As Serys walked out of the forest, she found herself in a daze. Overwhelmed with grief for Patwin, Serys had no thought on her mind other than to get out of the forest.
Once Serys and Avytir approached the entrance to the forest, they came to a stop.
"Will you be joining me?" Serys asked.
"No....I have other plans." Avytir said. "Serys...there is something coming, something I can't put into words."
"Well, whatever may come, I will be ready." Serys said in a hardly convinced tone.
"No, you won't" Avytir. "That, I feel certain of."
Serys gave a nod to Avytir and headed out into the plains
-----
Serys found an empty field and gathered some stones together. She had intended to bury Duravin, Jaksor, and Patwin, but Patwin's body was too heavy for her to carry and the former two had been torn to pieces.
Lifting her visor up, Serys offered funeral rites for her fallen comrades.
"Duravin and Jaksor...two of the bravest men I will ever meet. I can only hope to follow your example. Patwin...my sweet, sweet Patwin. You were my best friend, my mentor, the one person I could trust with anything." Serys stopped herself and started sobbing. It hadn't hit her up until this point that she would never see him again. "All that I am and all that I ever will be is only you through. Goodbye Ser Patwin, my hero."
As darkness started to fall, Serys looked for shelter. She found a large, overgrown tree and sat down underneath it. Serys, running on fumes at this point, passed out in a matter of minutes.
----
In a town a few kilometers away from Serys, everything was burning. Where once stood shops, homes, and a large church, now laid claim to ash, soot, and rubble. Pillars of smoke funneled up towards the sky.
A group of ten men dressed in chainmail and white vests adorned with red crosses. Each was holding a mace covered in blood. Bodies of the villagers laid all around them. One of the bodies started gasping.
"Please...we're sorry."
A different man approached the dying man. He was wearing chainmail and a vest like the others, but his vest was marked by a black cross. He unsheated a massive sword and plunged it right into the man's chest.
"The order does not forgive or forget." he said in a bellowing tone. He raised his helmet's visor, revealing a man with graying facial hair. "Are there any survivors?"
"A woman and her daughter in the corner hut."
"Bring them over."
Four men went over and grabbed the two survivors. The woman was hysterically screaming, trying desperately to hold on to her daughter. The man with the black across approached them.
"Miss, what is your daughter's name?"
"Fuck you"
The man slapped her hard in the face. "If you don't tell me right now, I will kill your daughter while you watch."
"Mari"
The man bent down to the daughers eye level. "Hi Mari, do you know who we are?"
"You're templars"
"Yes. We are the Fifth Order. We serve Christ in all we do. Your village, Farwood, refused to offer their penance for God's love and therefore required a reckoning."
Slightly hesitating, Malthus continued. "Remember this, young girl. Tell anyone you encounter that if they don't pay tithes to the Fifth Order, this will happen to them."
Raising to his feet, Malthus pulled out a bottle of oil and handed it one of his men. "Burn the mother. Alive."
The young girl started screaming
------
As Serys awoke, she saw large plumes of smoke in the distance. Gradually coming to, she noticed a white horse standing next to her.
"Where did you come from beautiful?" she asked as she moved her hand over it's mane.
She realized she heard screaming in the distance. Relying purely on instinct, Serys mounted the horse and rode off towards the smoke.