In the last days of their wretched journey, the group passed through two villages—though to call them that was generous.
The first settlement, if it could be dignified with such a name, clung to the edge of the Mortar Forest like a barnacle on a rotting hull. No more than twenty people called it home.
There were no inns, no guest houses, not even a shed for strangers. The men slept in a huddled pile on the packed earth near the village center—if a crooked wooden post with a carved sun symbol could be considered a center.
The ground was just as hard and unyielding as the forest's root-tangled floor, yet they somehow slept better than they had in days. Perhaps it was the silence, or the sense—illusory though it was—that the worst had passed.
They rose, as ever, at dawn. Not by choice, but as if compelled by some ancient curse tied to Sir Eric's unrelenting march. The paths grew clearer now, better maintained, as though civilization itself had begun to take interest in their doomed pilgrimage.
Spirits rose. There were smiles. Chuckles. Some dared to talk about surviving. Living through this. Returning home one day with scars and stories.
Siege could barely contain his disgust.
None of these idiots had lost anything. Not yet. They'd walked through a forest and had the gall to smile. It grated on him—on his nerves, on his bones, on the still-aching stump of his missing arm. Relief? Relief?
"You're marching to fight a dragon, not going on a goddamn honeymoon," Siege muttered to himself, loud enough that the man beside him shifted away.
So Siege trudged forward in silence, stewing in his private stormcloud of contempt while the others laughed like boys on a picnic.
The second village they stopped at could not have been more different. It was large—even larger than Elram. There was something warm about its orderliness. Wide, even paths crisscrossed between cottage homes. It all looked cozy.
The townsfolk were polite, almost suspiciously so. They offered food and trinkets. Beds with straw that didn't stink of death. Siege, despite himself, found his scowl softening. Kindness, even if transactional, was a novelty so far.
They stayed the night. Siege, for the first time in this whole gods-damned journey, felt the whisper of peace.
It would not last.
---
Half past noon, on the final day, they arrived.
Ithaca.
The name promised glory, but the sight promised gloom. The fortress loomed behind thick wooden gates, flanked by two guards in leather that looked like it had been cured in despair. The stone walls—barely three meters high—seemed less defensive structure and more tomb boundary.
Sir Eric nodded at the guards.
"Welcome back, Sir Eric!" one chirped. "That the fresh meat for the campaign? They any good?"
"As good as farmhands pretending to be soldiers can be," Sir Eric said, flat as dry iron. "Open the gate."
The guards turned wheels set into the wall, and with a groan that echoed like the rattle of some ancient beast, the gate creaked open.
And Ithaca revealed itself.
The fortress was built entirely of dull, lifeless grey stone. The ground—brown dirt, the kind that never grew anything—stretched lifeless across the courtyard. Light did not sit well here. The sun glared from above, but somehow everything remained dim.
At the center stood the main keep, towering ten meters high, though its grim architecture lent it the illusion of something far older, far taller. Arched windows barely let in light. Its silhouette looked like a mausoleum built to house the ambitions of mad kings like Beowulf.
To the right, a training yard: a graveyard of straw dummies impaled into the earth. They were hacked and slashed and mutilated. Teenagers with oversized iron swords flailed at them under the watchful eye of an older man in fine linen, his expression carved from granite.
Even their swords had no luster. Iron, not steel. Dull and gray. Like everything else.
The very air here felt thick. Oppressive.
The sky hadn't changed, and yet it felt like thunder should crack at any moment. The brightness was a lie.
The recruits hesitated at the threshold. Siege didn't blame them. The place looked like it consumed youth and spit out old men.
But they had no choice. None of them did.
---
Inside the fortress, they were herded—not by Sir Eric, but by another man: taller, thinner, with icy blue eyes that seemed far too nice for someone who'd chosen to work here. He spoke little, and more kindly.
The dormitories were bleak little caves made of the same miserable stone as the rest of the keep. Four bunk beds, moldy mattresses thinner than most lies, and no blankets. Not even a lump that could pretend to be a pillow. The walls dripped with moisture, and the stink of mildew, sweat, and abandonment clung to everything.
A single torch flickered in the corner, barely managing to exist.
Siege squinted in the darkness. "Nice to know they've invested in our future. A torch for the whole damn room. Real cozy."
*No point wasting luxury on corpses*, he thought bitterly.
They hadn't changed clothes in a week. They smelled like the forest had tried to digest them and failed.
A knock at the door. Then it creaked open.
In walked a woman, no taller than Siege's shoulder, balancing a heavy basket. She wore black and white—some archaic maid's uniform—and looked about as thrilled to be here as the rest of them.
"I am Gretel," she said with the weariness of someone who had repeated that phrase too many times. "Here are your training clothes. Choose your set and place your current garments in the basket. You may… bathe after."
Siege elbowed his way to the front, selecting a tan shirt and brown pants. The act of dressing himself with one hand was as frustrating as ever, but he was determined not to ask for help.
Still, his mind turned to sweeter things. A bath. Oh, the divine, soul-saving promise of cleanliness.
He had wiped with leaves. Leaves. He had gone feral in the woods. A bath would bring him back. Right?
Wrong.
The "bath" was a stone basin of lukewarm water. No privacy, no steam, and the soap… gods, the soap. It was made of lard. Siege stared at the oily lump in his palm like it was some cursed relic dredged up from the seafloor.
He left the bath chamber hollow-eyed.
And then there was the "toilet." He refused to think about it.
---
Ithaca had a rhythm, but it was not one of life. It pulsed like a dying heart, keeping just enough momentum to drag everyone along. Siege looked around at the gray, half-lit world and felt like he'd crossed into the underworld. The line between the living and the dead had blurred.
And yet, they were here. Their new home.
He sat on the edge of his creaking bunk, staring into the gloom, still damp from the bath-that-wasn't.
"I've made a terrible mistake," he muttered.
From the bunk above, a voice mumbled, "You and the rest of us, friend."
Siege didn't smile. But he didn't scowl either.
This was the beginning.