The city's southern quarter...the old industrial ward...groaned under the weight of ruin.
Stone walls cracked from fire. Iron beams bent. And beneath the pale sky, the courtyard of the abandoned forge had become a graveyard of twisted bodies...citizens turned puppets, soldiers hollowed out, men and women moved by strings pulled from far away.
Kaavi stood at the edge of the broken doorway, boots planted in drifting snow, sword low and steady at his side. His breath was calm, frost curling from his lips. The air around him vibrated faintly...not with fear, but with focus.
Behind him, Joren assessed the courtyard through its shifting screens of smoke. The ground here was dangerous… wide-open space with collapsed sheds, scaffolding barely standing, ice pooling around low stone gutters. Places perfect for something or someone to hide behind.
Kaavi closed his eyes for half a heartbeat.
A room of stillness.
The world narrowing to one clean line of thought.
Viktor.
He didn't feel his presence, and every instinct honed by years of war told him the target had shifted.
The boy had become the point of the enemy's pressure.
Joren stepped beside him. "They're gathering near the far end. More than twenty. Maybe thirty."
"They're waiting."
Kaavi exhaled a misty breath. "Snow's carrying sound strangely. Hard to judge where the boy is. Harder to judge what's coming."
Kaavi didn't blink. "We regroup. Find Viktor. Then we move toward the Baron. This is not a fight we hold alone."
Joren gave a slow nod. "Then I'll buy you time."
Kaavi turned sharply. "No."
The refusal was instant, instinctive.
Joren didn't flinch.
"Kaavi," he said softly, "you lead. Veyl waits for you, and the boy needs you. The others trust you too, so return. Someone must hold them here."
Kaavi stepped forward. "If anyone stays, it's me."
Joren's jaw tightened. "You know what happens if you do."
Kaavi's silence answered for him.
Joren placed a hand lightly over his chest plate...a gesture of respect, not reverence. "Baron taught us to choose the cost that saves the most lives. And this is the reason of our existence, to protect."
Kaavi's fingers curled around his sword hilt. His pulse stayed slow...but painful pressure tightened behind his sternum.
"You're not dying here," Kaavi said.
Joren gave a faint, wry smile. "I'll see you soon."
Kaavi took one step closer "Don't make me regret this."
"You won't," Joren replied.
The puppets howled...no sound, but movement, spreading through the courtyard like ants spilling from a cracked shell.
Kaavi turned.
And ran.
The Courtyard Battle
Joren exhaled once and stepped out of the broken doorway.
Snow hissed beneath his boots.
His blades drew free...one short, one long... metal whispering in the air.
Twenty puppets turned toward him.
Ten more edged from the fog.
And in the ruin of a collapsed furnace, two soldier-class puppets... armoured, deathly still… lifted their heads as if some distant voice had called their names.
Joren rolled his shoulders.
"Let's begin, then."
He moved.
And the courtyard turned into a storm.
Kaavi's Descent
Kaavi sprinted across the broken workshop floor. Smoke curled low around his boots.
The forge's back corridor had a stone channel. That led toward the area where Veyl and Viktor were waiting.
The Humming Silence
The corridor narrowed into a stone throat carved decades ago, reinforced by beams darkened from heat. Snow dusted the floor in fine grains. Kaavi's boots barely made a sound as he moved.
His senses extended.
Breath.
Wind.
Movement.
Shadows shifting subtly at unnatural angles.
Everything had a shape in the Mind's Eye when he focused.
Micro-gestures. Light distortion. Footfall vibrations. Breath patterns.
He read the world like a veteran hunter reading a battlefield.
He reached the end of the corridor...stepped into open snow...
...and a puppet lunged from the right.
Kaavi pivoted, blade sweeping up.
Steel cut through the puppet's wrist, deflecting its strike. Kaavi stepped forward, placing his weight perfectly, and slashed backhand, severing its neck.
The body fell as he sheathed the blade in a single controlled motion.
He murmured. "They're rushing now."
He continued. No hesitation.
But the puppets weren't finished.
Three soldier-class puppets spread across the far end of the alley. Their armour was dented, snow-clad, adorned with the faded insignia of Whitehold's fallen defenders.
All three turned toward him in the same instant.
Perfectly synchronized.
Kaavi tightened his grip.
The first puppet attacked with a downward strike… a heavy blow meant to break guards. Kaavi didn't meet it directly. He stepped inside its reach, turning his shoulder, letting the blade whistle past him by inches. His sword flicked once...clean, efficient...cutting through the puppet's exposed neck.
The second puppet lunged.
Kaavi read the angle before the puppet moved...shoulders tightening, foot rotating. He parried at the wrist, twisted, broke the elbow joint with a downward strike, then slit its throat.
The third puppet came with a shield charge.
Kaavi planted his heel, grounded his weight, and braced.
The impact hit him like a falling boulder...but he held.
His left arm absorbed the force, twisting the shield aside. His right blade swept low...
...and severed the puppet's leg.
The creature collapsed, still reaching for him.
Kaavi stepped forward and ended it.
He exhaled once.
His vision pulsed... and a faint warmth edged behind his eyes, the first sign of strain.
Nothing unexpected.
Nothing stopping him.
He wiped the blade on the puppet's cloak and continued.
Veyl
Ahead, he heard a distant clash...a sharp metallic cry, followed by a grunt he recognized instantly.
Veyl.
Kaavi's pace quickened.
He broke through a narrow corridor and stepped into the granary yard...a space half-choked by collapsed beams and snowdrifts.
Bodies lay scattered across the ground.
Veyl stood alone near the stone wall, two puppets twitching at his feet. His blade dripped blackened blood.
He looked up, cold and alert...until he saw Kaavi.
"Kaavi"
Kaavi scanned the battlefield. "Where's the boy?"
Veyl gestured toward a low archway at the edge of the yard. "He escaped through there. But the puppets moved fast. Too many. I lost sight."
Kaavi stepped past him. "Let's go we follow him and regroup with the others."
Kaavi turned.
"Where is Joren?" said Veyl.
Kaavi bowed his head slightly. "Joren's holding the courtyard."
Veyl's face hardened. He knows what it means.
Kaavi didn't flinch...but the air around him sharpened.
"Let's move, we do not have much time." he said.
Veyl nodded, forcing down whatever thought came up in his mind.
Kaavi took the lead.
And they descended toward where Viktor had run.
But just before Kaavi turned away...
The sky above the granary flashed orange.
A pulse of fire.
A distant roar.
A presence like a second sunrise.
Kaavi felt the air vibrate.
"A mage," Kaavi whispered. "A strong one."
Kaavi didn't break stride.
He ran.
For the first time in years, Kaavi moved without restraint... nothing mattered now except reaching Viktor.