By the time Malt had regained some of his senses, the entire village was in turmoil.

Panicked voices and bewildered yelling could be heard throughout the village as townsfolk began to leave their houses, curious as to what the commotion was. The khods almost immediately left their posts near the perimeter to survey the scene.

At some point a torch or lantern must’ve broken because small fires were beginning to spread, not enough to be dangerous but more than enough to begin filling the night with embers.

The explosion most definitely killed everyone in quite a large perimeter. If the sheer force of the blast hadn’t killed the guards, the storm of shrapnel most definitely did.

Even Malt, who was several yards away from the bomb, found splinters of varying sizes embedded in the softer parts of his armor. Fortunately for him though, he was largely covered and so only suffered the occasional superficial wound, nothing that would stop him from fighting.

Other than the fact that he was experiencing what was probably the worst headache of his life, a pain in the ears akin to someone forcing a needle into his eardrum, and was still trying to recover the air that was knocked out of him, he was as good as new.

Henry, however, wasn’t so lucky.

He was suffering all the same ailments but additionally had blood seeping from a gnarly hole in his thigh.

He laid face down on the floor, groaning in pain.

Malt crawled over to Henry and hurriedly rolled him onto his back, which evoked a strained yelp. He grabbed the side of his head with one hand, shaking it around gently. Seeing as he wasn’t opening his eyes, this eventually turned into what was practically repeated slapping, anything to elicit a response from his comrade.

After a few painstaking seconds, he finally opened his eyes.

“Hey! Oi! Come on man you’ve gotta wake up!”

His eyes were groggy and he was still in a daze. To Malt’s horror, countless small lacerations peppered his skin and shards of wood were sticking out haphazardly here and there.

The most worrisome injury was definitely the one into his right thigh though. Whereas the others seemed to only affect his skin, this one was bleeding profusely and showed no signs of stopping.

Before he could get a chance to examine the wound any further, he could hear khod voices approaching from somewhere nearby. Quickly and without paying too much attention to Henry’s agony, Malt looped the boy’s arm over his neck and practically dragged him to the nearest building. After hurriedly shutting the door he immediately sat Henry down on a chair and sat down himself before his knees gave out. 

Then, it was time to administer first aid. Malt was by no means a doctor, but he’d been taught the absolute basics.

First he lifted his leg and confirmed that there was an exit wound, generally a good sign whenever it came to arrows or pieces of shrapnel. From the way Henry yelped whenever his leg moved he’d probably either broken or fractured the femur, which limited their mobility substantially.

Then came part where he needed to stop the bleeding by some means. In an attempt to improve visibility he removed his helm, straining his eyes to see solely with the help of the moon’s pale glow through a nearby window.

He ripped the boy’s clothing into long strands and began wrapping them around his thigh, making sure to use extra strips to pad both openings. Anything that could even remotely obstruct blood flow could’ve helped.

He then tied the knot as tightly as he could, much to Henry’s agony. As cruel as it sounded, he didn’t care if Henry was in pain. In fact the groaning was useful, it proved that he was still alive.

Next came the unsure part, making a splint. He didn’t even know if using a splint would help in that situation, but he thought it’d be pretty shitty if the wound suddenly got worse during their escape.

They only needed to make it away from the site of the blast, from there they could wait a few minutes for the main force to come in. Easier said than done. 

Most of the khods near the center of the village had been taken out by the blast which meant that the rest were coming from the outskirts to check out the barracks. They’d definitely be found if they stayed in that building, which was only a few yards from the explosion.

With this in mind he untied his dagger from his belt and unsheathed it. He took the two pieces and placed them on either side of Henry’s thigh, sandwiching them together with another couple straps of cloth.

After everything had been done he stepped back and looked at his work. It was messy and questionable in terms of medical assistance, but it would probably keep him alive.

An image of what would’ve been had Henry not made it flashed by Malt’s mind but surprisingly, it didn’t bother him much. He couldn’t afford to get anxious in this situation.

After making sure he was still conscious, he looped Henry’s arm around his neck again and led them to the back door. As could be seen through the long shadows being cast through the window, the remaining khods were gathering near the destroyed barracks to spectate the carnage.

Seeing this they slipped into an alley and began limping their way to the perimeter. If they were caught by a group of guards it would mean certain death.

Henry was unarmored and incapacitated whilst Malt was completely unarmed and was missing head protection, having forgotten his helm in a rush.

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On the bright side they were following Geld’s two rules of evasion (probably something he had to learn via experience): never be out in the open and always have an exit.

As long as they could follow these two rules they’d be hidden and would never be cornered, increasing their chances of surviving substantially (albeit still not enough to be comfortable).

Luckily most guards were in a hurry to get to the barracks and probably wouldn’t stop to search a small alley like this. The search would probably start once they were given orders at the destroyed barracks and would fan outward from the epicenter.

Unluckily for them, all it takes is a single competent guard to fuck it all up.

Right before they managed to reach the end of the alley a guard rounded the corner. Both parties were just as surprised but Malt was the first to react. He let Henry fall to the ground as he quickly punched the man in the throat.

His knuckle buried itself deep into his Adam's apple, causing him to gag and choke instinctively. In this moment of bewilderment Malt grabbed the small mace hanging from the khod’s belt.

All the guard could do was raise his arm out in a futile attempt to protect himself. By that point the mace was already flying downward.

One of the mace’s blunt ridges weaved in between his fingers and forced his middle and ring finger apart rather gruesomely, smashing the hand into a malformed and disjointed mess.

He immediately let out a blood curdling scream, one that echoed throughout the village, definitely alerting every guard in town. He stared in horror at what had become of his hand as Malt poised for another swing.

This time the strike was heavy and viscous, a blow that split the man’s collarbone and buckled his knees. He was down almost immediately, crushed under the weight of the swing.

Unfortunately he wasn’t dead, far from it. Screaming and rolling on the ground, he probably alerted everyone in the damn countryside.

Malt didn’t need to strain his ears to hear the multiple voices drawing nearer and nearer. It was too late to silence the man as well, they’d find them nonetheless.

And so he made a decision.

He looked to Henry, who had successfully hoisted himself off the ground using the wall as support.

“Look here.” He guided Henry’s disoriented eyes to lock with his own. “I’m gonna go out onto the street and make some noise. You’ve got to get the fuck out of here in that time, got that?”

He didn’t wait for a reply, knowing that Henry would object.

“Good.” He turned around and before his comrade could convince him otherwise he sprinted into the middle of the street, where just a few yards down a group of guards were looking around.

Although it may seem like Malt was sacrificing his life in order to save Henry, this was actually their best chance of them both making it out alive.

If they’d stayed together then the guards would’ve probably found them and in that scenario Malt wouldn’t have been able to fight them whilst defending Henry.

If Malt could get attention away from him though, he might be able to distract them long enough for the reinforcements to arrive. It was a big might, but it was a chance nonetheless.

The guards, upon seeing him, drew their weapons. There were three guards, all armed with polearms and covered nearly head to toe in armor of slightly lower quality than the guards at the barracks.

Immediately realizing that he was completely and utterly outmatched, Malt turned to run before they could draw any closer. To his surprise, one guard actually lunged forward and tried to stab him.

The thrust was grossly overstretched and unbalanced, to the point where he didn’t even have to dodge to avoid it.

He gratefully took advantage of the blunder and grabbed the bardiche by the handle, yanking it toward himself. The khod’s yell as he was suddenly pulled forward further solidified the notion that he was just a novice.

Malt raised his mace in the other hand and savagely brought it down onto the back of the newbie’s neck. There was an audible crack as the boy’s panicked yelling came to an abrupt stop.

He fell forward and onto his face, as limp as a bag of potatoes.

A small rush of victory clouded Malt’s brain before it too was abruptly stopped. In the midst of his kill, another guard brought his bardiche down onto Malt’s back.

Luckily it glanced off his backplate, but it delivered more than enough force to knock the wind out of him and to bring him falling onto his knees.

Not taking any second chances, they now spread out and almost circled him. Malt was on the floor and desperately pointing at each guard with his mace, trying to ward them away whilst struggling for breath.

The other guard raised his bardiche into the air. This time, he wasn’t able to do anything in retaliation. He simply raised his mace to try and intercept the blow, and waited.

And the blow did come, but much to his surprise it was blocked by a thin, unwavering blade. He turned to see the source of the weapon to see Henry, bruised but not yet beaten. He looked pale as death, but a burning determination refused to leave his eyes.

Well, to say that it was an unwavering blade was a bit of an overstatement considering that the bardiche still came down (albeit now with less momentum) and crashed into his mace, which then collided into his pauldron with considerable force.

It wasn’t a miraculous save that came just in time but hey, it is what it is.

The guard backed off frantically upon seeing the new enemy appear.

Malt looked at Henry, he really shouldn’t have been standing, much less fighting, but he shouldn’t have expected anything less from him. Henry was determined and loyal to fault, whether that was a good thing or not wasn’t for him to decide.

Malt propped himself off the ground and stood back to back with Henry, just like how the action heroes did it in the movies back home. With them being hopelessly outmatched and with more guards presumably on their way, they readied for a last stand of sorts. They readied their minds and hearts, ready to die the dramatic death that every boy dreams of at some point. 

But of course, reality isn’t so dramatic.

By the time Henry raised his sword and poised for a swing, one of the guard’s heads had been replaced with a fountain of blood. As the gruesome corpse fell to the floor they looked to the other guard just in time to see a thin, curved blade being pushed in between his eyes.

Standing above the two corpses was of course, Geld, with the same confidently bored expression he always had on.

“Can’t even take care of a few grunts when you’re on your own? Amateurs, the lot of you.”

“The fuck’ve you been all this time? We’ve almost died like, three separate times within the last five minutes.”

He sheathed both his scimitars, making an annoyed face.

“Sounds like a you problem. I’ve had my own shit to deal with.”

Malt opened his mouth to argue, but decided to give up on the matter. No matter what he said he wasn’t winning.

“You know what, I’m too tired to even try. Help me carry Henry out of here.”

“No need.” He nudged his head to the direction of the barracks. 

There, an even bigger commotion began to arise. Judging by the amount of yelling, Stromund was probably raising hell with the reinforcements.

Malt fell flat onto his back, letting his muscles relax for the first time in what seemed like hours, even though only a few minutes had passed.