Saving them now would only delay the catastrophe.
Her jaw tightens.
She lifts her sword slightly.
From within the silent ranks of villagers, the voice speaks again, smoother now, almost gentle.
"Let me go, Commander, and the villagers' deaths will not stain your conscience."
At that moment, a sharp cry cuts through the tension.
"Martha!"
Alex has broken from behind the knights.
His eyes are fixed wildly on the field, scanning desperately until he finds her.
Martha stands among the villagers, upright and unmoving, her eyes hollow, her face empty of recognition.
Alex runs.
"El—Martha!" he screams, boots slipping on ice as he charges toward the field.
Every head turns.
Elodie's eyes widen for a fraction of a second.
"Stop him," she orders.
A knight spurs his horse forward as Alex passes, leans down in one smooth motion and grips the boy by the scruff of his collar.
With practised strength, the knight hauls Alex up onto the saddle and pins him against his chest.
Alex thrashes violently, fists pounding against the knight's armour.
"Let me go," he cries. "That's Martha, let me go."
Elodie glances at the boy, noting again that his skin bears no black marks, that his presence feels strangely clean amid the corruption.
Why is he unaffected?
The question flickers through her mind and vanishes.
There is no time.
She turns back to the field.
Her eyes harden.
Her voice carries without strain.
"Knights, take out your crossbows."
Leather creaks and metal clicks as the Black Knights reach to their hips and bring the weapons into their hands.
"Load them," Elodie says. "Aim at the village."
Bolts slide into place.
Crossbows rise.
Dozens of weapons align with the frozen field and the motionless villagers.
Alex's struggling turns frantic.
"No," he sobs. "Please, don't."
The voice rises again from within the villagers, sharper now, edged with anger.
"Are you truly willing to do this, Commander. Your heart may be stone, but what of your knights? Will they sleep after slaughtering children?"
Elodie does not respond.
She does not even look toward the voice.
Her gaze remains fixed.
"Ready to shoot," she says.
Alex's voice breaks into a whisper.
He stops struggling.
His lips tremble as he begins to pray.
"Lady of the Lake," he murmurs, voice cracking, "please… please hear me."
Behind him, deep within the frozen church, the statue begins to shine.
The silver glow is faint at first, barely noticeable against the ice.
Elodie does not see it.
She raises her sword slightly and begins to count.
"Three."
A cold wind sweeps through the field, rattling frozen grass and cloaks.
Elodie draws her blade fully free of its sheath.
"Two."
Fighting energy surges through her arms and into the sword, blue light crawling along its edge as she prepares for immediate combat.
"One."
Knights tighten their grips.
Crossbow triggers tension.
At the instant Elodie opens her mouth to give the final command—
"Shoot—"
"STOP!"
Alex screams.
The sound is raw and desperate, tearing through the night.
Silver light erupts from his body.
The knight holding him cries out in shock as Alex slips free, lifted by an unseen force.
Silver radiance pours from the boy, lifting him into the air as if the world itself is holding him.
A wave of silver energy explodes outward.
The light is blinding.
Everyone closes their eyes instinctively.
For a heartbeat, there is nothing but brilliance.
Then silence.
Elodie forces her eyes open.
"Catch him," she shouts.
Alex falls.
Two knights leap forward and catch the boy before he hits the frozen ground.
He goes limp in their arms.
A low groan echoes from the field.
Elodie snaps her head up.
The villagers have collapsed.
Every one of them lies sprawled across the ice, bodies slack, eyes closed.
The black marks on their skin fade, then vanish.
Standing where the villagers once stood upright is a single figure.
A cloaked shape.
The hood lifts slightly.
Darkness pools beneath it.
The cultist.
Elodie does not hesitate.
She jumps from her horse, boots slamming into ice, sword blazing with fighting energy.
She charges.
The figure turns and flees, cloak snapping as it darts toward the edge of the field with unnatural speed.
"Everyone," Elodie shouts without slowing, "secure the villagers and stay with them."
She sprints after the fleeing cultist, sword raised.
The chase carries them out of the field, through frozen paths and shattered fences, the night swallowing both hunter and prey.
Behind her, the Black Knights rush to the fallen villagers.
Alex lies unconscious, silver light still fading from his skin.
The cultist runs.
His boots barely touch the ground as he darts through the frozen alleys, cloak snapping wildly behind him, feet gliding across ice as if friction no longer applies to him.
Elodie follows close behind.
Her breath comes steady and controlled, boots striking ice with precision as she adapts her steps instantly, never losing balance, never slowing.
The distance between them shrinks and stretches in pulses, each turn of an alley briefly hiding him before he reappears again.
The cultist reaches the frozen fence at the edge of the village and does not stop.
He twists mid-stride and thrusts his arm forward.
A beam of black energy erupts from his palm, striking the fence.
Ice and wood explode outward in a violent burst.
The opening is just wide enough.
The cultist slips through and vanishes into the fields beyond.
Seconds later, Elodie bursts through the shattered gap, ice fragments crunching beneath her boots as she enters the open field.
The field is still half-flooded from spring rain, a thin sheet of water frozen into slick glass.
They run across it, both gliding now, speed increasing dangerously as momentum builds.
Moonlight reflects off the ice, turning the chase into a streak of shadows and light.
Minutes pass like heartbeats.
They clear the flooded land and hit hard ground again, boots biting into soil and stone.
Ahead rise the Voit Hills, jagged silhouettes cutting against the night sky.
Elodie's jaw tightens.
The Voit Hills are a border.
Beyond them lies the Highland Kingdom.
Tension between kingdoms has not cooled since the annexation of the Celt Kingdom less than a decade ago.
Everyone knows the truth.
The Highland Kingdom is next.
If the cultist crosses into the hills, Highland patrols will intervene.
They will not allow a Black Knight commander to pursue prey across disputed land.
Diplomacy will stall.
Orders will restrain her.
The cultist will vanish.
Elodie accelerates.
She forces her fighting energy to circulate faster, pushing it through her meridians with ruthless efficiency.
Pain flares along her limbs, but she ignores it.
Her sword hums.
Frost gathers along its edge.
She channels energy into the blade and swings.
A crescent of blue-white fighting energy tears free, screaming through the air toward the cultist.
The cultist twists in a way no human body should.
His spine bends at an impossible angle as he pivots mid-run and draws a curved sabre from beneath his cloak.
Black energy floods the blade.
He swings.
The sabre meets the crescent attack.
Blue and black collide.
The impact detonates outward, tearing up earth and ice, throwing shards into the air.
The crescent shatters.
But it does its job.
The momentary clash slows the cultist just enough.
Elodie closes the distance.
She strikes.
Steel meets steel.
Her sword crashes against the sabre, frost surging outward on impact.
The cultist staggers back, boots skidding across dirt.
They clash again.
And again.
The fight becomes close and brutal.
Elodie's fighting energy output rises steadily as she presses the attack, her movements precise, relentless, trained for killing unnatural threats.
Ice mist pours from her sword with every strike, freezing the air, numbing flesh.
The cultist hisses as frost bites into his form.
Silver scars from the Lady of the Lake's earlier strike glow faintly across his body, burning through the black energy that tries to seal them.
He is already wounded.
Already weakening.
Elodie senses it.
And because she senses it, she grows more careful.
She tightens her guard.
Shortens her strikes.
She refuses reckless blows.
A dying cultist is the most dangerous kind.
The cultist retreats step by step, breathing ragged, black mist leaking from wounds that refuse to close.
His movements grow erratic.
His sabre trembles.
His hood falls back, revealing a face twisted by devotion and despair, eyes glowing with sick devotion to something unseen.
He screams.
A sound of rage, terror, and madness combined.
"If you will not leave me," he roars, voice tearing at the air, "then I will take you with me!"
Black mist erupts from his body.
It pours outward in violent waves, swallowing his form, blotting out moonlight.
Elodie reacts instantly.
She leaps backwards, boots digging trenches into the soil as she slides to a stop.
Ice erupts from her sword, forming jagged crystalline growths around her feet and along the blade, anchoring her stance.
The black mist thickens.
It churns.
Expands.
Something inside it shifts.
Grows.
The cultist's screams distort, stretching unnaturally, deepening into something monstrous.
His silhouette swells.
Limbs elongate.
Bones crack and reform within the mist.
The black vapour condenses, hardens, reshaping into a towering form.
The mist clears enough to reveal it.
A giant.
Nine feet tall.
Its body is formed entirely of condensed black mist, edges shifting and unravelling constantly, as if struggling to remain solid.
Its limbs are long and disproportionate.
Clawed hands drip darkness onto the ground, staining the soil beneath.
The sabre slips from the giant's grasp and crashes onto the earth as the creature throws its head back and screams at the sky.
A violent blast of black energy erupts outward.
Elodie thrusts her sword forward to defend, ice flaring along the blade as the impact slams into her and hurls her backwards.
She skids across the ground before regaining her footing.
Elodie lifts her head, her expression turning solemn as she looks straight at the giant.