Chapter 108: The Path to War

Reidar urged the wolf onward; the dam’s silhouette rose through the trees. Havenwood’s walls loomed closer.

At some point, he reached the gates. The guards there spotted the lone rider. One raised a hand to stop him, but Reidar barreled through without slowing. They stepped aside, shouting behind him, but the wolf rider ignored them.

Reidar veered straight for the ranger station. There was much he had to tell Martin, and the most important of them all was the existence of a monster like Silas. Martin needed to hear it all now. Before the church’s rot spread further, Martin needed to kick them out.

He reined in the wolf yards from the station’s steps. Martin stood there, in front of the open door, barking orders to a group of fifty fighters.

Axes gleamed in the midday sun, their edges sharp enough to cleave bone, clutched in rough hands that shook a bit too much.

Bows weighed down their backs, quivers were full of feathered arrows, but nobody drew a string. Not yet. Though it was clear, they were ready for that.

Reidar looked at their faces, the wide eyes and set jaws of men and women who were office workers before all of this.

And then Reidar saw her, Mara, standing at Martin’s right, face pale but composed. She met his gaze without flinching.

Reidar could barely contain himself at the sight of the woman. Mara was here. After vanishing in the chaos by the clearing, after her and Aaron’s betrayal, after Silas’s slaughter.

How was she here? How had she gotten back so fast? And why did she look like she was standing with Martin, like she belonged there?

<She likely returned to twist the knife.>

“Martin!”

Everyone’s head turned. Reidar dismounted from the wolf and approached the group of people Martin was standing amid.

Martin’s face was a mask of weary, bitter resignation. There was no surprise in his eyes. Only a deep anger.

“Stop him!”

The fighters surged forward. Their axes were raised, and shields placed, forming a barrier between Reidar and the leader.

Their faces were set in grim resolve. Reidar halted before them, scanning the line. These weren’t elites like Lena’s squad; they were simple people, at level 28 at best, which wasn’t bad but wasn’t even much.

They shook, not from fear, but from the grim certainty that if it came to a fight, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Their only hope was that words would be enough to stop him.

Reidar had no intention of attacking; after all, it didn’t make sense, but they didn’t know that.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Reidar kept his voice steady despite the fury coiling in his chest. He locked eyes with Martin over the human shield. The hostility was so blatant, so sudden, that it almost felt surreal.

Martin stepped forward.

“Reidar,” Martin said. “I wondered if you’d have the gall to come back.”

“Gall?” Reidar asked in confusion. “What the hell is this, Martin? What’s she doing here?” He jabbed a finger toward Mara.

Martin stepped forward. “Mara told us everything, Reidar,” he said. “She told us how you turned on them. How you murdered Aaron in cold blood. How you were the one who sent the monsters that attacked Havenwood and that you killed Lysa, Torren, Lena, and Jorik.”

A cold knot formed in his stomach. Of course. This was their endgame. He had been so focused on the church’s military power that he had underestimated their capacity for political maneuvering.

At that point, it became clear. During the battle against Silas, Aaron and Mara left.

<Aaron likely went to rendezvous with the rest of the Church members to report on their success, while Mara came straight back here to spin her web of lies to frame me before I could even tell my side of the story.>

“You’re buying her bullshit?”

Mara didn’t flinch, but her fingers twisted in her tunic hem. “Mara and Aaron are church. Unbinding fanatics, through and through. They’re framing me to cover their tracks. I fought Silas, the real one who sent monsters against you. That guy is level 83! He is the one who killed Jorik, Torren, Lysa, and Lena. Aaron ditched us, and Mara ran straight here to poison your ear.”

Martin crossed his arms, and his expression hardened. “I had my suspicions about them,” Martin admitted.

“For a long time. But suspicion isn’t proof. What Mara has given me… is.” He gestured to her.

“She came to me bleeding, terrified. She described your betrayal in detail. She explained how you’ve been the one coordinating the monster attacks, using your summons to herd them toward our walls. All to keep us weak, to keep us dependent, so you could play the hero and infiltrate us.”

Reidar could only shake his head in disbelief. It was a masterstroke. They had taken his greatest strength, his army of summons, and twisted it into the ultimate evidence of his guilt. Who else could control monsters so precisely?

“What evidence could she possibly have?” Reidar’s voice cracked with incredulity.

Reidar’s eyes swept over the fighters behind the line. Some looked uncertain; others held their ground.

Mara’s stare remained locked on him. Reidar took a step closer, testing the space between them. One of the fighters shifted, lifting his axe just a little.

“It doesn’t concern you, Reidar,” Martin said.

“It’s all lies, Martin! Why would I help you get the token if I was the one trying to destroy you? Silas wants us divided. This is exactly what he wants.”

Martin shrugged. “Perhaps it was all a ploy. Part of the twisted game you are playing. I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. With the token, I have the power to protect this town from any further damage you might try to inflict.”

He paused, then turned to look at Reidar with a cold gaze.

“Reidar Miller, you are hereby banished from Havenwood. By my authority as settlement leader, you are cast out. If you set one foot inside our perimeter again, if any of my scouts see you within a day’s march of these walls, you will be considered a hostile invader and dealt with accordingly.”

The guards tightened their grips on their weapons. The crowd of people that gathered to see what was happening started murmuring.

They were not soldiers, and discipline wasn’t their strong point, but they were starting to understand how to fight since they had been doing this for months.

Though they glanced between Reidar and Martin.

Reidar was alone, an outsider now, a traitor in their eyes. His word meant nothing against Mara’s lies. He’d been played totally and completely.

All his efforts, all the lives he’d taken, monster and human alike, to help these people, had been twisted into a narrative that painted him as the villain. He looked at Mara, who had the decency to look down at her feet, but not before he saw a faint, triumphant gleam in her eyes.

It was his word against the heartfelt testimony of their beloved healer. In a contest for the hearts of the frightened people, he never stood a chance.

“Banished? After the blood I spilled for this place as a complete outsider? You have taken my goodwill and thrown it into the trash, Martin.”

Martin countered.

“You played the hero to get close, to sow doubt. You can’t touch us anymore. Run back to your beasts.”

“You’ll regret this,” Reidar said as he backed toward his wolf. “When Silas comes, and he will, remember who warned you.”

Martin waved a dismissive hand. “Go. Before I change my mind about mercy.”

With a final, searing look at Martin and the treacherous woman beside him, Reidar turned. He didn’t say another word. There was nothing left to say.

He swung back onto his wolf, the creature sensing its master’s fury. The line parted just enough for him to wheel around.

As he urged it back toward the gate, the eyes of Havenwood burned into his back; only one thought echoed in the cold, hollow space where his hope had been.

<I should have just kept walking.>

He spurred the wolf east, toward Creamont, knowing that war was brewing and that it was going to involve everyone. Not just Havenwood.

The forest swallowed him whole, but the dam’s shadow lingered long in his mind.

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