Oakhaven was supposed to be a sanctuary, but to Percival Kent, it just smelled like wet wool and the copper tang of old blood.
He sat bare-chested on a heavy wooden table inside the village clinic, his fingers digging into the timber until it groaned under his weight. A local healer a woman whose hands shook only slightly was threading a curved iron needle through the jagged canyon in his side. Kent didn't flinch, but his jaw was locked so tight his teeth felt like they might shatter.
Across the room, the silence was heavy. Vane, the rookie, sat on a cot with his black-mana burns wrapped in fresh linen. He wasn't really there; his eyes were fixed on a piece of parchment, a quill trembling in his dirt-stained hand. Beside him, Krag;whose left arm was now little more than a ruined memory bound to his chest—was quietly whispering the names of the five boys who hadn't made it off the bridge.
Kent watched them. He saw the way Vane's hands shook and the way Krag's voice hitched on the name Liam. With a grunt that tore a fresh hiss from the healer, Kent forced himself off the table. He ignored the screaming protest of his stitched ribs and stood over the two survivors.
"Stand up," Kent rumbled.
Vane scrambled to his feet, wincing as his burns pulled. Krag pushed himself up with his good arm, his face a mask of stubborn pride.
"You bought the gap," Kent said, his voice low and raspy. He didn't offer a rehearsed speech; he gave them the truth. "You held when the sky fell. Krag, you're done with the front line, but I'm not losing your head. You're Vanguard Captain now. You're going to teach the next batch of idiots how to stay alive. And Vane..." Kent looked at the kid who had literally built a wall out of goblin carcasses just to keep breathing. "You aren't a rookie anymore. You're a Sergeant. Act like it."
Vane's eyes didn't just widen; they glazed over with a mix of shock and grief. He slammed a fist over his heart a clumsy, shaking salute. "Thank you, Lord Commander."
The door swung open, bringing with it a gust of freezing rain and the scent of damp earth. Maltida Armstrong stepped in, her silver armor replaced by a practical white tunic, her expression unreadable. Behind her came Elara.
Elara wasn't alone. He shoved three bound, sobbing boys into the center of the room. They hit the floorboards hard, their knees barking against the wood. Kent knew them. They were the three who had seen the first wave of green skin and vanished into the treeline.
"Found them in a root cellar under the town hall," Elara said, his voice like grinding stones. He tossed a leather-bound ledger onto the table beside Kent. "And I found this. The village elder hasn't just been hiding cowards. He's been smuggling black iron and salt-beef to the Greenskin territories for six months. They were paying the horde to bypass the village and hit us."
Maltida leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed. "It wasn't a random raid, Percival. Someone funded that horde specifically to pin you to that bridge. They wanted you dead so Ulric Stone would march south without his best blade."
Kent looked at the ledger, then at the three boys on the floor. One of them looked up, his face a mess of snot and tears. "My Lord, please! There were so many of them... we just wanted to live!"
"Six boys stayed," Kent said. The room went cold. "They wanted to live, too. But they died so the man to their left didn't have to. You broke the Phalanx."
Kent didn't call for a guard. He reached into the corner and grabbed his chipped, blood-stained broadsword.
The executions weren't a ceremony. They were a grim necessity. The heavy thud of the blade hitting the floorboards was the only sound in the room for a long time. Kent didn't look satisfied; he just looked tired. He wiped the steel clean with a scrap of linen and turned to Elara.
"You rode into the dark when everyone else was looking for a hole to crawl into," Kent said. He stepped close to the younger man, sensing the exhaustion radiating off him. "You took the mages, you broke their rear, and you brought us back. I'm making you Second Vice Commander of the Vanguard. Don't make me regret it."
Elara's breath hitched. It was a leap in rank that should have taken a decade. He snapped a salute crisp, flawless, and silent.
"We're leaving," Kent said, turning to Maltida. "If whoever paid for this realizes I'm still breathing, the evidence will be ash by morning."
"The teleportation array in the square," Maltida said. "It's ancient, but it'll dump us in your castle's catacombs. It'll eat every mana crystal we have."
"Burn them," Kent ordered. He looked at Krag and Vane. "Stay here. Rest. Maltida, leave fifty of your heavies to hold this place. Anyone who touched those iron shipments goes in chains."
"And the other fifty?" Maltida asked, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"They ride with us," Kent growled, strapping his sword to his back. "Activate the array. We're going home to find out who bought my men's lives;and I'm going to make them pay for every drop of blood on that bridge."