The next morning, Oren passed by the spot where Tofen used to stand two days before, at the edge of the mess tent, where he’d been used to sitting on the same wooden crate every morning.
The crate was empty now, another soldier Oren didn’t know sitting on it, eating in silence.
Oren paused a moment, then continued on his way without saying anything.
He heard later that day Tofen’s name mentioned among a short list of names an officer read in an even voice before a small notice board, names of those lost in the past days, read quickly without lingering long on any one, before the officer moved directly to the day’s instructions.
Oren felt no urge to object to that speed, but he noticed it.
Life around him continued at its usual pace.
That night he heard loud laughter from one of the nearby tents, soldiers trading jokes about the camp’s food, and noticed himself smiling despite himself for a fraction of a second before remembering exactly where he was.
He felt no guilt over that smile, but noticed it looked slightly different from his smiles of days before.
The next day, a group of those on the Theft path, including Oren, were called to carry out a new task: moving crates of light ammunition and spare parts from a rear collection point to a position closer to the front, needed by a small artillery unit that had suffered a delay in its usual supply arrivals.
“The distance is longer than your previous task,” said the officer in charge, handing out orders quickly.
“But the area is safer.
You’ll move the crates between fixed stopping points you won’t need to get close to any direct line of contact.” The task began differently from the previous one; there was no expected clash, only repetitive, exhausting work, in which Oren moved crate after crate across successive distances, pausing briefly between each move to recover his focus.
He noticed during that task that his body was beginning to accept the process faster than before, as though the continuous repetition of the past days had taught him something he didn’t know how to put into words: a way of distributing his focus so as not to drain all his energy in a single attempt.
He was able to move a medium-sized crate over very short distances, then move another crate right after, without needing the long rest he used to need before.
“You’re improving fast,” said another soldier from the same path, working beside him, a dark-skinned young man speaking with an accent slightly different from Oren’s own.
“I think the repetition does something,” Oren answered.
“Where are you from?” the young man asked suddenly, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“A small village northeast of the capital, near the river.” “I’m from the southern coast.” The young man smiled.
“My name’s Kael.
My family’s worked in fishing for generations.
First time in my life I’ve been away from the smell of the sea, and I feel the strangeness of it almost every day.” “Do you fish too, then?” Oren asked.
“I’ve fished since I was a boy, yes.
But I never dreamed of doing it my whole life.” Kael shrugged as he carried a new crate.
“I wanted to see something other than water and boats.
Now I see the front instead, and I wonder sometimes if I chose the right thing.” Oren laughed quietly, and the two continued working together for the rest of the day, trading scattered sentences between one move and the next, without the conversation going very deep, but it was enough for Oren to feel a certain fleeting familiarity, the kind that forms quickly between people sharing the same work and the same exhaustion.
That evening, Oren sat near a small fire with a group of soldiers from different units, among them Kael and another, older soldier named Rafel, who had come from a distant farming region in the north.
“Our land was almost entirely planted with wheat,” Rafel said, stirring the fire with a small stick.
“My father and brothers are still there running things.
I’m the only one who came to the army, not because I wanted to, but because someone from the family had to go when the summons arrived.” “And what do you plan to do once the war’s over?” Kael asked.
“Go back to the land, of course.” Rafel said it without hesitation, as though the question itself were strange.
“I don’t know anything better than that.
What about you?” “I don’t know yet,” Kael answered.
“Maybe I’ll go back to the sea.
Maybe not.
Sometimes I think I want to see the capital before I decide anything.” Rafel looked toward Oren.
“And you?
Where exactly are you from?” “A small village.
I worked at a local archive before conscription.” “An archive?” Rafel raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve never met anyone who worked at a place like that before.
What exactly did you do there?” “I arranged papers, kept records, helped anyone looking for some old piece of information.” Oren answered simply.
He felt no wish to elaborate further, but didn’t mind talking about that distant part of his life.
They talked for a while about various things: the food in their different regions, the difference between village and city markets, small stories about their families, until a fourth soldier joined them, younger, come from a large city in the west, and began describing its crowded streets and night markets with an evident enthusiasm that made the others listen with real interest.
The conversation wasn’t deep, and Oren didn’t feel he was making new friends in the full sense of the word, but he understood, listening to those different voices around the fire, that the Empire he had only heard about back in the village was far larger than he’d imagined, full of people he never would have met under any other ordinary circumstance.
The following days continued at a similar pace: a task, a short rest, food, broken sleep, quick training on using his path under different conditions, then another task.
Once, he was sent with a team to recover tools from a position that had suffered light shelling hours before, and found himself moving scattered metal pieces among strewn rubble, more carefully than usual because of the unstable ground around him.
Another time, he was asked to help a medical team move crates of medicine from a supply point to a treatment tent closer to the front, where he saw, for the first time since his first mission, a large number of wounded gathered in one place, some entirely silent, some crying out loudly from pain, while doctors and nurses moved among them with a calculated speed.
He didn’t dwell long on that sight, but he noticed it, as he noticed many other things in those days: a supply cart that arrived a full day late because of a cut road; recurring talk among the soldiers about a point on the northern front that had been “retaken” after it had “fallen” the week before, without Oren fully understanding the details; a slight rise in the prices of some simple goods sold by wandering merchants who sometimes visited the edges of the camp.
None of these details were major events in themselves, but together they drew for Oren a clearer picture of the scale of what was happening around him, a war that did not stop at one point, but stretched and moved and changed constantly in directions he knew only a little about.
One night, as he prepared for sleep, he found himself thinking of Tofen for no clear reason, remembering a small detail from their brief talk about the story of the snoring in the tent, and smiled for a moment in the dark before feeling a faint heaviness follow right after the smile.
He didn’t try to push the thought away, nor did he surrender to it for long either; he let it pass, as he had learned to do with many other things in those days.
He also thought of Marin more than once, especially in the quiet moments before sleep, wondering whether she had received his last letter, and what she was doing at that exact moment.
There was no mail service or messenger heading northeast to send a new letter yet, but he kept the thought in his mind regardless.
One morning, on what Oren later realized was roughly the seventh day since his arrival in the war zone, his unit was called to assemble with unusual speed.
“Your unit is moving to the rear today,” the officer in charge announced, with no further detail.
“Gather your things the carts are ready within the hour.” No one explained why.
One soldier cautiously asked about the destination, and the officer answered with a terse sentence about “a rear gathering point,” without elaborating further.
Oren gathered his things quickly, wondering silently what this sudden movement meant.
There was nothing to suggest a defeat or a major withdrawal; the sounds from the front continued as they were, and the talk among the soldiers carried no hint of any imminent disaster.
It was simply an order to be carried out without explanation, like most of the orders he’d received since arriving.
He noticed, walking toward the carts, that units other than his own were moving in the same direction too, rows of soldiers carrying their belongings toward a shared gathering point, among them Kael, whose eyes met his for a moment from a distance, and who nodded a silent greeting.
The journey back took part of the day, along nearly the same road Oren’s unit had come by a week before, though the details around him seemed slightly different this time, perhaps because he’d become more attentive to what passed before him.
Around the midpoint of the road, the cart Oren rode stopped at the roadside for a few minutes, to make way for another convoy coming from the opposite direction, heading toward the front.
Oren looked through the gap in the cloth, and saw carts full of new conscripts, their clothes still relatively new, their faces a mix of visible excitement and worry some tried to hide behind forced smiles.
He heard one of them, a thin young man sitting at the edge of one cart, ask a soldier standing near the road: “How much longer until we reach the real front?” “Not as far as you think,” the soldier answered, in a voice not without exhaustion.
“You’ll arrive tomorrow, roughly.” Another young man beside him seemed clearly excited, talking loudly about the first ability he’d succeeded in using during training, while his companion beside him sat silent, looking at the road ahead without joining the conversation, his hands clasped tightly on his knees.
Oren noticed another conscript, probably the youngest of them, holding a small piece of cloth in his hands, that appeared to be a gift or keepsake from a family member, turning it between his fingers in silence while the noise went on around him.
Oren exchanged no word with any of them, but a passing glance met one of them, a young man about his own age, whose excitement wasn’t obvious and whose fear wasn’t fully clear either, just a quick look, like someone trying to understand something about the person coming from the opposite direction.
The two convoys moved on after a few minutes, each in its own direction, and the new conscripts’ carts gradually drew away toward the place Oren had left only hours before.
Oren sat silent for the rest of the road, thinking of those different faces, of the young man who’d asked about the remaining distance, and of the other one who’d been turning the piece of cloth between his fingers without speaking.
He thought that they were now entering the very place he had just left, with all its noise and silence and exhaustion and death that announced itself without raising its voice.
He didn’t know why his unit was being withdrawn now, while new units were being sent to the very same place.
His unit hadn’t failed at anything, hadn’t been defeated, hadn’t lost enough men to warrant a full withdrawal.
He tried to find a logical explanation: maybe there’d been a mistake in the orders.
Maybe there was a shortage elsewhere needing more experienced soldiers.
Maybe units were being rotated periodically for some reason he didn’t know.
Maybe something had happened at the front that ordinary conscripts weren’t told about.
He arrived at no clear answer, and didn’t feel that anyone around him knew any more than he did.
Everyone was carrying out the order without understanding its full reason, as they’d grown used to doing since the first day at the camp.
He looked one last time toward the horizon where the new conscripts’ carts had drawn away, a light dust rising behind them on the road, then turned his gaze forward again, where the road stretched toward a place he didn’t yet know what awaited him in.
The question stayed in his mind for a few moments.
Why were they going back, while others arrived at the front?
He found no answer.
Then he leaned against the side of the cart and closed his eyes, letting the road carry him away from the place where he had spent his first week.
There was something in this he did not yet understand.