He saw a young boy, seemingly younger than his own son, smiling and reaching out a hand to him.
The Church's Punishers had already joined the battlefield.
"What, need me to pick you up, big guy?" the boy asked with a smile, his foreign accent evident.
On a normal day, he would surely have interrogated this youngster thoroughly to see if he was a bold and brash runaway.
But today, the Captain of the City Guard felt as though he had seen an angel.
He was smoothly helped to sit up by the child.
"You're quite strong," said the middle-aged City Guard Captain, covering his face and taking breaths while smiling.
Then that smile caused his facial wound to pull.
"Perfect for twisting the necks of Chaos," the boy said with a laugh, a glimmer of white light appearing in his extended hand, and the City Guard Captain could feel the wound on his face closing at a rate that defied biology.