Axeton Bridges carefully walked from building to building, checking every shop, home, and shed. Still no signs of life. He knew that Tommen would never lie to him, but the sliver of hope he had was starting to grow smaller and smaller with each empty house.

What was even more concerning to the priest was the lack of any signs of a struggle. Tommen was the only one so far to have fought back, he thought. But that couldn’t possibly be the case, could it? Axeton chewed the possible scenarios in his mind as he kept scouting the village, getting closer to the church.

Halfway there, he had come up to the cobbler’s shop, and heard noises inside. He froze, then ducked into some bushes just outside the rear window. The priest heard the tinny metal rings of someone throwing around tools. They must have broken off from the main group to raid the houses while the boss wasn’t looking, he thought. Listening and waiting, He could tell that there was only one of them, and by the sound of his steps the intruder should have been smaller than him. Taking out one here is one less I’d have to fight later, Axeton thought. He might have information, if I can take him alive.

The angry voice balked.

ALIVE? WHERE’S THE FUN IN THAT?

Axeton shook his head clear and continued to listen.

He heard him rifling through the cupboards, finding something, and he started to eat it noisily while walking back and forth. His footsteps came closer to the window; it must have been an apple and he’s about to throw out the core, Axeton reasoned. As he reached the window, The priest flashed his arm outward, trying to grab the intruder’s neck. He reacted more quickly than anticipated, and Axeton was only able to grab onto his shirt. He stumbled backward in confusion, then twisted around making Axeton lose his grip. Running to the front door, he started fumbling with the lock just to see the burly priest jump through the window and barrel right towards him . He tried to call out, but the shock while chewing had made him start to choke on whatever he was eating, and he couldn’t make more than a dry gagging noise.

Grabbing him by the shirt and covering his mouth with the other hand, Axeton forcefully led him to a corner and pinned him to the wall. Releasing his shirt, he repositioned that hand around his throat and glared at him .

“What are you doing here?” he asked, in an angry, coarse whisper. “Where is everyone? I’m going to uncover your mouth, and if you make a noise I’ll snap your little neck”.

Axeton doubted he had the strength to do that, but he was hoping the bluff would work.

It didn’t.

He gulped loudly as Axeton removed his hand from the intruder’s mouth. In a flash, he pulled out a knife from a pocket at his side and started wildly swinging at Axeton, putting all of his effort and weight into every strike. He was barely able to dodge, but in return he had to let go of his neck. The man suddenly became more focused and went into the fifth Stance: Revell, the Wildman Stance.

The man lunged his knife forward, nicking the priest’s shoulder. Axeton was able to pull back, but it still broke the skin. “Stop it!” he hissed as he tried to recall his defensive training and bat his knife away. Not only was this extremely dangerous, but he was making noise. The two combatants circled each other in the small store front, with the Axeton trying to watch his footwork and avoid the debris this maniac had left on the floor. He kept his wild eyes fixed on the priest, his knife forming a barrier of haphazard and deadly strikes.

Just then, the man stepped on a piece of food and stumbled. As soon as Axeton saw him waiver back, he lunged forward, grabbing at the knife. He was able to get a hold of his wrist and started to pry the knife out of his grip when the man headbutted Axeton, causing him to recoil back

The angry voice growled, battling with the older one.

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HIM.

You need information, control yourself.

Axeton had to shift tactics. This one wasn’t going to come easily, if at all.

Axeton changed from a defensive stance to Stance Seven and drew his blade. The man’s eyes widened for a split second before he refocused on him as a whole and brought his guard back up.

He lunged, and Axeton flicked his wrist away, using the basket hilt as an improved brass knuckles and landed a punch just under the intruder’s left eye. It immediately started swelling and a nick began to trickle blood.

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FINISH IT

The priest winced and shook his head clear, and his opponent took the opportunity to make a wide, slashing horizontal arc that caught Axeton’s shirt but thankfully didn’t get further. The action had caused him to overextend his reach, and he had twisted his torso too far to the side after the swing. It brought his head down, which Axeton kicked back up violently with his knee. He made a guttural choke as his head reeled back, and he collapsed onto the floor. Trying to scramble back onto his feet, Axeton had already stepped forward, the acute edge of his blade a few inches from his throat.

SO CLOSE. JUST LIKE BEFORE.

How many times were you shown mercy?

“WHAT are you after here?” Axeton choked angrily through clenched teeth.

The intruder coughed, brought the knife up in his hand, then released it as it clanked onto the wooden floor. His nose was broken, and bleeding profusely.

“Does it look like I would know?”, he hissed back, his eyes narrowing at the man standing over him. “My captain said we had to come to some podunk, backwater village to ‘take care of something’. I stayed behind after we got here, and they didn’t even notice I was gone.”

Axeton sharply exhaled from his nose, then noticed the man’s tunic. Blue, with a white band on the collar. His traveling overcoat had hidden it before, but he was focused on the fight. This can’t be good, he thought.

“You’re from Grenfield?”, the priest asked incredulously.

He raised a bruised eyebrow. “Yeah…”, he replied.

Something doesn’t feel right, Axeton thought.

“What is your captain’s name?”, he asked angrily, the edge of his blade getting slightly closer to his neck.

“Dorian!”, he announced, with a tone that almost seemed like he was happy to be able to give him some kind of answer.

Axeton’s blood ran cold. He shook his head. “No…”, He muttered, taking a step back.

YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN. NO ONE ESCAPES. The angry voice roared.

The man continued. “I heard he was an instructor for years, and recently the last captain of Grenfield died, so he took his place”.

The priest’s mind spun. What are the odds that he would be here? This mind raced.

Axeton regained himself, lowering his head and meeting the man’s eyes once again. “One more question, and I swear if you’re lying, I’ll take your head clean off”.

His opponent’s eyes widened, before he nodded complicitly.

He took a deep breath and gulped. “This…Dorian. Is he still the leader of The Order of the Silver Dawn?”

“He has been for a while”, the man answered hopefully.

Axeton’s soul seemed to crush with anguish. This was his worst nightmare come true. He must be after the bell, this isn’t some group of mindless bandits ransacking a village. The priest looked at the bleeding man on the floor.

This kid isn’t going to tell me any more than I didn’t already know, he thought. Axeton looked around for something to gag and bind him so he wouldn’t have to kill him. He saw a long piece of cloth, and as he reached for it, his blade pulled away from the boy’s neck. He took the opportunity and started screaming.

“HELP! SOMEONE E-”

Acting purely on instinct, Axeton turned back towards him and flicked the edge of the blade across the boy’s throat. The deep, clean gash opened, and a crimson bubbling tide silenced him as panic filled his eyes and he fell to the ground. The poor fool could do nothing as he pawed at the wound, gagging, his legs uselessly kicking against the wooden floor.

LOOK AT HIM SQUIRM, the loud voice chortled.

A wasted life, the quiet voice mourned.

The intruder finally stopped moving, his blue and white tunic splattered with blood, as more of it coalesced into a growing pool under his shoulders.

Finally getting a good look at his opponent, Axeton saw that he was maybe eighteen years old. Scrawny, blond with patchy facial hair and big ears, he looked like someone’s little brother. He cursed Dorian and the Knights of the Silver Dawn. They took naive, sheltered kids like this, promised them the world, and they ended up dying for Dorian’s cause. I should have killed him when I had the chance, Axeton thought. I was selfish to think that running away would do anything to stop him.

And now a kid was dead. Word would get back to the campus and they’d write a letter to his parents, saying that he died during a training accident, or left the grounds and was never heard from again. Recruits dying wasn’t rare, but someone usually had to take some kind of responsibility. Axeton doubted that Dorian would let this kid’s parents have any closure, and he would probably silence or threaten to silence anyone who asked questions.

That made him think of his own family, probably thinking that Axeton had died long ago. He couldn’t risk contacting them, but he prayed every night that they were still alive.

Axeton looked at the body and assessed the situation. There was no point in hiding it; this one was a straggler and he doubted anyone with half a brain would dare to break ranks like this one. They won’t be coming back to look for him , less people to split the loot, he guessed. The priest wiped the blood from the tip of his blade, sheathed it again, then hopped back out the window, making his way towards the center of town. He had to prevent the Bell of Avara from being stolen, and try to keep his old master from killing everyone on his way to get it.