The dawn broke pale over the shattered ridge, the light dim and reluctant, as though the sun itself feared what it might find below. The battlefield was a grave without names, ash still clinging to the air like a fog that refused to lift. No birds sang, no insects stirred, and the smell of burnt earth and flesh still hung thick across the valley.
When the horns sounded, the camp came alive again. Foot soldiers rose from uneasy sleep, their eyes red and saggy from smoke and exhaustion. The wounded groaned softly from within the healers' tents. Blackened armor was scrubbed clean with sand and rags, blood washed away into the mud as if that could erase what had been done.
Getting rid of corpses was a nasty and tedious business. Limbs and gore still strewn themselves around the trampled dirt, the souls once trapped in their fleshy confines now released and freed from their damned fate. Other foot soldiers lugged their past friends; now crippled and dismembered into carts just big enough to fit 10 'whole' bodies, if you take into account that most of them are in two, you can fit 15.
Kael stood in the center of it all, silent. His armor, dulled by soot and streaked with dried blood, reflected the faintest glimmer of morning. He adjusted the leather bindings across his chest and checked the runes etched into the blade at his hip. Each one pulsed faintly beneath his touch, as though answering some rhythm only he could hear.
The soldiers avoided his gaze. When they passed him, they kept their heads low, muttering quiet blessings. Some made the sign of the sun over their hearts, not in reverence, but in warding. Kael did not notice. Or perhaps he did, and he did not care.
Equito rode through the camp, barking orders. Her voice cut through the dull drone of the morning like steel on stone. "Break down the tents. Pack the wounded first. We move east by the second bell."
Her horse snorted, stamping at the frost-crusted dirt. She wore her armor without its crest, a small act of rebellion that no one dared question. Her eyes lingered on Kael for a long moment before she spoke again. "The scouts have marked a route through the low valleys. We will rest by the river crossing before dusk."
Kael turned to her. "Is the bridge still standing?"
"For now," she replied. "If the enemy hasn't reached it."
"Then we'll have to make ground."
It was not a command, yet the soldiers began to move anyway.
The march began under a sun that refused to warm the earth. The column stretched for miles, a river of armor and banners winding through the withered plains. Spears glinted in the light like teeth, and the hooves of the cavalry churned up the black soil into clouds of dust.
Equito rode near the front beside Kael. Her horse tossed its head, uneasy with its mount so close. She kept her eyes ahead, her voice low. "You did not sleep last night."
"I do not sleep," he said.
"You mean you cannot sleep."
He looked at her briefly, his expression unchanged. "It makes no difference."
The silence between them was heavy. She had grown used to it, though never comfortable. He was a man carved hollow by something she could not name, an echo that walked and spoke in place of what he once aspired to be. Perhaps his emotions had taken the place of his heart when she pierced it; perhaps in killing him, she had brought something of chaos.
Equito mentally beat herself up over something she could have prevented years ago.
Behind them, the army moved with the rhythm of exhaustion. The men spoke in low murmurs, their conversations short and fearful. A few of the younger soldiers stole glances at Kael's back, whispering among themselves.
"That's him," one said. "The one who burned the ridge."
"Burned it?" another whispered. "I heard he called lightning."
"No, I heard he tore the air apart."
"Does it matter?" the first said. "Whatever he is, he's not one of us."
Kael could hear them. He always did. The words did not anger him. They barely touched him at all. He had become used to the distance, the quiet terror that followed him like a second shadow. The common man could only perceive his strength as somewhat demonic; it did not help his case that he never showed his face nowadays.
By noon, the air grew warmer, and the scent of rot began to follow the wind. Carrion birds circled in the distance, their wings dark shapes against the pale sky. The road sloped downward into a stretch of dead farmland, the soil cracked and gray. Houses stood in ruins on the horizon, roofs collapsed, doors hanging from rusted hinges.
Equito raised her hand, and the column slowed. "We'll make camp here for an hour. The river is not far, but the men need water."
Kael dismounted. The ground beneath his boots crunched with frost. He looked toward the ruined houses and felt something stir faintly in his chest, not with emotion, not of memory, but a whisper of something. He turned away before it could grow louder.
The soldiers spread out, checking the wells and gathering what supplies they could find. One of them called out when he discovered a body near a half-buried fence. The man had been dead for weeks, perhaps longer, his face unrecognizable. Kael approached, crouching beside the corpse.
"Villager," he said quietly. "No wounds."
Equito joined him. "Famine, then."
"Famine does not turn the eyes black," he replied.
She leaned closer and saw what he meant. The veins beneath the skin were dark, almost ink-colored, spreading from the neck like spiderwebs. She frowned. "Corruption. Magical residue."
Kael stood. "The Rhaegis use sanity as a conduit. They are poisoning the land to weaken it before their armies arrive."
Equito looked toward the horizon. "Then we are already fighting ghosts."
Kael did not answer. He began walking toward the eastern road again. The soldiers watched him go, their whispers following in his wake.
They resumed the march in the afternoon. The sky had turned gray again, the light fading behind a sheet of low clouds. The sound of the river reached them before they saw it. A low, steady roar that filled the air like distant thunder.
When they arrived at the crossing, the sight brought a rare pause. The river cut through the valley in a deep, curving arc, its surface dark and fast-moving. A wooden bridge stretched across it, weathered but still intact. Mist clung to the surface, curling like smoke.
Equito gave the order to halt. "Secure the perimeter. No one crosses until I've seen the far side myself."
Kael rode ahead anyway, his horse stepping lightly onto the bridge. The planks creaked beneath its hooves, but the structure held. He stopped halfway and looked down at the water. It moved fast, like black liquid glass, swallowing the reflection of the sky.
Something about it felt wrong. The current seemed too strong, too deliberate, as if drawn toward some unseen depth. He could feel the mana in it, faint but alive. The same kind of energy that had marked the battlefield days before.
Equito joined him a moment later, her eyes scanning the far shore. "If they strike, it will be from there."
"Then let them," Kael said.
She gave him a sharp look. "You sound as if you want it."
He didn't reply. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, his eyes fixed on the eastern hills where the mist thickened. The wind shifted, carrying a scent he recognized — smoke, oil, and blood.
Equito noticed it too. "They're closer than we thought."
Kael turned his horse toward the camp. "Then the fool's war has begun."
She watched him ride away and felt the first drops of rain against her armor. The sound of it on the bridge was soft at first, then steady. She looked once more at the water below. For an instant, she thought she saw a shadow move beneath the surface, something vast and formless.
When she blinked, it was gone.
She spurred her horse forward and called for the men to ready their weapons. The march east was over. The true war waited beyond the river.