He hadn't slept. Not truly. Not since the river turned black.
Mud slicked his boots and refused to let go. It clung like a jealous wound, hungry to drag him back into the half-frozen trench he'd been pulled from three nights prior. Around him, the camp groaned like a sick ox — leather creaked, soup hissed, and a man somewhere retched behind a latrine wall that barely stood against the wind.
The smoke here didn't rise. It crawled.
He moved with the stiffness of one who had not yet earned the right to walk differently. Shoulders tucked, eyes down, hands always near something — a belt, a pouch, a blade's hilt, as if unsure which the moment might require. Every man nearby wore a kind of silence that didn't trust language anymore.
His name, for now, was Tarn. That was enough. Tarn had never held a banner, and no one yet died for him, but they looked at him sometimes like they might. And that was worse.
"Captain wants you," said a voice from behind a ragged flap of wool. A boy, no older than twelve. Brown-eyed. Breath like wet kindling. "Now, not later."
"Why me?" Tarn asked, not turning.
"Because it's you who stepped between Calder and the mud-knight." The boy shrugged. "And because no one else would."
Tarn wiped his hand across his mouth. His fingers tasted of ash and broth and the cord he chewed when thinking. He nodded once and stepped past the rag screen.
The camp's "command post" was a table inside a half-collapsed barn. A ruined grain cart served as the desk. Three candles, a blood-spattered map, and a relic bowl sat on top. Around it stood four men: one with a scarred eye, one who always looked tired, one who hadn't laughed since spring, and Calder.
Calder looked up first. His ring caught the candlelight like it was hungrier than fire.
"I didn't summon you for pleasure," Calder said, gesturing to the spot across the relic bowl. "Sit. Or stand. But hold your tongue until spoken to."
Tarn didn't sit. The bench looked like it'd bite.
Captain Helgar cleared his throat. "There's talk," he said. "That you intervened when the knight from Mirehold insulted our house line."
Tarn blinked. "He spat in the stew pot. I didn't think—"
"You didn't think," Calder snapped, "which is how dogs are made into corpses."
Helgar raised a hand. "He's green, but not stupid. The Mirehold knight tested us. He wanted to see if our camp still had backbone after the river loss."
"He's lowborn," Calder said, voice like gravel in snow. "Not part of the talking circle. Not part of our answer."
Tarn didn't flinch. "He would've pissed in the soup next."
Helgar stared at Tarn a long while, then chuckled once — a sound like something cracking. "We're assigning you a task. Not a reward. Not a command. But a proving."
Calder narrowed his eyes. "We're sending you with the writ. The ledger. And a single horse. You'll deliver it to the Stone Barrow man."
Tarn's heart slowed. "The old claim post? That's half-buried. And cursed, they say."
"They say much," Helgar said, already turning back to the map. "Your name will be on the record. If he signs, and you return, we'll forget the stew. If he doesn't—"
Calder smiled thinly. "Well. Then you'll have failed to rise. And that's the kind of failure we don't forgive."
No blessing. No escort. Just a rolled writ, a leaky waterflask, and a horse named Brae with one ear and a limp that worsened in cold. Tarn left by dusk. No one saluted him, but two soldiers watched him ride out with expressions that weren't quite indifferent.
He didn't look back. Only fools did.
The wind carried something like a voice over the hills — or maybe it was just the way old trees cried when the air changed. Tarn shifted in his saddle and pressed the writ tighter against his ribs.
If the Stone Barrow man signed, it would mean land. Position. The beginning of something real. If not—if this was just Calder's way of getting rid of him—
He'd find out soon enough.
Mud clung to the horse's hooves like it wanted to come too.