Fifteen minutes after they had left Holten on horseback they were spotted by a lone, local guardsman, not even part of the Third.
They only realized afterwards when he had already blown his war-horn.
Too slow on the uptake, the unmounted and poorly armoured enemies behind them would pose no real threat to their escape.
But Lukk had seen the ravens fly overhead.
Those ahead would be significantly more prepared.
With more than an hour to go, the horses would not be able to maintain this rushed stride forever.
He was grateful to have studied the general terrain and enemy placement beforehand, like he always did.
So far he had been able to avoid real danger thanks to it.
The further they’d go, the more likely it would be that they would run into a quickly assembled roadblock, or some random patrol that’d bar their way.
Lukk knew plenty of hiding places in these parts where they could comfortably stay for a few days, and if it wasn’t for that helpless girl slowly dying in his arms, he would have done so without a second thought.
The poor thing had been hallucinating and mumbling nonsense ever since they left.
Earlier he had given her something to eat and drink but it had spilled out not too long after, making moot his efforts of cleaning his boots.
‘Girl, are you still with us?’ he asked after she started having trouble keeping her head straight.
She said something back but he could not hear it over the galloping of the horses.
He held her tighter with his left arm while riding with his right, making sure she wouldn’t fall off.
‘Good, at least you’re conscious enough to hear me.
Listen, in one hour we will reach the people that will help you get back on your feet.
Until then I need you to promise me to hold on, no matter what happens.
You hear me girl?’ Lukk wasn’t sure if she was nodding or if she was slowly losing consciousness again.
‘There are figures in the woods to the right of us!’ one of his riders yelled.
Sure enough, there was something.
Multiple shadows that bore torches were matching their speed and rapidly heading towards their location.
Horse riders, seven of them if he counted correctly.
His eyes immediately noticed one of the riders carrying a war horn.
‘Scouts!’ Lukk roared.
‘Shoot that horn bearer or we all die here!’
But it was too late, for the horn’s scream already echoed through the woods.
Others in the distance responded in kind, forming a disturbing orchestra of warned souls, those who would undoubtedly field steel against them, not too long from now.
The nearby horn’s blast got cut off prematurely as one of his men’s arrows buried itself deep into the singer’s neck.
Lacking other options, he screamed to his men.
‘We need to get off the road now!’ Following his lead and without question, they obediently took a sharp turn to the left as they immediately suffered the unstable, dangerous footing of the thick forest.
Riding through the many tree branches at this speed left its painful cuts on Lukk’s face.
He struggled to see far ahead of him, but hopefully such a drastic turn would throw off most of their pursuers.
Riding with one hand constrained through the uneven terrain was difficult to say the least, and his speed greatly suffered for it.
He heard a pained scream behind him, but he could not afford to look back and see what caused it.
He didn’t need to.
An arrow zoomed right past his face.
He lowered his posture in response, covering his head as much as possible.
A sharp, sudden pain entered his upper back.
And then again, this time even deeper.
His horse let out a painful shriek as it started dragging to the left.
‘A little bit more!’ he yelled to the others, and his wounded horse.
A primal, deafening roar momentarily cost him his hearing as the world came down around him.
As he tried to protect his eardrums, he, like the many others around him, had lost control over his frenzied, hysterical mount.
They got thrown off by the rampaging beast as Lukk was barely able to soften the landing for the girl by using his back as a shield against the ground.
The arrows that pierced him snapped and dug in deeper, and he let out a tortured growl.
Trying to find his footing, he still suffered from severe tinnitus as the many sounds around him were reduced to nothing more than white background noise.
He wasted no time in unsheathing his greatsword from his back and plunging it into the nearest fallen foe’s face.
Running was no longer an option as their horses had scattered, fallen unconscious or lay dead.
A soldier ran at him with two swords raised above his head, seemingly without any sense of self-preservation.
A blur.
His vision had suffered a bit as well, as he felt blood dripping from his ears.
With a quick slash he opened the unprotected belly of his attacker.
More came.
With their faces twisted in maniacal laughter and an unquenchable lust for his blood specifically, the warped shapes came at him en masse.
With no further awareness of his surroundings, Lukk sliced and swept and stabbed his way through the men, using his massive Zweihander to overpower his much weaker but numerous enemies.
Every sense that he had was dedicated to his own survival.
An axe swung by his cheek, drawing blood.
Seconds later, it lay on the ground with the arm that had carried it.
Something bit his shoulder.
He kicked it away while beheading another.
A sword hit his chest armour, unable to slice through.
He punished his would-be killer by smashing through his.
He was strong, so very strong.
‘More!’ He roared, barely able to hear himself amidst the echoes of Abalon’s earlier warcry.
‘I crave your deaths!
Bring yourselves to me!’ He found himself laughing as he delightfully cut open the bags of flesh around him.
He did so until he was the last one that remained standing.
Bleeding from a multitude of wounds he felt his senses and his sanity return to him as he carefully took in his surroundings.
Some men still lived, moaning and crawling on the ground as they were trying to find their lost parts.
None of his men lived.
He finished the remaining stragglers off, one by one.
Satisfied with himself, he counted the fourteen hostile bodies he had slain.
By no means his record, but certainly enough to brag about when they would arrive back at camp.
They.
Panicked, he turned around, his eyes frantically searching for the missing girl.
As he found her sleeping self, he let out an audible, unbelieving gasp and instinctively went to his knees, unable to comprehend the absurdity of what he was seeing.
‘By Eden’s grace, what is this madness?’ He whispered, struggling to get the very words out.
They were everywhere.
They hung in the broken, dismembered trees, and their remains decorated the upturned, claw-scarred ground.
With a permanent look of anguish on their facial remains they stared into the nothingness that they had now become a part of.
In the absolute center of this death and destruction remained a perfect circle, untouched by the unquestionably devastating violence that had come shortly before.
Not a single drop of blood had spilled within its boundaries, and no loose body part defiled the ground within its invisible yet absolute borders.
As if located in the eye of a mercilessly cruel hurricane, she lay far from him, untouched and unconscious against a large, white tree with more than a hundred perished, horribly maimed bodies scattered all around her.