Emily's outstretched hand grasped nothing but empty, freezing air.
In that exact fraction of a second, the head of the guard flanking Thorleif's right shoulder smoothly detached from his neck. It hit the icy cobblestones with a sickening, hollow thud. In the flickering, dying torchlight, the geyser of arterial blood erupted from the stump like a cascading waterfall of black ink.
Before the second colossal guard could even process that his comrade had fallen—before his thick fingers could even twitch toward the hilt of his weapon—a flash of silvery wire lashed out from the pitch-black shadows like a striking viper. It cleanly unzipped the man's throat from ear to ear. A wet, muffled gurgle bubbled up from his lips, instantly swallowed by the howling wind.
Thorleif's battlefield instincts flared. Stepping backward instantly, the Guard Leader threw his massive arms back to swing his executioner's axe, a savage war cry building in his lungs.
But the behemoth was abruptly halted. It was as if an unseen force had violently yanked the strings of a massive marionette, paralyzing him mid-motion. The thick, iron-shod wooden shaft of the axe slipped from his suddenly numb fingers, clattering uselessly against the stones. Thorleif dropped heavily to his knees, his ice-blue eyes blown wide in sheer, unadulterated terror.
Protruding dead-center from his forehead, having punched cleanly through the bone and deep into his brain, gleamed the sleek, black tip of a miniature harpoon.
Without uttering a single syllable, the colossal Akran commander collapsed face-first onto the freezing stones.
Three seconds.
That entire massacre had taken exactly three seconds.
The howling wind rushed back in to fill the suffocating silence. With Thorleif's torch smothered beneath his own massive corpse, the narrow alley was left bathed only in the pale, sickly glow of the moonlight. Left standing in the center of a rapidly expanding lake of crimson, surrounded by three fresh corpses, were the five members of the group.
Alex's cold, clinical facade—the sociopathic detachment he had wielded so flawlessly back in the tavern—shattered completely.
His eyes were blown wide in absolute horror. Watching the tide of steaming blood creep toward the soles of his boots, he took a ragged, desperate step backward. His hand instinctively shot to the hilt of his sword, but his fingers were trembling so violently he couldn't even form a proper grip. For the first time, he wasn't standing over a static corpse in a controlled environment, mathematically calculating strike angles. He was standing face-to-face with raw, incalculable death, moving at a speed his brilliant mind couldn't even begin to comprehend.
SHING! The harsh, metallic hiss of Emily drawing her longsword entirely from its scabbard violently severed the freezing silence of the street.
"Damn it!" she hissed through gritted teeth.
Her eyes darted frantically, scanning the dark rooflines and the narrow gaps between the heavy fishing nets like a cornered predator. She had always taken immense pride in her blazing speed, but failing to catch that lethal phantom slipping from the shadows had absolutely shredded her pride and her nerves. Shifting her stance, she instantly threw her body in front of Nicolas and Alex, turning herself into a living shield. She refused to turn her back to the dark.
"Show yourself, you cowardly bastard!" she roared, her fierce challenge echoing against the icy winds of Akrafjall.
But the shadows offered absolutely no reply.
Nicolas's breath hitched, devolving into shallow, panicked gasps. Every last drop of color drained from his face as his wide, trembling eyes locked onto the three fresh corpses—especially the colossal Guard Leader, who was still kneeling with a miniature harpoon buried dead-center in his forehead.
"He's dead..." Nicolas breathed, his voice a choked, fragile whisper.
Then, his voice suddenly cracked, raw panic bleeding into every syllable. "Thorleif is dead! Do you not understand what this means?! The only man who gave us until dawn is lying dead in the street! How are we supposed to explain this to those giants back at the tavern?! They're going to hang us! The entire village is going to descend on us!"
Frantically fumbling at his waist, his shaking hands finally drew his sword, but he was trembling so violently he didn't even know which direction to point the blade.
"Nicolas, shut your mouth and stay behind me!" Emily snapped fiercely. She desperately wanted to protect her friend, but she also knew his spiraling hysteria was going to get them all killed. "Pull yourself together! If we actually survive this night, then we'll figure out what to tell the Akrans."
Sir Alric Valthorne, however, had not succumbed to Emily's furious battle-readiness or Nicolas's blinding panic. The Holy Knight stood completely still, his broadsword still sheathed across his back. His seasoned eyes were intensely focused on the corpses—and more importantly, on the instruments of their demise. As the freezing wind whipped his heavy cloak around his massive frame, the dark puzzle in his mind suddenly snapped into terrifying clarity.
With heavy, deliberate steps, Alric stepped forward. He stared down at Thorleif's lifeless, kneeling body. The projectile lodged in the man's skull was a thick, rusted iron whaling harpoon—a heavy, cumbersome tool that had likely been casually leaning against the wooden shack right beside them mere seconds ago.
Alric's gaze then shifted to the decapitated guard, and finally to the man with the shredded throat. The lethal wire that had unzipped his neck wasn't some custom-forged, silver assassin's garrote. It was a thick, salt-hardened spool of maritime rigging line, the exact kind used to tie down galleon sails at the docks.
"He has no weapon..." Alric murmured. His voice was so low it was almost entirely swallowed by the howling wind.
Emily whipped her head around to look at him. "What did you just say?"
Alric slowly straightened to his full height and finally drew his colossal broadsword from his back in one, flawlessly fluid motion. His eyes were no longer scanning the deep shadows for a human silhouette; instead, he was meticulously sweeping the surrounding environment, analyzing every loose object within striking distance.
"The assassin doesn't carry a weapon of his own," Alric declared, his voice booming this time with absolute, unshakable certainty. "Back in the tavern, instead of using his own blade, he stole Nicolas's dagger. Out here, to slaughter three heavily armored men, he grabbed a rusted harpoon leaning against a wall and snapped a length of rigging line from these fishing nets. He steps onto the battlefield entirely empty-handed."
Nicolas gripped his sword even tighter, his knuckles turning stark white. "But... but that doesn't make him any less dangerous!"