A splitting headache roared through Leon’s skull, pulsing behind his eyes like a heavy iron drum.
He groaned, pushing himself up from the floor with trembling arms.
His limbs felt leaden, his coordination sluggish.
His eyes blinked open, trying to cut through a thick, disorienting haze.
He wasn’t at St.
Jude’s Orphanage anymore.
Instead of cold floorboards, his palms rested on rough canvas stretched over damp earth.
He was inside a cramped, suffocating tent.
The air reeked of copper, woodsmoke, and stale sweat.
All around him lay a chaotic mess: rusty iron chains, stained wooden crates, coiled leather ropes, and butchering tools.
Next to his makeshift pallet of moldy straw sat a second, empty cot.
Memory struck him like a physical blow.
The letter.
The magic.
The sudden crimson light bursting through his bedroom window.
‘I was attacked’, Leon thought, his mind immediately churning through the possibilities even as his head throbbed.
‘A Stunning Spell.
Someone tracked the magic I used on the button?’
Before he could process his surroundings further, coarse laughter and harsh shouting echoed from outside.
The tent flap was violently thrown open, letting in a freezing wind along with the heavy scent of burning pine.
A man stepped into the tent.
He was thick-set, with short-cropped brown hair, a rugged jaw covered in unkempt stubble, and cold eyes.
He wore heavy leather armor lined with creature hide and carried a wand loosely tucked into his belt.
[image]
Upon seeing Leon awake and sitting up, the man grinned, revealing a row of crooked, yellowing teeth.
“Finally awake, are we?” the man barked, stepping forward with heavy strides.
“Up on your feet, kid. I’m introducing you to your new life. Hurry it up if you don’t want a thrashing before breakfast!”
Leon pushed himself off the straw, his heart hammering against his ribs, though he kept his expression carefully controlled.
“Who… who are you?” he asked, his young voice raspy.
“Where am I?”
Instead of answering, the man reached out, his massive, calloused hand clamping down hard on Leon’s shoulder.
The grip was crushing, an instant demonstration of overwhelming physical dominance.
He hoisted Leon up by the collar of his thin shirt, dragging him forward so fast Leon almost stumbled over his own feet.
“From now on, you ask questions when you’re spoken to, brat,” the man growled into his face, his breath reeking of cheap ale.
“My name is Jad. I’m the one who dragged you out of that miserable little orphanage, which means you belong to me until told otherwise. What’s your name?”
“Leon,” he replied through gritted teeth, enduring the agonizing pressure on his shoulder.
“Any family? Anyone back in that shithole who’s gonna come looking for you?” Jad pressed, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
“No,” Leon answered directly, too scared to lie.
“I’m an orphan. I have no one.”
Jad’s grimace widened into a satisfied smirk.
“Good. A clean slate. Exactly what we need.”
Without another word, Jad shoved Leon roughly through the tent flap, casting him out into the freezing open air.
“Welcome to the Wyrm-Breakers, kid,” Jad sneered behind him.
“Your new masters.”
Leon stumbled onto a patch of muddy grass and took in his surroundings.
They were pitched deep inside a dense, dark forest, encircled by towering pine trees beneath a starless sky.
The camp was a sprawling, chaotic labyrinth of reinforced leather tents, flickering campfires, and large wooden cages covered in heavy iron chains.
Dozens of rough-looking men and women in dragon-hide coats were moving about—sharpening massive blades, hauling bloody barrels, or passing around jugs of liquor.
Jad grabbed Leon by the back of his neck, steering him down the main thoroughfare of the camp like a prisoner.
“Listen close, kid,” Jad muttered, pointing toward the heavy wagons and beast-handling gear scattered around.
“The Wyrm-Breakers don’t take in charity cases. We are the premier hunters of the Poacher Syndicate. We harvest the most dangerous beasts this world has to offer—dragons, acromantulas, graphorns. And every group needs fresh blood.”
He shoved Leon past a group of mercenaries who scoffed at the small boy.
“We have a fine tradition here,” Jad continued, his tone devoid of warmth.
“We ‘recruit’ abandoned, unwanted young squibs and stray magical brats like you. You’re an ‘apprentice’ now. Which means you do the dirty work. You scrub the cages, haul the meat, feed the beasts, and serve as bait when we need to draw something out of its den. You prove your worth, you survive, and maybe—just maybe—you become one of us.”
As they walked past the central, massive bonfires, Leon caught sight of a commanding figure standing atop a raised wooden platform.
The man was towering and heavily built, his long dark hair whipping in the wind.
Even from a distance, the left side of his face was a horrific landscape of twisted, melted scar tissue from an ancient burn.
He was bellowing orders to a crew of beast-trackers who bowed their heads in deference.
‘Looks like the leader here,’ Leon recognized instantly from the way he carried himself.
Jad noticed Leon’s gaze lingering on the scar-faced leader.
He yanked the boy’s neck roughly.
“Don’t stare at the boss, kid. That’s Garrik Vane. You’ll get to meet him when—and if—he decides you’re worth his time. Right now, you’re just dirt under his boots.”
Jad dragged Leon toward the edge of the camp, where a gruesome sight made Leon’s blood run cold.
Mounted firmly in the ground was a heavy wooden pillory—a medieval stocks device holding a person’s head and wrists trapped in tight wooden cutouts.
Standing bound in the contraption was a teenager, no older than fourteen or fifteen.
His shirt was shredded to bloody ribbons, his back crisscrossed with deep, open whip lashes.
The boy hung limply, dehydrated, barely conscious, and shivering under the night cold.
“Recognize the cot in your tent?” Jad chuckled darkly, nodding toward the suffering boy.
“That’s Finn. Another ‘apprentice’ who thought he could slack off and steal a piece of dried dragon meat. He got thirty lashes and three days in the stocks without a drop of water.”
Jad brought his face down to Leon’s ear, his voice dropping to a icy whisper.
“Don’t think about running, kid. This forest is enchanted. You wouldn’t make it two miles before the wards tear your legs off, or before I hunt you down and slit your throat. You work, you obey, or you end up like Finn. Got it?”
‘I have to survive,’ Leon thought, forcing his face to remain completely passive while his mind filed away every detail: Jad’s movement speed, the camp’s layout, the patrol rotations, and the precise physical condition of the teenager in the stocks.
‘I will endure this.
For now.’
“I understand,” Leon said quietly.
“Good,” Jad spat, shoving him hard toward a pile of filthy, blood-stained iron buckets and heavy scrub brushes near a butcher’s table.
“Get to work. Clean the blood off those skinning tables before sunrise. If there’s a single spot of dry gore left when the sun hits the trees, I’ll take the skin off your back myself.”
Jad turned on his heel and sauntered off toward the campfires, leaving Leon alone in the dark mud, surrounded by the smell of blood, terror, and steel.
The first chapters will be quite fast-paced, so that we can get to the interesting parts.