Ice-cold air gnawed at the shack's wooden boards. A freezing dawn. Or dusk. The concept of time had long died beneath the rusted sky.
Luka stood in the middle of the dusty room. His left hand pulled a worn leather belt at his waist, yanking the iron buckle tight. The thick leather pressed hard against his filthy linen shirt. He grabbed a tunic coat of stiff, dark brown leather from the edge of the cot. The garment smelled of dust and wet dirt, thick enough to withstand the freezing Oesterian air threatening to freeze blood. He slid his arms in, attaching thick, layered pitch-black steel plates protecting his shoulder down to his left fingertips.
His right arm remained free, wrapped only in a flexible leather sleeve and a worn glove. An executioner's arm must not be shackled by metal weight.
He moved his right shoulder, rotating his elbow joint.
The agony in his arm veins evaporated without a trace. The rotting soldier's flesh at the pit of his stomach had burned out, processed by force into raw energy. The fire in his chest blazed. His heartbeat pumped hot blood piercing the cold, masking his defective body posture that still refused to stand straight.
Leather boots scraped against the floorboards.
Rhea stepped from the dark corner. The maid carried a roll of white gauze boiled in scalding water. It smelled clean, stinging Luka's nose accustomed to the stench of rotting moss.
"Raise your chin, My Lord," Rhea whispered.
Luka complied. He let his maid's pale fingers wrap the white cloth from the base of his neck, covering the dull throbbing jagged stitches, ascending to hide his nose and most of his face. The wrapping was extremely tight. Locking expression. Hiding identity. Or perhaps, thickening the horror.
Rhea took a long black cloak from the wooden chair. She draped it over Luka's back, locking the dark fabric with a red jewel brooch at the neck. The jewel gleamed sharply—a drop of frozen blood in the middle of a charcoal fabric sea.
Luka raised both hands, pulling the black cloak's hood to cover his head. The shadow of the dark fabric canopy swallowed his entire gauzed face, leaving a single killer's eye peeking from the narrow gauze slit. The silhouette of an executioner ghost rising to demand lives.
He bent down, picking up his rusted sword from the floor.
The old iron was filthy. Its serrated edge dulled, eaten by time. The remaining blood of Ulric's soldier dried black between the hilt guards.
"That iron will snap if it strikes elite troop armor, My Lord." Rhea stood still. Both her hands clasped in front of her black corset stomach.
Luka weighed the lethal scrap in his palm. His calluses rubbed against the iron hilt. "This is enough to chop a dog's neck."
He walked past Rhea. Pushing the shack door wide open.
Oesteria's storm wind crashed inside. Freezing air slapped his cloak fabric. Luka stepped out, leaving the gloom of his protective shack. His high boots kicked the dirt. The mud down there had long frozen into hard stone. A faint cracking sound accompanied every step.
Copper light from the giant Red Ring fell illuminating the Oesterian dirt. Bending his body shadow into a long distorted silhouette. Luka walked cleaving the expanse of dead land. Rhea followed behind, the maid's steps silent, muffled by the wind's roar.
They traced a dirt path descending from the cliff hills.
The world below was ruined.
Luka stared at the expanse of pitch-black dried wheat fields. The farmland was shattered. The wooden fences protecting the fields lay broken and scattered, left to rot lacking any hands to repair them. Traditional houses in the distance stood like mass graves. Their thatched roofs bald and holed. Their wooden windows left shut tight with double iron bars. No smoke billowed from the chimneys. Devoid of livestock sounds. Not a single human dared show their face beneath the rusted dawn.
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Luka's breath grew heavy. His eyes caught a small detail at the edge of a frozen ditch.
An overturned wooden pushcart. Its wheels ruined, overgrown with pale weeds. Two steps from the cart, a wooden toy sword lay broken, half-buried inside the ice dirt.
Luka's jaw hardened. His teeth ground.
His people. This was his territory. These people used to plant wheat in peace under his father's banner. Now, they were dragged by force from their own dining tables. Ulric's tax forces robbed everything. Letting these fields die. Letting small children freeze to death lacking firewood. That tyrant squeezed the bone marrow of the Eisenhart people solely to fund his mad invasion at the continent's border.
Boiling hot blood ruined Luka's sanity. The heat crawled from his solar plexus, burning the veins in his arms. He gripped his rusted sword hilt extremely tight. The ego in his head locked onto one definite target. He had to reclaim the throne. He had to slash Ulric's neck. That tyrant's hands must be severed before this entire continent turned into a pile of skulls.
Yet, his brain processed a cold calculation.
Luka shifted his gaze toward the jagged mountains on the southern horizon. Thick fog blanketed their peaks.
His mercenary forces were there. The Hollow Syndicate. A group of the most lethal assassins in the entire Oesterian land. They killed for gold coins. They moved without a sound and tore target vein tissues without leaving a trace. If he wanted to collapse Ulric's armored defense in the capital, he needed these wild dogs as his fangs.
"Silas is a merchant of lives." Rhea's voice flowed from behind his back. The maid walked maintaining distance. "He leads the syndicate on a profit-loss principle. He cares not who sits on the throne, as long as that person's neck is not tied. Use your noble title, My Lord. Offer pardon for sins. Offer official positions as the king's shadows."
Luka exhaled rough. Dense vapor spewed from behind his bandages.
Negotiation. Dialogue. An exchange of noble agreements.
His gut thrashed in disgust rejecting the idea. His stomach muscles cramped responding to the word 'persuade'. If he were a grand prince raised on a marble chair, he might send a letter with a red wax seal and offer land. He might sit before a fireplace with Silas, drink wine, and make a dirty deal.
Luka twisted his step forward. Frozen dirt shattered beneath his heel.
No negotiation table existed. Silas and his group were feral wolves killing for stomach contents. Speaking polite with a mad dog would only get your hand bitten off. If you wanted to subjugate a wild beast, you did not offer it food. You took the biggest rock, and smashed it into the beast's skull until it knelt kissing the dirt beneath your boots.
His flesh demanded violence. His street instinct took over his throne inheritance. He would not ask Silas to kneel. He would break both the man's legs.
The frozen dirt path slowly vanished.
Luka's boot footing now stepped on an expanse of a creaking layer. Not ice stone. The floor before them was covered in a sea of hardened needle leaves. Their color pitch-black resembling cast copper soaked in old blood.
They arrived at the border of the Forbidden Forest.
Luka halted his steps. His eyes narrowed, piercing the darkness behind the branch canopy.
The Oesterian forest lacked life. Thick fog pooled knee-high, hiding rotting roots at the dirt bottom. The pine trees before him grew defective. Their trunks were gaunt and dry, towering unnaturally toward the Red Ring. Long branches curved wildly, exactly like millions of black skeleton fingers gripping empty air.
A fierce wind blew, striking those dead trunks.
Crack. Crack.
The sound slit the ears. Devoid of leaf rustles soothing the mind, the friction of dry wood creaked sharply. Hundreds of snapping noises echoed in unison, resembling the clatter of human bones crushed under a steel press. The sound was enough to shatter a man's sanity.
The metallic tang of old blood radiated thickly from inside the forest darkness, mixing with the scent of mine metal spilling into the air. This ecosystem did not grow life. This forest swallowed flesh.
Luka stood rigid at the forest mouth. His right hand locked the rusted sword hilt. Behind his bandage wraps, his jawline tightened. He stepped piercing the boundary of those black trees, bringing all his vengeance inside challenging hell.
Behind him, the corners of Rhea's lips raised. The maid let her smile fade into a flat face, then stepped inside the forest fog, securing her master's shadow.