The noise from outside was a cacophony that demanded Jaina’s attention. As the echoes of fresh battle cries and clashing weapons filtered into the hall, she felt a pull to witness the scene, if only for a moment. But first, she had to find a temporary guardian for the girl in her arms. Looking around, she spotted an older woman leaning in a corner and biting her fingernails. Jaina approached, hoping for a brief respite.

“Can you hold her a minute?” Jaina asked.

“What?” the woman replied.

“The girl. Can you hold her a minute?”

The woman looked at Jaina like she was speaking in tongues. But a moment later, she understood and opened her arms. Jaina began to hand her over when the little girl started shrieking. Her arms, already tight around Jaina’s neck, squeezed hard enough to nearly cut off Jaina’s oxygen. Jaina was startled by this; she knew nothing about this child, had only even seen her face for a brief instant. Yet she was clinging to Jaina as if for dear life.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Jaina said to her, not sure where the reassuring words or tone was coming from. Some instinct, deep inside, waiting to be awoken? “I just want to look outside. It’ll only be a minute.”

The girl clung for a moment longer. The woman’s hands rubbed the little girl’s back and she made a soft shh sound in her ear. She was better at this than Jaina was. Was she a mother?

Had she just lost a child? Children?

Jaina pushed the thought away.

The girl finally went to the woman, but looked back at Jaina with a terrible sadness. Jaina smiled, repeated, “It’s okay,” then hurried to the door, the thought never occurring to her that she’d never see the little girl again.

The heavy wooden door resisted her first tug. Jaina thought the door had more sense than she did, and knew very well that she shouldn’t be opening it at all. But she persevered, prying it open just enough to peer out through the sliver of space she’d created.

The signs of battle were immediately evident. Some of the men and women who had just charged out of the building less than a minute ago lay dead in the street. Beyond them, she saw the remainder, engaged with the armored soldiers in one way or another. She tried to pick Stegran out, and when she couldn’t, feared the worse. He was so tall; surely she’d be able to see him.

She did see Camdyn Caskbrew, though, using the chain that bound him as a weapon. It was wrapped around a soldier’s neck, Camdyn straining and pulling hard enough to make both men’s faces bright red. It was just one soldier out of who knew how many, but Jaina felt a sick satisfaction just the same.

There he was! Stegran, emerging from the crowd, the heavy sledgehammer rising… rising… rising… With a battle roar she could hear even over the din, he brought it smashing down. She couldn’t see the impact; there were too many moving bodies in the way. But the way Stegran moved on to engage with someone else allowed her the assumption that he had won that particular fight.

Which meant her soon-to-be husband was a killer. The thought broke her heart, even knowing what he was doing was as right as right could be. Defending her, their land, their people, against overwhelming odds. But how had it come to this? How had all this happened?

More soldiers arrived on the scene and moved into position to join the battle. By now, Stegran and his small crew had gathered together in a tight circle, having survived the first round of soldiers. But the ragtag group of fighters had taken the soldiers by surprise. What chance would they have, now that the soldiers were prepared?

To her surprise—and delight—quite a good chance. The soldiers moved towards them in practiced formation. But Stegran and his crew were not practiced; they were enraged and righteous. They charged without thought, without fear, without hesitation.

Jaina opened the door an inch more to get a better view. Nobody from this invading force was worrying about who was in this building, at least for the moment. The battle going on out in the street before her had taken over everyone’s attention.

She was stunned by Stegran’s success. She suspected he might’ve been, as well. The soldiers clearly knew what they were doing and were putting up an impressive fight. But they were losing.

She opened the door a little wider.

The battle continued, Stegran’s crew somehow maintaining the upper hand. But then Jaina spotted a fresh group of soldiers rapidly approaching. She was reminded that the numbers were ultimately against Stegran and it was only a matter of time. Unless the Godknight got here, and soon.

“Where are you, dammit?” she asked the dark sky.

But she only counted eight charging soldiers, which gave Stegran’s crew of fifteen or so the advantage. Maybe they’d hold them off after all.

But Jaina noticed something strange about the way these particular soldiers were moving. Instead of engaging Stegran’s team immediately, they instead formed into a tight circle and began moving in lockstep towards the fight. Slowly and meticulously. While they wore the same bracers and armor as the other soldiers, they also carried small shields. But they were so small that Jaina had to wonder how they could be effective at all.

Stegran kept fighting, initially oblivious to these new soldiers’ arrival. But the soldiers had certainly noticed Stegran; their attention was focused squarely on him and his fighters.

Jaina watched, transfixed, as every movement of these new soldiers was delivered in perfect sync with the others. They each lifted their shields slightly, barely an inch. Then brought them down quickly, the motion more of a snap than a lowering. At the end of the snapping, something initially seemed to fall out of the bottom of the shield. Jaina was completely baffled by what she was seeing, and it took her a moment to realize the shields had extended themselves to more than double their original size. The soldiers than repeated the motion, extending the shields even further.

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They clicked the shields a total of three times before finishing. When they were done, their shields stood at least six feet high and nearly two feet wide, an incredible expansion of their original size. From Jaina's perspective, the soldiers were almost entirely obscured, leaving only the gleam of their vast black shields visible.

Still utterly confused by what she was seeing, Jaina just stood and stared with silent fascination. Then the two shield-carriers in front parted, each stepping a couple of feet to their left and to their right. The soldiers behind them adjusted their positions only slightly so that their new formation resembled the shape of a “U.”

Someone Jaina had not initially seen was standing in the middle of the soldiers. Jaina squinted. It wasn’t a soldier at all; it seemed like just… some guy. He appeared to belong more in this guildhall with the scribes and scholars than in the middle of a battle, surrounded by soldiers with shields.

Stegran and crew finally took notice of the new group of soldiers and adjusted their own positions. Stegran was undeniably confidently in charge now, barking out quick commands that were just as quickly followed. He stood in front, his back to Jaina, his blood-soaked sledgehammer held out in front of him.

The shield-carrying soldiers and the man between them made no move. Jaina felt a moment of hope. Was this one of their leaders? Had he come to negotiate, perhaps to talk it out? If they gave Stegran the option to surrender, the Godknight would still come and free him eventually. Would Stegran be better off that way, rather than continuing this fight? Would she?

But the man said nothing. Made no offer. He looked to Jaina more like a professor in his long gray robe and with a simple brown sash lashed around his waist. His short white hair and beard were both trimmed perfectly and his expression betrayed no emotions.

He remained silent, but he did, finally, begin moving. Just his hands, though. Was this some form of communication? “Speaking” through hand gestures was uncommon, but not completely alien to Jaina.

She felt a chill run down her spine. Something was happening. Something strange. Strange enough to jolt Jaina out of her trance and for her to notice where she was. In her focus on the fight and her fiance, she had somehow wandered completely out of the building and was standing out in front of the guildhall and the now closed door.

The man who looked more like a professor than a soldier began moving his fingers in strange, intricate patterns. Jaina saw his lips moving, but he was much too far away for her to have any chance of making out his words. But then his fingers and the space around his hands began to glow eerily. Just a bit, at first. A faint red light.

The glowing alone was strange enough to scare Jaina. When that light continued to grow brighter and bigger, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end.

She didn’t know how she knew it; she just did. Something terrible was about to happen.

“Stegran!” she screamed, and began running towards him. There was no way he could hear her, though, as he and his team let out another battle cry and charged forward.

Then the world erupted in fire. A sudden, fierce wave of heat hit Jaina, knocking her to the ground. She scurried backwards on her butt and hands until her back slammed against the guildhall’s door. She stared ahead in wide eyed horror.

Everything in front of her was in flames. Everything. There was no noble fighting crew anymore. Nothing. Nobody stood between her and the scholarly man surrounded by shield-bearing soldiers.

She screamed and got to her feet, charging forward to where her fiance had just been standing. Her eyes darted around for any sign of him. But all she saw was smoke and flames and ashes.

She had only made it a few feet before she was hit in the side and tackled, going down hard on the stone road.

“Stay down!” a hurried voice said to her. For a moment she thought it was Stegran, having come to save her. But she quickly saw it wasn’t. Instead, she saw it was Camdyn Caskbrew, the man she had brought to Safehaven this morning in order to have him exiled—and who had just saved her life, all the same.

A trio of soldiers approached them, bloodied and battered from the fight. Camdyn was on one knee, one manacled hand held in front of him, the other trying to somehow shield Jaina.

“Please,” he said to them. “Just let her—”

A blade extended from the lead soldier’s bracer. Without hesitation or a second thought, he brought it sideways across Camdyn’s throat. Jaina could smell as well as see the blood as it poured freely from the poor man’s neck. Camdyn fell over, dead.

The same soldier approached her, blade still outstretched. How had this happened? How had everything gone so wrong? Twenty minutes ago her life was nearly perfect. Now it was about to end.

“Wait!” one of the other soldiers said to the bladed one.

“What?” the one with the blade said. “Why?”

“She’s one of them. An Adjudicator.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. I remember her.”

The soldier who seemed to know her stepped forward. She studied his face, the parts she could make out through his helmet. Whoever he was, she didn’t recognize him.

He bent down in front of her, face-to-face, and removed his helmet.

“Don’t remember me, do you?” he asked her. With the helmet off, she did finally recognize him. His face, at least.

“I… I do,” she said softly.

“Do you? What’s my name?”

Jaina racked her brain. She was sure he had been adjudicated and she had been there. But she was still in training, then. An observer. His name escaped her.

“I… I don’t remember.”

He smirked. “Figures.” He stood up. “But it’s your lucky day, wench.” He grabbed her by the hair and pulled. Jaina squealed in pain and got to her feet, trying unsuccessfully to pull his hand away. He twisted her and moved her around as if she were his plaything.

“Or maybe unlucky,” he told her. “Boss wants your kind alive. For now. So why don’t you just come with me, huh?”

He yanked her again by the hair and nonchalantly began walking forward. She had to bend over awkwardly to keep up with his pace and to keep him from pulling her hair out. She managed a final look back at the guildhall and the soldiers moving steadily towards it. Her thoughts went to that poor little girl, who Jaina now understood she had abandoned in order to get a better look at the fighting. Maybe they had escaped somehow. Run through a back exit, perhaps, the woman Jaina had handed to her more capable than she ever would be. The little girl, better off without Jaina.

The soldier guided her past the smoldering embers of the fire that was now starting to dwindle. He slowed down just enough to make sure she could get a good look. And she did get a good look. At what little remained of Stegran’s brave crew.

Nothing but charred remains.

And one giant sledgehammer, its handle still burning, its stone head still intact and slick with blood.