yelling, their voices tearing through the pre-dawn mist.
The word echoed through the valley like the warning gong of Salran Hill, awakening the deep sleepers and calling the Razaasia patrols back from the perimeter. The village was no longer a tomb; it was a hornet's nest.
"Run!" Azad shouted. He grabbed the teenager closest to him, his boots kicking up soot as they began zigzagging through the jagged shadows of the burned houses. The ten teenagers followed him, their small frames vanishing into the darkness of the alleys.
But the nine middle-aged warriors and a teenager, including Sarnai, did not run. Despite their wounds, they formed a ragged line, fighting alongside Drystan as the Razaasia soldiers swarmed the square.
Drystan drove his axe into the side of a Razaasia soldier's helmet with a bone-crushing crack. He spun around, his eyes finding Sarnai's. "Take your captain and leave now!" he roared over the clash of steel.
"What about you?" Sarnai yelled back. She lunged forward, driving a scavenged sword deep into a soldier's abdomen, her face pale from the blood loss of her chest wound.
"They can't touch me," Drystan said, forcing a grim smile even as three more soldiers closed in on him. He didn't fully believe the lie, but he knew the math of war. He was one of Chinua's beloved captains. To the Razaasias, he was worth more alive than dead—a golden bargaining chip to be used against the "Wolf."
"Let's go!" Pema cried out, grabbing Sarnai's arm. Seeing the logic in Drystan's sacrifice, she pulled the wounded captain toward the back of a collapsed house. The two women disappeared into the smoke just as a group of Razaasia reinforcements screamed in pursuit.
Drystan was a whirlwind of red steel and focused fury. As a captain who had survived the border wars and faced the Razaasias in a dozen skirmishes, he moved with a lethal economy that defied his injury. The soldiers of the Razaasia vanguard circled him like wolves around a wounded bear, but every time they lunged, Drystan's axe found a seam in their armor or the soft flesh of a throat. He knew the grim math of the square: the more of them he killed, the fewer would be left to hunt Sarnai and the others.
But as he swung his axe to clear a path toward the teenager, who was knock down by Altan, a white-hot spike of agony flared in his left thigh. An arrow had found a gap.
"Captain!" a woman's voice shrieked. Before the next volley could fly, a Pojin soldier threw herself in front of Drystan, her body a shield of flesh and bone. Two arrows thudded into her back with a sickening, hollow sound. She slumped into Drystan's arms, her life vanishing into the soot before she could even exhale.
Nearby, a sharp, metallic scream tore through the air. A Razaasia spear had pierced deep into the teenager's right shoulder, pinning her to the earth like an insect to a board. Three more spear tips hovered inches from her throat, shivering with the intent to kill.
"Drop it," a melodic, cruel voice commanded.
Koorush stepped through the line of soldiers, his fine silks untouched by the ash of the burning village. He stared at Drystan, a slow, venomous curve forming on his lips. "Ah—I remember you. The arrow-machine man." He took two predatory steps closer, the diamond-glint of his dagger catching the pre-dawn light. "How does it feel, having an arrow strike you? Believe it or not, karma always has a due date."
His laughter was a high, thin sound that set Drystan's teeth on edge. When it subsided, Koorush's eyes turned cold. "Capture him. Alive."
The Razaasia soldiers surged forward, emboldened by their commander's presence. Despite the arrow in his thigh, Drystan's axe remained a blur. As the first two soldiers stepped into his reach, he spun, the weight of the axe carrying through their necks with a wet crunch. They collapsed into the ash, but a dozen more took their place.
Drystan set his jaw, his eyes darting from the spears at the teenager's throat to the closing circle around him. He refused to back down. He knew the value of a Captain in the hands of the enemy. He would rather bleed out in the dirt of Pojin than be led through the streets of Ntsua-Ntu in chains to break Chinua's spirit.
The laughter of the Razaasias was a jagged, ugly sound that filled the square. As the soldier pinned the teenager down and began to rip the leather from her chest, exposing her to the cold pre-dawn air and the hungry stares of a thousand men, the world seemed to tilt for Drystan. In that moment of absolute depravity, he finally understood the soul of Chinua's Three Golden Rules. They weren't just laws; they were the thin line of steel that separated a soldier from a monster.
"Stop," Drystan said. His voice was no longer a roar; it was a calm, hollow chill that silenced the nearest men. "Let her go. I surrender."
Slowly, his fingers uncurled. The twin axes—blades that had tasted the blood of a dozen Razaasias this morning—slipped from his grasp and thudded into the ash.
Koorush gave a casual wave of his hand. The soldier on the teenager's abdomen grunted in disappointment but stood up, stepping back into the line.
Drystan didn't look at Koorush. He ignored the spears leveled at his chest and limped toward the girl. He reached into the soot and retrieved a tattered, dirty Eastern Military flag that had fallen during the initial raid. With steady, reverent hands, he wrapped the heavy fabric over the teenager's trembling shoulders, shielding her from the eyes of the enemy.
The teenager collapsed against him, her frightening sobs muffled by the stained cloth of the flag. Drystan held her for a heartbeat, his gaze shifting upward to the circle of soldiers, finally locking onto Koorush's mocking face.
"You are going to burn," Drystan said. His voice was as cold and firm as the winter ice on the mountain peaks.
Koorush didn't flinch. Instead, he stepped closer until he was inches from the Captain. His eyes dropped to the shaft of the arrow buried in Drystan's left thigh.
"Let's see who will burn," Koorush whispered with a challenging smile.
Koorush grabbed tightly onto the feather and pulled the arrow out of Drystan's thigh with a sickening wrench of muscle and bone. Drystan did not scream; he only stared into Koorush's eyes with a promise of death that the Razaasia commander would soon regret. As the blood pooled into the ash, the sun finally broke over the horizon—lighting a world that was no longer waiting for a rescue, but for a reckoning.