They buried the dead at dawn.
There was no ceremony. No prayers spoken aloud. The caravan people worked with the quiet efficiency of those who had done this before and learned not to linger in grief longer than survival allowed. Two shallow graves were cut into the hard soil beyond the road. Stones were stacked instead of markers. Names were spoken once, softly, then released.
Aarinen stood apart.
His side throbbed where the blade had cut him. The wound was not deep enough to slow him, but it was deep enough to remind him that pain still reached flesh before it turned into laughter. Blood crusted dark against his skin. He had not cleaned it.
He wanted to remember the order of events.
The guards' deaths were not abstractions. They had faces. One had been humming before the attack, a tuneless sound that had irritated another guard enough to tell him to stop. Aarinen remembered that now with uncomfortable clarity.
When the last stone was placed, the caravan leader approached. His name, Aarinen learned, was Rovan. He was not old, but worry had aged him unevenly, pulling his face downward as if gravity had decided to single him out.
"We're leaving," Rovan said. "Immediately."
"Yes," Aarinen replied.
Rovan hesitated.
"You don't have to come with us," he said carefully.
"No," Aarinen agreed.
"But if you stay near the road," Rovan continued, "they'll come again. Maybe not today. Maybe not for us. But for someone."
"Yes."
Rovan studied him.
"You don't look surprised," he said.
"I was warned," Aarinen replied.
Rovan nodded once, as if that explained everything and nothing.
"We can take you as far as Merrowen," he said. "After that, you'll be on your own."
"Merrowen," Aarinen repeated. "A city."
"Yes."
Cities meant witnesses. Records. Names written down.
He felt the weight of it immediately.
"I'll walk," Aarinen said.
Rovan frowned.
"That's worse," he said. "You'll be seen either way."
"Yes."
Rovan exhaled sharply.
"Then at least walk with us," he said. "If they come again, better they come once."
Aarinen did not answer immediately.
He looked at the graves.
Then at the road stretching forward, clean and indifferent.
"Yes," he said.
They set out before the sun fully rose.
The caravan moved faster now. Guards walked with hands on weapons, eyes scanning every ridge and tree line. The child who had hidden beneath the wagon clutched a wooden animal so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. No one spoke more than necessary.
Aarinen walked beside the wagons, deliberately visible.
By midday, they reached a low cut in the land where the road narrowed between stone embankments. Aarinen felt it again — the tightening in the air, the subtle pressure that preceded violence.
He slowed.
"Stop," he said.
Rovan raised a hand instantly. The caravan halted.
"What is it?" Rovan asked.
Aarinen listened.
Footsteps. Many. Disciplined. Too many to rush.
"They followed," Aarinen said.
The ambush came without drama.
Arrows fell first — not in a volley, but placed shots. One guard went down with a shaft through his thigh, screaming. Another took one in the shoulder and dropped behind a wagon.
Then the attackers stepped into view.
Not the same ones.
These wore lighter armor, gray and white instead of black. Their leader walked openly, hands empty, expression calm.
He stopped ten paces away.
"Step aside," he said to the caravan. "This does not concern you."
Rovan moved in front of his people.
"It concerns us when you spill blood on our road," he said.
The leader looked past him — directly at Aarinen.
"You're difficult to misidentify," he said. "That saves time."
Aarinen met his gaze.
"You're late," Aarinen replied.
The man smiled faintly.
"We wanted confirmation," he said. "You're louder in person."
"What do you want?" Aarinen asked.
"To limit spread," the man replied simply.
He gestured with two fingers.
The archers repositioned.
Rovan turned sharply toward Aarinen.
"You didn't tell us they were this organized," he hissed.
"I didn't know," Aarinen said.
That was true.
The leader sighed.
"Last chance," he said. "Come with us quietly. We don't kill witnesses unless necessary."
Aarinen laughed.
The sound snapped sharp in the narrow pass.
Pain flared instantly as an arrow struck his leg. The shaft sank deep. He barely felt it before the laughter surged, stronger, hotter.
The air buckled.
Two archers dropped their bows, clutching their heads, blood pouring from ears and noses. One screamed until his voice broke.
Aarinen ripped the arrow free and threw it aside.
Another arrow hit him in the shoulder.
He laughed again.
This time, something else happened.
The sound didn't just strike outward — it folded inward, then burst forward again, like breath forced through stone. The leader staggered, eyes widening in disbelief as invisible force slammed into him, lifting him off his feet and hurling him backward into the embankment.
Bone cracked.
Silence shattered into chaos.
The attackers surged forward.
Aarinen moved.
Not carefully. Not strategically.
He moved like something unleashed.
Every wound fed the sound. Every impact sharpened it. His laughter echoed off stone, off flesh, off fear. Men fell clutching shattered limbs. One tried to crawl away, sobbing, hands useless.
A blade slid between Aarinen's ribs.
He laughed — louder than he ever had.
The attacker froze.
The sound hit him like a wall. His body convulsed, muscles locking, blood vessels bursting beneath his skin. He collapsed, twitching.
It ended quickly.
Too quickly.
The survivors ran.
The road was littered with bodies.
Aarinen stood shaking, breath ragged, laughter dying into something hoarse and broken. Pain flooded back all at once as adrenaline faded. He dropped to one knee, hands pressing against his wounds.
Silence returned.
Not peace.
Aftermath.
Rovan approached slowly.
"You didn't just defend us," he said. "You massacred them."
Aarinen looked up, eyes unfocused.
"Yes," he said.
One of the wounded guards groaned.
Aarinen forced himself upright and went to him, tearing cloth, binding wounds with shaking hands. His laughter did not return. Pain stayed pain now.
When it was done, Rovan stood beside him.
"You can't stay with us," Rovan said quietly.
"Yes."
"You'll draw this wherever you go," Rovan continued. "Cities won't hide you. They'll sell you."
"Yes."
Rovan hesitated.
"They had orders," he said. "Written ones. Marks, routes, times."
He handed Aarinen a folded strip of waxed paper taken from the fallen leader's coat.
On it was a symbol — a broken circle pierced by a vertical line.
And beneath it, a single word.
CONTAIN.
Aarinen closed his eyes.
This was no longer a hunt by scattered factions.
This was policy.
That night, the caravan left without him.
Aarinen sat alone beside the road, bleeding into the dust, staring at the city lights flickering faintly on the horizon.
For the first time, he understood the cost of being seen.
Not myth.
Not prophecy.
Logistics.
And somewhere, someone was deciding how many lives were acceptable losses — so long as the pattern closed.
Aarinen laughed quietly to himself, the sound raw and bitter.
They had finally made him dangerous enough to matter.
And dangerous enough to be erased.