Misunderstood Villain: Heroines Mourn My Death

The second cohort became legends by morning.

Jibril.

Nashir.

Faraz.

Ghassan.

They tore through the night like wolves set loose, blades flashing, eyes wild, calling out the names of their loved ones as if those names were swords themselves.

“For my daughter, Saliha!”

“For my brother who never came home!”

“For Leena! For Jamal! For my mother!”

“For you, my Lord—may you rise!”

They didn’t fight like men.

They fought like fire.

Like fanatics.

Where the first five had danced through death, more methodical about their charge, the second four didn’t care about strategy. They wanted impact. They wanted the bandits to know their names. They wanted them carved into the bones of this battlefield. They needed to succeed their predecessors, make them proud, make him proud.

One swung a hammer that turned ribs into splinters. Another snapped necks with his bare hands when his blade lost its edge. One used lightning and burned through a dozen men at once. Another threw himself through their ranks, a towering tank of a man that squashed bastards with his weight.

They welcomed pain.

They howled when hit.

They turned broken bones into weapons and torn muscles into fuel.

They fought from Shamsrise to Shamsset, and then into the black again.

Twenty-four hours. Thirty-six. Fifty.

And then?

They kept going.

Just four men against the tide.

Four men who circled the camp, tearing through the opposition, never allowing them to get close to their loved ones, to their Lord.

They had to give all they had and more.

It was either death or an extra minute of snow in their hourglass.

Time in which their Lord could use to near his ascent.

There was no escape, no thoughts of it, no doubts.

But despite their unbreakable will, by the end of the third night, their bodies barely held on.

They were little more than blood and adrenaline. Limping, bleeding from every limb, staggering—but somehow, still swinging.

…Until the wrath came.

A thousand men surrounded the four.

All of them descended, screaming, calling for revenge against these monsters who had slain hundreds of their bastard brethren and shattered their lines.

The second light was being swallowed whole by darkness.

And for a moment—just a moment—it looked like the four might fall.

Though only for that moment, as that was when Malik moved again.

He rose like a windless shadow.

And the camp held its breath.

BOOM.

He landed in the center of the enemy horde.

Dust. Blood. Snow. Bodies. Screams.

The second cohort blinked, barely alive—then they wept.

Those tears weren’t for their survival; it was happiness for what they had achieved.

Happiness for the pride they felt, for the fact that they had given everything.

Malik stood above them. Silent.

His cloak billowed, and his skin glowed faintly blue from the Aether storm inside his body.

“You’ve done enough.”

They couldn’t even reply.

He moved. Four times.

Each time, one more appeared back in camp. One slumped before the priests. One collapsed into his daughter’s arms. One dropped into his wife’s embrace.

By the time Malik returned with Ghassan, the last of them, the Shams began to peek out its head, rising once more.

Most of the camp hadn’t slept. They’d watched every hour. Every second.

Kabir wiped tears from his eyes. Rami saluted with her bow.

Then another group stepped forward.

Four again.

They didn’t even wait for Malik to sit back at the center.

“Rafi, my Lord.”

“Sabir, my Lord.”

“Hassan, my Lord.”

“Basim, my Lord.”

Malik glanced at Hassan for a moment, then stepped towards the core.

“Go forth.”

They ran without hesitation.

These four weren’t as wild as the last.

They were focused, likely having planned their route to the tiniest detail, using the three days that went past to their advantage.

Rafi was a duelist. One-on-one, none of the tide could give him a moment’s pause.

Sabir used wind magic, collapsing entire squads under the weight of his swings.

Ironically, Hassan was another of the earth. Every swing of his staff came with a barrage of death.

And Basim… Basim was of a unique element. Shadow. He moved like one, there and not there at the same time. Most didn’t see him. They just died.

They didn’t match the fury of the last four, but they lasted longer.

From the fourth night, they pushed on.

Into the fifth.

Then the sixth.

Three days of death.

Three nights of Hell.

They didn’t break.

They were bones and bruises and raw tendon, but they still fought. Still screamed the names of their children and wives. Still snarled every time an arrow pierced their flesh.

Some of the bandits began fearing them. Even avoiding them.

Their commanders yelled. Whipped them forward.

“THEY’RE JUST FOUR!”

But no one believed that anymore.

These weren’t only Nadhirs.

These were Malik’s men.

They had conviction.

One by one, the enemy’s commanders fell to them.

But of course… even fire burned out.

Even steel cracked.

On the morning of the seventh day, just as the Shams broke the horizon, just as the red light kissed the peaks and the dome pulsed again…

The four slowed to a halt.

Basim’s steps stuttered too heavily.

Sabir couldn’t raise his hands anymore.

Rafi dropped to a knee.

Hassan spat blood, completely out of Aether.

They were too far from the camp.

Too deep.

The bandits had learned by now.

They came with nets. With chains. With poison.

They were organizing. Rearranging their legions. Preparing their traps.

And finally, just as Basim fell to one knee and raised a blade to protect Sabir’s limp body—

THUMP!

Malik stood again.

The camp didn’t even gasp this time.

They knew… and so they watched.

BOOM.

The ground exploded again as he vanished into the wind, a blur of ice and fire.

By the time he arrived above the four, the bandits were already turning to run.

But Malik didn’t allow that.

With a single hand, he burned the air around them.

Dozens of enemies melted where they stood.

He collected his people. One by one.

No words this time.

They were too tired to hear them.

The four woke in camp, though, finding themselves lined up beside the others, tended to, kissed, and bandaged.

Alive.

Oh, they were alive.

Malik returned to the center.

But this time, as he sat…

‘Hm.’

He didn’t close his eyes right away.

He stared at a old woman leaving her tent.

The people in the camp watched alongside him.

They didn’t speak. No combatant knelt to be sent out as the fourth cohort.

Not yet.

They just watched her, waiting for the next breath. The next word. The next drop.

And in that silence, a calm settled. The calm before the Seventh Day…

The calm before tragedy.

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