The blade started down.
Two arrows sang first.
The raider above Nyx stiffened, steel through his throat. Another spun away with a shaft in his shoulder. Blood sprayed the dust.
A hawk's scream tore the square. Oriel dropped out of the sun like a thrown knife and raked its talons across a third man's face. He reeled, clutching ruined eyes, howling as he stumbled into his own line.
Nyx dragged a breath and rolled to a knee. "About time," she rasped.
"Move!" Ari shouted from beyond the barricade, already drawing again.
Then the hammer struck.
Brennar crashed into the raiders' back like a falling tree. His axe rose and fell, splitting a man, shattering a shield, breaking bone under leather. He pushed forward reckless and grinning without joy, taking shallow cuts and not caring.
Rowan sprinted at his shoulder. He planted his harpoon in the dirt, ripped the stopper from his waterskin, and flung his hand wide.
Ice bloomed like a burst of winter.
Shards hissed through heat and dust. Three raiders froze mid-charge, frost racing up their arms and throats. Another slipped on sudden glass and crashed into the men behind him. Rowan snapped his wrist; water snapped back to his palm like a good rope. He swept it along his harpoon, and a clean frost edge hissed into being.
Ashwyn came last and made the ground speak.
He drove his staff down. Roots ripped up under boot soles, coiling around ankles, yanking men flat. A thin tangle knotted a wolf's legs and flipped it like a snared deer. A thicker root punched up like a spear and took a raider through the belly; the man folded with a wet cough and slid down the living spike.
"Down," Ashwyn said, calm as rain. The roots obeyed, slamming others hard, binding wrists and thighs until tendons popped.
He lifted the staff again, and the tree line answered.
A grey wolf padded from the shade, shoulders high, eyes bright as river stones. Beside it stepped a great stag, antlers wide, breath smoking in the heat. They were real and not real—flesh that shimmered with pale soul-light. Villagers stared, mouths open.
"Go," Ashwyn told them.
The wolf launched first, a streak of muscle and teeth. It hit a knot of raiders, dragged one screaming into the dust, and tore a second away from the barricade with a savage shake. The stag lowered its crown and charged. Wood creaked; men scattered too slow. Antlers caught a shield and tossed its bearer into the air. Hooves crushed another who tried to crawl clear.
The enemy line wavered.
Lyra slid to her knees beside Nyx, hands already glowing faint as she pressed a strip of cloth to Nyx's side. "Don't move."
"I'm not dying in the dirt," Nyx hissed, catching her breath. Pan prowled over her like night with teeth, lips white with foam.
Oriel shrieked and slashed at a raider climbing the wagon. He clawed at his face and fell backward. Ari's next arrow took him before he hit the ground. Another shaft slipped past a trough and dropped a man the hawk alone could see.
Brennar kept going, a storm made of iron. A short spear raked his arm—he didn't look. He smashed his forehead into the spearman's nose, cut the shaft, then cut the man. "Come on!" he bellowed, voice breaking in the din.
Rowan met a hook blade. The hook bit his haft and dragged. He let it, stepped in, and drove the frost edge up under the man's arm where leather didn't reach. Cold bit deep. The man's breath fogged; he fell without a word. Rowan tore free and turned, breath steady, hands sure: step, plant, cut, breathe.
"Right!" he called. Three tried to form a new front. Ashwyn flicked his staff; roots slapped their feet from under them. Villagers swarmed with pitchforks and kitchen knives. It was ugly. It worked.
The leader tried to rally them—a hard man in stitched leather with a metal band on his brow. "Hold! Turn to—"
A coil as thick as a man's arm erupted and wrapped him chest to hips. Thorns slid out and kissed his throat. Bark layered over bark. In heartbeats he stood locked in a cage of living wood, eyes wide, breath shallow.
Around him, the fight broke.
Trapped between barricade and heroes, the raiders panicked. Some tried to climb the fence; roots dragged them down. Others swung wild at Brennar and Rowan and were cut in a flurry of steel and frost. Oriel blinded, Ari finished. The wolf bowled men over like reeds. The stag trampled a path, then wheeled and came again, antlers catching, hooves crushing. Pan tore a man off Nyx with a snarl and stood over her, red-muzzled and steady.
"Push!" someone cried. Villagers pushed. Poles jabbed. Blades rose and fell.
When it ended, it ended all at once. The last few raiders dropped their knives and went to their knees. A woman with a broken spear bound one with a strip torn from her apron and tied the knot too tight. No one told her to loosen it.
Silence walked in heavy over blood and dust.
Rowan stood very still and let the cold leave his fingers. He wiped the harpoon on a fallen cloak. The cloth came away darker than he liked. He breathed. In, out. He was still here.
Brennar planted his axe and leaned, chest heaving. He looked for one more thing to break, found none, and snorted. "Better," he said to no one and everyone.
Lyra pressed once more at Nyx's side and peeled the cloth back. The cut had slowed to a weeping line. "Hold," she said. "That will knit."
Nyx pushed her hand off gently and sat up, slow. "Fuss later," she said. Pan bumped her knee like a cat pleased with itself.
Ashwyn lowered his staff. The wolf and stag stood a beat longer, heads high, watching the square with bright, calm eyes. Then their edges blurred. They dissolved into pale motes that drifted back to Ashwyn and sank into him like sparks into dark water. Gasps rippled through the villagers.
Rowan stared. It didn't feel like a trick. It felt like the forest had fought with them.
Ashwyn stepped to the thorn cage. The leader strained once. The wood creaked tighter; a bead of red formed where a point touched his throat.
"This one will talk," Ashwyn said, voice calm as stone.
Oriel settled on Ari's wrist. Brennar rolled his shoulder and only then looked at the blood on it. Lyra rose and moved to the next groan. Nyx got to her feet, winced, and stayed there. Pan sat like a shadow statue at her heel. Rowan tightened the strap on his waterskin and let the frost fade from steel.
The fight was over.
The questions waited.