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How in the name of all the gods did he do that? He wields magic like an eyril user, except eyril went extinct, and the potion hasn’t been available for at least a year now.

An inferno blazes in my shoulder, overriding my questions about Agnar’s power. Blood soaks through my shirt, streaming down my arm, dripping from my elbow onto the dirt. Pressing a hand against it, around the broken shaft, I crawl through the low grass, seeking a better vantage point.

I’m not sure why considering my current incapacitated state, but I can’t just abandon Agnar to face a dozen men alone.

I pant from the exertion of crawling and the pain. Sweat trickles down my face, stinging my eyes, and an iron tang assaults my nose. No one should have to see this much of their own blood on the outside. My scrambled mind wonders if I can somehow push some of it back inside me.

The jeering bandits spread out to form a loose ring around Agnar.

He tosses something at me without looking, which lands a pace or two away.

Pushing the grass aside, I pick the object up. A dagger. I gape at the blade I don’t know how to use. I’m more likely to cut off a toe than I am to successfully defend myself with this. The weight feels foreign, and the leather-wrapped hilt is too large for my hand.

“This is your last chance to walk away.” Agnar’s lips curve as he stands off with the group. Does he want them to attack?

The leader, a man with scarred cheeks, lifts a blade that’s probably better suited for butchering than battle. “One man against twelve?” His grin shows off his missing teeth. “We like those odds.”

“One battle-hardened soldier against a group of half-starved vagabonds?” Agnar ‘s features become feral as he draws his sword. “I like those odds even better.”

Gap-tooth ignores him and swivels his head until he spots me in the grass.

He leers, causing my skin to prickle and my stomach to twist. “Your woman looks valuable. Pretty enough, even if she’s damaged. We’ll get a good price for her. After we’ve had our fun.”

Agnar goes very, very still.

Even using my Warden abilities, it’s like he’s disappeared from the world.

“Sorry?” The threat lying beneath that flat, empty voice convinces me to start crawling backward again to conceal myself in the grass.

The bandit leader either doesn’t hear the threat or doesn’t care. “She’ll sell well. Later. My boys haven’t seen a functioning woman in weeks. Those dull ones don’t count. They don’t even cry. We’ll enjoy her first, then sell her to the⁠—”

While Agnar remains motionless, the many arrow-pierced lumps of dirt on the road rise and streak through the air. They strike the leader’s face as one, piercing through him more than a dozen times.

The man tumbles to the ground. Dust blooms as the dirt, no longer commanded by Agnar’s magic, settles once more, retreating from the man’s head without extracting the arrows. He’s more akin to a hedgehog than a person, and I heave at the sight of so much muddy gore, clapping both hands over my mouth to contain the vomit that rushes up my throat.

The bandits freeze, eyes locked on their dead leader.

Agnar breaks the silence by snapping his fingers, redirecting attention from the bloody pincushion. “We still doing this?”

I battle the instinct to run screaming, pretend I never saw this, and devote the rest of my life to quiet scholarly contemplation. And Agnar’s egging them on. Flinging the dagger aside, I curl up, not wanting any part of this. The smell of dandelion weeds and dirt clogs my nose. As the shivers start, I wrap my arms around my knees to stay warm. Logically, I know I’m going into shock. But I can’t tell if it’s from the wound or what I’ve just witnessed.

A bandit charges at Agnar from the left, his ax raised. Without looking, Agnar sidesteps, and his blade opens the man’s belly from hip to ribs like he’s parting the skin of an orange. Intestines spill onto the dry, hard-packed dirt of the road. The dying man unleashes an animalistic, nearly endless shriek while attempting to shred the very air.

The rest of the men attack from all sides, raising their axes, cleavers, even a shovel or two, and the air vibrates with their battle cries.

Agnar flicks two fingers at a man brandishing a spade. Dry, crumbling dirt leaps from the road and burrows between the man’s teeth, covering his mouth and nose. He stumbles to a halt and claws at his face, his eyes wild with desperation and fear. I touch my own mouth with numb fingers, imagining the horror of suffocating like that.

The rest of the group flounders as the ground ripples, pushing some men back while bringing others closer to Agnar. I shake my head in disbelief and flinch when the small motion twinges my shoulder.

This rivals the fanatics’ demonstrations last year.

Agnar positions his sword and rides the waves.

The first man loses a windmilling arm.

Agnar maneuvers nimbly on the shifting ground and slices the second bandit’s throat before the man can run away.

Arterial blood sprays from the dying man as the road beneath him transforms into Agnar’s killing ground. The sticky liquid coats the third man’s face, who closes his eyes to protect them, blinded as Agnar thrusts his sword into the man’s head, crunching through his nose and into his eye sockets.