Blood and Belief - Chapter 3: Blood and Iron

"How much farther?"

Petyr's voice was strained. The boy had been asking every hour for three days.

Cael didn't answer. Saved his breath for walking. The army marched south in a column that stretched for miles. Twenty thousand men. Conscripts mostly, with a few hundred professional soldiers mixed in. Supply wagons creaking. Horses for the officers. Mage-Captain Sevrin and two other blood mages riding at the head in a wagon draped with dark cloth.

His feet were already blistering. Pack digging into his shoulders. Gambeson soaked with sweat despite the autumn chill.

They'd been marching for three days. Fifteen miles a day through rolling hills and sparse forests. The roads were barely more than dirt tracks—rutted and uneven. Every step jarred his knees. Every breath tasted of dust kicked up by thousands of boots, thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and horse dung from the supply train.

"Until we get there," Aldric replied. The old hunter had fallen into an easy rhythm, walking like a man who'd spent his whole life on his feet. "Stop asking."

"My feet hurt."

"Everyone's feet hurt," Mira said. She was walking ahead of them, barely breaking a sweat. "You'll get used to it."

"I don't think I will."

"Then you'll die with blisters." Roth limped, favoring his left leg. "At least it's something to look forward to."

Cael adjusted his pack. The weight had seemed manageable when they started. Now it was like he was carrying stones. His shoulders burned. His neck ached. Even breathing was exhausting.

And they had weeks of this ahead of them.

"I miss the ship," he muttered.

"What?" Elara asked. She was walking beside him, quiet as always.

"The ship. My ship." Cael raised his eyes to the sky. No clouds, just endless blue. On the ocean, he could read the weather in the clouds. Could judge distance by the position of the sun. Here, everything looked the same. "At least on the ocean, you didn't have to walk."

"You had to work," Mira said.

"Yeah, but it was different. You were moving toward something. Going somewhere." Cael gestured at the endless column ahead and behind. "This is just walking."

"Walking to war," Aldric said. "Not exactly a pleasure cruise."

"I know." Cael fell silent.

They walked for another hour. The sun climbed higher, baking them in their gambesons. Cael's tongue felt thick in his mouth. They'd been rationed water—one skin per day, refilled at whatever stream or well they passed. It wasn't enough. His lips were cracking.

A soldier ahead collapsed. He dropped, pack and all. The column kept moving, flowing around him like water around a stone.

"Should we..." Petyr started.

"No." Arvik's voice was sharp. The sergeant was walking with their squad today, making sure no one fell out of line. "He'll either get up or he won't. Not your problem."

"But—"

"Not your problem," Arvik repeated. He raised his voice. "Listen up. You help him, you fall behind. You fall behind, you get separated. You get separated, you die alone. Clear?"

No one answered.

"I said, is that clear?"

"Yes, Sergeant," they chorused.

Cael glanced back. The collapsed soldier was being hauled to his feet by two others, pushed back into line. His face was gray with exhaustion.

"Keep moving," Arvik said.

They kept moving.

***

That night, they made camp in a field beside the road.

No tents. Bedrolls laid out on the ground. A few fires for cooking, carefully controlled, their woodsmoke mixing with the sour smell of men who hadn't bathed in days. Sentries posted on all sides. The officers and mages got the wagons. Everyone else got dirt and cold wind.

Cael's squad sat in a circle, passing around hardtack and weak soup. The hardtack was rock-solid. Cael had to soak it in the soup just to make it soft enough to chew.

"This is disgusting," Roth said. He picking weevils out of his hardtack, flicking them into the fire. "I've eaten better food out of trash heaps."

"Then you're welcome to starve," Mira said. She ate mechanically, not seeming to taste the food. "I've had worse."

"Where?"

Mira didn't answer.

Aldric was whittling a piece of wood, carving it into what looked like a small horse. His hands moved with practiced ease despite the fading light. "How are your feet, Petyr?"

The boy winced. "Bad."

"Let me see."

Petyr pulled off his boots. His feet were covered in blisters, some of them bleeding. Aldric shook his head. "You need to wrap those. Otherwise they'll get infected."

"With what?"

"Cloth. Torn from your shirt if you have to." Aldric pulled out a strip of cloth from his pack and tossed it to Petyr. "Wrap them tight. It'll hurt, but it's better than losing your feet to rot."

Petyr took the cloth with shaking hands. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just don't slow us down."

Cael stretched out his own legs. His feet were blistered too, but not as bad as Petyr's. The calluses from sailing helped. His hands were the same—rough enough that the spear shaft didn't tear them open anymore.

Small mercies.

"How long do you think the march will take?" Elara asked.

"Depends on where the Karthian army is," Aldric said. He didn't look up from his carving. "Could be a week. Could be a month."

"A month of this?" Petyr looked horrified.

"Or longer. Depends on how fast they're moving."

Roth laughed bitterly. "So we march until our feet fall off, then fight a battle we'll probably lose, then die in some field miles from anywhere. What a glorious life."

"You could always desert," Mira said.

Roth pulled up his shirt, showing the brand on his shoulder. The letter D, burned deep into the flesh. "I told you what happened last time."

"Then stop complaining."

"Complaining's all I've got left."

Cael leaned back, staring up at the stars. They were bright out here, away from the city. He used to navigate by stars. Could tell his position anywhere in the known world just by looking up.

Now they were just distant points of light. Beautiful and useless.

"What will you do after?" Elara asked quietly. Her eyes found Cael. "If we survive. What will you do?"

"Go back to the ocean," Cael said without hesitation. "Find a ship. Sail as far from here as possible."

"You think they'll let you?"

"I don't plan on asking."

Mira smiled at that. "I like you, sailor. You're practical."

"What about you?" Cael asked her. "What will you do?"

Her smile faded. "Keep moving. Same as always."

"Moving where?"

"Anywhere." She stood, brushing dirt off her pants. "I'm going to check the perimeter. Make sure the sentries aren't asleep."

She walked away before anyone could say anything else.

Aldric watched her go. "She's running from something."

"Aren't we all?" Roth said.

"No. I mean really running. Something bad."

"How can you tell?"

"Because I know the look." Aldric went back to his carving. "I've seen it in the mirror."

***

Two days later, Mira told them her story.

They were resting by the side of the road, waiting for the column ahead to clear a broken wagon. The delay would cost them an hour, maybe more. Most of the soldiers were lying in the grass, grateful for the break.

Cael's squad sat in the shade of a tree. Petyr was asleep, exhausted. Roth picking at his blisters. Elara braiding grass into patterns. Aldric whittling.

Mira sharpening her knife. The rhythmic scrape of steel on stone had become familiar. Comforting, even.

"You ever wonder why I know how to fight?" Mira asked suddenly.

Cael looked up. "Yeah."

"My village was raided. Two years ago." Mira didn't stop sharpening. "Bandits. Twenty of them, maybe more. They came at night. Burned houses. Killed anyone who resisted. Took the rest."

She tested the blade against her thumb. A thin line of blood appeared. She wiped it on her pants.

"I was in the fields when it happened. Heard the screaming. By the time I got back, it was over. My family was dead. My friends. Everyone I knew."

Aldric stopped carving. "The Duke's soldiers?"

"Never came. We sent word. Sent runners. Nothing." Mira's jaw tightened. "So I learned to fight. Tracked the bandits down. Took me six months."

"And?" Roth asked.

"And I killed them. All of them." She met his eyes. "One by one. Made sure ."

Silence.

"That's why you're not afraid," Cael murmured.

"I'm afraid," Mira corrected. "I'm just used to it. Fear doesn't stop me anymore."

"What about after?" Elara asked. "After you killed them. What did you do?"

"Wandered. Worked odd jobs. Tried to figure out what to do with myself." Mira smiled without humor. "Then conscription came. I didn't hide. Figured this was as good a way to die as any."

"You want to die?" Petyr had woken up, listening.

"No. But I'm not afraid of it either." Mira went back to sharpening her knife. "I already lost everything that mattered. Death's just the next thing."

Cael understood. He'd spent ten years on the ocean running from commitment, from roots, from anything that could trap him. He'd lost the ship. Lost his freedom. Lost everything that defined who he was.

But looking at Mira—at Petyr and Aldric and even Roth and Elara—he'd gained something too.

People who needed him. Who watched his back. Who'd stand with him even when the world burning.

"We're not going to die," Cael said.

Everyone looked at him.

"I mean it. We're going to survive this. All of us."

"Bold words," Roth said.

"Maybe. But I didn't survive ten years on the ocean by giving up." Cael studied each of them in turn. "Mira's right. Fear doesn't have to stop us. We're stronger together than we are alone."

"Inspirational speech," Roth said dryly. "Very moving. I'm still probably going to die."

"Then you'll die fighting," Aldric said. "That's better than dying here."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

The wagon ahead was cleared. Horns blew. The column began moving again.

Cael's squad stood, shouldering their packs. Cael's feet were still blistered. His shoulders still ached. The pack still was like it weighed a thousand pounds.

But as they fell back into line, marching south toward the war, Something stirred in him that he hadn't experienced in weeks.

Hope.

Not hope that they'd survive. Not hope that the war would be quick or easy.

Hope that when the time came, they'd stand together.

And maybe that would be enough.

***

A week later, they reached the border.

The Ashen Fields stretched out before them—a vast, barren plain where nothing grew. The soil was black with volcanic ash, the ground cracked and broken. No trees. No grass. Just endless gray-black wasteland under a colorless sky.

And in the distance, smoke.

"Thornhaven," Arvik murmured. He stood beside Cael at the front of the column, looking south. "Border village. Karthia burned it three days ago."

"Why?" Petyr asked. His voice was small.

"Because it was there." Arvik turned away. "Get ready. This is where the real war starts."

Cael studied the smoke rising from the ruins. Somewhere under that smoke were bodies. Civilians. Children. People who'd died because they lived in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like him and his squad.

Like everyone in this gods-damned army.

"Get your gear," Arvik said. "We're moving out."

They marched toward the smoke.

Toward the war.

Toward whatever death or glory waited for them on the other side.

And Cael held his spear tight and wondered how much time any of them had left.