The camp was quiet in the way only a battlefield could be — a haunted silence between the screams. Soldiers limped through the mud, dragging wounded comrades or scavenging from the dead. The scent of burning moss, boiled blood, and ruptured bone still hung thick in the air but the fighting, at least for now, had stopped.
Elira sat on the edge of a broken cartwheel, her glaive leaned beside her, one hand pressed against the dried blood along her jaw. Her eyes had not left Thal for several minutes.
He stood alone a few paces from the barricade, silent, arms folded across his bare chest. He wore only a short kilt of scorched brown leather around his hips, the fabric ragged at the edges and blackened by old burns. The rest of him was exposed to the cold air, his skin dark and tanned like sunbaked earth, smooth over hard muscle. No scars. No burns. Just the unsettling perfection of something that did not age or weather like ordinary flesh — as if the fire and the claws and the night in the Shadowfern had left no record on him at all. His hair was short and dark. His eyes glowed gold even in the daylight, a faint luminescence that made the air around his face seem to shimmer. No one approached. No one dared.
A wounded soldier stumbled past him, bleeding from a gash across the thigh, too weak to walk straight. The man tripped on a rut in the mud, his body tilting toward Thal.
Thal didn't move. Didn't extend a hand. Didn't shift his weight. The soldier crashed into the mud beside him, looked up, and dragged himself away without a word, clutching his wound.
Thal returned his gaze to the horizon.
A fly buzzed near his face, circling the dried blood on his temple. He did not blink. He did not twitch. Then the air imploded.
The fly vanished. Thal's hand remained at his side, motionless — but the wind hit Elira three seconds later. A hot blast that smelled of ozone and scorched air, flattening the grass in a perfect circle around Thal's feet. The force of it rattled the broken cartwheel she sat on.
Valen sat close, a flask resting between his boots, his expression unusually serious. "He is calmed down."
Elira did not respond. She was staring at the grass. It lay pressed against the earth in a three-metre radius, every blade pointing away from where Thal stood.
Nyra paced nearby, her voice low. "No. He is resting."
Valen blinked. "Same thing, is it not?"
"Not with him."
Luken approached quietly, staff slung across his back, his illusion still in place. He looked at Elira, though her gaze had not moved. "What are you thinking?"
Elira narrowed her eyes. "Back there. When we came to the ridge. All those bodies. Every single one of them slaughtered. Fast."
Nyra nodded. "We knew that."
"But we did not hear it." Elira turned her head now, slowly and deliberately. "Think about that. That many creatures dying, bones snapping, bodies flying — and we did not hear it happen. Not even a whisper."
Valen creased his brow. "You think he killed them that fast?"
Elira looked down at the dried blood on her armour, the soot caked into the crease of her fingers. "Faster. But that is not what bothers me."
She stood up, brushing dirt from her armour, and walked toward the edge of the clearing where the ridge began. The others followed. She stopped at the line of death, where the enemy had been cut down.
"Look at the ground," she said.
They looked. The earth was not just disturbed — it was scoured. Massive gouges tore through the soil, deep channels where something had dug in and propelled itself forward with impossible force. Topsoil had been stripped away in patterns that spiralled outward from points where bodies lay — and the bodies themselves were not where they had fallen. They were where they had landed, limbs twisted by forces that had nothing to do with blades, scattered like things thrown rather than killed, the distance between them and the nearest gouge telling its own story about the speed that had put them there. Trees lay on their sides, massive root balls exposed to the air, clods of earth still hanging from the tangled wood, the ground beneath them ripped open like a wound. Small stones had been driven into tree trunks like bullets. The air itself had burned the leaves on the low shrubs, blackening them in perfect hemispheres.
"He moves," Elira said quietly, "and the world breaks around him."
Luken folded his arms. "I have seen him kill. He is not subtle. That kind of power does not sneak."
Elira pointed at one of the uprooted trees, its roots exposed and soil still crumbling from them. The trunk had been sheared off cleanly — but the cut was not from a blade. The wood had been pulverised by air pressure alone.
"He is not sneaking," she said. "He is just moving faster than the sound can carry. Faster than the air can get out of his way."
She walked back toward the camp, her boots crunching on the scorched earth. She stopped twenty paces from Thal and watched him.
"He walks with us," she said. "Always. Even in battle. Heavy steps. Slow turns. But when he is alone, he moves like that." She gestured at the devastation on the ridge. "And the world tears itself apart around him."
Nyra frowned. "He has always been fast."
"Has he?" Elira dropped her voice. "Or does he only walk slowly when we are around?"
Luken blinked, his expression shifting. He looked at Thal, then back at the ridge where the bodies lay among the exposed roots and torn earth. "No," he said slowly. "He always moves like that. With us. When we are around."
Valen slowly leaned back, eyes widening. "He has never run when we were nearby. Not once. Not during any of the fights. Not even when we were surrounded. He walks. Every time."
Elira watched Nyra's face go pale. The woman's mind seemed to be flicking back through all their travels — the slow and steady footfalls behind them, the way she always ran ahead, the way he never pushed past them no matter the danger. Even against the Harbinger.
Elira exhaled, her gaze sharp. "You ever wonder what would happen if he did not hold back?"
Valen let out a nervous laugh, then cut it short when no one joined in.
Luken looked toward Thal, still standing silently as soldiers passed him by like he was not real. "Why would he hold back?"
Elira's voice was quiet. "Because if he did not, we would be caught in the crossfire. The wind alone would break our bones. The shockwave would crush our organs."
The words landed. Elira watched them hit. Valen stood with wide eyes. Luken's jaw tightened. Nyra just stared.
Elira could see it dawning on all of them. Thal had never run beside them. Never surged ahead. Never exploded into motion when they were near — but the moment he was alone, with no one around to shield, he moved like a blade drawn across a battlefield. Like war incarnate, leaving devastation in his wake.
Elira looked toward Thal again, her voice nearly a whisper. "He was not just holding back for our sake. He was protecting us from himself."
Nyra swallowed hard, unable to tear her eyes from him. The silence that followed had too much in it to speak through.
Then a deep snorting exhale rolled up behind them like a burst of wind from a forge bellows. Nyra nearly jumped out of her skin.
She spun around, axe half-raised by instinct before recognition hit her. "Tar!" she hissed, lowering the weapon, hand over her chest. "You cannot just sneak up on people like that!"
The enormous Minotaur stood there in his full and silent glory, arms crossed and nostrils still flaring from the amused breath he had let out. His dark fur was matted with dried blood and soot but his wide shoulders were relaxed, his hooves sunken deep in the churned-up earth. His horned head tilted slightly, eyes gleaming with quiet satisfaction at her reaction.
Despite her frustration, Nyra cracked a grin. "You enjoyed that, did you not?"
Tar gave no verbal answer but the way his massive chest rumbled — a low huff somewhere between a growl and a chuckle — was answer enough.
Elira turned from where she stood and did a full double take. She had fought monsters. Killed her share. But something about Tar made her instinctively adjust her grip on her glaive — not from fear, just sheer reflex. He towered over them. Easily two heads taller than Thal. And yet there was something measured about him. Something deliberate. The violence in him wasn't on the surface the way it was with everything else on this battlefield.
"Elira," Nyra said, catching her expression. "Meet Tar."
Elira blinked once. Twice. Then gave a slow, low whistle. "You were not kidding when you said he was big."
Tar's ears twitched slightly at the sound but he made no move toward her. His attention remained mostly on the trio. When his eyes settled on Luken, Elira saw the mage stiffen on instinct. Valen did not even try to hide his unease, stepping behind Nyra without a shred of shame.
"He does not talk," Nyra said with a smirk. "But do not let that fool you. He understands everything."
Valen raised an eyebrow. "Everything?"
Tar slowly turned his head toward him.
Valen quickly looked away. "Right. Got it."
Elira studied him with an experienced eye. "One of Thal's companions?"
Nyra nodded. "Since before I met Thal. Tar and his sister, Tor. He raised them."
Elira did not hide her surprise. Her eyebrows lifted, her head turning back to study the scars on Tar's arms. "Not trained them. Raised?"
"Both," Nyra said, softer now. "They are like family."
Elira took another step, slow and deliberate. "He looks like he could uproot a building."
"He probably has," Valen muttered.
Tar rumbled again — deep and low in his chest. He moved closer to Nyra and lightly bumped her shoulder with one massive hand, careful not to unbalance her.
She smiled up at him. "I am fine."
He did not seem convinced. Elira watched him sniff Nyra's hair once with a slow exhale before stepping beside her. His gaze drifted forward, settling in the direction of Thal.
Elira followed it, her lips tightening. "If that one is the blade," she muttered, "then this one is the hammer."
Luken finally relaxed, his grip on his staff loosening slightly. "And together they are unstoppable."
Elira crossed her arms. "I do not know what kind of war we are in anymore. But I am starting to think we are not the ones leading it."
Nyra glanced sideways at her. "Then who is?"
Elira didn't answer. She just looked at Thal. Then at Tar. And said nothing.
Tar, still looming at the field's edge, gave a low grunt and turned from the battered horizon. He moved without urgency, the earth crunching beneath his hooves with each deliberate step. He walked to a fallen log at the edge of the clearing — large, moss-caked, half-rotten but solid enough — and sat heavily, the log creaking under his weight and immediately tilting toward him.
Nyra followed without thinking. She did not need an invitation.
She did not react fast enough to the tilt. With a slight thunk she slid halfway down the bark and bumped shoulder-first into Tar's thick side.
"Really?" she muttered.
A low rumble echoed from his chest. Not quite a laugh but close. His tail flicked once behind the log, rhythmically, like a cat toying with something just out of reach.
Nyra smirked. "You are enjoying this too much."
Tar glanced down at her, eyes half-lidded and ears twitching slightly, and then looked back out across the field, utterly content.
Valen and Luken watched from a short distance away, both leaning on the remnants of a broken wagon. Elira stood nearby, eyes moving between the group and the larger figures around them.
"That thing has got a sense of humor," Valen muttered. "Never thought I would say that about a Minotaur."
Luken did not respond but his expression had softened slightly.
Then Tar did something that made everyone pause. He looked up, took a deep breath, and let out a low and distinct call — a deep-chested sound that was not quite a word but was unmistakably directed at Thal. Not loud. Not a shout. But Thal heard it.
Even from across the clearing, standing halfway behind the edge of broken ruins, his head turned slightly — just enough to reveal one golden eye beneath the short curtain of his dark hair. That singular eye locked onto Tar for a heartbeat.
Then he turned away and walked on. No nod. No call back. No shift in pace. Just a calm departure, as if the sound had not reached him.
Nyra frowned. "That is odd."
Valen stepped up, arms crossed. "He never ignores Tar. Tar grunts, Thal listens. Tar points, Thal goes."
Elira glanced between them. "You all say that like it is normal."
"It is," Nyra replied. "Well, normally."
Tar was still watching the place where Thal had vanished behind the smoke-veiled tree line, his ears slightly drawn back. He did not seem hurt. No tension in his massive shoulders. No wounded posture. Just awareness. His tail had stopped flicking.
Luken looked to Nyra, then back to the horizon. "He heard him. You saw it too. But he did not come."
"Did not even hesitate," Valen added. "Just walked away."
Nyra was quiet for a long moment, eyes fixed on the line of trees Thal had passed through. "Something is off," she said softly. "He always responds. To Tar, at least."
Elira tilted her head. "Maybe he is just tired. Or thinking."
"No," Luken muttered. "That is not it."
Nyra did not answer. Her jaw was clenched. Tar stayed perfectly still, as if whatever that moment had been, it had spoken louder to him than to any of them.
Elira watched the Minotaur's face, trying to read what he understood that the rest of them did not. But Tar gave nothing away. He simply sat there, massive and motionless, staring at the empty tree line where Thal had disappeared.