The militiaman gasped, his eyes snapping wide open. His neck, clothes, and leather armor glistened crimson, still soaked in blood as he stared at Grace with disbelief.

“Thank you,” he sobbed, “thank you! Lady of mercy.”

Stephan had already checked the men and brought some to Grace. The leader, the giant, and the one with an arrow through his eye and the other with one lodged in the back of his head were beyond healing. The rest were in various states of distress, ranging from unconscious to bleeding to death, and Grace was rushing from one to the other, saving their lives.

“My chest was burning, and then I saw the flash of light,” Alfred excitedly said to Miles, who was nodding sagely as if gaining levels was common for him. Both youths were there, watching Grace, ready to jump to her rescue.

Unlike the two excited youths, Stephan hadn’t felt a sliver of warmth from the battle, but he had expected that. In fact, receiving warmth and leveling would have surprised him much more. The men were individually weak, and, just like when he had been fighting regular soldiers or bandits, there was no dark power holding sway over them.

Still, he kept a close watch on the defeated militiamen in case anyone tried anything. There didn’t seem to be a need; the healed militia prostrated themselves before Grace and, along with some of the uninjured, started begging for forgiveness and pledging themselves to their cause.

“They’ve never seen magical healing,” Muriel whispered beside him. “Probably no magic at all.”

He said nothing, and she took it as a sign to continue. “So, what do we do with them?”

We have little choice in the matter.

“You,” Stephan raised his voice, making everyone jump. He pointed at one of the militiamen. “How many soldiers does your baron have left?”

“Nine in the fort, m’lord.”

Stephan noted that only one man scowled at him for giving the information so easily, and it was one of those who ran. As if he held any moral high-ground from which to judge anyone.

“Have you committed any crimes? Any of you?”

The men paled and exchanged glances.

“Jod raped a peasant girl last week,” the youngest of them blurted pointing a finger.

“You rat!” Jod spat out and lay sprawled in the dirt the next moment, blood oozing from his mouth.

Stephan hadn’t even spared him a glance as he backhanded him. “Anything else?”

The men shifted uneasily; bribes taken from villages withholding their taxes and roughing someone up were common. Something as vile as rape… only two militiamen had been accused of that.

“Any last words?” Stephan asked Jod.

“I paid for it! That bastard Edric took my coin!” Stephan stopped his sword mid-swing and looked at the rest of the enforcers.

“Who’s Edric?”

“The Baron, m’lord.”

The blade fell, and blood sprayed as Jod’s head rolled. Stephan turned towards the other man. “You?”

The man whimpered. “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. I’ll make amends. I swear on my mum’s grave I will make it up to her and her family.”

This time Stephan waited for the man to finish speaking before he raised his sword, then looked towards Muriel and the rest. The older men, Don in particular, had nasty frowns. Grace and the Knights had gone pale, staring in shock at the headless body while Muriel observed the scene without emotion.

“What do you think?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “I’d have his stones if he’d tried something like that with me, but I can only speak for myself and mine. What do you think?”

If I knew what to do, I would’ve acted instead of asking you.

He still hoped the man he kept in the corner of his eye would try to attack him and make the decision easy, but he wasn’t that fortunate. The militiaman remained kneeling as he stared at Muriel pleadingly before shifting his pathetic gaze back at Stephan.

He was close to tears when Stephan sighed. “We’ll let the girl and her parents see what kind of compensation you can offer.”

To his surprise, the man was happy, while Don and Alfred’s father nodded approvingly. Then, to make matters even worse, a slight sliver of warmth entered his chest, completely confusing him.

What? Why?

Unfortunately, it was no time to question the gods and why his actions had earned their approval. They still had a lord to depose.

“Did the baron bar the gates after you left?”

“No, m’lord,” the spared enforcer answered with vigor, but remained on his knees. “He expects Lars and the rest of us can set things right and come back with news on what’s happened at Thornsedge by supper.”

Stephan took a moment to figure out that Lars was their leader, the man in mail armor. Stephan had already taken his decent sword, the one that came with a proper sheath.

“Was Lars from the north?”

The enforcers nodded, confirming Stephan’s suspicion.

“How often do you cross the river and go on raids?” That was a question he hadn’t thought of asking the men he had interrogated the day before.

“We don’t,” the kneeling man said with too much enthusiasm. “Baron or Lars did go, once or twice a year.”

Stephan nodded; that told him several things. “How strong is the baron?”

The men exchanged confused looks. When they remained silent, the youngest offered an answer, “It hurts a lot when he slaps you, but nothing like what you’ve done to Jod, m’lord.”

“What’s his class?”

The enforcers answered with shrugs. Even the kneeling and the anxious one said nothing.

All right. Now for the final question… “Your baron will face justice today. Will you join us, or should we tie you up here?”

“I’ll join.”

“Me too.”

All of them were eager to switch sides, but Stephan trusted them less than he could throw them.

“Just so you know, if you attack us, the Saintess will be far away, and you’re going to bleed out. There’s only ten of them in the fort, you baron included, and there were sixteen of you here and it still ended without you even landing a scratch.”

None of them faltered, so their desire to join them was sincere to an extent, or they were good enough at acting to deceive him.

A glance at Muriel’s impassive face told him she had nothing to say, meaning she probably didn’t notice anything strange either.

“Then, let’s go to…” he stopped. “What’s the fort called?”

“Eldric’s Fort, m’lord,” the kneeling militiaman said.

“I guess we’ll change that shortly.” He was tempted to come up with a name on the spot, but he would leave that to Grace. He was supposed to be the muscle and strategist to her sainthood and benevolence. “Let’s go to the fort.”

The group took a handful of minutes to confiscate armor and weapons from the dead before moving on. Stephan couldn’t believe his life. He was wearing the sergeant’s armor, led eleven turncoat militiamen, two young Knights, and two amazed farmers to overthrow the local baron.

If this were a game of The Art of War, I’d have good chances. I just have to look at individuals as units. We have two light infantry spearmen, eleven trained and two untrained militia, an archer, and I guess I could pass as heavy infantry.

He imagined how the enemy would distribute their troops. There would be a guard at the gate…

Stephan moved at the painfully slow pace of the rest of his group, taking the time to consider everything.

“Muriel, could you go ahead of us and scout?”

She left without a word, and they covered another two miles before she returned.

“One guard in front of an open gate. There are people outside the fort, working the fields. They don’t seem like a threat. No ambushes or scouts in the forest that I could see.”

“Can you shoot the guard before he sees you?”

Muriel wiggled her hand in a so-so gesture. “Maybe. The clearing around the town is some fifty yards. If we don’t approach from the road and instead go through orchards and the fields, we might get there, but the people farming could panic and alarm the guard. I think we’ll do better if we walk calmly down the road, our new recruits in the front, us in the back. That way they can overpower the guard without making much noise, or they might even persuade him to join us.”

She glanced at the men staring at her awkwardly. “I think it’s better than killing a man without giving him a choice. But our lads here will need to come up with a story to tell him. I don’t doubt we can take the fort with the gates open and an advantage in numbers, but better do it with as little bloodshed as possible.”

She was right. The militiamen, loved or not, were members of the community; the fewer they killed, the better.

“All right.” Stephan turned towards the “new recruits” as Muriel called them. “Can you think of anything you can say that your friend will believe? His head is on the block, and I think you agree with me that Muriel was right and that we want as few people dead as possible.”