Marcellinus got up and took a few steps forward without fear. The looter who was standing behind the others fired surreptitiously and hit the prophet in the shoulder. He stopped and squinted in pain and said:

"If you are accusing us of such a serious crime, there must be evidence."

"And we have it. We found two of our brothers dead in a house nearby and a bunch of footprints on the road that led only here."

Guys exchanged glances with each other. Egon was once again curbed by a feeling of anger and cruelty.

"Come outside."

"Fuck you," Guillotine said.

"What?" one of them was surprised.

"I'm telling you to go fuck yourself."

"I have a crossbow, actually."

"And I don't give a fuck."

"Then we'll kill you all here."

"Kill yourself, you stupid fucker. Sooner or later, you'll see your friends in hell and start roasting in a cauldron like fucking pork dumplings. And the one who will stir up this porridge of shit will be me."

Guillotine spat on the floor right in front of them and said from under his brows:

"Sons of bitches."

Looters were taken aback and took a step back, and one stuttered said:

"Have you decided to go against the new government?"

Here Marcellinus could not stand it and replied:

"New government?"

"Exactly, now this is our city."

"To take up arms and kill those who you don't like in the first hour of the war – this doesn't mean victory."

"We'll see."

"I'll see it, but I don't think you will."

"Why not?"

"Because you haven't killed anyone yet, and your real opponent, the Inquisition, kills a hundred people every day. For them you are like a cockroach for a cleaning lady."

Ofir was the only one who was trembling with horror, afraid to accidentally swallow saliva or face someone from the looters with his eyes, so he looked at the floor. He reasoned, it was better to die with his head held high, rather than begging for mercy, but he did not want to die at all, and the only thing that stopped him from a nervous breakdown was the knowledge that Marcellinus was a metentis, who would most likely kill them all with some powerful spell.

A looter with a pathetic puppy cry of "how do you like this?" he released the first bolt aiming at random at his opponents and the bolt, with a sharp jerk, flew out of the muzzle of the crossbow, pointing its tip directly between the eyes of Guillotine, who immediately fell on the coccyx from fright, looked around, not fully realizing whether he was alive and where the bolt was, and then saw how Marcellinus stopped the rushing death with his hand in the air.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"What the fuck? Shoot them!"

The looters were waiting for the pressure thermometer to go from the yellow zone to the red zone - for fatal shots - and concentrating on the murder, no one noticed how behind their backs, two policemen bent down into this small kennel, nodded to each other, grabbed the two furthest looters by the shoulders, turned them into their compatriots, and pulled the trigger. The first two fell dead, and their crossbows exploded from the accumulated steam pressure, and then the policemen broke their own hostages' necks.

"Wow," Guillotine summed up what was happening. "Well done."

"Thank you," one of the policemen replied, and introduced himself, "my name is Alason, and this is my deputy, Jacob. It seems, we found you on the same tracks as they did."

No one answered. Alason examined the room and every person still breathing in it, he drew attention to the strange tattoo on Egon's palm, he analyzed that everyone except the prophet had a hidden weapon with them. Alason was one of those who likes to notice small details, you never know what will come in handy and where, although there was nothing to cling to, there were simple frightened children and an old man in front of him, at least that's what he thought at the very beginning.

The others stared at their savior, who looked no more than forty, what drew attention to a slightly worn young face with a large wrinkle between the eyebrows and sunken cheeks, combed back hair, oval chin, straight posture, circles under brown eyes. He cleared his throat and asked:

"You killed those three, didn't you?"

"What three?"

"The ones about six hundred meters to the south from here. All the tracks lead here."

"They killed the Doctor, and we killed them for killing him," Egon said. "And I would do it again, if I had the opportunity."

"You're a brave fellow, but I can't understand why you need a doctor at such a time. Is there a wounded man here?"

"There's no one here."

"Who's in the back room?"

"A dog."

"Can I take a look?"

"And don't forget to pet it."

Alason ignored the joke, and then heard the voice of the smallest guy in the room:

"Since when did the police start asking what to do?"

"Ever since we joined the service and took an oath to help the people of this city," Alason replied. "Our service is sacred and given by God. And we won't let Him down."

Guillotine chuckled.

"Did I say something funny?"

"I don't know, what do you think?"

"I think not."

Alason and Jacob did not draw their weapons. They walked calmly past everyone into the back room and saw Homer with a bandaged shoulder and a greyhound growled at the sight of them. Alason squatted down next to the dog, they looked at each other for about thirty seconds, then he turned his gaze away, patted its head, said "good boy" and went back out and asked:

"Why cheat?"

No one answered. Alason adjusted his black uniform with the red badge of the Inquisition, looked at the dead looters, at Marcellinus with an arrow in his palm.

"Do you need help? I can call the medics; they will examine your injured friend."

"Thank you, my friend, but this is not necessary, I have treated the wound. The guy needs to sleep, he'll be fine in the morning."

Alason looked at Egon and recognized his angry, distrustful look, the kind of look that one looks at the murderers of one's relatives, the piercing look of a rabid barbarian from the free lands, eager for the death of an enemy.

"You don't know who to believe and who not to believe?" Alason asked.

"I know everything perfectly well."

"I can take you under arrest."

"Do it. I outlived Thomas's tortures and I'll outlive you."

Jacob tensed as soon as he heard this name, he wondered what exactly had happened, but Alason had already shouted to the other policemen waiting for them outside to take the bodies, and after saying: "come on, Jacob, they don't like us here anyway." They left.

On the street, Jacob said:

"They killed two people."

"Wouldn't you kill to protect your friends? This guy, who was lying in the back room, was seriously injured, and three boys responded with aggression to aggression in order to survive and escape. They don't look like those who attack first. And then an old man was there and helped. That's the whole story. It's bloody, but we have a rebellion here. God is their judge in any case."

"If God is the judge for everyone, then why does He need us?"

"Everyone needs help, even Him. Okay, enough talking, we were ordered to find and escort Alba through this hell, and not to investigate a self-defense. Let's go. There are already murders happening at every step. It's just that in this case, it wasn't the aggressors who won."

"They would have won if we hadn't appeared so timely."

"And we appeared there because God sent you to this place in their footsteps, and we followed you."

"Stop clowning around and let's go already."

Alason ordered two of his subordinates to throw the bodies on the nearest road to make the gravediggers’ work easier. And they left, surrounded by a fiery sky, to the sounds of war.