Upper City of Korosten

  A bright room with high windows. Breakfast was nearly over.

  Olaf sat straight, restrained, with an untouched cup of tea in front of him.

  Across from him sat his wife. Beside her, in a high chair, their three-year-old daughter silently picked at pieces of bread, occasionally glancing at her parents.

  “Henry is refusing to eat again?” Olaf asked calmly.

  “He won’t be able to walk properly for a few days,” his wife snapped. “He’s in pain.”

  “He’ll live,” Olaf shrugged. “He should be glad nothing’s broken, and his face is still intact.”

  She set her spoon down sharply.

  “He’ll live?

  Those mercenary animals beat your son in front of everyone. Your son. Your heir. And you say he’ll live?!”

  Olaf slowly raised his eyes to her.

  “Henry is to blame for growing up a spoiled idiot.

  I was at that tavern yesterday. They were complaining about his behavior again.”

  “That changes nothing!” Her voice trembled. “He’s your son. Our son.

  You’re the one in charge here. All those workers eat only because you lifted this city.

  And now some thugs from the east come here and can beat whoever they want?”

  She jerked her head toward the child.

  “And what if tomorrow it’s me? Or her?”

  The little girl froze, not understanding the words but sensing the tension. Her fingers tightened around the bread.

  Olaf remained silent.

  He understood perfectly well: Henry had earned every bruise.

  But reputation was fragile. And if mercenaries were allowed to beat the heir today, tomorrow they would decide they could do more.

  He exhaled slowly.

  “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll think of something.

  Something that won’t make things worse.”

  There weren’t many options.

  Open aggression was impossible. The law was on The Compact’s side.

  Complaints to the king were pointless. The king himself had sent them.

  His wife leaned closer.

  “You can remind them that they need you no less than we need them.

  Make them feel it.

  Make sure no one helps them.

  No selling. No greetings. No doors opened.”

  She paused.

  “Remind the city that they are enemies of the people.

  That they are not welcome here.”

  Olaf studied her carefully.

  The idea was… elegant.

  No violations. No shouting. No blood.

  Just coldness. And emptiness around them.

  “All right,” he said slowly. “But I have something else in mind.”

  He stood up.

  “It will be expensive.

  But everyone will understand one simple thing:

  For every strong man, there is always someone stronger.”

  Olaf stepped out onto the balcony.

  The morning city lay below him — calm, well-fed, confident.

  He lit his pipe.

  The smoke slowly dissolved into the air.

  And in his gaze, there was neither offense nor anger anymore.

  Only cold calculation.

  The main square.

  Market day in Korosten was almost over.

  The crowd pressed around the stalls, haggling, arguing, laughing. The smells of spices, fresh bread, metal, and livestock blended into a single dense cloud.

  The local guard was everywhere — more than usual. They kept order, but did so tensely, without yesterday’s ease.

  The Compact was here as well.

  Mercenaries moved between the stalls lazily, without haste, examining the goods. Not like customers — like people to whom none of this belonged, but who might need it.

  Not far from the market, on a street corner, stood a house.

  Once wealthy: a fine fresco on the fa?ade, expensive stonework, massive shutters.

  Now neglected. The trees are untrimmed, the yard is cluttered, and weeds are breaking through the paving stones.

  Two mercenaries stood near the house.

  They had come for the engineer.

  They hadn’t found him the night before, so they returned today — hoping to catch him drunk and still alive in his own bed.

  They peered into the windows, surveyed the yard, listened.

  Silence.

  One of them stepped away toward the market to buy food.

  He stopped at a stall. The merchant immediately perked up — spreading the goods wider, speaking faster, and showing the better items.

  He knew: the mercenary had money.

  Selling to him wasn’t just about profit. It was a mark. Later, he could say: The Compact buys from me.

  Moreover, he noticed the details at once.

  The posture. The movements. The gaze.

  That was not how the rank and file stood. Not those who waited for orders.

  This was an officer.

  Townsfolk and guards tried to avoid contact with The Compact.

  Outsiders who only yesterday had beaten the children of the city’s most influential families in a tavern did not look like pleasant company, let alone safe.

  People at the market instinctively altered their paths. Someone lingered at a stall without reason, someone else suddenly remembered urgent business on the far side of the square. Their eyes slid past the mercenaries as if they were patches of shadow better not stared at for too long.

  The guards behaved the same way. They chose different routes, skirted the square in wide arcs, and moved between the rows so as not to get too close. Not out of fear, but out of caution. Not to cause discomfort. Not to provoke.

  But one of them was an exception.

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  He did not look away.

  On the contrary, he watched closely, with focus, as if searching for someone specific. His eyes moved across the unit not chaotically, but methodically, from faces to hands, from gear to gait.

  After a few minutes, he stopped on one.

  That same officer.

  He examined him unobtrusively from a distance. Clothes without excess, but well-kept. Weapons not ceremonial, yet properly fitted. A calm face, no fuss, with that expression seen in people accustomed to making decisions.

  This was exactly who he had been looking for.

  Not just a mercenary, but someone more valuable. Someone who did not ask unnecessary questions and did not act on impulse.

  The guard began to approach slowly. No sudden movements, no direct stare. When he was very close, he slowed down even more, as if he had accidentally stopped to let someone in front of him pass. In that brief moment, he leaned slightly to the side, almost imperceptible to others.

  “Sir,” he whispered. “I need your help. With an arrest. But… discreetly.”

  The words came quickly and softly.

  That is how people speak when they understand they are addressing danger and choose it anyway.

  The mercenary didn’t turn. His tone didn’t change.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to the merchant.

  And calmly followed the guard, dissolving into the flow of people.

  The guard led him to another stall.

  There, a man was examining a blacksmith’s tools. For a long time. Too long.

  He picked them up, weighed them in his hands, and asked questions that someone who truly intended to buy would never ask.

  The guard cast a glance at the mercenary.

  Received an almost imperceptible nod in return.

  That was enough.

  The guard stepped closer.

  “Greetings. Any problems here?”

  The man turned his head.

  “No problems,” he replied calmly. “What makes you think that?”

  “I see you can’t decide on an item. Perhaps you need assistance?”

  “No, thank you. There’s nothing here that I need.”

  He began to step back slowly.

  Evenly. Without panic. The way people withdraw when they’ve already made a decision.

  “I see your pockets aren’t empty,” the guard continued. “Would you mind showing them?”

  “Of course.”

  The man drew his hands toward his belt — and in that same instant snapped sideways.

  A short blade flashed in the light.

  The thrust was precise — aimed straight for the stomach.

  The guard was ready.

  He jumped back in time and drew his sword.

  Swung.

  But the buyer turned out to be the better fencer.

  He parried easily, pivoted on his heel, struck with his shoulder — not to knock the guard down, but to break his rhythm — and bolted toward the crowd.

  The mercenary was already moving.

  A step.

  A swing.

  A strike.

  The buyer ducked, passed under the blade, and answered with a sharp horizontal cut.

  Metal rang.

  A fight broke out between them.

  To escape, the buyer had to get past the mercenary.

  And even for an officer of The Compact, this opponent was no simple one.

  The buyer didn’t retreat chaotically.

  He kept his distance, parried blows, and forced the mercenary to work wider than he wanted.

  Blades collided with a dry, clean sound.

  Both men moved quickly, precisely, professionally.

  People around them screamed and scattered.

  Stalls toppled. Crates of fruit spilled underfoot.

  Someone fell. Someone covered their head with their hands.

  The guards tried to intervene, but the crowd got in the way.

  Some grabbed at their cloaks, others stumbled under their feet.

  The fight lasted a few seconds.

  At last, the buyer managed to knock aside a strike, step aside, vault over the mercenary — almost acrobatically — and sprint out of the market.

  He vanished into the streets.

  The mercenary stopped.

  Breathing hard.

  Staring at the place where his opponent had just been.

  And the house with the fresco still stood empty.

  The fugitive was already being chased by other mercenaries.

  The city guard reacted quickly. Exits from the market were sealed, and narrow streets ahead closed like a trap.

  The buyer made a sharp turn between buildings — toward a place with no room to maneuver.

  The street ended.

  Guards blocked the exit.

  The Compact was closing in from behind.

  They ran between the buildings — and found him.

  A guard arrived as well.

  “Caught him?” he asked.

  The buyer lay between crates. Motionless.

  In his hand — a thin blade.

  On his body — a small wound.

  The mercenaries exchanged looks.

  “Poison,” one of them said. “You don’t die from a cut like that.”

  They turned the body over and looked at his arm.

  The mark of Yorungi.

  Very expensive mercenaries.

  And very rare.

  A closed community descended from the Devils — the first mercenary clan. The very Devils who became legend long before most of today’s kingdoms even appeared on the maps. They were one of only two clans founded on the roads to the Wild Lands, where order ended, and the real war for survival began.

  Their outposts were not built for trade, nor to guard borders. They were created to hold back the barbarians of the Rejected — enemies against whom regular armies broke like rotten wood.

  But everything changed after the king of the Southern Empire destroyed the outpost of the Angels.

  The Devils understood the message immediately.

  They abandoned their own stronghold without waiting for the king of the Northern Empire to decide to do the same. There was no fear in that decision — only cold calculation. They had seen how easily politics erased even the strongest symbols.

  Within a few years, all their posts were taken over by the Rejected barbarians — the very ones those forts had been built to contain. The stone meant to stop the tide became its foundation.

  After that, the Devils ceased to exist as a force.

  And then, ten years ago, the impossible happened: the barbarians suddenly captured Gravell, at the time the wealthiest kingdom in the region. Fast. Brutal. With no room for negotiation.

  The remnants of the clan scattered across the kingdom. They were hunted as traitors even after the Civil War, when the Northern Kingdom stopped existing as a state. Old accusations were not abolished along with the borders.

  Those who survived still hide. Living under other names, in other cities, in the shadow of other people’s wars.

  And some of them united.

  That is how the Yorungi emerged.

  In ten years, they became the pinnacle of the criminal trade. Not the most numerous — but the most precise. They were not hired for slaughter. They were hired when someone needed to stop existing.

  In this way, the already poor reputation of mercenaries as a whole was finally twisted beyond repair.

  Now, anyone who carried a sword for coin was automatically associated with them.

  And a corpse marked with the sign of the Yorungi meant only one thing:

  This was not an accident.

  And not a mistake.

  An officer of The Compact approached the guard.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Yahim, sir.”

  “Yahim, that wasn’t just a thug. That was a Yorung — an assassin. They’re masters of vanishing into a crowd, invisible until it’s too late. And you saw through him. How?”

  Yahim didn’t hesitate.

  “He didn’t act like a blacksmith. And he didn’t look like one. But he was in a blacksmith’s stall asking about engineers.”

  The officer nodded. “We’ll inform Lenar about your actions. Good work should be rewarded.”

  He turned toward the house with the fresco. The market no longer buzzed as it had in the morning. People spoke in whispers. Some were gathering scattered goods.

  “The body goes to our camp. And you two,” he nodded to the infantrymen, “break down the door of the engineer’s house. We need to see what’s inside. A Yorung wouldn’t have been looking for him without reason.”

  The door broke quickly. Inside, a stench hit them — stale, heavy, lifeless. The mercenaries covered their noses and moved on.

  The bedroom.

  They froze. Then silently stepped out and reported.

  “The engineer isn’t here. No signs of forced entry or struggle either. Food prepared on the table… but that was about a week ago.” They exchanged looks. “The engineer’s been gone for a week.”

  The officer nodded and headed back to his commander to make his report. On the way, he noticed something else. The scouts Rianes had sent to the mines had returned.

  From their faces, it was clear they hadn’t brought the news everyone was hoping for. They had brought different news. Worse.

  Scavengers had spread through the mines and the surrounding mountains. There were many of them. More than usual. And yet they behaved exactly as they always did: alone, clumsy, quick to flee from people.

  No change in behavior. No signs of coordination. No trace of anything that could explain the night attack.

  Clearing the entire area would take time — days, maybe weeks. But that wasn’t the real problem. No one understood what had forced them to gather in the first place. And wipe out an entire camp. Along with its guards.

  Until that question had an answer, any cleanup looked less like a solution and more like a delayed repetition of the same mistake.