The incident in the tavern changed the atmosphere of the caravan. Fenrir Ironhand and his Crimson Hunt mercenaries were no longer just guards; they were a sovereign power.
Even the Hegemony patrols that occasionally passed them on the road gave their wagons a wide, respectful berth.
Zane and Elara kept to themselves, observing.
Elara, in particular, watched Fenrir with a conflicted fascination. He was the antithesis of everything she had been taught. He was brutish, unrefined, and ruled by a simple, violent code.
Yet, there was an undeniable honor in his actions.
He had protected the weak, not because of a divine mandate, but because it was his word, his contract. It was a raw, earthy form of integrity she had never encountered in the perfumed halls of The Sanctum.
Zane, for his part, found Fenrir's existence amusing. A simple problem with a simple, hammer-shaped solution. There was an honesty to it he could appreciate.
Their journey took them through the 'Jagged Teeth', a treacherous mountain pass notorious for ambushes.
The path narrowed, with sheer cliffs rising on one side and a dizzying drop on the other.
The caravan slowed to a crawl, wagons creaking, men and women growing tense, their hands never far from their weapons.
Fenrir stood on the lead wagon, his massive form a silhouette against the gray sky, his eyes scanning the cliffs above.
"Something's wrong," he rumbled, his voice low enough that only those nearby could hear. "It's too quiet. Even the rock-buzzards are gone."
As if his words were a cue, the attack came.
It wasn't a ragged band of bandits. It was an organized, disciplined assault.
From the cliffs above, a hail of heavy, iron-tipped arrows rained down, not at the mercenaries, but at the vulnerable draft animals pulling the wagons.
Simultaneously, massive boulders, dislodged by hidden teams, came crashing down, blocking the path ahead and behind.
They were trapped.
"RAIDERS!" Fenrir's roar was a physical force, cutting through the chaos. "CRIMSON HUNT, FORM A SHIELD WALL! PROTECT THE CIVILIANS!"
The disciplined mercenaries moved with brutal efficiency. Within seconds, they had formed a bulwark of heavy shields and stout spears around the central wagons where the merchants, Zane, and Elara were huddled. Arrows sparked and splintered against the wall of steel.
From the rocks above, dozens of figures emerged.
They were not Hegemony soldiers. They were wild, clad in mismatched armor and furs, their faces painted with snarling, bestial symbols.
They were the mountain clans, raiders notorious for their ferocity.
"They want our cargo," the merchant beside Elara whimpered, his face ashen.
"No," Zane said quietly, his eyes fixed on the raiders' movements. They were too organized. They weren't just grabbing and running. They were surrounding them, tightening a noose.
"They want us. All of us."
The raiders' chieftain, a woman with a shock of white hair and a wicked-looking twin-bladed axe, pointed down at them. "Leave none alive!" she shrieked, and the horde descended the cliffs with reckless, terrifying speed.
What followed was a maelstrom of cinematic violence.
The Crimson Hunt, outnumbered three to one, met the charge head-on. It wasn't a battle of tactics; it was a clash of two immovable forces. The shield wall buckled but held, a grim island of order in a sea of snarling chaos.
Fenrir was the heart of the storm. His war hammer was a blur of motion, a force of pure kinetic fury. He didn't just block; he shattered. A raider's axe met his hammer and the axe exploded into shards. A charging brute was met with a horizontal swing that sent him flying into two of his comrades, scattering them like bowling pins.
Every swing was accompanied by a visceral, bone-jarring CRUNCH. He wasn't just a warrior; he was a human siege engine.
Elara, unable to stand by, acted. She raised her hands, not to smite, but to protect. "[Sanctum's Aegis]!" A dome of shimmering golden light expanded from her, covering the central wagons. Arrows and stray spells sizzled and dissolved against its surface.
Her face was a mask of concentration, sweat beading on her brow. This was her strength: unwavering defense, a beacon of hope in the chaos.
Zane watched it all from the relative safety of the dome, his expression unreadable. He saw the big picture. The raiders were strong, but the Crimson Hunt was disciplined. They could hold, but they couldn't win. They were being worn down.
AURA's voice was a calm stream of data amidst the carnage.
[Analysis: The raiders' attack pattern is inefficient for a simple raid. They are deliberately taking high casualties to exhaust the defenders. This suggests a secondary objective. Scanning for anomalies... An unusually high concentration of necrotic energy is emanating from the raiders' chieftain.]
Zane's eyes narrowed, focusing on the white-haired woman. She wasn't fighting. She was chanting, her hands weaving a complex, dark pattern in the air.
The bodies of the fallen—both raider and mercenary—began to twitch.
"Oh, you have to be kidding me," Zane muttered under his breath.
Fenrir, sensing a shift in the battle, bellowed, "They're trying to break our line! Mages, focus fire on the flanks!"
But it was too late. With a final, guttural cry, the chieftain slammed her hands on the ground. A wave of sickly green light washed over the battlefield.
The dead rose.
The fallen mercenaries of the Crimson Hunt, their eyes now glowing with the same malevolent green light, lurched to their feet. They turned their swords and axes against their still-living brothers.
The shield wall, impenetrable from the front, was now being attacked from within. The line faltered. Chaos erupted.
"Necromancy!" Fenrir roared, his face a mask of disbelief and fury as he was forced to parry a blow from a man who had been his drinking buddy just last night. "A cursed mountain witch!"
The battle had turned from a desperate defense into a slaughterhouse. The Crimson Hunt was collapsing.
Elara's protective dome flickered, her mana draining rapidly as she tried to maintain it while fending off a reanimated corpse that clawed at the light.
Zane sighed. It was the deep, put-upon sigh of a man whose quiet afternoon has just been irrevocably ruined. He had wanted to remain anonymous. But a zombie apocalypse, no matter how small, was just too much of a hassle.
He looked at the chieftain on the cliff, still chanting, savoring her victory.
He reached into his pouch and pulled out the small, gray Soul Remnant he'd taken from the Ashen Crypt. It felt cool in his palm.
"AURA," he thought, his voice calm. "Analyze the emotional essence of this remnant. Loyalty. Protection. Can you... broadcast it?"
[Query: 'Broadcast' is a vague term. Do you wish to project its core resonance on a wide-band psychic frequency? The required energy output is non-trivial and may cause... unpredictable side-effects.]
"Just do it," Zane ordered. "Aim for the newly reanimated. Let's see what happens when you remind a dead man of his oath."