"I'm not running," he said. But his voice cracked.
Helm's jaw tightened. Old habit. In the legion, his soldiers were numbers on a casualty sheet. Here, they had names. Stories. Children waiting. That was the difference, wasn't it? He had never feared his own death. He feared their deaths, written into his ledger.
The guardian rose from the mirror floor — a construct of liquid silver and stolen memories. It wore the face of Helm's former captain, the one he had left behind to die in the Battle of Ashford Ford. "I'm not running," he said
"Five caltrops, Helm. Against forty-seven feral beasts."
The Sanctum did not welcome them.
Helm leaned against the crumbling archway, his breath ragged strips of heat in the cold cavern air. Behind him, the tunnel collapsed in a slow, final roar — sealing the manticore brood and two-thirds of the Crimson Horde on the other side. His plan had worked. The rear guard had done its duty.
Helm said nothing. He looked past her, toward the distant glimmer of the next chamber — the entrance to the Sunken Sanctum. Their true objective. The artifact that could end the seasonal ghoul tides. Worth any cost. Old habit
"The artifact is in the center," Helm said, consulting the map they'd taken from the brood mother's corpse. "But the guardian —"