The northern road ran between barren gray hills under a colorless sky. It was as if someone had wiped away everything that once gave the land a face.
Esteban had not walked this road in many years. When he was young, it had carried him to the distant markets with his father, riding on a cart pulled by a stubborn donkey. Back then, the road had been crowded with travelers and merchants, and children ran behind the wagons. Now, on his first day, he met not a single soul. Only birds crossed overhead. A cold wind carried the smell of wet earth. His own footsteps bounced back at him from the hills.
That afternoon, he found the cart.
It stood at the side of the road, a large merchant's wagon with a canvas cover of waxed cloth. One wheel had been torn off and lay in the dirt. The donkey was nowhere to be seen. Esteban approached carefully and lifted the edge of the canvas.
Inside, on a small wooden crate, someone had set a little table for a meal. There were two plates and two cups. A piece of bread had turned to stone. A roasted chicken had shriveled into something dry and black. On the opposite bench lay a man's coat, folded neatly, with a woman's coat beside it. Between them was a child's jacket, faded red.
Esteban stood there for a long time.
He had seen scenes like this a hundred times. Each time, he believed he would get used to it. Each time, he felt the same thing: like a man standing before an open door, knowing exactly what lies in the room beyond, and unable to step inside.
He touched the red jacket with his fingertips. It was cold, dry, and heavy with dust.
"Where are you?" he whispered, not sure who he was speaking to.
Only the wind answered.
That night, he slept in the open, under a jutting rock that blocked the wind. He lit a small fire of dry branches and ate half the loaf Silvia had given him. Then he lay down on the worn blanket and looked up at the stars. There were many of them, sharp as grains of salt on black cloth. They reminded him of the silver stars on the chests of the riders. He turned his face away, and he could not sleep.
The stone on his chest pulsed with a steady rhythm. He felt it in his bones, as if it were speaking a language he didn't know. He laid his hand over it and listened.
"What do you want from me?" he asked quietly.
He didn't expect an answer, and none came.
He got up and drew his sword from its black sheath. The gray blade gleamed faintly in the firelight. In a small clearing among the rocks, he moved it slowly through the air. A horizontal cut. A vertical one. A thrust forward. He felt the balance in his hand, just as he had learned in those nights between the fire and the iron. Its weight rested three fingers below the grip, and its edge moved with the air rather than against it.
But a sword swung through empty space is not the same as a sword held against a man. He knew that. And he knew he would find out soon enough.
On the second day, the road narrowed and began to wind around the hills like a slow snake. The two loaves stopped being food. They became a ration, divided like a treasure. For the first time, he felt real loneliness. It wasn't the loneliness of absence, which was an old friend. It was the loneliness of a man who had chosen to leave.
His little house had been empty too, but it knew him. The chair leaned where he always rested his weight. The door creaked in the same place. The stove breathed its smoke the way it always had. Here, everything was strange, and the strangeness promised nothing.
He thought of Matteo, of the boy's blind grandmother, and of Silvia kneading bread in the dawn. A single week would pass quickly. He had to find something before it ran out.
As he walked, he began talking to himself in a low voice, the way lonely travelers do. He rehearsed what he would say if he met the Seventh Star.
"You won't take them."
"Where are you taking them?"
"Leave them."
Each time he said the words, they sounded smaller and weaker, like a child standing against a storm. He fell silent, tried again, and fell silent again. Fear spoken aloud, he realized, looks a little less terrifying. But it is also far more honest.
That evening, he saw the smoke.
It was a thin black line rising from behind a low hill to the north, about a mile away. He left the road and climbed slowly through the rocks, bent low, placing his feet on dry earth rather than loose gravel. When he reached the crest, he crawled on his belly until he could see.
A small camp lay beside a stream. Seven men in black coats sat around a modest fire. Some were eating. Some were mending a saddle. One was washing his face in the water. Their black horses were tied to nearby bushes. On a flat rock among them lay an open map, held down by four stones.
Esteban didn't move.
His heart pounded so hard he was afraid they would hear it. But they were talking, and then laughing. In their laughter was something he hadn't expected: humanity. They weren't monsters. They were tired men, chatting around a fire.
"The cold tonight will kill us," said one of them, rubbing his hands together. He was a short young man with a thin beard.
"You've never handled the cold, Pablo. Not since you were a kid."
"And you can't handle anything, Juan. You throw up on every sea voyage." Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
They laughed.
"Do you think he'll come back?" asked an older man with stooped shoulders, a little later, in a lower voice.
"Who?"
"My son."
Everyone fell silent.
"They told us he was in a safe place," the older man went on. "They said everyone who serves the Stars will see their loved ones again one day. That's what the master told me."
"Which master?"
"The Seventh."
No one answered. Some stared at the fire. Some stared at the ground.
Esteban lay on his belly on the hilltop. The cold of the earth seeped into his chest. A strange noise rang in his head. These men served the star who wanted the boys of the village. And at least one of them had done it because he wanted to see his son.
*That is what the hole does to the one who climbs out of it,* the messenger had said. Esteban didn't know why that sentence came back to him now.
"What matters," one of them said at last, slapping the ground with his palm, "is that the stronghold is at the Stone Bridge. The Seventh will arrive before tomorrow. I don't want him waiting for us at the door."
"Then we sleep."
"We sleep."
Esteban began to withdraw slowly and carefully. He had heard everything he needed. The Stone Bridge was a place he knew, a deep gorge crossed by an old bridge, a few days' walk from here. He had decided to move away and follow the road, far from the camp, until morning.
But as he lifted his right foot to retreat, a dry twig snapped beneath it.
The sound was faint. In the silence, it was like a gunshot.
"Who's there?"
There was no time to think.
Esteban sprang up and drew his sword. He heard hooves, footsteps, and the hiss of blades being drawn. He ran down the hill, but they were faster. Within seconds, they had surrounded him in a clearing among the rocks: seven men in black coats, swords drawn, eyes watchful.
"Who are you?"
"A woodcutter."
"A woodcutter?" Pablo laughed. "With a sword?"
"This has nothing to do with you. Let me go."
"He was spying on us," said the oldest in a cold voice. "Take him."
Two of them rushed him.
The sword in his hand was light and balanced. But it was the first time he had ever raised a blade against a human being. In that moment, everything he had learned seemed to evaporate from his head. The weights, the balance, the limits all disappeared. Only his body remained, his pounding heart, and a primitive fear he hadn't felt since childhood.
He caught the first man's blade with his own, on pure instinct. Sparks flew. The second man thrust at his side and nearly hit him. Esteban stepped back and stumbled.
*Understand the weapon. Don't imitate it.*
He looked at the man in front of him, not at his face, but at what he held. It was a long, heavy sword raised in both hands, its balance point high near the hilt. A sword like that would fall fast if its owner missed. It needed room to swing. And there was no room among these rocks.
Esteban stepped back twice and grabbed a broken branch from the ground with his left hand. In an instant, it became a short spear. He thrust it into the shoulder of the man with the heavy sword. The man dropped to his knees, screaming. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping(.)com.
The others fell back a step.
"Sorcery!" someone cried.
Esteban didn't look back. He was doing what Marta had taught him, without even realizing he was learning. He changed his weapon every second as he needed. A spear when they kept their distance. A dagger when they came close. A shield made from the wreckage of a wooden crate when they charged from both sides. Every time he changed the weapon, his opponents drew back, unsure what they were facing.
But he was no warrior. A blade caught his shoulder, and another cut his thigh. He rolled across the ground, cried out, and leapt back to his feet, his shirt soaked with blood.
Then he heard a sword being raised behind him. He turned without thinking and struck the blade with his gray sword. A sharp ring rang out. The tip of the man's sword snapped in two and spun through the air. The man stared at his broken weapon in disbelief, then at Esteban.
"What kind of sword is that?"
Esteban didn't answer. He didn't know himself. All he understood was that his sword had been made through understanding rather than imagination. It was harder than iron forged by smiths over years.
He struck one man on the temple with the butt of his spear, and the man fell. He kicked another in the knee, and that man buckled. He killed no one. He didn't want to kill. He only wanted to get out.
When it was over, four men lay on the ground, groaning. The other three had fled into the darkness.
Esteban stood in the middle of the clearing, panting.
The silence was suddenly enormous. There was no clash of swords, no screaming, no running. There was only the breathing of wounded men, and the campfire flickering behind them as though it had never known what had happened.
He looked down at the older man, the one with the son. He lay on his side, gripping his arm and groaning softly. The wound wasn't fatal. His eyes were open, staring at the sky.
Esteban had wounded him.
He knelt slowly, tore a strip of clean cloth from his shirt, and bound the man's arm without a word. He pressed down on the wound until the bleeding slowed.
"Why?" the man whispered.
"I don't know."
"We were going to kill you."
"I know."
The man looked at him for a long time. His eyes were wet, and Esteban couldn't tell whether it was from pain or something else. Then he said, in a lower voice, "I just wanted to see my son."
Esteban didn't answer.
He left his water flask beside the man. Then he looked at the other three wounded men, took what was left of the clean cloth from his bag, and set it among them without a word. After that, he walked a few steps away, leaned against a rock, bent over, and threw up everything in his stomach.
His whole body shook. His hands, his knees, his teeth. For the first time in his life, he had fought real men. He had wounded them, seen their blood, and heard them scream. And he had survived.
In the darkness before his eyes, the blue words appeared, as they always did:
[ASCENSION: WOOD RANK]
Nothing had changed.
He stared at the words for a long time. He felt neither happy nor disappointed. He was only a man bleeding from the shoulder and thigh, stained with the blood of others, standing alone in the night. And in his chest, above his heart, the blue stone eased a little. It was as if it were telling him it was still with him, whatever the name said.
He took the small piece of wood from his pocket, the one Matteo had carved with a house and a red roof. He looked at it in the light of the distant fire.
Then he returned to the flat rock where the camp's map lay. He pulled it free from under the four stones and opened it in the firelight. A red line ran north from Marina. At its end was a small black circle, and beside it, written in ink: The Stone Bridge.
He folded the map carefully and put it in his pocket.
Dawn was still far off. The wounded men had stopped groaning and sunk into a heavy sleep from exhaustion. There was no one left to keep watch.
He was neither a hero nor a killer. He was only a man learning, slowly and at a high price, what it costs to protect someone.