The battlefield was a graveyard. Smoke drifted low over the valley, carrying the stench of charred flesh and broken steel. What had begun as an expedition, a proud oathbound company, now lay scattered and ruined. Corpses of friends and enemies alike blanketed the scorched ground, their weapons fallen where they had stood their last. The black dragon still writhed halfway through the portal above, its rage shaking heaven and earth, but the survivors no longer dreamed of victory. They spoke only of one desperate gambit.
The altar. The heart of the ritual.
Seraphine knelt beside the shattered line of her soldiers, what few remained standing. Six men, three women, all burned, bleeding, and hollow-eyed. She held her sword across her knees, her face streaked with soot, her breath ragged. "The dragon can't be stopped," she said, her voice a rasp. "But the portal can. Destroy the altar, and the wound closes. We can't slay that beast, but we can cage it."
The soldiers looked to her, faces pale with exhaustion but lit with a flicker of hope. A flicker was enough.
Zeke leaned against a broken cart wheel, one hand pressed to his ribs where blood seeped slow and steady. He chewed on the pain like it was a bad piece of tobacco and said, "Altar's at the center of their camp. Swarming with cultists. Might as well try to steal a steer outta the butcher's pen."
Seraphine's eyes met his. "We don't have a choice."
Zeke grinned, a hard, crooked thing. "Ain't sayin' we don't. Just sayin' it'll take one hell of a distraction."
The silence that followed was heavy. Every soldier there knew what had to be done, and every one of them turned their eyes to him. Zeke saw it, read it, and did not argue. He slid the cylinder open on his revolver, checked the last rounds, snapped it shut with a practiced flick. Then he pulled his knife from his belt and set it beside him.
"Well," he said, his voice easy, as if he were talking about the weather, "reckon that job's mine."
Seraphine shook her head sharply. "No. I need you with me."
"You need me to buy you time," Zeke answered. He straightened, slow but steady, pain making him stiff but not stopping him. "That altar goes down, this whole nightmare ends. You're the only one here can lead what's left of us to it. You know it as well as I do."
Her jaw tightened, eyes flashing. "And what about you?"
He looked out over the valley, where fires burned and cultists prowled like wolves in the dark. "I was never meant to walk away from this, Seraphine. I'm a rider. And every rider knows—sooner or later, you reach the last stretch of trail. Question is how you ride it."
She reached for him, fingers trembling, but he caught her hand, held it firm, then let go.
"Lead them," he said. "End this."
He holstered the revolver, strapped the knife tight, and pulled his saber from the dirt. Then he set off toward the enemy camp, limping, shoulders squared, every step ringing with purpose. Behind him, the soldiers watched in silence. Seraphine's voice finally broke, hoarse and filled with a fire she could not extinguish. "Zeke!"
He didn't turn. He just raised a hand in farewell and kept walking into the dark.
The cultist camp glowed with unnatural fire, runes pulsing across the earth like veins of molten iron. Dozens of robed figures chanted around the altar, their voices weaving into a terrible harmony that shook the air. At the edge of their circle, goblins prowled with blades ready, their eyes gleaming in the unholy light.
Zeke stepped into view, boots crunching on ash. The chanting faltered as the first of them noticed him, a lone rider walking into the jaws of hell. He tipped his hat back, spat dust, and called out, "Evenin', boys."
Then his revolver roared.
The first shot dropped a cultist where he stood. The second tore through a goblin's throat. By the third, the camp was in chaos, shrieks rising as the horde surged toward him. Zeke advanced anyway, firing steady, each pull of the trigger measured and cold. He was outnumbered a hundred to one, but he moved like a man who had been outnumbered his whole life and had stopped caring.
Bullets cracked, bodies fell. When the revolver clicked empty, he spun it once and holstered it calm as Sunday morning. The knife flashed next, the saber singing. He met the first wave head-on, steel cutting through flesh, his boots planted firm. Goblins fell in heaps, cultists screamed as his blade split them. He fought with no thought of survival, only of time—every second he stood was another heartbeat for Seraphine and the others to reach the altar.
They swarmed him. Dozens at once. A staff cracked against his ribs, dropping him to one knee, but he drove his knife up into the attacker's belly, yanked it free, and slashed another across the throat. Blood ran down his arm, soaking his sleeve, but he never slowed. He spun, saber cleaving through two at once, boots kicking another back into the fire. His breath came ragged, his body faltered, but his eyes burned, unbroken.
More came. Always more. They dragged at him, cut him, drove him back step by step until he was ringed in blood and corpses, the earth slick beneath him. His revolver lay empty at his hip. His knife was chipped, his saber notched, but still he stood.
The last stand of a rider.
He spat blood into the dirt and grinned through broken teeth. "Come on, then. Let's finish this dance."
They closed on him, dozens of blades flashing. Zeke swung once more, cutting down two, three, four, before the weight of them bore him down. He fell to one knee, blood running from wounds too many to count. Hands seized him, dragging him low.
And then the symbol on his chest erupted.
Light blazed through the torn fabric of his shirt, searing white-gold, brighter than fire, brighter than the altar's runes. The cultists staggered back, shielding their eyes, their chanting breaking into screams. The goblins hissed and shrank away. Zeke knelt in the center of the storm, head bowed, blood dripping, the mark burning like a star about to shatter.
Above, the dragon roared, its voice shaking the world.
The valley held its breath, and Zeke's heart thundered once more.
The last thing the survivors saw before the smoke swallowed him whole was the glow of his chest, blazing brighter than the night.