Dawn came with a bell.
Korath jerked awake, heart pounding. For a confused moment, he thought he was back in the mines—that bell meant work, meant sixteen hours of darkness and pain—
"Move your asses!" A voice bellowed outside. "Training starts in ten minutes! Anyone late gets to run laps!"
Right. Not the mines. The camp. He was free.
He dressed quickly in the simple training clothes they'd been given—rough cotton that chafed but fit better than slave rags. The others were doing the same, all of them moving with the automatic speed of people used to harsh schedules.
They stumbled out into gray dawn light. Other recruits were gathering at the training grounds—maybe twenty people total, all looking as uncertain as Korath felt. Some were young, his age or younger. Others were older, scarred, with the look of people who'd already seen too much.
A man stood at the front of the group. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with gray hair cut short and a face that looked like it had been carved from stone. Scars crossed his arms, his neck, even his face—a life written in violence.
"I'm Commander Gareth," he said without preamble. His voice was like gravel in a barrel. "For the next month, I own you. Your time, your sweat, your blood—all mine. My job is to turn you from whatever you were into something useful. Most of you will fail. Some of you will quit. A few of you might actually make it."
He walked along the line, studying each recruit with eyes that missed nothing.
"You." He stopped in front of a skinny boy who couldn't have been older than fourteen. "Why are you here?"
"To learn to fight, sir," the boy stammered.
"Wrong. You're here to learn how not to die." Gareth moved on. "You." This time, a woman in her thirties with burn scars on her hands. "Why are you here?"
"To earn coin and freedom, sir."
"Better." He reached Korath. "You. Why are you here?"
Korath met his eyes. "To become strong enough that no one can put me in chains again."
Gareth stared at him for a long moment. Something flickered in those hard eyes—maybe respect, maybe just acknowledgment.
"We'll see," he said finally, moving on.
When he'd finished his inspection, Gareth returned to the front. "Training starts now. We begin with the basics—how to stand, how to move, how to breathe. Sounds simple. It's not. Everything else builds on this foundation. Get it wrong, and you're dead. Get it right, and you might survive long enough to actually learn something."
He demonstrated a stance—feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, weight balanced. "This is your fighting stance. You'll hold it until your legs scream. Then you'll hold it longer. Begin."
They all tried to copy his position. Korath thought he had it right—until Gareth walked over and kicked his foot wider.
"Like this. Feel how your weight distributes? That's stability. Lose that, you lose the fight."
For two hours, they held the stance. Just stood there, muscles shaking, sweat dripping, while Gareth walked among them making corrections. People started to fall—legs giving out, collapsing in exhaustion.
"Get up," Gareth said every time. "You fall in a real fight, you die. Get. Up."
They got up.
Korath's legs felt like they were on fire. His thighs trembled. His knees threatened to buckle. But he didn't fall. Beside him, Daven was gritting his teeth, staying upright through pure stubbornness. Brick looked steady as a mountain. Even Tam was holding on, the young boy refusing to be the first to quit.
Finally, Gareth called time. "Break. Five minutes. Drink water. Then we run."
They collapsed gratefully, gulping water from the barrels set up nearby. Korath's hands shook so badly he spilled half of it.
"Just standing," someone muttered. "We spent two hours just standing."
"It's not just standing," an older recruit said. He had the look of someone who'd done this before. "It's learning balance. Body mechanics. Foundation stuff. Gets harder from here."
He was right.
After the break, they ran. Not a casual jog—a full sprint around the camp perimeter. Again and again, until people were vomiting by the side of the path. Gareth ran with them, not even breathing hard, shouting encouragement that sounded more like threats.
"Move! You want to live? Then move! The beast chasing you won't slow down! The enemy won't give you a break! Move or die!"
Korath's lungs burned. His legs were numb. His vision blurred with sweat and exhaustion. But he kept running.
One foot in front of the other. That's all life was—one step, then another, then another.
When the running finally ended, they moved to basic strikes. Punches, kicks, blocks. Gareth demonstrated each one slowly, then made them repeat it a hundred times. Two hundred. Until muscle memory started to form.
"Don't think," he shouted. "Thinking gets you killed. Train until your body moves without thought. That's how you survive."
They trained until the sun was high overhead. Then Gareth finally called a halt.
"Lunch. One hour. Then we start on weapons." He looked at the exhausted group—twelve people had quit or collapsed and been carried away. "Not bad for day one. Dismissed."
Korath limped to the mess hall with the others. His entire body was one giant bruise. Even breathing hurt.
But he was smiling.
"You're crazy," Daven muttered, seeing his expression. "We almost died, and you're smiling."
"We chose this," Korath said. "That's the difference. We chose to be here, to hurt, to learn. Not because someone forced us. Because we decided."
Daven thought about that, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess that does make it different."
They ate quickly—stew and bread, simple but filling—and rested. Korath's muscles were already stiffening. Tomorrow would be worse. He knew that.
But tomorrow, he'd be a little stronger. A little better. A little closer to becoming someone who couldn't be enslaved again.
The afternoon was weapons training. Gareth handed out wooden practice swords—weighted to feel like real steel but without the risk of accidents.
"A sword is not a club," he began. "You don't just swing it and hope. Every movement has purpose. Economy of motion—no wasted energy. Strike fast, strike true, return to guard. Repeat until it's instinct."
He demonstrated a basic cut—overhead, diagonal, coming down with perfect form. Made it look effortless.
Then he had them try.
Korath's first swing was terrible. The sword felt awkward in his hands, too heavy, the balance all wrong. His cut wobbled, missed the dummy he was aiming for.
"Again," Gareth said.
He tried again. Still terrible.
"Again."
And again. And again. Hundreds of times, until his arms felt like they'd fall off and his grip was slick with blood from blisters forming and breaking.
Around him, others struggled the same way. The clack of wood on wood, on dummies, on shields filled the air. Grunts of effort. Curses when things went wrong.
This was training. This was the path to strength.
By the time Gareth called an end to the day, Korath could barely stand. Every part of him hurt in new and creative ways.
"Day one complete," Gareth announced. "Tomorrow, we do it all again. Only harder. Get some sleep. You'll need it."
They stumbled back to their tent, too tired to even talk. Korath collapsed on his bed, not bothering to undress.
His last thought before sleep took him was simple: I survived day one.
Twenty-nine more days to go.