Argent woke first.
The fire had long since burned to coals, its warmth a faint heartbeat against the cold. His body ached like it had been reassembled wrong, bruises blooming purple and black, ribs sharp under his skin, every joint humming with dull pain. For a long moment he didn't move, just listened to the ragged chorus of breath around him.
The camp was stirring.
Beyond their small circle, veterans stretched, cursed softly, and packed their gear. The smell of boiled grain and burnt oil drifted in from nearby cookfires. Farther out, the clang of armor and the rasp of whetstones marked the day's beginning.
Argent looked at them and could help but think, "They look like any other person getting ready for a long day at work."
He turned his gaze to Mugwort's corner, empty, save for a few scattered bowls and a pile of his odds and ends: rope, rags, a dented tin cup, something that looked like a skull but was probably a root.
Argent hesitated, then reached for the giant's tooth, its weight familiar, reassuring. He looked at the clutter, at the absence of anyone watching, and quietly tucked the tooth behind the old man's things.
Mugwort had given them a place to sit, a meal, a beginning, and given that people avoided this place it would be safe here till his return.
One by one, the others began to wake.
Veyra groaned, clutching her thigh. Veryn stretched until his shoulders popped. Ember hissed through her teeth as she rolled onto her side. None of them were unscathed; most looked halfway between fever and exhaustion.
Past the broken wall, people were already moving toward the eastern gate, the battlefield. Argent watched them go. Veterans, by the way they walked: easy, practiced, resigned.
Among them, new faces too, freshly resurrected, still wearing the dazed look of the newly arrived.
A voice rose over the murmurs.
"You all need merits to eat, to survive," said a man standing near a cluster of frightened newcomers.
He wore armor too clean to be old, trimmed with black and gold, and on his breastplate gleamed the symbol of a split crown, three jagged points rising from a broken band, like teeth torn from the same mouth.
"Even just wounding an enemy earns you merits," he continued, tone patient, rehearsed. "Run in, land a hit, die if you must, you'll still eat for a few days. Simple math."
The newcomers exchanged uncertain looks. Some nodded.
He smiled, sensing the weakness, the hunger, the fear, the anxiety.
"Join The Hollow Crown," he said. "We'll give you better gear than what's left in the newcomer piles. Real blades, real armor. All we ask is a share of your merits. That's it. You fight, we support. We're one of the big factions, three provinces under our rule."
A girl near the front bit her lip. "And if we say no?"
The man's smile didn't fade. "Then you starve and die and struggle in an unending loop until someone offers worse."
Argent watched in silence. The Hollow Crown recruiter's armor gleamed like it belonged to another world entirely, it was too clean for this place.
He wasn't lying, not exactly. Just omitting everything that mattered.
Ward shifted beside him, rubbing the bruise on his jaw. "Same as back home," he muttered. "Always someone looking to buy your fear and ignorance cheap, with well woven and forceful words meant to push you into a corner."
Argent nodded faintly but didn't answer. He looked toward the fog-drowned horizon. "I'm going," he said.
The others glanced at him.
"I'm hurt," he admitted. "We all are. I'm not asking anyone to follow. But I made a promise, to the giants, to myself. And it feels wrong not to keep it."
He looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly. "Besides, seems like we'll need merits to stay alive."
Ferric gave a dry laugh that turned into a cough. "With these wounds, we'll die slow anyway. Might as well do it out there and see what dying is worth."
Before anyone could respond, Ember cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted across the camp.
"Hey! Ugly Face! Yea you, with the honey coated words!" she yelled at the Hollow Crown recruiter. "Where's this glorious newcomer stockpile you're talkin' down about?"
The man blinked, thrown off. Before he could answer, Raff, already halfway into a mug of something strong, barked a laugh from his seat at table across the way.
"On your way out!" he hollered, pointing down the main path. "Can't miss it. Smells like regret and bad steel!"
Laughter rippled through a few of the veterans and the other seven. Ember grinned, the kind of grin that dared the world to hit her first.
Rime laughed hard out loud, "Ugly face? That's what you got?"
Even Ryn, quiet as she was, let out a small, startled chuckle.
They all rose, stiff-limbed and limping.
Rime stretched, wincing. "If we're gonna die again, might as well make a day of it," he said. "Back before dark. Maybe the stew'll taste better after."
Veyra glanced at her brother. "You ready?"
He smirked already moving. "For once, you're slower than me."
The eight started moving, threading through the camp as wounded and rugged as they were. Veterans looked up as they passed, some with pity, some with quiet respect. A few just shook their heads.
Newcomers stared like they were watching ghosts walk by. One young man, still pale from resurrection, whispered, "They're mad. They'll die out there."
Another newcomer, one the eight recognized instantly as the first to die when they'd arrived met their eyes for just a moment. His face was unreadable, his expression distant. Then he looked away and muttered something under his breath, too low to catch.
The eight didn't answer their gazes. They just kept walking.
The stockpile sat near the outer gate, a heap of worn-out blades, splintered shields, and dented helms. Weapons of the fallen and ones no longer needed, collected and dumped for whoever dared to pick through them.
Veyra went first. She sifted through the mess until she found a handful of small knives. She tore a strip of leather from a scrap of armor, tied it around her thigh, and slid the blades into it. Then she drew two short swords, light, fast, made for motion. She swung them experimentally. They fit her hands too well for coincidence.
Veryn searched next to her, testing long swords by weight and balance until one felt right. "Close enough," he muttered, then strapping a battered kite shield to his arm.
Veyra smirked. "Reminds me of home."
He shot her a sidelong look. "If this were home, you'd be in lace and a dress covered in frills and I'd be bored to death training to never meet fathers expectations."
Rime spotted a spear, its head jagged but sharp, and hefted it skyward, nodding once in satisfaction.
Ember, refusing to be outdone, tucked a small axe she had been holding into her belt and reached for a two-handed one twice her size. She nearly toppled, then caught herself, grinning. "Perfect," she said, resting it on her shoulder like a trophy.
Ferric found two rusted yet sturdy chains, wrapping them around each forearm and up to his knuckles, then clanged them together, testing the sound.
"Not elegant," he said, "but it'll talk loud enough and it feels perfectly familiar for me," as he looked at the metal bands still wrapping his wrists not under the chains.
Ward stood a few paces away, scanning what was left in the pile. His gaze landed on a pair of broad shields, both cracked, edges jagged like broken teeth. He hefted one, then the other, testing their weight. Heavy, uneven, perfect.
He strapped one to each arm, raised them experimentally, and grunted in approval.
Ferric arched an eyebrow. "Two shields? You planning to bludgeon someone with defense?"
Ward shrugged. "Better than strangling them with optimism." He nodded toward Ferric's chains. "At least mine still look like weapons with the sharp edges."
Ferric snorted, half-grin curling under the bruises. "Guess we'll see who breaks and batters those giants better than the other."
Ward lifted one of the shields, the broken edge catching a glint of morning light.
"That we shall," smiling at the situation.
Argent dug through the pile until he found what felt familiarfrom the day before, a long narrow rapier and a wide bladed, short dagger. One for precision, one for when precision failed. He gave each a slow swing, trying to find the rhythm of the two weapons he now held.
Ryn lingered last. She found a bow, bent, frayed, string half-rotted.
Still, she tested it, drew it halfway, and nodded at its familiar feel. She gathered a few crooked arrows before slipping a knife into her belt.
It wasn't much, but it was something that still felt like her.
When they were done, the eight stood together in the pale light, weapons in hand, the ruins of the wall framing them.
No words this time. Just a shared glance, a silent nod. They were ready.
Beyond the gates, the fog rolled low over the field of trees that surrounded the city, hiding the horizon. The others moving ahead were already fading into it.
Argent took the first step. The rest followed.
They walked past the dying fires, past the tents and makeshift homes of those that lived outside Precipice.
And somewhere behind them, the stew pot cooled.
The day began for them and they headed out to a war, that as always, was waiting.
Mugwort watched from his usual corner, crouched on the top of a small ruined wall, spoon in hand. His grin twitched at the edges as the eight disappeared into the mist.
"Brave little embers," he murmured. "Moving towards the end even knowing they're already smoke."
He moved to and then poked the ashes of last night's fire, turning the blackened logs over thoughtfully. "Gonna need more carrots," he muttered. "Maybe a root or two. Can't have stew without something sweet to cut earthy taste."
The wind carried the faint sound of a horn from the far fields. Mugwort tilted his head, listening, then sighed and went back to rummaging through his clutter.
"Always another batch," he said softly, half to himself, half to the ghosts that never left.
"Always another stew to be made with the ingredients we find."