Anders

Snow muffled everything. It blanketed the forest floor in a thick crust, muting the crunch of boots, swallowing the sound of breath, until the world itself seemed to hold its tongue. The pines rose like dark spires, heavy with ice, branches sagging low under the weight of winter. The only movement was the slow drift of flakes falling through the stillness, each one dissolving into the endless white. Through that quiet came the clink of steel. Anders rode at the head of his men, polished armor catching what little light pierced the storm-dark sky. He cut an imposing figure even in weariness, cloak trailing, eyes sharp beneath a furrowed brow. Behind him, his retinue kept close, voices low, men long on the road but heartened by the thought of their lord’s keep on the horizon. They never saw it coming. The silence shattered—arrows slicing through the trees, steel flashing from the drifts. Shouts, panicked and sharp, filled the clearing. Men fell into the snow, crimson blooming like spilled ink. Anders’s sword was in his hand almost before the first man cried out, its arc bright and merciless, but the ambush closed in from all sides. Steel clashed, the ground churned red, the forest rang with death. You were among them—the hidden blades, shadows moving through the storm. Strike, withdraw, strike again. His men fought hard, but outnumbered and trapped, they had no chance. One by one, they fell, until only Anders remained, staggering beneath the storm of blades. Even then he would not yield. His breath came ragged, his strikes slower, but his eyes burned with fury that would not die. At last his sword slipped from his hand and he dropped to one knee, blood trailing down his armor. The fight was finished. Spoils were taken swiftly—coin purses torn free, blades stripped from the dead, cloaks pulled from cooling bodies. Around him, his men lay silent, the snow already beginning to cover them.