Chapter 8
The road to Crosshaven was muddy and rutted, as roads often were at this time of year. It meandered through half-frozen fields and into the chill and wind-scoured forest that sat at the northern edge of Wyrnhollow. The winter sun was only an hour high, and all it had was a wan glare. It had no heat, only light.
Theron marched behind the recruiters, at the rear of a ragtag line of men and boys destined for the Luminarch Dominion’s training. A day’s march from Wyrnhollow, Brightwarden recruiters had a camp where Houlis’ other men waited with newly gained recruits they had picked up from other nearby, well-known villages as they passed. The Brightwardens quickly broke camp, and within an hour they were on the road again.
Silence accompanied the recruits as the march dragged on, a silence born of dread rather than discipline. Ahead of Theron, men stiffened at every crow’s call, gripping their hands tightly. The weight settling over them was familiar to him. He had marched like this once, tired and afraid. These men were now discovering what he had spent years trying to forget.
Captain Houlis held the first rank at the front of the column, resplendent in his blue and silver. His boots shone, somehow free of mud and frost. He did not look back. His men kept the line marching in order.
Separate from the recruiters marched five Brightwardens. Their armor gleamed gold and white even beneath the gray morning sky, catching any scrap of light and turning it into something sharp. They moved with a precision the recruiters in blue and silver could only pretend at, the silent confidence that came from increased training and privilege. The Brightwardens’ reputation reached far. With superior skill, they were the ones who enforced the Dominion’s will, the ones whose judgment reached farther than any Luminarch’s decree. No one in the line dared to look at them for long.
Crow caws and the slap of boots on half-frozen mud echoed across the morning. Near the end of the line, someone slipped on a slimy patch and barely kept from falling. “Two days’ march to Crosshaven. Well, maybe less. I think we’ll march hard,” Houlis said. His thin-lipped smile cut across his face, a cruel twist on features that seemed to have never known kindness. No one was in any mood for conversation until midday, when the line stopped for a rest at a small stand of frost-burned pines.
“You holding up, scarecrow?” That was from one recruiter, a small man with a nose that had been broken more than once and set crooked every time. “You look like you could eat more.”
Theron said nothing, content to lean against the tree and breathe. He kept his eyes on the other men, watchful. Ferris, the spearman from the fight yesterday, glared at him with plain hatred etched on his face. The others watched him the way one might regard a piece of unfamiliar meat. With curiosity. Disgust. And a kind of hungry interest.
Captain Houlis did not rest. He walked among the group, boots leaving immaculate, disciplined prints in the slush. He watched always, and the men knew it.
“Not much of a talker, huh? We ain’t slaves, y’know,” said another recruit, sitting near Theron.
He was a wiry man, with an alarming red-speckled face, and had eyes set too close together.
“The name’s Hrengar. Heard you was a veteran. Looks like they dragged you back in, huh?”
“Volunteered.” Theron said, not looking up.
Hrengar laughed, a sharp bark. “Jac above, man. You volunteered for this?”
The leader of the Brightwardens, a silent brute of a man with cheeks pockmarked with scars and hair shaved to the bone, tossed a sizeable chunk of bread to Hrengar. “Eat up there, friend. We won’t rest again til dusk, and then Houlis is marching us through the night.”
As the others chewed in silence, the scarred Warden took a moment to size Theron up. “You’ve fought before, they said?” he asked.
Theron nodded. “Once or twice.”
The Warden grunted. “You’ll fit in fine. The rest of these,” he gestured with concern at the other recruits, “have a lot of work ahead of them. Some might not make it past training.”
That was the way of things. Theron chewed his ration, which was a hard heel of bread with no flavor and the consistency of sand, and ignored the chatter now flowing easily among the recruits and soldiers.
They were on the road again after only a quarter hour of rest. The going was worse now, and his muscles were stiff from their brief reprieve. The land sloped up and down, sometimes steeply, and always had mud or slowly rotting vegetation covering it. By late afternoon, they were well into the woods. Thickets and trees crowded the road in on both sides, narrowing it.
It was at this point that a recruit, Carpen, tried his luck.
All was normal at first, and then Carpen was just gone, crashing through the brambles to the left. The recruiters were on it instantly. One took a crossbow and fired, but the bolt went high and thudded into a tree. Houlis shouted a command: “Hold your fire! Bring him back, alive!” Two recruiters charged into the brush.
The rest of the line watched, uncertain whether to feel fear or inspiration. Houlis paced before them like a caged hound, eyes sharp for any sign of weakness. The Brightwardens stood apart, silent and unreadable.
Five minutes later, the recruiters returned with Carpen between them. His nose hung crooked and bleeding, and a gash above his eye had painted half his head red. He kicked and twisted against their grip. Houlis followed at an unhurried pace, calm and deliberate, like he had been waiting for this moment.
“Discipline,” Houlis said, quieter than the wind but carrying farther. “It is what keeps a man alive.” He slid his belt free with slow, practiced ease. Not hurried. Not angry. Just inevitable. He doubled the leather and cracked it across Carpen’s back. Once. The sound snapped through the cold like fire through dry bark. Carpen jerked and spat blood into the dirt.
Twice. A few recruits flinched as if the strike had been aimed at them.
Three times. Carpen stopped struggling and stiffened, breath rattling through teeth that refused to open.
Houlis crouched beside the man, his voice low enough that only those closest could hear. “You are not slaves. Remember that. But a man who runs invites death. You belong to the Dominion now.”
Even though some of the Brightwardens looked away, their jaws tight with something that might have been disapproval, or maybe restraint, the law prevented them from doing anything. Runners would be punished.
The recruits stared, eyes wide, struggling to accept what Houlis was saying, while watching one of their own being beaten. One recruit near Theron swallowed hard, shoulders shaking, while another tried to hide behind bravado, muttering that Carpen got what he deserved. But his hands kept twitching. Theron watched in silence, stomach knotted.
Houlis came to a halt and turned to face the line of recruits, all watching him with wary eyes.
“I never understand it. It never makes sense. But it happens every single Jac-damned time,” he said, voice rising. “One of you always tries to run.”
He let the belt hang from his fist for a moment, letting every man see it. Stony silence pressed in around them. Carpen whimpered through blood and dirt.
“You are not slaves,” Houlis repeated, voice low and even. “You chose this. Or someone chose for you. But you serve the Dominion now.” He leaned closer, the belt brushing Carpen’s cheek. “And by law, you will fight for the Dominion.”
He straightened, his gaze sweeping the gathered recruits. A few flinched away. Others stared at the ground as if the frozen mud could swallow them whole. One man near Theron muttered a curse under his breath, only to snap his jaw shut when Houlis’s eyes flicked his way.
“If you run, we will find you. There is no road long enough. No forest dark enough. You will be hauled back broken and begging, and you will pay.” He snapped the belt straight, a single crack that made several men flinch.
Carpen only whimpered.
Houlis stared down at him. “You run again, and the crows will get what’s left of you, understand?”
Carpen did not answer. Houlis punched him in the kidney, a quick, expert jab. Carpen gasped and nodded.
He stood, nodded to the recruiters, and the march resumed. Carpen limped at the head of the column, turned into a message.
A recruit beside Theron spoke without looking up. “Not slaves, he says. Heh, yeah right. We’re dead men walking.”
No one answered. They kept marching, boots and breath the only sounds.
Night fell early, and the temperature dipped to the kind of cold that gnawed at bone and bit at every soft thing. Theron found himself walking between Carpen, who had slowed down tremendously, and the recruit who had spoken earlier, a man named Sval, both of whom seemed utterly exhausted. Sval’s teeth rattled so loudly it sounded like he was chewing gravel. Carpen held himself and shivered with a wet, animal panic in his eyes. Theron kept his eyes forward, pretending not to notice.
Sval suddenly asked. “What made you volunteer?”
The stars above were pinpricks of cold light, sharp enough to sting if he stared too long. Theron looked over at him, voice quiet. “Does it matter?”
“I’m cold and need a distraction.”
Theron considered. “Because somebody had to.”
Sval grunted, as though Theron’s answer said everything. He pushed ahead without another word, boots crunching in the frost. Theron stayed behind, alone with the stars and the thoughts he wished he could silence.
The next morning, Carpen was still alive, though only barely as he walked in the line. His lips were purple, and his nose raw from blood and frost. Every one of them was exhausted from the long march. Houlis moved down the line, handing out rations with the same calm, deliberate menace he carried in every step.
The road continued to rise out of the woods in the morning and up into a more broken region of low hills. The wind was free here, and it blew at them with the force of a wild animal who wanted to tear the skin from every inch of exposed flesh. Theron pulled his coat tighter. The others did the same, but it didn’t help. Sval slipped twice and hit the ground hard but got up without complaint. Carpen didn’t speak at all.
By midday, the roofs of Crosshaven were visible, distant and small but real. The end of the march for today, at least.
They reached the outskirts of town just as the bells from the old stone temple began to ring. The market square opened before them in a churn of carts, shouting vendors, restless animals, and smoke drifting from cookfires. Theron took it in with a practiced eye while the recruiters cut straight toward the largest building in sight, a two-story inn with a peeling sign that read “The Gilded Pike.”
People drew back as the recruiters approached. Some did it quietly, folding away from the path as if hoping not to be noticed. Others watched with a wary mix of fear and something closer to admiration. Children trailed behind the column, eyes wide as they took in the mud-spattered recruits. A few looked spellbound. Others simply stared, their faces blank and calculating, weighing what all of this might mean for them.
One recruiter leaned toward the other, a small man with sharp eyes. “They’re terrified we’re going to bump the quota and drag a few more out.”
The taller recruiter looked over the nervous townsfolk and let out a quiet chuckle. “Should we tell them we hit our numbers for this area weeks ago? Or let them stew a little longer?” Their laughter carried lightly over the murmurs of the crowd, thin and mean. They kept marching without looking back.
Theron caught a brief shift in the column behind them. One of the Brightwardens was watching the exchange, jaw tight, eyes set in a flat, quiet disapproval that he did not bother to voice.
Inside the inn, they were herded into a back room, lined with benches and a long table. A man waited for them there, rotund and smiling, dressed in the black and gold of a Dominion quartermaster.
“Another batch of recruits, ready and able. We still expecting the rest by tonight?” Houlis asked.
The quartermaster took them in with a quick glance. “Jac’s sweaty arms, but I’ve seen healthier-looking corpses than this lot. And aye, everyone should be here by morning.”
Houlis smiled. “I marched them hard. But tonight I’ll feed ‘em good and proper and give them a cold night’s sleep and they’ll be good as new. Then we’ll take them and the rest to Duskweld.”
The quartermaster sent a runner to bring the city’s posting officer, then he said to the innkeeper, “Get these men some food and drink.” who then scurried off. Soon, they were sitting at the table with thin stew, black bread, and a pot of what passed for beer. It was all delicious.
The posting officer did not keep them waiting. Full dress uniform, boots polished to a mirror shine, hair parted with mathematical precision. He crossed the room with the stiff confidence of someone used to being obeyed.
Names were taken, arms measured, teeth and eyes inspected. At Carpen, the officer lingered, gaze narrowing as he studied the bruises and blood. A slow and disapproving look slid toward Houlis. The captain offered nothing more than a bored shrug.
The inspection moved on. Soon the officer stood before Theron, expression unreadable as he assessed him from boots to brow.
“Name?” he asked.
“Theron,” he said.
The officer checked his roster. “No last name listed.”
“I’ve had many, but many last names are as good as no last name.” said Theron, not exactly untrue.
The officer shrugged. “Not that important anyway.” He turned away, already forgetting the man before him.
Sval was checked with barely a glance. The wiry, speckled man from the day before, Hrengar, was prodded for signs of disease but pronounced “adequate.” Carpen, still bleeding from his face, received a bandage and a powder pack for the swelling on his face, as well as a sympathetic pat on the arm from the officer. The others were similarly processed in a blur.
Afterwards, while they all helped themselves to more food and drink, Houlis and the posting officer had a conversation at a table just outside their earshot. While they waited for whatever came next, some recruits slumped over the table, sleeping. Others just stared at nothing.
Theron looked around the room and felt nothing at all except emptiness. For the first time in days, there was no pressure or guilt, and no pain except the dull, constant ache that lived in his bones. He closed his eyes and let it overtake him.
He did not sleep. He wouldn’t, likely, for a while.
Talla’s voice rose in his mind, soft and unsteady, asking if he would ever come back.
He wanted to. But he wanted other things more.
Outside the inn, the temple bells chimed once more. The day passed without them. In the distance he heard the clatter of boots on cobbles, the new arrivals trudging to their orders, the cries of the marketplace auctioning winter’s last onions and dried apples. Life, it seemed, continued on.