If you missed them, the previous turns are linked here -The Blightburner's Story
Sigrid stood in the Blackthorn yard with Elara’s letter hanging from her fist.
The words were plain. Elara’s brother was at Ashen Cloister. Fetch him. Bring him home to the manor. A Friend’s contract, written in a hand that still shook from the shrine.
Vaelith waited a few steps off. Pale hair. Cold eyes. Bird Maille catching what little morning the yard allowed. She had come for buried writing and a drowned chapel. The letter was not her business. The road south was.
Sigrid looked from the parchment to the newcomer.
“We take the Cloister road,” she said. “But the Curse camp sits on the way, and it’s still warm. We hit that first. Elara’s brother can wait one day. The hideout can’t.”
Vaelith nodded, “I’m with you until we finish what needs finishing. Until then, let the bodies hit the floor.” She gave Sigrid a wry smile.
They left Blackthorn without unpacking.
The black forest southeast of the manor ate the track by noon. Finn found them a fold of ground far from the cabin — no fire, no talk above a whisper. A cold camp, hidden. The Forsaken never knew they were coming.
A wandering healer stumbled across them at dusk, asked no names, stayed the night. Sigrid paid three gold to keep the warband fed and moving. Hard times. Always hard times.
Before first light Finn ghosted the trees and came back with a clean path. No wasted miles. Rose drilled until her hands blistered and the new toughness sat in her bones like a second coat of mail. Grimwald chased old writing by firelight and got nothing but smoke.
Then they moved.
The hideout was an old logger cabin that had forgotten honest work — red walls gone to rot, a sagging porch, an abandoned cart parked like a dare. Forsaken infantry held it. Helmets. Shields. Their captain inside.
Vaelith and Finn took the north rocks. High ground. Overlook. Dust slid south until Swift Eagle had a shooting lane that didn’t care about distance. Sigrid and Rose walked straight at the cart.
The first shots belonged to the flanks.
Dust’s arrow punched an archer behind the cabin — armor, range, none of it mattered. The man folded, wounded and stunned. Vaelith’s first kill of the day dropped the crossbowman off the roof. He hit the dirt and stayed there.
Sigrid reached the wagon and made it simple. One guard went down in a sheet of his own blood. The second came around the cart swinging like he’d been waiting his whole cursed life for her. Battering Storm answered. Steel rang. The blow that should have ended her didn’t. She stayed on her feet anyway — wounded, stunned, still standing, too angry to fall. (Story point spent, worth it)
A third Forsaken boiled out of the guard tower and slammed into her. Dead even. Neither gave ground.
The cabin door burst.
The captain and his remaining men spilled into the yard, charging hard, not quite there yet.
Rose saw Sigrid take the beating and stopped pretending this was a careful fight.
“Fuck this.”
She hit the press at the cart and put a man in the dirt. Garric came up on her shoulder with the old bastard sword. Grimwald’s voice cut through the noise. Heal took the hole out of Sigrid. The wound closed. The rage didn’t.
On the rocks a Forsaken tried the climb. Finn put an arrow through his eye and left him hanging on the stone.
Dust didn’t wait for anyone else. The far crossbowman died on the second shot. Another bolt snapped past Sigrid and missed. Then the captain reached her.
They tore into each other. When the exchange broke, he was the one wounded and stunned.
A Forsaken put a vicious cut into Rose. She should have gone down. The new toughness held. She stayed upright long enough for Garric to scream and butcher the man where he stood.
Sigrid finished the captain like a dog in the yard. Battering Storm boomed off the cabin wall. He dropped and did not get up.
That was no common kill. The captain was a key man of the Curse of War. His death left a hole in their command the forest would feel.
After that it was work.
Vaelith and Finn came off the rocks into the yard, bows humming. Blades flashed. Red hit the cart, the porch, the dirt. One lone Forsaken saw the rest of his company carved open and melted into the trees. Nobody caught him.
The cabin gave up what it had.
A strange sack. Jars of spice worth four gold. Fine full armor that Garric claimed without asking twice. A magic necklace — Curing Ward. Sigrid held it up. Nobody took it. She put it on.
They burned what needed burning and made camp on the far side of the clearing, already pointed toward Ashen Cloister. Elara’s letter was still in Sigrid’s kit. Her brother was still waiting.
A traveler found them after dark with worse news than loot.
Outlaw bands were loose in the wilderness. Patrolling. Claiming ground. Until the Blightburners met them in the open and held the field, every victory would pay less.
One Forsaken was still running.
The roads ahead just got meaner.
.JPEG)
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