Blood and Mud

Chapter 34: Chapter 34

The courtyard of Trivi had been cleared of corpses, but the training ring was still stained dark with dried blood. I stood in the center of it, gasping for air, the wooden training spear slipping through my sweat-soaked fingers.

”Again,” Miklas ordered, his massive arms crossed over his chest.

I gritted my teeth, forcing the Ember in my chest to flare. I lunged forward, thrusting the spear toward his midsection. He didn’t draw his weapon , he stepped inside the arc of my attack, caught the wooden shaft with his bare hand, and violently swept my legs out from under me.

I hit the hard, stone with a bone-rattling thud.

The impact was nothing compared to the agony that immediately followed. A searing, white-hot spasm seized my spine. It felt as though my ribcage were being forcibly crushed inward, while my leg bones screamed under the immense pressure.

I curled into a ball on the cold stone, unable to suppress a choked gasp. I dropped the spear, my hands clawing at the mud as I waited for the agonizing cramp to pass.

Heavy boots stepped into my field of vision. Miklas knelt beside me. The stern, demanding drill instructor vanished, replaced entirely by the concerned father figure who had pulled me from the ash of Oakhaven.

”The fever in the marrow,” Miklas said softly, placing a massive, warm hand on my trembling shoulder. ”I was wondering when the magic would finally start breaking you.”

I forced my eyes open, looking up at him, my breathing ragged. ”I just... I need a minute.”

”You need to understand what is happening inside your vessel, Elvit,” Miklas corrected, his amber eyes intensely serious. ”Your mind is more mature and older that what should be. I see it every time you look at a map. Because of that, your body wants to mature as soon as possible. Your bones want to lengthen. Your muscles want to mature.”

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, wincing. ”But the Ember is stopping it. It’s trying to forge my body in its current state.”

”Yes,” Miklas nodded. ”To the magic, change is vulnerability. The Dormant Bud wants a solid, unchanging foundation to hold the heat. That is the pain you are feeling. It is the cost of awakening your power before your twentieth winter.”

I stared at the ground, a suffocating sense of despair washing over me. ”So I am stuck like this forever? A child fighting a war?”

A rare, genuine smile touched the corners of Miklas’s scarred mouth. ”No, little girl. The pain is a test, not a prison. When a soldier finally pushes their Ember past the breaking point—when you ascend from a Dormant Bud to a Swelled Bud—the magic stops fighting the vessel. Instead, it forcefully optimises it.”

My eyes widened. ”Optimises?”

”Once you break the threshold,” Miklas explained, helping me to my feet, ”the Ember will realize that your current form is inadequate to house the new level of power. Over the course of a few incredibly painful days, the magic will violently accelerate your growth. The Ember will push your body to its absolute, peak genetic potential as a fully matured adult. You will have the height, the muscle density, and the physical maturity your mind actually requires.”

I stood there, the freezing rain falling on my face, processing the revelation. I wouldn’t be trapped, if I could survive this agonising threshold, if I could just force my Ember to evolve, I would get an adult body back. I wouldn’t just be a mind compensating for physical weakness.

”Then let’s get back to work,” I said, my voice hardening with a renewed, ferocious resolve. ”The spear is useless to me. It relies on leverage and reach I don’t possess.”

Miklas nodded approvingly. ”We have been relying on your Veriti knife. It is an excellent tool for a stealth operative or close fights, but we are marching into a war. You cannot block a barbarian war axe with a six-inch blade. You need a primary weapon. Something that matches your flexibility.”

For the next four hours, we turned the courtyard into an armoury. I tested everything. Alysia lent me her spare scimitars, but dual-wielding required a chaotic, spinning rhythm that conflicted with my strict, military discipline. I tried Kaelen’s spare mace, but it was too top-heavy, throwing me off balance after every swing. I tried a standard Imperial shortsword and heavy shield, but the iron weighed me down, negating the speed advantage the Ember gave me.

Finally, Miklas handed me a wooden practice sword with an extended grip. A bastard sword. A hand-and-a-half blade.

I gave it a few experimental swings. The balance was perfect. It was light enough that I could wield it with one hand if I needed to move fast or grab an opponent, but the hilt was long enough that I could snap my left hand onto the pommel for a devastating, two-handed downward strike to break through armor. It didn’t force me into a single style of combat; it adapted to whatever the battlefield required.

”This is it,” I breathed out, stopping the wooden blade an inch from Miklas’s neck. ”This is the style.”

”I thought it might be,” Miklas murmured, lowering the wooden blade with his hand. ”Follow me.”

I followed the Captain out of the rain and up the stone stairs into his private quarters in the command keep. The room was spartan, containing only a heavy oak desk, a bed, and a weapon rack.

Sitting on the desk was a long object wrapped in oiled black leather.

”A soldier is only as good as the steel she trusts,” Miklas said, stepping behind the desk. ”I had Kaelen’s finest smiths working on this the moment we secured the fortress, using the highest grade of Imperial steel scavenged from the Sfirt mercenaries’ armours. But the metal is only half the weapon.”

He unwrapped the leather, revealing a scabbard of polished black wood accented with silver filigree. He gripped the hilt and drew the blade. The sound of the steel sliding free sent a shiver down my spine.

It was a masterpiece. The long, straight blade was forged from dark, almost charcoal-grey steel. The cruciform guard was wickedly sharp, curving slightly forward toward the blade to catch and trap an enemy’s weapon. The grip was wrapped in tightly braided black leather, ending in an elegant, diamond-shaped pommel that could easily be used to crush a skull in close quarters.

But what caught my eye wasn’t the craftsmanship. It was the intricate, glowing etchings running down the center fuller of the dark blade.

”The Mystic Runes of the Sky,” Miklas explained softly, tilting the blade so the runic script caught the dim light of the room. He tapped the side of his own neck, where an identical, ancient scar pulsed with faint magical energy. ”I spent the last two nights infusing the steel with the excess power of my Ancient Rune.”

He reversed his grip and offered the hilt to me.

I reached out. The moment my bare fingers wrapped around the leather grip, a sharp, sudden crackle of static electricity bit into my palm. It didn’t burn me, but a warm current passed through me. A low, barely audible hum vibrated through the dark steel.

”It won’t shoot lightning bolts from the sky,” Miklas warned, watching my reaction closely. ”It is not a conduit for ranged magic. But as long as your Ember is feeding it, the blade holds a continuous electrical charge. When this steel crosses an enemy’s sword, the shock will numb their arms. When it bites into flesh, the electrical discharge will severely disrupt their movements and reactions. A shallow cut won’t just bleed; it will paralyse the muscle. It is a weapon designed to violently break an opponent’s guard.”

I gave the sword a single swing. The air crackled faintly, leaving a nearly invisible trail of static in its wake. It was beautifully balanced, terrifyingly sharp.

”Thank you, Captain,” I said, sliding the dark blade smoothly into the black scabbard and strapping it across my back. The weight felt right.

”I won’t let it rust.”

Two days later, the war machine of the Dilemd Empire fully mobilized.

The rain had finally stopped, leaving a heavy, freezing mist hanging over the roaring river. The fortress of Trivi was a beehive of chaos. Over fifty thousand soldiers, thousands of supply wagons, and the monstrous, cranked siege engines were on the move.

I sat on my roan gelding next to Miklas, watching General Kaelus, the Butcher of the Plains, lead the massive central army across the heavy stone bridge. The General’s strategy was as blunt and terrifying as the man himself. He was taking the main army straight down the primary corridor into the heart of the swamplands, seeking a direct confrontation with the unified Coalition horde.

But the 5th Cohort was not marching with the main column.

”They are going to march straight into the meat grinder,” Yuni observed from his horse, his eyes narrowing as he watched the Goliath Trebuchets roll past. ”The General intends to drown the barbarians in Imperial steel.”

”The General’s job is to break the spine of the Coalition,” Miklas said, turning his horse away from the bridge and facing the rugged, heavily forested hills that traced the Imperial side of the West Border. ”Our job is to ensure he doesn’t get stabbed in the back while he does it.”

The 7th Legion, highly specialized in survival and asymmetric warfare, had been given a different directive. We were not crossing the river at Trivi. We were splitting off from the main force.

When the Coalition leader was defeated in the Mud Arena, exiled warbands scattered across the borders. With the start of the war, dozens of these massive, rogue warbands had slipped past the forward lines before the lockdown. They were currently roaming the Imperial border territories, burning supply lines, slaughtering civilian villages, and preparing to strike the rear of the General’s army once he committed to the swamps.

We were the wolves sent to hunt the stray dogs.

”The 7th Legion takes the long road,” Miklas announced to the lieutenants. ”We sweep the border territories. We hunt down every barbarian warband operating on Imperial soil, and we annihilate them. No prisoners. No survivors.”

I reached over my shoulder, my fingers brushing the diamond-shaped pommel of my new bastard sword. I felt the faint, eager hum of static electricity waiting to be unleashed.

”Move out!” Miklas roared.

The 5th Cohort turned their horses away from the bridge, leaving the massive siege engines behind, and rode into the dense, dark forests of the frontier.