The march kept going.
Not silent, but quiet in that deliberate way only disciplined men could manage. Armor shifted. Boots pressed soft earth. Occasionally, a voice murmured ahead—short commands, soft as falling snow.
Arlen walked near the back. Elyas beside him, limping less now, though he still leaned slightly with each step. The boy hadn't spoken in a while, and neither had Arlen. There was something about the way these men moved—something that made words feel too loud.
The trees thinned. The wind changed.
Ser Caldus, at the front, raised a fist.
The order rippled back like a wave. Every knight froze in place, instinctively falling into staggered positions—half-covered behind trunks, shields angled, eyes scanning ahead.
Arlen did the same, without thinking.
Then he smelled it.
Smoke.
Not the kind that rose from cooking fires or warm hearths. No. This was bitter. Acrid. Burned flesh and scorched oil.
A knight near the front muttered, "There's fire."
Another answered, "No birds. No dogs. Too still."
Caldus didn't speak. He just moved.
Forward. Slowly. Shield on his back, hand near his sword.
They crested a small ridge, and the world opened below them.
A village.
Or what was left of one.
Thatched roofs—gone. Half the homes were collapsed. The others burned. Orange light flickered in the skeletal ruins. Smoke curled skyward like dying screams.
And bodies.
Too many.
Scattered across dirt paths and over doorsteps. Some clutched children in their arms. Some had fallen face-first, as if trying to crawl toward safety. There were no weapons near them. No armor. No defense.
Arlen stared. Elyas stopped breathing.
A few knights moved forward in formation, cautious, weapons ready but lowered. They stepped over corpses, past smoldering carts, eyes grim beneath their helms.
Then one of them called out.
"A survivor."
Caldus raised a hand.
"Alive?"
"Barely."
He turned to Arlen and Elyas.
"Stay here."
Then he walked into the ash.
The smoke thickened near the heart of the village. Charred beams jutted from the earth like broken ribs, and the air shimmered with heat rising off blackened stone.
Caldus moved toward the voice that had called him. A few knights stepped aside to let him pass, standing in grim silence around what remained of a collapsed storage hall.
And there he was.
The survivor.
A soldier.
Or at least, what was left of one.
He sat with his back against a cracked stone wall, one leg twisted beneath him at the wrong angle, the other smeared in blood that pooled thick beneath his greaves. His face was streaked with ash and sweat. A crude helmet had fallen beside him, revealing a sunburnt scalp and hollow eyes.
His chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven breaths.
A sword lay across his lap.
When he saw the knights approaching—armored, silent, dozens of them moving as one—he reached for it.
His hand shook.
The blade scraped across the ground as he tried to lift it. Just enough to bring the tip off the dirt. His knuckles whitened. His whole body trembled.
But he couldn't swing it.
Could barely hold it.
Still, he didn't lower it.
Caldus stopped a few steps away.
No weapons drawn. No shield raised.
Only the wind moved.
"You can't fight," Caldus said, voice calm.
The soldier didn't answer. His mouth was dry. His eyes were wild—bloodshot, panicked, exhausted.
He tried to speak, but what came out was a cough. Wet. Painful. He clenched his teeth, trying to push himself higher against the wall.
The sword dipped. Touched the ground again.
But he gripped it tighter.
One of the younger knights muttered, "Stupid."
Caldus raised a hand.
Then he looked down at the man.
"We are not your enemies," he said.
The soldier didn't blink.
"Then what are you?" the man rasped. His voice was broken, thin as smoke. "Scavengers? Just come to take what's left?"
"We're here for answers," Caldus said.
The soldier coughed again. More blood this time. He looked past Caldus, toward the ruined houses. The bodies.
"They screamed," he muttered. "Gods… they screamed."
Caldus didn't move.
"Who did this?"
The soldier didn't answer right away.
Then, with the last of his strength—he raised the sword.
Not toward them. But toward the flames.
Toward the village.
"Us," he said. And his voice broke completely.
Then the sword slipped from his hands.
And he wept.
The sword hit the ground with a dull thud.
Caldus watched the man without speaking. A breeze caught the smoke behind him, carrying with it the stench of burnt leather and old blood. Somewhere in the distance, a plank gave way and collapsed with a hollow crack.
Then—
Caldus raised one hand.
Two knights stepped forward immediately.
"Bring the boys," he said quietly.
They didn't question. One of them turned back toward the treeline where Arlen and Elyas had paused, watching from a short distance, half-shadowed by branches.
"You," the knight called. "With us."
Arlen tensed.
Elyas looked up at him, uncertain.
"Stay close," Arlen whispered.
They moved.
Elyas limped slightly, but didn't fall behind. And when they stepped out into the open—into the ash and ruin—Arlen's grip tightened around the boy's shoulder.
The village was worse up close.
Roofs collapsed. Walls split down the middle. Blackened bones half-buried in rubble. And that smell—choking, clinging, full of death.
They reached the circle of knights.
Caldus turned as they approached, his eyes steady beneath the faint shadow of his helm.
"You saw the field," he said. "Now you'll see what silence breeds."
He gestured to the soldier on the ground.
"Speak with him."
Arlen blinked. "Me?"
"You've seen what men do when they're told to obey without thinking. So has he."
The soldier stirred weakly, head lolling to the side. His breathing was shallow. His face slick with fever-sweat.
Arlen stepped forward slowly. Elyas stayed close, fingers curled around his sleeve.
The knight-commander stood back, watching.
Not testing.
Teaching.
"They send a boy to judge me?"
"I'm not here to judge," Arlen said. "I just want to know what happened."
The man coughed—wet, phlegmy. He winced, pain flickering across his face.
"Does it matter?" he rasped. "They're dead. All of them."
Arlen looked around at the smoking ruins. At the bodies. The ash.
"Someone made it happen."
The man's gaze flicked toward the flames. Then back to Arlen.
"We were ordered through here. South. Supposed to clear a path. No resistance expected. It was meant to be… simple."
"But it wasn't."
"No." A pause. "I tried to hold my line. Keep the men in check."
Arlen narrowed his eyes slightly. "Your line?"
The man froze—just for a second. Barely noticeable. Then he shifted, as if trying to get more comfortable.
"I—I mean… the unit I was in. My group."
Arlen didn't say anything.
He waited.
The man exhaled. "They panicked. Someone fired. The villagers ran. It all fell apart so fast."
He wiped blood from his mouth.
"I didn't want this. You have to believe me."
"Then why are you the only one left?" Arlen asked.
The man's eyes flickered.
"They left me. When I took the blow… I told them to fall back. Regroup west of the river."
Arlen blinked.
"You gave the order?"
Silence.
The man looked away.
"I— I meant… I suggested it. Before I fell."
"But they listened."
The man didn't respond.
Arlen's heart beat a little faster. "You said you tried to hold your line. You said you gave orders."
He stepped closer. "You weren't just one of them."
The man's face was pale now—whether from pain or something else, Arlen couldn't tell.
"I didn't start it," he said quietly. "I didn't want it to happen."
"But it did."
Arlen looked him in the eye.
"You were the commander."
The man didn't deny it. Not really.
He just looked down at the ground.
"I tried to pull them back," he whispered. "They didn't listen."
Arlen stood there, not moving. Not speaking.
The wind stirred the cinders around them. The village groaned in its death.
"You lied," Arlen said.
The man looked up sharply. "I had to."
"Why?"
"Because I thought if I looked weak enough, broken enough, they'd let me live."
Arlen clenched his fists.
Caldus watched from behind.
The boy stared at the man—at this figure who had looked so fragile, so lost. He wanted to hate him.
But he couldn't.
Because for one moment, Arlen had believed him.
And maybe—maybe part of him still wanted to.
"I didn't think anyone would survive," the man said.
And that, more than anything, made Arlen feel sick.
Because that was what it had come to.
Not hate. Not fury.
Just quiet surrender.
And the desperate hope that no one would be left to remember what you did.
Caldus stepped forward.
The air felt colder.
The wounded soldier shifted against the wall, his breath quickening, his eyes wide and glistening. His sword lay forgotten now, a dull weight in the ash beside him.
When Caldus spoke, it was like stone dropping into still water.
"Your name."
The soldier swallowed hard. "Ser Halren," he said hoarsely. "Fifth regiment… southern line…"
Caldus didn't blink. "Commander Halren."
The man flinched.
"I— I didn't… I didn't mean for it to happen like that," he stammered. "The order was to pass through. Just that. We didn't expect anyone to fight back."
"They didn't," Caldus said flatly.
Halren's face twitched. "It wasn't supposed to burn. We—there was shouting. One of the men fired too early. I tried to call them back, I swear it. But they— they didn't listen."
His voice cracked.
"I didn't kill anyone myself. I never drew my sword. I tried to stop them—"
Caldus took one slow step forward. "And yet you gave the order."
Halren's lips trembled. "I didn't mean for it to— I didn't know it would turn into that."
"You commanded the men who lit the fires. You led the march that ended here. You stood at the front while children screamed inside their homes."
Halren shook his head. "Please…"
Caldus said nothing. His eyes were unreadable. Not cruel. Not angry.
Just ancient.
"Please," Halren whispered again. "I was following orders. You know what it's like—when you're caught between command and conscience. I tried to do what was right. I did. But the men—they were scared. And when the first fire started, everything fell apart. I was trying to regain control."
Caldus looked down at him for a long time.
"Control is a burden carried in blood," he said. "Not an excuse for where it spills."
"I'm begging you," Halren whispered. "I'm not proud of what happened. I've seen enough death—I don't want to die like this."
He lowered his head.
"I don't want to die alone."
Silence followed. Arlen watched, his heart twisting. Elyas clung to his side, not speaking.
Finally, Caldus spoke.
"The Grey Order does not kill for cruelty."
Halren looked up, eyes wide with fragile hope.
Caldus continued.
"But justice," Caldus said, voice steady, "demands a price."
The hope in Halren's eyes froze, then shattered.
Caldus took one step closer, his shadow stretching long across the broken stone and ash. The other knights didn't move. They didn't need to. The words alone carried more weight than steel.
"You gave the order," Caldus continued. "You led armed men into an unarmed village. You lost control of them—or let go of it. And when the flames rose and the screaming began, you stayed at the front."
Halren tried to speak. "I—"
Caldus raised a hand. Not to silence. But to bind.
"You abandoned discipline. You turned a march into a massacre. Whether by action or inaction, you commanded death. And now you ask to be spared its echo."
Halren slumped further against the wall. His mouth opened. Closed. No more pleas came. Only the trembling of someone who had already run out of words and was starting to realize that silence had weight too.
Caldus looked not at him, but at Arlen.
"You asked why we walk the roads," he said. "Why we serve no king, no banner."
He gestured to the bodies, to the ruins, to the cinders still rising from the bones of homes.
"This is why."
He turned back to Halren.
"You will not be hanged for the world to see. You will not be paraded or named in song. No stone will carry your guilt, and no tale will excuse your failure."
He crouched slightly, voice low.
"You will simply be ended."
A breath. A heartbeat.
And stillness.
Arlen felt Elyas grip his hand, tightly now. The boy said nothing, but his eyes were wide. Wet. As if the truth of the world had just stepped out of shadow and looked them in the face.
Halren closed his eyes.
"I deserve it," he whispered.
Caldus straightened.
"No."
The word hit like a blade.
"You deserve worse."
And then—
Caldus raised one hand.
No flourish. No command.
Just a motion. A choice.
One of the knights stepped forward. Quiet. Certain.
Steel sang.
The sound was quick. Clean. A single strike.
And then Halren was no longer breathing.
Caldus said nothing more.
He just looked to the ashes. To the ruin left behind. Then to the sky—gray now, the clouds low and heavy like mourning cloth.
At last, he turned.
"Bury what you can. Mark what we cannot."
The knights began to move—methodical, efficient. Some gathered the fallen. Others scraped shallow trenches with their blades.
Arlen stood there. Still.
He felt Elyas press against him, small and silent.
And all he could think was how heavy justice looked when it bled.
The wind picked up.
And the fire, finally, died.