Inside the bandit hideout, the day was barely begun, yet the people were already up and at their work. In this age, without night to live in, men slept early and rose early.

A boy clutched the wooden sword his father had carved for him and stood at the village entrance, eyes straining down the road. "Grandfather—has Father not come home yet?"

Before the little cabin, a lame old man was sharpening a brush-clearing blade. The question stirred the worry that had been gnawing at him. A whole night gone. Could the lord's soldiers have caught up with them?

But he forced a smile. "Soon. Don't fret. Your father will have brought back plenty of meat and coin this time. I'll go to the tailor in town and get you a new set of clothes."

The boy grinned, showing the gap where a front tooth was missing. "No! Not new clothes. Tell Father to get you a proper crutch first!"

The old man's wrinkled face folded into a joyful smile. "Such a filial grandson. But my leg's no trouble. New clothes for you first."

Grandfather and grandson, chatting warmly.

The boy's face froze. He pointed past his grandfather, his voice a strangled squeak of terror. "Grandfather—devils—devils are coming!"

The lame old man twisted around. At the village entrance, a terrified villager was being kicked to the ground by a man in iron armor beneath a red surcoat. Dark blood dripped from the blade in the iron man's hand. He was walking into the village, step by unhurried step, like a demon risen from the earth.

The old man remembered, instantly and viscerally, the arrogant knight who had once ruled their old village. The one who had broken his leg. No one in this settlement knew better than he did the terror of a knight.

"Go! Go—hide in the cabinet inside! Now!" He shoved the boy toward the cabin, his whisper fierce and urgent.

Lothar swung with both hands. The bastard sword's keen edge sliced through the bandit's shoulder and the wooden spear raised to block it as though neither existed. The man collapsed screaming, thrashing in the dirt as blood pooled beneath him.

Through the narrow slit of his great helm, something like pity flickered in Lothar's eyes. He reversed his grip and drove the point cleanly into the man's heart. The screaming stopped. The slick, grinding sensation of steel on flesh traveled up the blade. He pulled the sword free and turned to meet the next two charging bandits.

Prajna walked at his side, a silent shadow. At first, she did nothing: these ragged, feeble men barely stirred her to action. Then one of them, mistaking her for the soft target, moved to seize her.

Hold the woman, force the knight to drop his sword. He never got within arm's reach. A spray of blood bloomed at his throat, and the three points of the demon-faced triangular shield ran red. Prajna stepped aside to avoid the arterial spray. Her expression never flickered.

Blood seeped into the shield's surface. The carved demon face smiled, satisfied, and sent a silent, urgent pulse into her mind. More. Kill more.

Prajna did not move. She remained at Lothar's side, her face unreadable.

The able-bodied bandits were steadily cut down. Lothar kicked over an old farmer wielding a pitchfork. He took in the man's weathered face, then drove his sword through the man's heart without pause.

He did not dare mock a pitchfork as a weapon. It was said that a famed witcher had once been killed by one. A man who held a weapon should be prepared to die by one: old or young, woman or child.

Hans and Modell fought in tandem, covering each other. Both men's skill and equipment were orders of magnitude above their opponents'. Caught at dawn, off guard, the hideout had no one who could stand against the two of them for even a single exchange.

Bang. Hans shield-bashed a lame old man to the ground and kicked his blade away. Modell stepped in and thrust his sword through the old man's throat. The old man tried to speak, but the blood flooding his windpipe stole his voice.

He crumpled, and as his sight dimmed, his eyes sought the small cabin where his grandson was hidden. Then he was still.

"No! Grandfather!" A boy, tears streaming, hatred blazing, burst from the cabin. He snatched up the old man's fallen blade and charged Hans.

Hans hesitated, just a beat, and nearly took the blade across his face. It was Modell who stepped forward and caught it on his shield. "You horned demon! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

The boy screamed and hacked, but the blade was dull and his arms were thin. Once Hans had his shield up, the boy's wild swings were no more than a moth battering at a lantern.

"Stop, boy! Drop the weapon!" Modell roared. "So long as you don't attack us, seeing as you're young, we'll spare you!"

Beneath his winged helm, Hans's voice was uncertain. "My lord… what should I do?"

The killing had stopped. The bandits left behind had been the old, the weak, the sick. A few had hunting bows, but their arrows were tipped with bone and wood: they couldn't threaten the four of them. It had been a massacre in all but name.

Modell was losing patience. In his view, a whelp like this, blind with hate, should be put down with a single stroke. He was bandit-spawn. Raised in this nest, he'd grow up to be another gallows-bird anyway.

But Modell hesitated. His lord was clearly a man of conscience. Would slaughtering a child mark him as too cold-blooded, too far from the knightly ideal? Hadn't the master just said he might knight them one day?

Lothar approached at an unhurried pace, flicking the blood from his blade. A single glance told him what had happened. He was silent for a moment.

Then: "He picked up a weapon. That makes him an enemy. Squire Hans. Sergeant Modell. Do I need to instruct you on how to deal with enemies?"

Modell shield-bashed the boy onto his backside. Lothar looked down at the hate-filled young face. His expression held something like pity.

"Your father, when he was busy slaughtering other people's fathers. I imagine he saw a face like yours. And when you ate bread dipped in the blood of his victims, I doubt you thought it was a sin. You probably thought your father was a hero. Right?"

The boy clutched his blade, jaw clenched, eyes blazing with hatred so thick it seemed ready to run down his cheeks like ink.

Lothar held up one finger. "Last chance. Drop the weapon."

The boy's grip tightened.

Lothar shook his head and turned his back. "Hans. Do it."

Hans's jaw clenched. He raised his bastard sword. The blade fell. Blood spread across the dirt.

Lothar lowered his head and crossed himself.

"Heavenly Father above—judge their sins as You will. I cannot examine each soul. I cannot measure whose crimes deserve death and whose do not. So I must send them all to You. Amen."

He straightened. "Continue. Anyone holding a weapon who still resists. If they won't be reasoned with, deal with them."

A few moments later, the little hidden paradise was unrecognizable. Bodies everywhere. Blood pooling in the dirt. Women and children, shrieking, fled into what looked like a meeting hall.

"My lord… are we any different from the bandits?" Hans's voice was lost.

Lothar felt the same. But he knew he could not show it. Not in front of Hans, who looked up to him.

"Everyone pays for what they've done," he said, steadying his voice. "We killed only those who held weapons. We didn't touch the rest. That alone is more mercy than most would show. Isn't it?"

He did not order an attack on the hall where the women and children had barricaded themselves. "The enemy is mostly dealt with. Modell, go fetch Laine and the others to collect the supplies. Make sure to leave some grain and seed for those who didn't resist."

Lothar stood before the meeting hall, looking at the numb, terrified faces within. He said nothing to proclaim his justice. Some inside were likely captives from past raids.

But most were the bandits' own families. They, and many of the dead, might truly have been innocent, might truly have never harmed anyone. Yet when they ate food bought with the guilty men's coin, that innocence grew thin.

People said that disaster should not touch a man's wife and children. But the child of a debtor who fled abroad with his stolen fortune, was she truly innocent? If she was, then what of the impoverished souls whose only hope of survival that stolen money had been?

That was Lothar's way. Merciful, and merciless.

The System chimed. Milestone: Knight-Errant — Complete.

Lothar's face was heavy as he walked out of the village alone.

"Ha. Knight-Errant," he murmured, low and bitter.