The world narrowed to the rhythmic, frantic rasp of breath against freezing wool and the metallic thrum of Goblin arrows striking the wooden pavises of the militia. The "Pepper Smoke" had transformed the floor of the Widow's Throat into a swirling, opaque purgatory. To the Goblins on the ridge, the caravan had vanished into a cloud of stinging, chemical mist that burned their eyes and turned their lungs to fire. To Deacon, standing at the center of the white-out, the smoke was a tactical veil—a temporary reprieve bought with chemistry and courage.
"Pyper! Elan! Go!" Rodriguez's voice cut through the chaos, sharp as a whip-crack.
The Pepper Twins didn't use the main trail. They launched themselves at the western face of the cliff in a display of synchronized, vertical agility that bordered on the supernatural. They were streaks of silver and black against the blue-white ice, using "ice-claws" designed by Miller to find purchase in the frozen weeping of the rock. They moved with a terrifying, mirror-image symmetry, their movements so fluid they seemed to defy gravity.
Above them, the Goblins were in disarray. The "Advisor" in the silver mask was screaming orders in a harsh, guttural dialect, trying to rally the tribesmen to fire blindly into the smoke. He was a tall, imposing figure, his crimson cloak snapping like a flag in the mountain wind. He didn't see the Twins until they were cresting the lip of the ridge.
Pyper was the first to strike. She didn't use a blade; she used a specialized weighted chain. It lashed out like a viper, wrapping around the throat of a Goblin archer and yanking him backward into the abyss. Elan followed a millisecond later, his twin karambits flashing. Every movement was a lethal economy of motion—a slit throat, a punctured kidney, a severed hamstring. They were "The Mirror Blades" in their element.
Below, in the smoke, Deacon was facing a different kind of hell. The Goblins began to pour down the lower slopes in a desperate, swarming charge.
"Trios! Shift to 'Wall-of-Iron'! Spear-points out!" Deacon commanded, his voice projecting with the authority of a megaphone.
The militia shifted with a practiced clatter of shields. As the first wave of Goblins slammed into the shield wall, the militia met them with a synchronized thrust of short-spears. Deacon stepped into a gap, his longsword singing as it cleared its scabbard. A Goblin warrior lunged at him with a jagged meat-cleaver. Deacon didn't parry; he used a modern combatives "check"—a stiff-arm to the throat followed by a brutal, downward cleave that split the creature's skull.
On the ridgeline, the Advisor drew a long, elegant rapier. He moved with the precision of a master duelist, his blade darting like a needle. He parried Renna's first overhead strike with a flick of his wrist. He was an Imperial Inquisitor, trained in the "Schools of the Rose."
Renna didn't try to out-fence him. She stepped into the lunge, taking a shallow graze on her shoulder to get within his reach. She slammed her forehead into the silver mask with a sickening crack, the metal denting under the impact. Stunned, the Advisor stumbled back. Renna swung her axe in a horizontal arc, the heavy steel blade shearing through the Advisor's crimson cloak and biting deep into his ribs. The man was flung back against the rock, his mask spinning away into the snow.
"Hayes! Get up here!" Renna screamed, her voice cracking with something other than battle-lust.
Deacon scrambled up the last few feet of the ridge, his boots sliding on the blood-slicked ice. He reached the plateau just as Renna stood over the fallen man. She had her foot on his chest, her axe raised for the finishing blow.
"Wait," Deacon breathed, the word catching in his throat.
The man on the ground wasn't a stranger. As the silver mask lay discarded in the snow, the face beneath it was revealed. It was a face Deacon saw every morning in the reflection of his washbasin. The same high, noble forehead; the same stubborn, slightly crooked nose; the same deep sapphire eyes—now clouded with shock and agony.
It was Julian Cassian. The younger brother. The one the original Cassian's memories screamed about in a sudden, violent surge of grief.
But it wasn't just the "Cassian" memories.
In that moment, the mountain pass vanished. Deacon wasn't a Lord in a dying world; he was David Hayes, ten years old, standing in a rainy cemetery in Georgia, holding his little brother Leo's hand. He remembered the weight of that small, trembling hand. He remembered the vow he had made to their mother: I won't let anything happen to him. He remembered the countless times he'd taken a beating so Leo wouldn't have to, and the way Leo used to look up at him like he was a god instead of a scared kid.
The trauma of two lives collided in the center of his chest. The brother he had left behind in another world—the brother he would never see again—was suddenly mapped onto the dying man in front of him.
"Renna, move your foot," Deacon said. His voice was no longer a command; it was a plea, hollow and terrifyingly quiet.
"He's the enemy, Hayes! He's the one who gave the Goblins the orders!" Renna shouted, her eyes wild. "He's a traitor to his own blood!"
"I said move your foot!" Deacon roared, stepping forward. He didn't use a sword. He shoved Renna back with a brute strength that surprised both of them.
He dropped to his knees in the red-stained snow. Julian's breath was a wet, rattling sound. The younger man looked up, his eyes unfocused, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. He reached out a trembling, gloved hand, his fingers clutching at Deacon's midnight-blue mantle.
"Brother...?" Julian whispered. It wasn't the voice of a saboteur. It was the voice of a terrified boy.
Deacon's hands, usually so steady with a rifle or a blade, were shaking uncontrollably. He pulled Julian's head into his lap, ignoring the gore ruining his expensive silks. He wasn't thinking about the Seed Drills. He wasn't thinking about the trade factors or the Imperial Herald. He was just a brother, trying to hold a shattering world together.
"I've got you," Deacon whispered, the words slipping out in English before he could catch them. "I've got you, Leo... Julian. Just breathe. Stay with me."
The militia stood on the ridgeline, frozen in a confused silence. The Goblins had fled, the "Pepper Smoke" was dissipating, and their cold, iron-willed Lord was kneeling in the dirt, weeping over the man who had tried to kill them.
For a long minute, the only sound was the wind. Then, the "Sergeant" slowly began to reassemble himself behind Deacon's eyes. The emotional surge didn't vanish, but it was forced into a compartmentalized box, locked away by years of military discipline. He looked up at Renna, his face a mask of terrifying, cold resolve.
"Major Kiley! Get up here with the trauma kit!" Deacon shouted, his voice regaining its command authority. "If this man dies, our only link to the Imperial high command dies with him. We are taking him with us."
"Hayes, that's a liability we can't—" Renna started.
"That's an order, Staff Sergeant!" Deacon snapped, standing up, his cloak stained crimson. "Miller! Get a medical litter rigged to the rear of the third sledge. Brandt, get the men moving. We've wasted enough time in this throat. We have a demonstration to give."
He turned away from his brother's broken body, his heart a leaden weight. He had a mission to complete. He would be the Lord. He would be the Sergeant. But as he walked back toward the trail, he knew that the "David" inside him had just found a reason to stay in this world that had nothing to do with survival, and everything to do with redemption.