Chapter 193: My Executioner Stopped to Save a Village

Raven smelled the fire before he saw the smoke.

Wood, oil, and something chemical underneath.

Not gunpowder. Not exactly.

He stopped his horse, and Valeria did the same. Roland, several meters ahead, turned in the saddle.

"That’s coming from the road."

A gray column rose behind a line of trees, too thick for a campfire. Raven watched the wind as the smoke leaned east.

"There’s a village ahead."

Roland nodded.

"Brackenford. Small. Mostly workshops and merchants’ homes."

Valeria looked at the column of smoke.

"That doesn’t look small."

No.

Raven had seen urban fires before. The problem was rarely just the fire. It was people running, connected buildings, materials stored where they shouldn’t be, and someone trying to throw water on burning oil because nobody had enough time to think.

Roland pulled lightly on the reins.

"Go around?"

It was a reasonable question.

Elise was still behind them, and the last false trail Raven had left suggested they were traveling northeast. Brackenford sat almost directly along that route.

Entering meant leaving witnesses.

Avoiding it meant losing a chance to see whether the Church had taken the bait.

Raven looked at the smoke again.

"We go closer."

Valeria raised an eyebrow.

"For the information?"

"That too."

She didn’t ask what the other reason was.

Brackenford was worse than it had looked from the road.

Three buildings were burning, and one had already lost its roof. The fire had spread from an alchemical supply shop into two neighboring homes, blackening the fronts while a cloud of greenish smoke hung over the street.

People ran with buckets. Others dragged furniture outside. Two men were trying to break down a door with a wooden pole.

Raven dismounted before reaching the main street.

"Roland. Find out what burned."

"Besides everything?"

"What products."

Roland was already moving.

"That makes more sense."

Valeria watched the green smoke.

"We shouldn’t breathe that."

"I know."

Raven covered his nose and mouth with cloth.

Toxin Adaptation reacted faintly.

[Airborne Irritants Detected.]

[Unknown Alchemical Compounds Present.]

[Adaptive Response Initiated.]

Not enough to remain inside that cloud for long.

Valeria formed a small blood barrier in front of her face, not to breathe through, but to redirect some of the contaminated air.

"What do we do?"

Raven looked around.

One group was trying to extinguish the wrong building, while the wind was carrying embers toward a third house that hadn’t caught fire yet.

"That house."

"What?"

"Wet it first. Roof and western wall."

Valeria understood immediately.

"To stop the spread."

"Yes."

"I don’t have water."

Raven looked toward the bucket lines.

"You have people."

She smiled faintly.

"That sounded darker than necessary."

"Organize them."

Valeria headed toward the neighbors while Raven moved toward the two men still trying to break down the door.

"Back."

One looked at him.

"There are people inside."

"That’s why."

Raven took the pole.

Stonehide spread over part of his forearms as he struck beside the lock.

Once.

Twice.

The wood gave way, and smoke poured out immediately.

"How many?"

"A family. I think four."

"You think?"

"I don’t know!"

Raven went inside.

He found two.

A woman lay unconscious near the staircase, and a boy was hiding beneath a table. The back of the house was already burning.

Raven lifted the woman over one shoulder.

The boy refused to leave.

"My sister’s upstairs."

Raven looked at the stairs.

Fire at the landing.

Smoke.

Time.

"Which room?"

The boy pointed.

"Left."

Raven left the woman beside the doorway.

"Take her."

One of the men obeyed, and Raven went upstairs.

Stonehide protected his hands as he shoved aside part of a burning railing. Ember Spark was useless. For once, having fire inside his body did nothing to help with the fire outside.

Toxin Adaptation dulled some of the smoke irritation, but not all of it. His lungs burned.

He found the girl near a window.

Maybe seven years old.

She wasn’t crying.

That was worse.

Her breaths were short, and her eyes were unfocused.

Raven picked her up.

The ceiling groaned.

Predator’s Instinct reacted.

Down.

Raven didn’t argue.

Burst Step.

Wood crashed behind him as he cleared the final steps in a jump and emerged outside with the girl against his chest.

A woman in white ran toward him.

Not Elise.

Another priestess.

"Here."

Raven handed the girl over.

"Smoke inhalation."

The woman placed both hands over the child, and light appeared.

Raven stepped back.

Then he saw Elise.

She was kneeling in the middle of the street, not chasing him or searching for him, but healing a man whose arm was half-covered in burns.

Her platinum hair had been tied back carelessly, and soot marked one cheek.

Mercy wasn’t at her waist.

The sword rested against a barrel several meters away.

That caught Raven’s attention.

A Champion had left her weapon out of reach because both hands were occupied.

Elise finished treating the man.

"Don’t use that arm today."

"Saint, my wife—"

"Where?"

He pointed toward the building on the corner.

Elise stood.

She saw Raven.

Only for an instant.

Raven waited for an order, recognition, anything.

Elise looked toward the girl he had just carried out, then toward the building.

And ran there.

Raven remained still until Valeria appeared beside him.

"That was rude."

"What?"

"She didn’t even try to arrest you."

Raven looked at her.

Valeria smiled.

"I’m joking."

"I know."

"You didn’t look like you knew."

Raven watched Elise again.

"Go back to the buckets."

"I already organized two lines."

Raven looked.

She was right.

One line carried water toward the untouched house, while the other soaked the buildings closest to the fire.

"Good."

Valeria studied him.

"That almost sounded like a compliment."

"It was."

"I’m writing that down."

Roland returned fifteen minutes later, coughing.

"I found the problem."

Raven handed him water.

"Talk."

"Alchemy workshop. They were storing essence solvent, treated copper salts, and something called white-root powder."

Valeria frowned.

"That last one produces toxic fumes when it burns."

"Yes. I discovered that around the part where the owner started screaming that everyone was going to die."

Raven looked toward the cloud.

"How much?"

"He doesn’t know."

"Excellent."

"He said the inventory ledger was inside."

Raven pointed toward the building burning hardest.

"It isn’t anymore."

Roland drank.

"I also found the Church."

"We already saw them."

"No. I found the rest."

That changed things.

"How many?"

"Six priests. Four auxiliaries. Brother Halven. Two additional horses."

"Knights?"

"None."

Valeria looked toward Elise.

"Then she didn’t come prepared for a fight."

Raven didn’t answer. It could have been deliberate, or it could have been exactly what it looked like.

That was the irritating part.

It took nearly two hours to bring the fire under control.

The smoke lasted longer.

So did Elise.

Raven remained near the edge of the street after there was no longer any need for him to help directly.

Not because he wanted to speak with her.

Because he wanted to watch her.

That was different.

Elise moved from one injured person to the next: burns, smoke poisoning, a dislocated shoulder, a woman who had cut an artery on broken glass while trying to get her children outside.

Elise healed her, then leaned over an old man coughing black into a cloth.

The light around her hands was weaker this time.

Raven noticed.

At first, her presence had felt enormous. Even restrained, it had been obvious that she stood far above everyone around her.

Now it was different.

She was still a Champion, but her mana was dropping.

A lot.

Valeria appeared beside him carrying two cups and handed him one.

"Water."

Raven drank.

"Thanks."

"Second compliment today."

"That wasn’t a compliment."

"Let me enjoy it."

Raven kept watching.

Elise finished with the old man. Brother Halven approached and said something Raven couldn’t hear.

Elise shook her head.

Halven insisted.

She shook her head again and walked toward another group of wounded.

Valeria followed his gaze.

"Why are you still watching her?"

Raven took a moment before answering.

"I’m trying to find where the performance ends."

Valeria didn’t joke this time.

"And?"

Elise knelt beside a little girl who had both arms wrapped around a soot-covered doll. Another priestess was tending to her mother on a blanket nearby.

The girl refused to let go of the toy.

Elise didn’t try to take it from her.

She sat directly on the ground instead, said something, and waited.

The girl shook her head.

Elise spoke again.