"Theodinaz… I don't really want to recall about it, yet those days still haunt me in my nightmares to this day. The screams of my dead compatriots, the ravings of the fanatics… as well as the hands of all the dead that seemed to be trying to drag you into the grave with them.

It's why I kept myself drunk most of the time. Only then would I get some peaceful sleep, and not have to think of the horrors I saw there…" - Bertoras Tapopolous, retired mercenary, formerly of the Vanguard Legion.

Reinhardt watched as the caravan of wagons departed with sad eyes.

He had been so tired that he - along with Elfriede and many others - had fallen asleep where he dropped, sitting with his back leaning against the chapel's wall. He had woken up a little bit after noontime, and Elfriede stirred awake as well when he moved.

Next to them Grünhildr was sprawled on the blood-stained grass, snoring quite loudly in her sleep, while Salicia used one of her thick arms as a pillow, apparently unbothered by the thunderous snores. It was a sight that made Reinhardt couldn't help but to chuckle.

The first relaxed laugh he had in days.

When he woke up, he noticed that the healthy followers and dependents had moved back to the buildings they abandoned. The zealots had been very single minded during the charge that the buildings - and the many parked wagons of the mercenaries - were mostly undamaged. Only those so badly injured they couldn't be moved and the dwarves had remained in the warrens.

Reinhardt had wanted to go around and ask about the situation, but found that he couldn't. Curled up and asleep on his lap, and apparently unbothered with his waking up, was his little girl, sleeping with the tip of her tail grasped in her mouth.

Elfriede had noticed Erycea's presence before he did, and shushed him before he could make a surprised noise, as she smiled and gently stroked the sleeping girl's back.

Since he found himself unable to move, or walk around, Reinhardt just leaned back against the chapel wall as he thought back on the battle. It had been close. Far too close for any sort of comfort, as the aching wounds on his body and the weakness he still felt reminded him.

Unlike Life and Mortality healers, who fixed wounds without any side effect or sequela, or Nature healers who simply boosted one's natural regeneration, Light healers like the old dwarven matron that treated them were more a stopgap measure.

Light healers "healed" wounds by sealing it with conjured constructs of mana, which the body would replace and assimilate over time. The drawback was that these constructs were unable to truly replicate the functions of damaged organs, and those healed as such would feel the effects - and the pain - for as long as the wound would have taken to heal naturally.

It was why Elfriede barely moved, and breathed rather shallowly. The injury to her lung was merely patched up for the moment, not properly healed yet. It had been a particularly close call in her case, as the dwarven matron had judged that she would have been dead if left untreated for just another hour.

That she managed to somehow remain standing and fighting until literally moments before they were treated had surprised and impressed the healer quite a bit.

Reinhardt himself had been fortunate, as he had no truly serious injury, just plenty of aching wounds. The only remaining side effect from the battle he still felt was the feeling of weakness from losing too much blood, but that would recover with time.

In the distance, he saw some men and women as they loaded their belongings into a few wagons. He recognized one of them as the representative from the Vanguard Legion that he saw during that briefing a week ago.

He remembered then that the few remnants of the Legion - Mischka and her people notwithstanding - had wanted out. They had taken their severance pay, a gesture of kindness from the Graf, who paid them a bonus instead of charging them for breach of contract, and now packed their worldly belongings on their wagons, together with their surviving family and followers.

It was maybe a couple hours or so before sunset - the sun had started to drop towards the horizon - when the Legion's people finished packing up and departed to the south, through roads cleared by the cavalry that came to their aid. Their caravan of wagons left from the gap in the wall the cavalry charged through.

Reinhardt knew that their departure signalled the end of the Vanguard Legions. In all likelihood, once the caravan reached the safety of Knallzog, they would disband, and disperse to pursue their own lives. The final nail in the Legion's coffin.

Not that his own - it still felt strange to think of the company as his even now - Free Lances were much better off. They had maybe five men in fighting shape left at the moment, most of them Mischka's people who came out of the mess better than others.

The therian matron herself, Reinhardt saw help out as she carried heavy items with her left arm. Her right arm was supported in a sling. He recalled that the woman had her arm mangled during the fighting's late hours.

He wondered what the future had in store for him. For the men and women who had trusted him, and were still his responsibility even now. Did they have no prospect other than disbandment and separation?

The Free Lances were mangled as a company. Reinhardt was well aware of that. Even if he counted Mischka's people as his own, they had maybe two hundred survivors in total amongst the fighting men, including those followers and dependents who had volunteered to fight with them.

Monetarily, they were at least in a safe spot, what with the full salvage rights the Graf had so kindly granted them. The thousands of corpses that were strewn in and around the fort were just waiting to be salvaged.

He estimated that even if they paid all the condolences money to those who had lost their family members, they would still have enough for the remaining members to share between them, maybe enough to retire and start a new, modest life.

Yet was that what he wanted?

He recalled those he had lost over this mess. How aunt Ingrid had sacrificed her life to give him a chance to escape. Kasimir and Lianne, friends he had grown up together with, both killed in battle before his eyes.

Nicole, the young, spunky girl who had just officially joined them a year ago, who he had always thought of a bit like a little sister, crippled, unable to move or feel anything below her waist. Hogarth, his own adoptive father, who had treated him as if he was his own child, was still in a coma, his prospects unknown.

Even a glance at Ylisera's face, where the scars and marks left behind from her injury prominently dominated the left half of her face, filled him with guilt. This was not how he had wanted things to be. Sure, he had dreamed many times since he was younger to have the Company answering to him, as youth were prone to do.

But not like this.

He refused to have his first command, only to give it up and slink away in defeat with his tail between his legs. Even when the reality of the situation weighed down on him, he still felt obliged to try something rather than pack up and go home like the Legion's survivors.