Chapter 4
Salvatore
The war encampment smelled of sweat, blood, and fear.
Tents sprawled like scars across the barren ground, pitched in crooked lines along the coast road. The salt wind off the sea caught their canvas, snapping it like the wings of vultures already circling above. Smoke from a hundred cooking fires smeared the dawn sky, choking the light to a dull red.
Men crowded the open spaces—shouting, sharpening blades, brawling to burn the dread in their veins. Bronze clashed against stone as spearheads were whetted. Shields leaned in uneven rows against wagon wheels. Horses stamped and snorted, restless with the scent of so many bodies gathered too close.
The smell was the worst. Sweat gone sour. Rancid oils rubbed into leather. Half-rotten meat turning in the heat. It clung to the back of my throat, as thick as mud, until every breath tasted like death before the killing had even begun.
Nyros tossed his head beneath me, ears flicking, muscles bunching tight, but I forced him steady.
My eyes swept the camp—the uneven ranks of soldiers, some hardened by campaigns, others little more than boys clutching spears as if they were lifelines.
Oxen strained against carts piled high with weapons—bronze-tipped spears, shields rimmed in leather, clay jars of oil for the firepots.
This was no glory. No honor. This was carrion before the feast.
Lazarus rode beside me, his face grim, unreadable in the half-light. Amara’s tears still clung to him like salt on a wound. I envied him for that—for having someone to shed them for him.
I had no one.
No father’s blessing. No woman’s faith. No mother’s arms to shield me from this world’s cruelty. I carried only the hollow ache of what might have been—what should have been—if love had not abandoned me at birth.
So, I tightened my grip on the reins, jaw clenched, and rode deeper into the sprawl of the encampment. The horns had not yet sounded, but the war was already here, coiled in every breath, every heartbeat, every quivering hand.
Together, Lazarus and I looked over the camp.
A circle of soldiers had scored lines in the dirt, two men inside pummeling each other with fists while wagers clinked in the dust like coins on stone.
Beyond them, a corpse was dragged away by its ankles, sandals already stripped from its feet.
Laughter rose over the cries of the wounded until both sounds tangled into something indistinguishable.
Under a weathered canopy stood a man as immovable as basalt.
Turtānu. Commander of the army.
His arms were crossed, his eyes as dull as wet stone, watching. He didn’t shout. He didn’t pace. He just waited. Every gesture, every mistake—he caught them all. He was the kind of man who had buried each failure he had ever made.
Before him, two fighters circled barefoot in the sand.
Shirtless. Lean bodies carved by hunger and heat.
One faltered—just the briefest hesitation—and the other drove a wooden blade into his ribs.
The crack echoed across the yard. The man collapsed, dust rising around his body.
Blood speckled the ground. No one moved to help. There was no pause. No sympathy.
Only the next fight.
To our left, a column of spearmen drilled in brutal rhythm, their sandals pounding earth with the steady force of marching armies. Bronze spearpoints punched forward again and again.
Throat. Gut. Heart.
Beyond them, younger recruits stumbled in circles, clay jugs balanced on their heads, arms hanging limp at their sides. Their spines bent beneath the weight, legs trembling, but none dared let a jug fall. Not here. Not with Turtānu watching.
Above us, archers lined the rampart. The groan of wood and gut-strung bows bent the air. Arrows hissed into straw mannequins with brutal efficiency.
Throat. Heart. Joints.
They weren’t learning to wound.
They were learning to kill.
I slowed near Turtānu’s tent as two more men stumbled into the ring—shields lifted, practice swords tearing vicious arcs through the air.
Each clash cracked like bone splitting, wood against wood, sharp enough to rattle the teeth.
Dust spiraled up with every lunge, grinding against my tongue, stinging my eyes.
Sweat poured off their bodies, dark stains soaking linen, the stink of salt and iron thick in the heat.
Their movements were jagged, ugly, stripped of any grace—no polished stances. No noble elegance forged in royal halls.
Only survival.
This was not a place of bloodlines.
This was something harsher.
Crueler.
Here, men weren’t born.
They were broken.
And then they were made.
We reined our horses in at the edge of the encampment.
Dust and heat rolled off the sand like a curse.
Lazarus swung down first; I followed, sandals striking the packed earth.
The smell hit at once—sweat, smoke, blood, and iron, heavy enough to choke.
We stepped forward into the crush of bodies, into the noise of war being rehearsed.
Here—sweat crusted into dust and the sun judged without mercy.
The air burned my lungs. Around me, fists struck flesh, spears hammered earth, bows groaned overhead. Men’s eyes followed me as I stood in the heat, each stare pressed against me, hot and unwanted.
I wasn’t ready.
Gods, I would never be ready.
My chest clenched like a trapped animal.
My bones felt hollow. I wasn’t a soldier.
I was the son of one. The shadow of a warlord’s house.
Raised in halls where silence injured more than steel, where every meal was swallowed under threat.
My father’s voice still rang in me—low, merciless—Stand straighter.
Strike harder. Don’t shame me. Every order was meant to maim.
My bruises had been hidden beneath linen. My wounds had never bled where servants could see. But they had bled. Always. His hand had been quicker than mine, his judgment heavier than iron, his punishments masked as training.
Pain hadn’t made me strong.
It had only taught me to suffer quietly.
To swallow faster.
To bleed inward where no one could look.
“Salvatore Lorian.”
The name split the yard like a spearhead striking stone. Turtānu’s voice rolled out from beneath his canopy. Men shifted around us, sandals scraping dirt, wagers falling silent.
He stepped forward. His bronze corselet was dulled by years of war, its edges greened with tarnish.
A heavy leather belt circled his waist, a dagger sheathed at his hip.
His arms were bare, thick with corded muscle, crisscrossed with scars that looked carved, not healed.
His face was a ruin of battles survived—a lip split crooked, a nose long ago broken and left bent, one eye narrowed to a squint from some forgotten wound.
His hair was close-cropped, streaked with gray, his skin darkened by years beneath the sun.
He moved like a stone that had learned to walk.
“Son of Lord Lorian,” Turtānu continued.
“I knew your father, boy. Knew him when we were both no older than you and that little scrap beside you.” His eyes flicked to Lazarus, dismissing him with a glance before fixing back on me. “We were boys, hungry for battle, eager to bleed. And your father—”
He spat in the dirt, not with disgust, but as if to seal the truth.
“Your father was a fucking lion. He devoured war at dawn, spat blood, and never broke. He and I forged our names into the earth with bronze and fire. Men followed him because they knew he would never fall. He was more than a soldier—he was a storm, and I was proud to stand at his side.”
Turtānu’s lips curled, and his eyes cut into me.
“And your brother, Julian… he fought as if the gods themselves poured fire into his veins. He lasted years in this encampment. Years. His name will continue to be sung drunk by the fires because he earned it. He died with honor. A lion’s son.”
The men around him laughed—hungry sounds that crawled over my skin like lice.
“But you?” Turtānu said, and his voice cut the crowd’s noise clean. “You bleed like a boy from linen halls. Tell me, Salvatore—are you a lion or lamb? Your father’s blood… or another mouth for the pyres?”
Their laughter swelled, eager for a spectacle. Heat knifed at my throat. My fists closed until my nails scored the skin of my palm. “I can fight,” I spat, the words like hot iron in my mouth. “I can—”
They cut me off. A soldier near the ring jeered, “Strip him, see if he pisses himself!” Someone hawked, and the spit hissed at my feet.
Turtānu’s face folded into a sneer. “Your brother died with honor. You’ll die in filth, crying for a father who never gave a damn. You won’t last a night here, Lorian. Not one.”
The crowd shoved, sandals scuffing, dust rising in choking clouds. Hands hauled at my tunic, dragged me toward the ring. I was pushed in like meat.
Inside, a giant waited. Broad-shouldered, fists battered from oar and stone, his chest sculpted by years of work. He clapped his hands once—the sound snapped like a bone—and grinned with the mouth of a predator.
Turtānu folded his arms and did not look like a man who needed to shout. “Step in. Bleed for it. Prove me wrong. Or go back to your father’s house and hide.” His voice was a command that tasted like a threat.
I stepped forward, legs buzzing. The giant moved like a falling tree.
His first punch hit my jaw before I could brace—hard enough to spin the world sideways.
Stars burst across my vision, white and mad.
Another blow smashed into my ribs; breath left me in a sound like a broken pot.
I doubled, spit, and copper flooded my mouth.
And then my skull cracked open another time.
I was a young boy again in my father’s courtyard—linen at my throat, the crisp air of the hall pressing in. A wooden blade sagged in my hands, rough and heavy.
“Higher.”
His voice was the kind that never bent.
I swung. Too slow.