The Crimson Claw’s blade **slid home** into Godfrey’s back with a wet, sucking crunch. A bright crimson jet painted steel and hilt alike. For one heartbeat their eyes locked; in the captain’s gaze there was no plea for forgiveness, no sorrow, only a final, unspoken command that burned hotter than any pain.
(Live, Your Grace!)
“RUN!” Godfrey’s hoarse roar split the storm. His massive frame, already buckling, wheeled around and became a living, breathing wall between the assassins and his lord.
Ice-cold fury boiled in Randel’s chest. (Run? While he dies?)
His sword howled, carving lethal arcs through the rain. One assassin fell, then another. (I will die here. Beside him.)
But nature itself betrayed him.
The sky tore open. A blinding, furious bolt of lightning—god’s own scourge—slammed into an ancient pine. The thunderclap deafened everything, drowning even the clash of steel. The colossal tree toppled with a death-rattle groan, crashing across the trail in a chaotic barricade of splintered trunks and needles that severed Randel from his friend, from the slaughter.
“GODFREY…!” His cry was a shredded whisper, swallowed by the downpour. Rain lashed his face, mingling with something hot and salt. (I… am alone.)
Pure instinct seized him.
He bolted into the forest, into the embrace of mud and pitch black. Shouts of pursuit behind him. An arrow punched into his shoulder, shoving him forward. There was no pain—only an adrenaline void that devoured everything except the need to run. His foot slipped on loose stone; he tumbled headlong down the slope. His skull cracked against rock. The world swam.
He ran. No longer duke, no longer commander. A wounded beast. Hunted prey. The forest that had once been part of his domain had become a labyrinth of death. Branches whipped his face, roots clawed at his ankles. He fell, rose, crawled, ran again, leaving a scarlet trail behind him. Breath rasped like tearing cloth.
At last his strength failed. He slumped against an ancient oak, chest heaving as though it would burst. The arrow jutted from his shoulder. Blood from a head wound glued one eye shut. He tried to close his fingers around his sword hilt; they refused to obey.
They stepped from the shadows. Silent. Five Crimson Claws. No hurry. (Prey cornered.)
Randel pushed off the trunk, straightened to his full height. Pain, exhaustion, rage—all guttered out. Only ice-cold, absolute emptiness remained. He met the approaching killers’ eyes. A smile touched his lips. Not mirthful, not mocking. The smile of a warrior who has done his duty. The smile of a man who stares death in the face and does not blink.
Their leader—a towering figure wearing a blank iron mask instead of a face—stopped two paces away. Cold, empty eyes appraised Randel like a rare specimen. He drew a thin, needle-sharp blade meant for one perfect thrust.
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The air froze. Rain drummed a funeral march on the leaves. The assassin raised his sword. The target: the heart.
Randel did not look away. His smile widened, embracing his entire proud, furious, defiant life.
The blade began its descent.
A heartbeat…
***
From the very top of the oak came a voice.
Calm. Measured. Female.
“Hm. Seems I arrived just after the interesting part.”
Randel was already braced for death; his mind wrapped in the fog of ending. Then the voice cut through the storm like a crystal bell—soft, yet carrying unbreakable, absolute authority. His pain-clouded gaze jerked upward.
She stood on a thick bough of the ancient oak.
Her armor was unlike anything Randel had ever seen. It was not forged of iron or steel. It looked poured from liquid sunlight, molding to her body with unnatural, perfect precision. Gold, but not gaudy—deep, restrained radiance like the first rays of dawn. The plates resembled the carapace of some fantastical insect, drinking the dim forest light and giving it back as a soft inner glow. Her helm was seamless, featureless. The face of an innocent deity. Power—ancient, inhuman—rolled off her in waves.
The assassins recoiled a step. Their iron discipline cracked. The masked leader snapped up a hand, crushing the moment of hesitation.
She leaned forward and dropped from the branch. Light as thistledown. Golden boots touched wet earth without a sound. An unseen gaze swept the clearing.
“In my forest. Unauthorized murder. Base assassination.”
Each word fell like a hammer on an anvil.
“I am the Warden of these ancient trees. Noble blood will not water this soil.”
She turned to the masked leader.
“Defiler. Your life ends here.”
She flicked her hand—graceful, almost casual.
There was no flash, no sound. Nothing.
A thick, crushing silence stretched for an eternity. The leader froze… then collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, crumpled to the ground. Dark blood seeped from beneath the iron mask onto the wet leaves. No wound. No struggle. Simply… life extinguished.
“What…?” Randel whispered, momentarily forgetting his own wounds. His mind, forged in strategy and steel, refused to accept what it had witnessed. (Magic? But… impossible! Imperial sorcery is crude, needs words, gestures… Power like this has not walked the world in centuries!)
The remaining four assassins stared at their fallen commander. Then training took over. With bestial snarls they lunged from four sides at once—blades seeking gaps, throat, spine. A dance no mortal could survive.
The golden figure did not flinch.
She flicked her wrist twice. Quick. Precise.
First flick—the assassin leaping from the right folded mid-air at an impossible angle, as though crushed by an invisible giant palm.
Second flick—two charging killers collided in mid-stride with a dry crunch of bone and dropped dead.
The last came from behind. His dagger flashed…
The Warden raised both hands to the sky, palms up.
The world ignited.
A column of white-gold fire roared from her into the clouds. For one heartbeat the entire forest blazed brighter than noon. The heat was all-consuming, incinerating. Then—gone.
Where the fire had raged, only a handful of dark ash drifted down. The scent of ozone and nothingness hung in the air.
The final assassin had ceased to exist. As though he had never been.
Silence. The whisper of rain. The faint creak of cooling air.
Randel leaned against the oak, unable to move. His mind was empty. *(Fear? Gratitude? Holy terror?)* Emotions knotted beyond understanding. He stared at the golden figure.
She turned to him. The immaculate helm reflected nothing.
He was alone. A bleeding heir of Aichenwald, face to face with a being that laughed at the very laws of creation.
(Which should I fear more?)
The assassin’s blade?
Or whatever this… “Warden” would bring next?