Western Ceredan

  Dense forest alternated here with wide clearings flooded by sunlight. The light cut into the shadow sharply, almost painfully, as if the land itself could not decide what it wanted to hide.

  A river ran along the forest’s length. It gave this place life — washing the soil, feeding the roots, forcing the trees to grow dense and tall. The western bank was different: rocky hills shaped by water over decades jutted from the ground like bones.

  The forest stretched to the border and had long become a convenient corridor. Smugglers, couriers, scouts, mercenaries — all passed through here. Unnoticed. Fast. Always at risk.

  Stetsepiy’s unit moved in a steady rhythm. No words. No haste.

  From time to time, they stopped. The scout and Stetsepiy bent over the map, checked landmarks, counted steps, and studied the hills. In this forest, you could wander for days without a map and never find the kingdom’s main observation post.

  According to the map, they were almost there.

  The unit halted, crouched, dissolved into the brush. The forest swallowed them as if they had never existed.

  The scout pointed. The camp was supposed to be above them, among the trees on the rock. To reach it, they had to circle the hill.

  Stetsepiy checked the map and signaled: left.

  They made a wide arc and came within an archer’s range. To avoid friendly fire, they had to reveal themselves.

  The scout stepped into a clearing and raised his shield so the crest could be seen from afar. Stetsepiy stepped beside him.

  “What is our base?” he shouted.

  They stared at the hilltop.

  Silence.

  Stetsepiy called again.

  Nothing. Even the birds were quiet.

  They slipped back into the bushes at once and changed position, lying flat, pressed to the earth, peering into the thicket where the camp should have been.

  No signs of life.

  They checked the map again. Every landmark matched. Every mark is in place.

  The camp had to be here. And it should have been guarded. They could not have missed the call.

  Stetsepiy exhaled slowly.

  There were only two possibilities: either the camp had broken down and moved on, or they were not where they thought they were.

  He did not like either option.

  It was decided to send two fighters to check the site. Anything could be a trap. In case of an ambush, the unit would withdraw instantly — no panic, no arrows in the back from the brush.

  The first to go were the shield-bearers — two in the unit. The archer, Matif, took a position with clear visibility, covering the ascent and the forest line. The Suggestor chose a concealed but comfortable spot where he could extend his mace without obstructing anyone. The medic stayed to the rear, ready to stop bleeding at any moment. Stetsepiy stood slightly aside — positioned to cover a retreat if needed.

  The two fighters raised their shields and moved uphill slowly.

  The forest was silent. Not a crack. Not a stray sound.

  They reached the top and disappeared among rocks and dense undergrowth. No sounds of fighting followed.

  After a few minutes, they reappeared and beckoned with a short gesture.

  Stetsepiy led the unit into the thicket.

  There was a camp. Everything exactly as reported: three tents meant for nine people; a well-camouflaged position; an excellent observation point; one route in, two for retreat.

  And bodies.

  Dead guards lay where they had stood.

  “Check for survivors,” Stetsepiy ordered. “See if any of the dead aren’t ours. And confirm everyone’s here.”

  The scout shook his head. “The attack was at night. The coals are nearly cold. If anyone survived the first blows — he’s already bled out.”

  Some were killed at their posts. Several were stabbed in their tents, in their sleep. Most never reached for their weapons. Only two had fought back. And one more — an archer.

  He was found below, on the retreat path. He lay as if still running. Arrows scattered nearby — he had loosed several.

  The work was clean. Even in a well-prepared camp, the soldiers had been caught off guard. And there had been guards — the placement of the bodies proved it.

  A strip of trampled, torn grass cut across the camp, as if someone had been dragged toward a tree. A rope lay by the trunk. One body was missing.

  The unit split and began searching.

  The last was found below, near the rocks.

  The medic reached him first, examined the body, turned it, checked wounds and blood. “Different death,” he said. “A fall from the cliff. But he was injured before that. He survived the attack. He was interrogated.”

  “Then why throw him down?” Matif asked quietly. “They could’ve killed him by the tree.”

  Stetsepiy didn’t look at the corpse. “What matters is what he told them. What can be pulled from a soldier on the kingdom’s edge?”

  The scout answered at once. “Unit composition. And the second observation post.”

  That post lay by the river — a day’s march.

  Stetsepiy had planned to go there last. Now that was no longer an option.

  There was no time for burials.

  “Take the documents and armbands,” he ordered. “Don’t touch the supplies. We don’t know what was done to them. They have about an eight-hour head start. After a fight, they’ll need rest. If we don’t waste time, we can overtake them.”

  The unit finished quickly in the dead camp — and moved on.

  South of Korosten

  The unit of The Compact moved at a steady, measured pace.

  Neither a rush nor a stroll — the kind of rhythm that keeps order, preserves breath, and still allows you to watch your surroundings. The air here was drier than near Korosten, with a faint stony taste. The ground underfoot kept changing: solid stretches alternated with scree, fine gravel crunching beneath their boots.

  They were already nearing the mining district and would soon have to turn west, toward the forest.

  Near the mines, the road split.

  One branch, trampled and well prepared, led straight to the mines themselves. The stones were packed down, the edges cleared, with visible traces of carts and regular traffic.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The second, once wide but now neglected, veered left. It led toward the City of Angels and farther on — to the Dark Forest. The stone borders had sunk, and in places, grass was already reclaiming the road.

  The third — all but forgotten — turned right, into the forest of the Pale. There, the path quickly vanished among stones and roots, as if someone had deliberately tried to erase the very idea of a road.

  The unit stopped at the crossroads.

  Behind them, about fifty meters back, Grimcross halted as well.

  This was where they were to dismount.

  Without unnecessary words or gestures, they stopped as if at an invisible line. Everyone knew their task. Provisions were quickly taken off the horses, straps checked, knots tightened. The reins were handed to the escorts, who immediately led the horses back toward Korosten.

  A horse in the forest is noise.

  Noise is a trail.

  And a trail in an unknown forest is an invitation.

  Moving on horseback here would be dangerous and far too loud. Roots underfoot, stones, low branches, unseen pits — all of it turned into traps in the dark. Even a quiet crunch could carry for hundreds of steps.

  Now they were on foot.

  Silence and surprise were the main priorities of the Blue Cohort.

  Not strength — silence.

  And they intended to use it fully.

  Rianes turned and gave Grimcross a brief hand signal, ordering him to close the distance. Fifty meters in open ground and fifty meters in broken terrain were not the same distance. Here, the relief fractured sightlines, and approaching the forest required adjustments before they even passed under the canopy.

  Feren and Kesh walked at the front.

  Feren had taken on the responsibility of leadership within the unit. He needed to gain experience in real conditions — not on a training field and not in theory. Wielding a sword skillfully was one thing. Commanding a unit was another entirely. In the first, he was strong. In the second, he was still learning, making mistakes, and remembering them.

  Members of the Blue Cohort were highly professional and had the right to choose their own commanders. That meant Feren had much to learn if he wanted to earn respect like that held by Skeld and Rianes.

  Skeld and Rianes moved last, a little behind the others. It was at that moment that Yahim found a chance to ask the question that had been bothering him for a while, addressing the archer Philip.

  “And does this Grimcross live in Hariv as well?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Philip replied. “He has his own closed area within the central castle grounds. By the lake.”

  “And what do they do with him when guests arrive at the castle? Their children? The king?”

  “They don’t enter his territory,” Philip said calmly. “They only watch from the castle windows.”

  Feren, having overheard the conversation, added without turning around:

  “But the King and the Prince did go down to see him. They checked his living conditions.”

  “With guards?” Yahim clarified.

  “No. The only escort was Atrion and Velm.”

  “Looks like even Grimcross understands that a king is a king.”

  “Grimcross divides everyone into three categories: Velm, Velm’s friends, and Velm’s enemies. So you can sleep peacefully if you’re Velm’s friend.”

  “It’s hard to sleep when that beast is nearby,” Kesh muttered.

  “You get used to it,” Philip replied. “In about a month.”

  “I really hope I won’t need that,” Kesh muttered.

  “If everything goes the way Rianes plans,” Feren said, “we’ll be back in three days. And his plans usually work.”

  They were approaching the first trees of the forest.

  All around them was rocky ground, but directly ahead, a vast forest began. Its edge looked like a dark, uneven wall. The end of the forest was not visible, just like the mountains stretching along both sides, as if compressing the space.

  The sun had already passed its peak. The light grew lower and longer, the shadows stretched, and the unit drew closer to its goal.

  Feren stopped abruptly. The unit halted behind him almost simultaneously. Rianes, Skeld, and Grimcross began moving toward the front of the column.

  “Look. Scavenger!” Feren said.

  The fighters started turning their heads. Between the rocks, beyond the distant trees, in the shadows, moving bodies could be seen. Uneven, jerky, as if they were not walking but sliding from cover to cover.

  Kesh and Yahim instinctively grabbed their weapons.

  Rianes and Skeld stepped closer. Grimcross stopped at a distance.

  “Why are we standing?” Skeld asked curtly.

  “Scavengers are moving around us,” Yahim replied.

  Skeld and Rianes looked in different directions, tracking the bodies.

  “Kesh, you’ve been through here before. They weren’t here then?” Skeld asked.

  “No,” he answered. “It was always calm here. No signs of anything.”

  “Well then,” Skeld said and moved forward, “don’t pay attention to them for now.”

  Without hesitation, Feren moved after Skeld, and the unit followed.

  Yahim and Kesh calmed down a little and stopped constantly gripping their weapons, though their hands stayed close to the hilts.

  The trees grew denser. The sun began to set, the light breaking against the canopy. Scavenger came closer, and there were more of them.

  The fighters glanced around more often now, stealing looks at Skeld and Rianes. Seeing Skeld’s calm, they settled themselves a little as well.

  At one point, two Scavengers came too close. They tried to hide behind the trees, but clumsily — their movements were jerky, and the shadows no longer fully concealed their silhouettes.

  Skeld sprang sharply to the side and, in one motion, seized one of them. The Scavenger’s body jerked into the air, its legs struck the stones, and it screamed — sharp, piercing, wordless.

  Skeld shouted back. Rough, deliberate, almost animal, drowning out the sound. His voice rolled through the forest in a wave, echoed off trees and rock. He grabbed the Scavenger by the neck, turned it to face the forest — toward where the others hid in the shadows — and began driving them off, cursing, holding up the captive as proof of strength and warning.

  Skeld’s movements were sharp but controlled. There was no panic in them — only cold pressure.

  The captive struggled, kicked, and clawed at the air, but overpowering Skeld was impossible. The difference in strength was obvious at once.

  When Skeld finished his “speech,” he released the Scavenger abruptly and laughed. It fell, rolled, scrambled to its feet, and vanished among the trees, barely looking back.

  The unit moved on.

  For a while, it worked. The Scavenger kept their distance, dissolving back into the shadows.

  The sun had almost set. Visibility in the forest dropped fast. Light fractured between the crowns, and beyond that began a thick half-darkness where it was already hard to tell movement from the play of shadows.

  The Scavenger began to close in again. They waited. Waited for the moment when the fighters would stop, when they would lie down to sleep. They felt the Lugu in their blood and were drawn to it like the smell of food. But they did not know that Grimcross was walking behind the unit. He was kept out of sight, and Rianes held him in reserve in case the Scavenger grew too bold.

  At some point, Rianes realized the time had come. The tension in the air shifted, grew thicker. But unexpectedly, the Scavenger stopped.

  They no longer followed the unit.

  Did not circle from the sides.

  Did not close the distance.

  As if an invisible boundary had appeared before them.

  The unit stopped as well.

  “I met them here,” Kesh said quietly. “I never went farther.”

  Feren studied the darkness ahead, between the trees.

  “Looks like beyond this is their territory,” he said. “The one Scavenger don’t dare cross.”

  “Good,” Skeld nodded. “Then we'll set up camp.. For example, over there.”

  He pointed to a spot where the trees stood especially dense, and the stones formed a natural barrier.

  “It’ll be hard to spot us there even during the day. Let’s go. We’ll set up the tents and camouflage them. Dig a small pit and light the fire inside it so it can’t be seen from the side. Those large rocks will cover us, and it’ll be easier for the guards to observe.”

  He paused briefly.

  “We’ll set the watch. Two people at a time until the second hour of the night. After that, Grimcross. He likes that time.”

  “He’ll guard us alone while we sleep?” Yahim asked distrustfully.

  “Yes,” Skeld replied dryly. “As long as he doesn’t howl at the moon.”

  Skeld laughed shortly, the sound cutting sharply against the forest darkness.

  By then, Grimcross had already moved up close. He did not wait for orders. He was the first to head toward the chosen campsite, found a place for himself among the stones and roots, and lay down at once, as if the spot had always been his.

  His breathing evened out quickly.

  The forest around them fell silent again.