The night air was razor-thin, the forest around the compound blanketed in a skin of frost. Damian crouched behind a felled log, a black blade slick in his palm. Beside him, Tarian gave a silent nod. Lieras flanked right. His oldest friends were blood brothers. Sons of the men who once served his father as right-hand and left-hand men. They had trained together in these woods. Bled on this soil. And now they returned to complete what their fathers had begun.
Tarian, taller and broader than the rest, kept his rifle low but his eyes sharp. Lieras, leaner with twitchy fingers and a scar curling under his jaw, PSS pistol on him. They moved like shadows, no wasted steps, no words. Only breath, steel, and purpose. The first guard didn’t even get a scream out. Tarian’s knife slid beneath his chin, twisted once. Blood steamed as it hit the snow. A second guard rounded the path with a cigarette in hand. Lieras fired once, throat shot, clean, silent. They dragged the bodies out of sight.
