The road to Fort Stonereach wound through the pale northern spine like a scar carved by gods. Towering cliffs loomed on either side, shadowing the battered wagon as it creaked its slow path forward, pulled by two shaggy draft elk bred for cold and stubbornness. Snow, fresh and heavy, blanketed the pine forests beyond the ridges. The air carried the bite of salt and steel, and the skies were a blanket of pale gray, a canvas smeared with frozen breath.
Sid sat quietly near the back of the wagon, cloaked in plain gray, hood drawn low. He stared out across the drifting fog, watching how it rolled over the frozen earth like smoke, swallowing everything beneath it. The others in the wagon were all recruits bound for conscription, filling the silence with nervous chatter and half-hearted bravado.
"Bet you they put us in the northern garrisons," one said. "That's where the real action is."
"You idiot. That's too close to the wall. I bet you wouldn't be able to draw blood from those corrupted monsters with just your little sword."
"Better than freezing to death watching snow piles shift."
The group chuckled. Except for Sid.
He didn't join in. He hadn't since the journey began.
The Northern Territory of House Varron has a mandatory year-long conscription for all able-bodied youth between ages 16-25. With the presence of an impending invasion from the demonic beasts, the fact that everyone can be trained to at least buy enough time for the military forces to arrive is a great boon to strengthen the forces of the dukedom.
"You're an odd one," said the senior knight riding with them. He was a broad-shouldered man with a thick beard and a garrison-issued pauldron marking him as a Knight-Auditor of Fort Stonereach. "You've barely said a word since we left Arckrow."
Sid gave him a glance, then turned back to the window. "Just tired."
"Tired? You slept like a stone, lad. I've seen rocks twitch more than you."
Sid allowed himself a small smile. "Must be a northern trait."
The knight narrowed his eyes slightly, before chuckling. "Well, you're not wrong."
Sid didn't answer and just offered a curt smile before turning his attention to the view outside the wagon.
The others looked at him with renewed curiosity. One of them, a burly youth with an excited grin and a too-proud crest stitched onto his traveling coat, leaned forward. Sid knows the guy from the academy, he was one of the great students who carried his batch as the "Golden Generation."
Even he was not exempted from the conscription to defend the wall. Although, with his strength, Sid doubts that it would be an issue to survive a year at the wall.
"Hey. You got a name?" he asked.
"Sid."
"Just Sid?"
"Just Sid."
The boy chuckled. "Commoner, huh? Don't worry, just do your best. We from the vassal families usually get better spots. At the end of the day, as long as you show your strength, you'll pass."
Sid didn't reply. The knight snorted.
"You're one to talk, young master Eldan," the knight said. "Not everyone has that kind of power while just recently entering adult society."
The young noble, who rivals the veteran knight in size, just laughs before turning to another person to talk to.
The wagon rolled on.
Outside, the mountains fell away into vast, white plains. Sid leaned out just enough to see. In the far distance, silhouetted against the horizon like a blade stabbed into the world, rose the Wall of Vaulkurr.
It was impossibly massive. A boundary of stone and steel that stretched from cliff to sea, its surface scarred by age and battle. Smoke curled from watchtowers that rose along its length like thorns on a dragon's spine. Even from this distance, Sid could feel its weight, not just its presence, but its history. The wall had stood against invaders, monsters, and time itself. It was the last bastion of the North.
Fort Stonereach stood like a black nail driven into a frozen spine. It rose from the foot of the Frostmarch Divide, a mountain ridge so vast and jagged that its snowcapped teeth looked like a row of ancient giants sleeping in a line. The peaks stabbed into the heavens with contempt for erosion, never having bowed to time nor siege. And nestled between two of the tallest peaks, Mount Drazhale and Covenant Fang. They lay in between the only natural pass wide enough to allow passage into the Empire from the accursed lands beyond.
But what struck him more wasn't the Wall itself, it was what surrounded it.
Beyond the last hills before the fort, the land changed. Patches of earth turned brittle and glassy, blackened as though seared by a fire that left no smoke. Thorned weeds grew in unnatural angles, pulsing faintly under the snow like infected wounds. There were signs of rot even in the ice as green-black veins webbing across the once-pristine drifts.
Corruption. The taint of the unsealed Demon Gate, leaking from beyond the frontier.
Sid shivered but not from the cold, but from memory. His grandfather had described these places once.
"Don't look too long," the old man had warned. "The land remembers the things that walked there."
As the wagon reached a rise in the road, Sid's eyes caught a shimmer. It was barely visible, like a heat haze over snow. Then another. And another.
Thin lines of pale blue light crisscrossed the field ahead, converging toward the Wall. It was subtle, but as the wagon passed closer, he began to see the faint runic script etched into stone pillars half-buried under frost. The lines pulsed rhythmically, like a heartbeat.
The magic was unlike the bursts of fire or shields cast by combat mages. This was older. Deeper. It pulsed through the very bones of the land, fed by a reservoir Sid could barely begin to comprehend.
The wall flickered with arcane magic. It was a masterpiece that even his master always praise whenever the wall was brought up. It was a treasure and a legacy of the first Archmage of human history, the Archmage of Barriers. A commoner who was granted peerage for his immense magical talent that left a mark in history, a shield that protects the empire from the corruption of the unsealed demon gate from the first demonic war.
As Sid watched, mana is perpetually cycling from the air to the leylines. For a moment, the entire section of the wall shimmered with translucent plates of light. Not shields. Not barriers. Pure arcane armor.
Sid's eyes widened slightly. It wasn't just magical theory. It was something more, showing an interplay of intent, rune work, and natural convergence points. He didn't understand it. Not really. But a spark ignited inside him, whispering that someday, maybe, he could. That this, too, could be a path forward.
The others didn't seem to notice. They were still joking, still complaining.
Sid turned away from the window, his thoughts stirring.
So that's what real archmage-level magic looks like.
The road dipped once more, and the wagon finally emerged from the tree line to reveal Fort Stonereach nestled at the base of the Wall like a buried nail. The fort was massive but compact with angular towers, snow-covered battlements, and sturdy walkways built to funnel the wind rather than resist it. Garrison flags snapped against the gusts.
Guards at the gate straightened as the wagon approached. The knight escort stood, stretching.
"Alright, listen up!" he barked. "From this point on, your lives belong to the wall. Keep your mouth shut, your eyes forward, and follow orders. That's the only way you'll survive long enough to be useful. Maybe, just maybe you'll get to survive a year and go back home alive."
Sid kept his head low.
They rolled past the gates. The snow muffled all sound, and for a moment, everything was still.
The northern wind picked up. The fort loomed.
The test had not yet begun. But the road to hell had ended.