Steel had entered just above the collarbone and punched through at an angle that should have ended any ordinary man.
The wound was deep.
Fatal.
Blood ran thick and dark down Gunthar's chest, soaking the torn remains of his coat.
Pinned on all fours, he looked less like a man and more like something dragged halfway back from death and nailed there by force of will alone.
Dave had driven the first through the back of his right leg, the iron head bursting out through muscle near the thigh, pinning him against the broken stone beneath him. Soldiers followed immediately after. One spear through the left shoulder. Another through the ribs. One low through the hip. Another angled through the upper back.
Each strike landed with a wet, resisting sound.
Each one forced him lower.
Each one should have ended him.
Gunthar trembled beneath the weight of it.
Not from weakness.
From effort.
His fingers dug into the cobblestones, nails cracking, hands trembling as his body struggled to rise against the forest of iron that nailed him to the earth.
Blood pooled beneath him.
Steam rose from it where it touched the cold air.
Dave stood over him, breathing hard, shield raised, lance already discarded for the next weapon in reach.
"More!" he shouted, voice raw but steady. "Pin him! Do not let him rise!"
The soldiers obeyed instantly.
They moved without hesitation now.
Fear had been replaced by momentum. Spears drove downward again and again, each one sinking into flesh, into muscle, into anything that would slow the thing beneath them.
Gunthar's body jerked with each impact.
Still, he did not scream.
Edric watched it all in silence.
He bent and retrieved his fallen sabre from the stone.
The familiar weight settled into his grip.
Balanced.
Certain.
Gunthar noticed.
Even pinned, even skewered, even with steel lodged in his neck, his head shifted slightly. His white eyes found Edric.
There was no fear in them.
Only awareness…recognition.
Edric stepped closer.
Each footfall was deliberate. Measured.
The soldiers holding Gunthar down tightened their grips, boots planted against the stone, muscles trembling from the effort of keeping him restrained.
"Hold him," Edric said quietly.
They did.
Gunthar's fingers twitched.
His arm tried to rise.
A soldier drove another spear down through his forearm, pinning it flat to the stone.
The motion stopped.
Edric stepped to Gunthar's side.
He raised his sabre slowly.
The blade caught what little light remained, its edge steady and merciless.
Gunthar watched him.
And for the first time...
He smiled.
Satisfied.
Edric saw it.
Did not question it.
Did not hesitate.
He brought the sabre down.
A sudden explosion came like the sky itself had been struck.
A concussive crack split the air somewhere beyond the square... distant, but vast enough that the world seemed to recoil in its wake. The shockwave followed a heartbeat later, visible before it was felt: a wall of force racing down the street, dragging smoke, ash, and debris with it like a tidal surge made of air.
Then it hit.
The square vanished.
Men were thrown as if gravity itself had turned against them. Soldiers holding the spears lost their footing instantly, bodies ripped backward, hands torn free from the shafts they had been gripping.
Dave was hurled sideways, armour scraping violently against stone as he struck the ground shoulder-first.
Edric felt the impact inside his chest.
His strike never landed.
The force slammed into him, lifting him off his feet and throwing him across the broken cobblestones. His grip broke.
The world became sound.
A high, endless ringing filled his skull, drowning everything else.
Stone shattered.
Wood splintered.
Men cried out ... but the noise came to him distorted, distant, as if he were underwater.
He tried to breathe.
His lungs refused.
Debris fell around him.
Fragments of broken wall. Splinters. Dust.
The shockwave passed.
But its damage remained.
Gunthar was no longer held down.
First, his fingers moved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
They curled against the stone beneath him, testing strength, testing control, as if confirming that the world still obeyed his body.
A spear was still driven through his forearm.
Another through his shoulder.
More through his back, his legs, his ribs.
He ignored them.
He inhaled.
The sound came wet at first. Blood filled his throat where the sabre had been torn free. It ran down his chest in thick streams, pooling beneath him.
Then the bleeding slowed.
It simply… stopped.
Muscle tightened.
Skin crept inward.
The open wound of his throat began to close, the torn flesh drawing together with unnatural patience, as if guided by hands that did not exist.
Gunthar pushed upward.
One arm trembled beneath the weight of his own body. The spears lodged through him bent under the strain, iron grinding softly against bone and stone.
He rose anyway.
The soldiers nearest him froze where they had fallen.
They watched him stand.
Watched the impossible happen in silence.
Gunthar reached behind himself and grasped the first spear embedded in his shoulder.
He pulled.
The iron head slid free with a thick, resisting sound.
Blood followed, for half a second.
Then it stopped.
He let the spear fall. It clattered against the stone.
He removed the next.
And the next.
And the next.
Each one came free slowly.
Calmly.
Without urgency. Without pain.
Steam rose from the wounds.
They sealed before the soldiers' eyes.
Dave saw it from where he struggled on one knee.
His arms trembled. His hearing was still half-gone, the world muffled and distant. Blood ran down the side of his face from where debris had struck him.
He watched Gunthar stand fully upright.
Watched him roll his shoulders once.
Watched him live.
Gunthar turned his head slightly.
His empty eyes found Edric.
The Baron had risen as well.
Barely.
His balance was compromised. His chest ached with every breath. Dust clung to his armour. Blood ran from a cut along his brow into his eye.
Still, he stood.
Still, he held his sabre.
Gunthar studied him.
Then he smiled.
Not mockery or cruelty.
But in approval.
His voice carried across the square, calm and clear despite the ringing that still filled every living ear.
"Although you cannot hear me, Baron…" He paused.
Tilted his head slightly.
"…this was yours."
He flexed his fingers once.
Tested his restored body.
"I am defeated."
There was no bitterness in the words.
Only truth and acknowledgment.
Gunthar reached down and removed the last remaining spear from his leg.
The wound closed behind it.
He stepped backward.
He turned his head slightly toward the distant source of the explosion.
His voice lowered.
Soft.
Intimate.
"Take over, Shepherd."
He looked at Edric…breathing uneven. Blood marked his armour and face, sabre still in his grip, still refusing to yield the ground beneath his feet.
Gunthar watched him for a long moment.
Then he inclined his head slightly.
"Well," he said quietly, almost to himself, "it was an honour to fight you."
He turned his body away, rolling his shoulder once as the last stiffness left it.
"But," he continued, voice calm, distant now, "I am saddened that there will not be a next time."
He paused.
Something made him glance back.
Edric had taken a step.
Unsteady.
Painful.
But forward.
His eyes had not dimmed.
They still burned.
Gunthar saw it.
And he smiled.
"Goodbye, Baron," he said.
"It was a good fight."
Then he bent his knees slightly…and vanished upward.
His body cleared the shattered wall in a single motion, landing atop the broken roof beyond. Snow and ash scattered beneath his feet as he pushed off again, crossing to the next building, then the next, his form fading into smoke and distance until nothing remained but the memory of his presence.
Gone.
As if he had never been.
The silence he left behind did not last.
The puppets began to move again.
At first, only one.
A body half-buried beneath debris twitched. Its arm shifted. Its fingers clawed against stone.
Then another.
A soldier-puppet dragged itself upright despite the length of broken timber embedded through its chest.
Another stood with its jaw hanging loose, neck twisted at an angle no living thing could survive.
Another rose with half its skull crushed inward, one eye missing entirely.
They did not hesitate.
They did not pause.
They advanced.
Edric saw them through blurred vision.
His hearing had not returned. The world remained muted, distant, unreal.
He forced himself upright fully.
His legs trembled.
His body resisted.
He ignored it.
He saw Dave rise beside him.
Saw the man retrieve his shield.
Saw him stand.
Neither spoke.
They did not need to.
The puppets came forward.
Dozens.
More behind them.
Endless.
The explosion had not stopped them.
It had only delayed what was inevitable.
A losing battle.
Edric understood.
This was the end.
"I will die here."
The thought arrived without fear.
He accepted it.
Not as surrender.
As fact.
He adjusted his grip on the sabre.
Turned slightly toward the men still capable of standing.
They looked to him.
Waiting.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Exhausted.
Trusting.
He did not show them the truth he knew.
He gave them something else.
He raised his arm.
"Form up!" he said.
None of them could hear what he said but they knew what he meant.
They moved beside him.
Shield to shield.
Blade to blade.
A line formed.
Small.
Unbreakable.
Edric stepped forward to meet the coming dead.