32. Ruins

A stillness filled the area, one unlike anything they had ever experienced before in the night. For once, the sound of steel meeting iron had vanished. There weren’t any battle cries or deaths. No men trying to kill each other just to see another day. Only the remaining Everheart forces stayed, waiting for someone from their side to arrive.

Nathanial glanced at the survivors, all of them tending to the loss in their own ways. Water leaked through the ceilings of the stone ruins in slow droplets, splashing against the bloodied armor and exhausted bodies.

No one spoke after Luka’s words.

Nathanial suspected that John and the others were giving their lives so that they could make it out, but a part of him wanted to believe that somehow—some way, they would get out of there alive. They were watchmen, heroes of the nation. They’d been through hell and back, done many heroic deeds people wouldn’t believe were possible.

Yet now, they seemed like nothing more than a group of broken soldiers. Nathanial leaned silently against the remains of a collapsed pillar.

They didn’t make it.

That sentence lingered in the air like a wound no one wanted to touch.

His hands took his helm for once in the long night. His breathing was uneven and his legs were still exhausted from the retreat.

Only twelve out of nearly forty men made it out.

The realization sat heavily in his chest. Not a word could escape him because no matter what he tried to say, there was nothing to bring peace to those who were grieving.

Nearby, Percy wiped the rainwater from his face with his trembling hands, but Nathanial knew it wasn’t rain. The young man tried to hide the tears away with the cold spring rain. He attempted to numb the feelings he couldn’t ignore.

Percy kept his head lowered while helping one of the injured watchmen wrap a wound around his ribs. They used the last of their healing potions, making each drop count.

Fredrick sat against a broken wall, staring blankly into the darkness beyond the ruins. His snarky and playful jokes replaced by silence.

The surviving watchmen continued to work in shifts, some keeping watch on the outer perimeter for any signs of danger while others tended to their wounds with the slightest hint of emotion. One stitched his own arm shut and flinched in pain. Another quietly cleaned the blood from a shattered obsidian dagger before his gaze drifted into nothingness.

Nathanial’s gaze drifted to Luka.

The watchman kneeled beside the unconscious soldier they had carried from the desperate escape, replacing blood-soaked bandages with care. There wasn’t any anger or grief. Just practical movements trying to save the few lives they had left.

It felt wrong seeing Luka like this, but then Nathanial remembered what he had heard before.

We’re anything but heroes. We’re just soldiers in the end, and that’s all we’ll ever be.

Maybe that was why Luka said that, because he knew that while many considered them heroes. They were just like them—men fighting for their homeland with the spirit to offer their lives for a price greater than themselves.

His heart ached, and a piece of him wished his comrades would emerge through the trees. Laughing at how close everything had been.

The thought felt pathetic even inside his own head, but was that so wrong? To cling to that one piece of hope that there were still more of them out there?

A sudden groan broke the silence. One of the wounded watchmen coughed violently, blood spilling down his chin as the others tried to hold him down.

“You’ll tear the stitching if you move like that,” Luka muttered.

The watchman gave a weak laugh. “You don’t have to lecture me about that; our instructor always gave me an earful.”

A few men softly chuckled at the remark, and Nathanial slowly let out a sigh of relief. But before the mood could settle, one of the watchmen suddenly froze. His head snapped toward the forest, and everyone reacted instantly.

Nathanial’s hand immediately tightened around the hilt of the spare sword at his waist. Weapons rose one by one, and auras flared. Fredrick jumped to his feet and rushed to his side.

Movement.

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Somewhere in the forest, there was movement without the impromptu signal they had created.

Several figures staggered through the trees. Nathanial’s pulse raced. For a second, he thought it could be Richard or maybe John. But the odds of them finding their group this easily shouldn’t have been possible.

Then lightning illuminated the forest, revealing Richard emerging from the dense foliage with a shield before his body and a sword in his other hand. Blood covered nearly half of his armor, and behind him came five watchmen, two patrolmen, and Chris.

“Holy shit…” Fredrick muttered.

Even Nathanial couldn’t believe it as he stepped into the opening of the broken wall and revealed himself. They looked horrific, like the men had crawled straight out of hell. But considering what happened, it was a miracle that they made it out.

Percy stumbled forward, waving his hands. “Richard!”

The men who came out of the forest released a deep sigh of relief as others from the ruins emerged. Fredrick let out a shaky breath while Nathanial felt tension leave his body.

Richard was alive.

Relief spread throughout their ranks, and Richard’s expression brightened, waving back to them with his sword. Everyone quickly helped his group into their temporary hideout, but soon his smile faded.