Ethan Kai's knuckles were white on the shotgun's stock. The wood felt real, solid, a stark contrast to the swirling thoughts in his head. Below, a man in armor spoke of burning children, and for the first time since he had woken up in this splintered, rotting barn, something cut through the confusion.
He could stay here. Hidden in the hay-scented dark of the loft, he could just be a ghost. A witness. He owed these people nothing. Though he knew what world this was, he still did not know the timeframe, nor what rules it played by. Survival was about staying quiet. Staying unseen.
Not your fight, a cold, practical voice in his head whispered. It sounded like his old First Sergeant.
But then he looked down again, at the small boy sitting rigid with terror, and another voice, one he had been trying to bury for years, answered back. Like hell it isn't.
The old man below, the patriarch of the doomed little family, lifted his head. He was bent and frail, but his eyes were like stones. They fixed on his captors with a calm that was more unnerving than any threat.
"You name us Darkfriends," the old man said. His voice, though worn, did not shake. "Do you know what that means? We are Tuatha'an. The Traveling People. We have never raised a sword. We have never shed blood. The Way of the Leaf forbids it. Would servants of the Shadow walk this world with empty hands?"
The armored men shifted, their leader barking a laugh. "Honeyed words from a doddering fool! The Shadow wears a thousand masks. What better disguise than pretending to be helpless?"
The old man's back straightened. It seemed to cost him, but he did it anyway. "And what better disguise for cruelty than a uniform? You would burn my family in the name of the Light? My daughter carries no blade. My son has never drawn a bow. If you destroy us, it will not be for serving darkness. It will be because your own hearts are starving for a kill."
One of the soldiers flinched. A boy, really. "He speaks blasphemy..."
"No," the old man cut him off. "I speak a truth that stings because you feel it. You say we serve the Shadow? Then let the Pattern decide. Take us to the Aes Sedai, if your faith is more than just an excuse for murder. But to burn the innocent without a trial, that is the Shadow's work."
The barn went quiet. So quiet, the crackle of the torches and bonfire felt loud. The soldiers glanced at each other, their certainty wavering.
"Beware, sons of Aridhol," the older man whispered, but the words carried. "Your fathers once stood proudly for the Light. In their hunger to destroy the Shadow, they invited it into their own souls. You walk that same path."
Aridhol. The name hit them like a fist. One of the boys actually recoiled. The youngest of them, his voice cracking, looked to his commander.
"Captain Dareth, we must do as you ordered. Our great king, the Ironhand, teaches that mercy is a cloak for the Shadow. If we stop now, we betray the Light."
Ironhand. They murmured the name among themselves, a charm against the doubt creeping into their faces. A ward against their own conscience.
Captain Dareth seemed to draw strength from it. His eyes, fever-bright, swept over the captives. "Do you hear, Darkfriends? My men know the truth. Your songs and smiles mean nothing. You dealt with Aridhol's enemies. For that, your threads are cut from the Pattern."
The old tinker's lips curved into a sad, bitter smile. "A captain who leads boys to slaughter the helpless has no authority at all. And if this Ironhand taught you to become the Shadow to serve the Light, then he was lost long before you were."
The challenge hung in the air. Dareth pulled off his helmet with a rasp of steel. He was young, barely twenty. Straw-colored hair was plastered to his brow with sweat. His watery blue eyes darted around, unable to settle, the eyes of a man at war with himself. One by one, his soldiers did the same. They were all just boys. Boys with patchy beards and hollow cheeks, playing at war. And the looks they gave each other were filled with just as much hate as they gave the Tinkers. It was a poison that had turned inward.
One of them, a narrow-faced kid with a broken tooth, let his gaze linger on the mother and daughter. "My Lord Captain," he said, his voice thick with a suggestion that made Ethan's stomach turn, "perhaps we could help them... appreciate the Light's love. A proper farewell before they burn."
Low chuckles passed between the others. Dareth's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. His silence was permission.
The old man's breath rattled in his chest. "You would do such things and still claim the Light's blessing? There is no Shadow greater than what already festers in your souls."
Dareth's face twisted into a mask of rage. "Fool! You mistake cowardice for strength!" He pointed a gauntleted finger. "Sergeant Varyn. Release the father."
A lanky sergeant drew a dagger and sliced the old man's bonds.
"Now," Dareth's voice was like cooling iron. "Give him a blade."
The dagger clattered in the dirt at the old man's feet.
Dareth leaned in, his voice a venomous whisper. "Let us test this faith of yours, old fool. I am going to give your Darkfriend wife and daughter to my men. They will be... thorough in their efforts to teach them love in the Light, again and again and. . . .AGAIN! They will stop only if you pick up that dagger and strike me down. So, what is it to be? Will you cling to your precious Leaf while they are broken before your eyes? Or will you kill to save them?"
The dagger gleamed. The father stared at it, his whole body trembling. Tears streamed down his face. His hands twitched, a war between instinct and belief playing out in his own flesh.
He looked at his daughter, her eyes squeezed shut. He looked at his wife, weeping in silent acceptance. He looked at his son, frozen in a terror too deep for sound.
Ethan held his breath in the loft. Pick it up, he thought. For God's sake, pick it up and fight. He told himself he was waiting for the right moment to intervene, but was he? Or was he just a coward, again, waiting for someone else to make the first move?
The old man's gaze lifted from the dagger. The tears were still there, but the trembling had stopped. A terrible peace had settled over him.
"The Leaf falls when the wind blows," he said, his voice raw but clear. "We do not fight the wind. Pain will come. Death will follow. But the Leaf does not strike back. This is our Way."
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Dareth's face contorted. "Fool!" he snarled, spittle flying from his lips. He grabbed the old man's head, forcing him to watch. "See the Way you claim to love shattered! See your precious Leaf torn apart!" He whirled on his men. "Begin!"
The broken-toothed youth laughed and stepped forward. The mother cried out.
And in the loft, something inside Ethan Kai finally snapped. The debate was over. The waiting was done. The hot fury in his chest did not vanish. It cooled, hardening into something else, something familiar and cold. The part of him that argued and hesitated went quiet. The part that did things took over.
The shotgun felt wrong in his hands now, too loud, too messy. A weapon for a bar fight, for tearing things apart up close. This was not about tearing things apart. This was about taking things off the board. Neatly.
He set the weapon down, the wood making a soft, final sound against the dusty floorboards. The hunting rifle came off his shoulder with a soft whisper of canvas strap against his new jacket. The weight of it settled in his hands, a feeling he knew better than a lover's touch. A cold, clean purpose.
He belly-crawled forward, the old movements coming back unbidden, elbows in, keeping low. Splinters from the loft floor scraped at his palms. He found a wider gap between two warped planks, a perfect dark slot overlooking the fire-lit stage below. He eased the rifle's long barrel through, the metal cool against the wood. He became just another shadow in a barn full of them.
Through the scope, the world snapped into sharp, clear focus. Dareth's head, slick with sweat. The boy-soldier with the broken tooth. They were maybe forty yards away. Maybe fifty. For a man who used to make consistent hits at eight hundred yards, this would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The flickering torchlight was an annoyance, nothing more. A moving target, sure, but a slow one. He let out half a breath and felt his heartbeat slow, the way it always did. The world outside the scope dissolved. There was only the crosshair, the trigger, and the work.
The world in the scope was a small, steady circle of light and shadow. The frantic noise in Ethan's mind went quiet, replaced by a cold calm that rose from a place he had not visited in years or maybe in a dream just the previous day.
He put the crosshairs on Dareth, then moved on. The captain could watch as he wanted the old man to watch. It was counter to the doctrine. Usually, you took out the head so that the body might die, but he wanted to punish this sick punk first. He wanted him to see the death coming for him and know there would be nothing he could do about it.
His gaze found the others, the boys with their firelit, hungry faces. So damn young. The thought was a punch to the gut he had to force down.
Focus.
There. The one with the broken tooth, the one who had made the suggestion about the women. He was inching closer to them now, a clear and immediate threat.
A switch flipped in his head, the same one that had kept him alive in places where thinking too much was a death sentence. The boy with his sneer and his sick appetite stopped being a person. He became Target One.
He's still just a kid, a voice he thought he had buried long ago whispered.
No, the training answered back, cold and absolute. He's a threat. Neutralize the threat.
Ethan let out half a breath, his body still. He squeezed the trigger, a slow, smooth press. The rifle punched back against his shoulder, a solid, familiar jolt.
The crack of the shot was brutally loud in the barn.
Through the scope, the target's head didn't explode like in the movies. It just came apart. A soft red mist hung in the air for a second, then he was on the ground. A sack of loose limbs.
The barn fell into a shocked silence.
Then the feeling hit him, coppery and sharp, a sensation he had not known since his last deployment. The things in the mall had not really caused him grief. They were just things, walking meat. This had been a boy. A piece of shit, yes, but human. For a second, the dusty air of the barn was thick with the memory of Afghan heat, the faces below blurring into others he had spent years trying to forget. A wave of nausea rolled through him. You swore you'd never do this again. That's why you got out! For Sara and for yourself.
His hand moved without his permission, the motion a pure reflex. Thumb up, pull back, push forward, thumb down. The spent casing flicked out into the darkness, a tiny brass echo of the shot. A fresh round clicked home, the sound pulling him back from the edge. Sara had left him, anyway. So, what else was there besides this?
The scope was steady again. One down. Four to go.
Dareth would be last.