The warmth faded slowly.
Enough that they could feel when Asha was no longer nearby.
Kaavi led them deeper.
The channel widened into a broader artery beneath Whitehold. Dry gullies cut through the floor where water once rushed in storms long past
It opened into a low, wide space with several exits, each marked by an arch cut into the brick. The centre dipped slightly, forming a shallow basin where runoff would have pooled. Now it was dry. A cracked stone lip ringed it...enough to sit on, enough to watch every way in.
Tannic gave a short nod. "This is one of them. Matches the map in the files. Good visibility. Two men can cover the whole room."
Gavril grunted. "Perfect place to sit on our asses."
Veyl moved to one of the side arches, scanning, then stepped back in. "No movement. At least for now."
Corren and Tannic took the first watch spots without needing to be told... one at the northern arch, one angled toward the east. Liran lowered his pack and began pulling out bandages and a small roll of salve.
"Take off the coat," Liran said.
Gavril frowned. "I'm fine."
"You're walking crooked and breathing like a broken bellows." Liran shot back. "Coat. Now."
Gavril hesitated, then shrugged out of the heavy layer with a suppressed hiss. The movement sent a sharp spike through his side that made his vision blur for a heartbeat.
Liran's eyes narrowed when he saw the spreading bruise beneath the leather. "That's not looking fine to me."
"Ribs," Gavril muttered. "They'll heal."
"Not if you snap them worse because you're stubborn," Liran said. "Now hold still."
The salve was cold, then hot. Fingers pressed along bone, testing for give. Gavril gritted his teeth and stared past Liran's shoulder at the far wall.
"Don't crack in front of the boy", he told himself. "Not now."
Viktor sat a short distance away, back against the stone, knees drawn close, watching silently. His eyes still had that too-wide look, but his breathing was steadier now. He kept glancing toward Kaavi like a tether checking its anchor.
Kaavi remained standing for a time, listening.
Snow-muted sound from above came as distant, muffled thumps. No distinct clash, no screams. Just the constant, low murmur of a city still being eaten.
Finally, he sat as well, resting his sword across his lap. The posture said he was at rest.
His eyes did not.
Gavril watched him for a moment, then looked toward the tunnel Asha had taken.
"It's colder," he said, almost to himself.
Veyl, settling opposite him, raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Here," Gavril said. "Tunnel. The air, it Feels much colder suddenly."
Liran smirked quietly as he secured the bandage around Gavril's ribs. "Careful. You're starting to sound like you miss her."
Gavril snorted. The sound came out rougher than he intended. "I miss anyone who can turn a pack of puppets into ash before they grab my throat."
"So," Liran said, tying the cloth off, "you're falling for the mage."
Gavril shot him a look. "I got my ribs kicked in by a crazy bald shorty. I'm not in love. I'm in pain."
"Both can happen at once," Tannic called softly from the arch without turning.
Corren coughed to hide a laugh.
Gavril grumbled and pulled his coat back on. The bandage helped. Every breath still hurt, but the pieces felt held together now rather than rattling loose.
"Warm around her," he thought despite himself, "… it does feel nice around her. Too damn nice. Dangerous thought… focus, Gavril focus."
He shoved the thought aside.
They weren't done yet.
Viktor shifted closer to Kaavi, voice quiet. "Do you think Joren.... will he be alright?"
Kaavi looked at him.
"I cannot be certain," he said. "He knows how to choose a position. How to spend his strength without wasting it."
"That's not a yes," Viktor said, barely audible.
"It's the truth," Kaavi replied. "it's all I can tell."
Viktor looked down…and nodded once.
Kaavi rested one hand briefly on the boy's shoulder.
"Don't worry kid, Joren is not easy to kill. We'll plan as if he's still standing until we know otherwise." Said Liran.
Liran leaned his head back against the cold brick, staring up at the dark curve of the ceiling.
"You think she can really drag him out of there?" he asked. "One mage against whatever's left?"
Gavril considered the question, then answered in the same level tone.
"She walked into a city full of puppets alone and found us. She burned a line through their ranks without hitting the boy. She knows more about what waits out there than we do right now." A small pause. "If anyone can cut a path to Joren and back in one piece, maybe it's her."
"That's almost optimism," Liran murmured.
"It's calculation," Kaavi replied.
He lifted his head, eyes tracking each man in turn.
"We use this pause. Drink. Eat, rest and when she returns with Joren, we move for the Baron. There won't be another pause after that."
Veyl's gaze was fixed on the nearest arch. "And if she doesn't return?"
"She will," Viktor said suddenly.
They all glanced his way.
He swallowed but didn't back down. "She told us to wait. And she… she doesn't talk like someone who breaks her word."
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the faint drip of water somewhere deeper in the dark.
Gavril huffed, a small breath. "Then we wait," he said. "And I'll complain later if she makes a liar out of you, kid."
They fell quiet after that.
Tannic tuned the tension of his bowstring, Corren checked the edges of his blade. Liran rolled his shoulders to keep them loose. Veyl watched the dark like it owed him answers.
Kaavi closed his eyes...not to sleep, but to map routes, distances, pressure points in his mind. Viktor sat close enough that their shoulders almost touched, drawing steadiness from proximity alone.
For the first time in hours, none of them were moving.
Only the city was.
Somewhere above, snow kept falling.
And somewhere behind them, flame was cutting its way back through the dark.
Back at the courtyard
The courtyard stank of iron and old smoke.
Snow had been trampled into filth...red and brown and black. Bodies lay in frozen heaps. Some still twitched with life.
Joren stood in the middle of it; boots planted in a slick of half-frozen blood.
His breath came harsh and white in the air.
"How many now?" he muttered to himself.
He didn't know anymore.
Ten? Twenty? More?
It didn't matter. The only number that mattered was how many still moved.
Two citizen puppets shuffled toward him from the left, a third from the right. Behind them, a soldier-class stepped over a collapsed cart, sword and shield held with the steady balance of long-trained hands.
He could feel the weight of his own blades. The long sword dragged a little at his grip. The shorter one felt better, closer, sharper, but the arm holding it was beginning to shake.
"This is fine,I've been worse".
The first one came straight at him, knife out, arm stiff.
Joren stepped in, turned his body just enough, and let the thing's weight carry its arm past him. His short blade flashed once, cutting through the exposed neck. He was already moving away before it dropped.
The second tried to catch him off-balance. He pivoted, sword edge catching its wrist, then its throat. Quick. Controlled.
The third took the opportunity to charge in clumsier, arms wide as if to tackle.
Joren let the puppet hit his shoulder, rode the impact, then twisted and used its own momentum to hurl it into the soldier behind.
Both went down in a tangle.
He stepped back, buying a breath.
The soldier puppet pushed the corpse aside and rose. Its movements were smoother. More deliberate. The shield came up and the sword followed.
Joren watched its feet.
Heels even. "No limp. Stronger side... right."
The puppet advanced, three measured steps, then cut.
The blade came in an oblique arc, meant to cut from shoulder to hip. Joren met it with both blades at once, catching and sliding it aside. The jolt bit all the way up his arms into his shoulders.
Then he stepped inside its guard and rammed his knee into its thigh.
Bone cracked.
"Not enough."
He then slashed across the exposed neck once... twice.
Tendons parted. The puppet staggered, head tilting at an angle.
It still tried to raise its sword.
Joren buried his shorter blade into the base of its skull and wrenched.
Silence followed.
He stood there, breathing, listening.
Movement.
He turned.
More shapes emerged from the haze between broken walls and burnt-out doorways. Six, then eight. Some limped. Some were missing fingers, an ear, half a jaw. One dragged its own entrails behind like a rope.
All moved toward him.
Joren rolled his shoulders once, testing his arms.
"I can take them," he told himself...
The first came with a rusted hatchet. He cut its wrist, turned, stabbed its throat. The second had a spear; he knocked it aside, stepped in, slit its spine where neck met shoulder. The third had no weapon at all, just clawing hands; he kicked its knee out and finished it with a downward stab.
He felt every impact now.
Small cuts opened along his forearms where blades had glanced. A shallow stab grazed his hip when he misjudged a reach. He ignored them.
Blood made the hilts slick. He tightened his grip and changed nothing.
Three puppets went down.
Then four.
Then...
The fifth one didn't move like the others.
It stepped over its fallen with steady footing. The armour on its chest was thicker. A dent showed where someone else's weapon had tried and failed to crack it. In its hands, it carried a mace...iron headed, studded. Heavy.
Joren shifted his stance the moment he saw it.
"That one first."
He ran toward the puppet.
A smaller puppet lunged from his flank, blade scraping along his thigh. He cut it almost in passing, teeth clenched against the sudden flare of pain.
The mace wielder closed the last few steps.
The weapon arced up to the side, then swung in at rib height.
He didn't have room to dodge.
Instinct and training moved faster than thought. Joren brought his left forearm up, blades crossing beneath it, bracing to catch the haft and push it away.
The mace struck.
Pain didn't come first.
The sound did.
A crunch, deep and wet, from inside his own arm. A sharp vibration up into his shoulder.
Then the white-hot lance hit.
The world narrowed to that single point of agony. His left arm almost vanished from his sense of the world...there, but distant, like it belonged to someone else. His fingers spasmed and lost their grip. The short blade clattered from his hand.
He staggered back, vision swimming for half a heartbeat.
The mace puppet stepped in to finish it, raising the weapon again.
Joren forced his legs to move sideways instead of backward. The second blow missed his chest by inches, smashing into the stone at his feet and sending up a burst of shattered ice.
He couldn't feel his left hand.
He didn't look at it.
Every breath came jagged now.
He pivoted around the mace puppet, staying just outside its range of attack, forcing it to keep turning with him. Smaller puppets tried to dart in; he cut them down as they came, his world shrinking, the rhythm of footfalls and the whistle of the mace.
"One arm. Still enough."
The mace came in again. He ducked under it, felt the wind of it ruffle his hair, then cut at the back of the puppet's knee. Tendons severed. It dropped to one leg, balance broken.
He drove his sword into its neck from the side, both hands trying to push...
His left arm screamed in protest, strength failing. The blade bit through halfway, lodging in bone.
The puppet still grabbed for him.
Joren let the sword go and kicked the body backward, wrenching the weapon free by boot and momentum.
He retrieved the hilt with his right hand, chest heaving.
Blood dripped from his side now. From his leg. From a cut above his eye that blurred the world in red at the edge of his sight.
Three puppets remained.
Then two.
Then...
His legs buckled.
Just for a moment. One knee hit the frozen ground. The shock ran up through his spine, rattling something loose inside his chest.
He braced the sword as a cane and pushed himself back to his feet.
One puppet with a sword. One with a spear. One with nothing but broken hands.
They closed in.
He smiled at them. The expression felt strange on his face.
"Well," he breathed. "Come on, then."
The one with the spear moved first.
He cut the shaft in half, then cut its throat.
The puppet with the sword swung.
He knocked the blade away, but it was not enough. Steel grazed his shoulder and bit into the muscle. Heat flooded down his arm as blood soaked his sleeve.
He stumbled.
The hand-walker reached for his leg. He stamped its skull into the ground without looking.
The sword puppet brought its blade back, ready to thrust.
Joren tried to raise his own sword in time.
His body didn't answer fast enough.
The puppet drove the blade into his side. Low, under the ribs. Not deep enough to kill instantly... but deep enough.
He grunted, the sound forced out of him.
Then he stepped in despite it.
The move surprised the puppet...if such a thing could be surprised. Its blade was still inside him when he rammed his own sword up through its jaw and out the back of its skull.
They hung there together for a breath. Then both pulled away at the same time.
The puppet fell.
Joren stayed upright.
Barely.
The courtyard tilted around him, then steadied. His vision pulsed at the edges. The cold was gone. He felt hot. Too hot.
He could hear them again.
More footsteps.
Four? Six? Ten?
It was hard to count through the throbbing in his arm and his side.
He turned toward the sound.
Half a dozen soldier-class puppets stood at the far end of the yard, arrayed near the shattered gate. Their armour was cleaner. Their blades less rusted. They began to advance, boots crunching in unison.
He adjusted his grip on his sword with his right hand. His left arm hung, weight dragging at his shoulder.
"Alright, this is it, then."
He stepped forward to meet them.
They spread, forming a rough half-circle.
One raised its sword.
Joren brought his weapon up as well. It shook slightly in his hand. He set his feet, grounding himself for one last push.
"I am not dying easily, you bastards." he rasped, "Come!!!"
The first puppet lunged.
He moved to parry...
...and the world turned to fire.
It came down like a wall.
Flame roared past him from the side, so hot the air itself seemed to scream. It smashed into the advancing puppets with the force of a storm. Cloth, flesh, and old leather ignited instantly. Steel glowed dull red, then blackened. The soldiers at the front staggered under the impact, armour warping, joints seizing as heat bit into tendon and flesh.
They didn't even have time to fall properly.
They simply collapsed, weapons dropping from hands.
Joren flinched reflexively, raising his arm to shield his face...but the fire never touched him. The heat kissed his skin, seared the cold from his bones, then rolled past, hugging the ground in a controlled sweep.
Another wave followed, lower, focused, finishing what the first had started.
When the flames died, the courtyard was brighter than it had been all day.
Bodies smouldered. Ash drifted where snow had been.
Steam rose faintly from the wet stone.
Only one figure moved through it.
She walked toward him like the fire had simply decided to carry her.
Asha's cloak snapped once in the heated air before settling against her boots. The embers around her feet curled in toward her steps, reacting like they recognised their source. Stray flames flickered along her fingers, then died at a flex of her hand.
She took in the scene with one swift sweep of her eyes.
The bodies.
The burned armour.
The man who was somehow still on his feet.
"Captain Joren," she said.
"You chose a dramatic place for your last stand," she said. "Forgive me but I cannot let you die yet."
He let out a rough, breathless sound that might have been a laugh.
"I had to find the others first," Asha replied. "Would've been a shame to drag you out just to tell you they'd died in another corner."
His knees threatened to give.
She crossed the distance between them in a single step and slid her shoulder under his good arm before he could hit the ground.
"Easy," she said. "You're no good to anyone face."
Pain flared as her movement jostled his wounded side. He hissed between his teeth. "Left arm's broken," he said.
"I can see that," she murmured.
Up close, she smelled faintly of smoke and something cleaner beneath it...copper and pine resin.
Her free hand moved with quick efficiency, checking the worst wounds...a stab in his side, the gash at his shoulder, the way his ribs rose and fell.
"You're stubborn," she said. "That's working in your favour."
"Going to complain about it?" Joren asked.
"Later," Asha said. "When you're not bleeding."
She knelt just long enough to tear a strip from the edge of her cloak and fashioned a crude sling for his broken arm, binding it tight against his chest. Each touch sent sparks of pain through his body, but her hands were steady, certain.
"Can you walk?" she asked.
"yes" he said.
He considered the distance back the way she had come. Considered how the courtyard swayed when he blinked.
"I can walk," he said finally. "Might curse a lot, though."
"I've heard worse," Asha replied. "Your Comrades. They're waiting in the canals."
Joren's eyes closed briefly in relief. When he opened them again, the world swam a little less.
"Good," he breathed.
Asha shifted her stance, bracing under his weight as they turned away from the dead.
"Lean on me when you have to," she said.
He let out a low chuckle that turned into a cough.
They passed through the ruined archway together. The snow outside the courtyard was still falling in small, quiet flakes, untouched by the inferno she'd brought to bear inside.
Behind them, the last embers cooled on the stone.
Ahead, the dark of the drainage tunnels waited, ready to swallow them.
Asha tightened her grip on him as his steps faltered once on the descent.
"Don't sleep yet," she said. "Your friends are waiting to see your face."
Joren managed a faint, crooked smile.
The spark that was Asha carried him down into the dark, back toward the others, leaving a courtyard of ash and cooling iron behind.