The smoke hung low over the square like a living thing that had settled there to watch the outcome.
Baron Edric stood beneath it, sabres steady in his hands.
Blood ran from a dozen shallow wounds across his arms and face.
None of them mattered. Pain was a distant signal, acknowledged and dismissed. The square was still a muffled roar, the ringing in his ears fading into a thick, underwater silence. He didn't need to hear to see the shape of the battlefield. What mattered was what still moved.
Gunthar was gone.
The puppets were not.
They came forward in silence, stepping over the bodies of their own fallen without hesitation. Some limped, joints cracked and twisted by the explosion. Others dragged broken limbs behind them. One still burned, slow orange flame licking at its shoulder, the smell of cooked flesh trailing in its wake.
None of them stopped.
They advanced because something far away told them to advance.
Edric adjusted his grip on the sabres and stepped forward to meet them.
Behind him, Dave forced himself upright, using the broken shaft of a lance as support. Blood ran down the side of his face, soaking into his beard, but his eyes were clear. He spat onto the cobblestones and picked up a fallen shield.
Neither of them spoke about retreat.
Because there was nowhere left to retreat to.
Edric moved through the first puppet without slowing, his right sabre cutting across its throat while the left split the collarbone of the one behind it. He pivoted with the motion, boots grinding against wet stone, and drove his shoulder into another, shoving it back into the press.
Dave stepped into the opening Edric left, shield slamming forward. His lance followed, punching through the eye socket of a puppet that stumbled too close.
They fought as they always had. Instinct carried them where thought would only slow them.
Simply doing what had to be done.
But there were too many.
There had always been too many.
Edric could feel it now in the slowing of his arms, in the fractionally longer breath between movements. The body had limits. Discipline allowed him to ignore them, but it could not erase them.
Another puppet lunged.
He killed it.
Another took its place.
He killed that one too.
And another.
And another.
And another.
They did not stop.
A scream rose somewhere behind him. One of the younger soldiers.
It ended abruptly in a wet choking sound.
Edric did not turn.
He could not afford to.
He stepped forward again, sabres rising, cutting, moving, buying seconds with every drop of blood spilled.
Above him, something black moved through the smoke.
A raven.
It descended in a sharp dive and struck a puppet full in the face, its beak driving deep into the creature's eye.
The puppet staggered, arms flailing blindly, and Edric finished it with a single clean cut.
Another raven followed.
Then another.
They came in silent arcs, black wings cutting through the ash-choked air, striking eyes, tearing flesh, disrupting movement.
The puppets faltered.
slowed.
Edric noticed.
Because he noticed everything.
Movement appeared at the far edge of the square.
Men.
They moved with purpose, spreading naturally, each taking a position without needing instruction.
The first of them cut down a puppet with a precise strike to the neck, already moving to the next before the body hit the ground.
Another slid low beneath a grasping arm and drove his blade upward into the base of a skull.
A third planted his feet and split a puppet from shoulder to sternum with a two-handed blow that carried no wasted motion.
They fought like men who had spent their lives doing nothing else.
Edric saw the one at their centre.
Kaavi.
Kaavi's eyes met his across the square.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Kaavi inclined his head, just slightly.
Respect. Acknowledgment.
Edric stepped forward and cut down another puppet before answering.
"Not the help I was expecting," he said.
His voice carried across the distance, calm despite the blood running down his face.
"But it is appreciated."
Kaavi's expression did not change.
He simply moved past him, his blade flashing once, opening the throat of a puppet that had come too close.
Behind Kaavi, his men spread through the line.
Dave saw them and frowned.
He recognized Kaavi.
But not the others.
He stepped closer to Edric, keeping his shield raised as he spoke.
"You didn't tell me he was here," Dave said.
Edric did not look at him.
"I didn't know he would be."
Dave had questions but accepted that answer.
Above them, the ravens descended again.
Another raven drove itself into a puppet's throat, claws digging in, beak tearing at flesh that did not bleed properly. The puppet grabbed it and ripped it free, tearing half its body open. Its entrails spilled across dead fingers before it was cast aside like refuse.
More came.
They obeyed because he asked them to.
Because there was nothing else left to use.
Each death carved something out of him.
Hardening him.
He did not look away.
Because he was the one doing this.
Kaavi stepped forward, his blade low and controlled, his breathing steady despite the strain clawing at the edges of his mind.
He could feel them. Every single one of them.
Every frantic pulse of the small hearts above him.
Through the thin thread of will he forced into them.
Another raven dove.
Struck a puppet directly in the eye, its beak driving deep with enough force to split the socket. The creature staggered, arms flailing blindly, but it was not enough to stop it. Cold, dead fingers closed around the bird mid-beat.
There was a sharp, wet crunch.
The raven's wings snapped backward. Its body convulsed once, twice, then hung limp as the puppet crushed the life from it. Kaavi felt the thread inside him snap. A hollow ache bloomed in his chest…another small life traded for another few seconds of time.
Liran moved through the opening instantly.
His blade flashed once, separating spine from skull in a clean, merciless line.
He did not pause to watch it fall.
Corren fought beside him, heavier in motion but no less precise. He caught a puppet's arm as it swung and turned with it, using its own momentum to break the elbow backward before driving his sword up through the base of its jaw.
Tannic remained behind them, bow already half drawn before his feet stopped moving. His arrow struck a puppet through the exposed throat, the force of the impact spinning it sideways.
He reached for another arrow before the first body hit the ground.
Edric watched them work.
Not with surprise.
With recognition.
His soldiers did not understand what they were seeing. But Edric did.
A puppet lunged toward Kaavi from his blind side.
Before Veyl could move, a shape burst from beneath a collapsed cart.
A dog.
Half-starved. Ribs visible beneath matted fur. One ear torn down the middle.
It leapt upward, jaws locking around the puppet's throat.
Its teeth could not kill.
But they did not need to.
The distraction was enough.
Veyl stepped in and ended it with a single thrust.
The dog released the corpse and stumbled backward, panting, blood running from its mouth where teeth had broken against unfeeling flesh.
It looked at Kaavi.
Just for a moment.
He felt its fear.
Its pain. Its trust.
He released it.
It limped away into the smoke.
He could not afford to use it again.
More shapes moved in the debris.
Rats.
Dozens of them.
Driven by hunger. By instinct. By the thin, fragile pressure of his will.
They swarmed over fallen puppets, biting and tearing at exposed tissue, slipping into wounds and hollow places.
They did not kill.
They disrupted.
They slowed.
And slowing was enough.
Because the Hallow Swords finished what they began.
Dave watched all of it with narrowed eyes.
He had seen strange things in war.
But never something like this.
He stepped beside Edric again, shield raised, breathing harder now but still steady.
A puppet broke through the thinning edge of the press and charged toward them, faster than the others.
Edric met it head-on.
His sabre cut across its throat.
Dave's shield smashed into its chest.
It fell.
The space in front of them widened.
Not much, but enough.
Edric stepped forward into it.
Claimed it.
Held it.
Behind him, soldiers who had expected to die minutes ago now found themselves breathing.
Still alive.
Still fighting.
Hope was a dangerous thing.
But it was also a weapon.
One they wielded carefully.
Kaavi felt the strain building now.
Each creature he guided pulled at him.
Each thread of control burned deeper into his thoughts.
He could not hold it forever.
Only until the line stood on its own again.
He released another raven.
It wheeled upward instantly, freed from his will, vanishing into the smoke.
One less life demanded from him.
One less sacrifice.
Edric stepped beside him.
For a moment, they fought in silence.
Two old men.
Two survivors.
Edric spat blood, his eyes never leaving the horde. "You look worse than the last time I saw you, Kaavi."
Kaavi's blade flashed, a silver streak in the ash. "And you, Baron, look exactly the same. Stubborn enough to die twice."
Edric considered that. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Once was enough."
Around them, the battle continued. But it no longer felt like an ending.
It felt like resistance.