Chapter 610: A Horror I do not Wish On my Enemies

A single powerful stomp brought a heavy boot down onto the bandit’s head and drove it into the packed earth with wet, final force.

When the foot lifted again, the stump of the neck bone jutted upward from the ruined remains in a way that turned my stomach over again. I had to look away and swallow hard against the taste of bile.

In less than ten minutes, fifty bandits who had looked experienced, organized, and confident were slaughtered as if they had been nothing more than weeds being casually pulled from a garden path.

The field that had held a small army now held only silence and the wreckage of human beings.

It was terrible.

Blood had splattered across the long grass in wide, dark curves that already attracted the first flies.

It stained the pale stones of the road in irregular pools and thin rivulets that ran downhill until the packed earth itself seemed to have drunk its fill for the day.

The air still had the thick, sharp scent of fresh slaughter mixed with the residual heat shimmer rising from the patch of ground the quiet girl had scorched and the faint ozone tang left behind by whatever invisible force had peeled skin from living bone.

Weapons lay scattered where their owners had dropped them—swords half-drawn, axes still looped to belts that no longer had owners, a single dented helmet resting on its side as if someone had simply set it down and forgotten it.

Here and there a boot stood upright, the foot still inside. The Scarab Boros shifted uneasily in their harness, broad heads turning away from the worst of the smell, but they held their place.

The lady-man came back toward the wagon with heavy, unhurried steps.

Blood still darkened the knuckles and the lower edge of the short pleated skirt.

The small beard was flecked with darker spots that had already begun to dry.

I lowered my head at once and bowed as deeply as an old merchant’s spine would allow, both hands pressed together in front of me the way I had been taught to greet powerful clients in better years.

"W-Well done, my lady," I said. The words came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw by the residual horror in my throat. "Your power truly amazed me. You are such a powerful woman. I have never seen anything like what you just did."

"You do not need to become a sycophant now." The voice that answered was low and clearly uncomfortable.

He—I mean, she—made a distressed face, brows drawing together, and scratched at the small beard with the back of one blood-streaked hand.

The motion was awkward and a tad embarrassed, as if the praise itself were more troubling than the killing had been.

"We do not harm common men such as yourself, so calm down. There is no need for all that bowing and scraping. Stand up properly."

They were beasts. Absolute monsters, every single one of them.

I had watched them turn a force of fifty armed men into ruin without raising their voices, breaking formation, or even appearing to exert themselves.

And yet I still had to ask the question that had been sitting behind my ribs since the moment the last bandit fell.

I knew it was impertinent.

I knew the wrong question, or even the wrong tone of voice, could put me on the same blood-soaked ground as the men whose remains were still cooling in the grass.

But the question was crucial, and silence would not protect the people waiting for me.

"Excuse me... before we continue the journey."

I stepped forward and raised one hand, palm outward, stopping them as they began hopping lightly back up onto the roof of the wagon.

And won’t they wash up already?

"...What do you intend to do in Thaad? What is your assignment?"

I have a wife and three daughters I love in that city.

The knowledge sat behind my breastbone like a second, heavier heartbeat.

I needed to know whether the same fate that had just overtaken these bandits waited for the people I had left behind the walls.

I could still see the aftermath whenever I closed my eyes for too long: limbs hanging from low branches where the force of some blow had thrown them, heads crushed inward until the shape of a human face was only a suggestion, bodies mangled past any hope of recognition, like meat that had been chewed thoroughly and then discarded.

I did not wish that end on my worst enemies.

And I certainly did not wish it on the women who kept a lamp burning for me behind Thaad’s gates.

"Hahaha! He’s scared. He’s totally scared of us now, Zanya!" The cat girl burst out laughing, the sound bright, sharp, and completely out of place against the quiet of the battlefield.

She leaned over from her spot on the roof and slapped the back of the small, petite, and very dangerous girl who still sat cross-legged near the rear edge of the canvas.

The quiet girl accepted the blow without changing expression, only blinking once as if a fly had landed on her.

"Fear not, good sir." The mature one with the red-pink heterochromic eyes glanced down at me as she climbed.

One foot found the sideboard; the other followed.

Her voice was calm and gentle, the tone of someone reassuring a child who had woken from a nightmare.

"We do not seek the destruction of your city and family... We will try to avoid it if it comes to that. You have my word on the attempt, at least."

"Our assignment doesn’t concern you, though." Zanya looked down from the roof with an expression that first treated me like an insect that had wandered too close to the toe of her boot.

The dark-red bird tattoo beneath her left ear was clearly visible now that her ponytail had shifted.

Then the hardness in her face softened by a fraction. Maybe she had remembered that I was still useful for driving the wagon.