The swamp released them slowly, as though reluctant to let go.
Mud hardened into soil step by grudging step. Air that had clung to their lungs finally drifted free, sharp and cool again. Birds tried their voices in hesitant phrases, as though testing whether song was allowed. Even the wind came back, brushing the tops of the trees in uneven strokes.
Arsanguir walked in the middle of the line, where he had learned to keep. Bren tapped the earth ahead with his spear, cautious as always. Rohuun followed, shoulders wide enough to feel like a wall. Nara walked to his right, bow strung across her back but always near her hand. Kaelen closed the line, each step unhurried, the sort of pace that turned silence into something steady.
Arsanguir pulled in a full breath and felt his chest argue with him. Air came too easy now; his ribs wanted to fight it, as if they had grown used to swallowing fog.
Bren broke the hush first. "The swamp left its stink inside me. Every step, I hear it slosh."
Nara smirked. "That's not swamp. That's your thoughts rattling."
Rohuun shifted his hammer strap. "Mud is honest. You just don't like what it says."
Arsanguir tried a smile. "Better mud than the green fog."
"Better neither," Bren muttered, but the rhythm of his spear-tip grew lighter.
The path bent toward sound and smoke. A stream swelled wide where a wooden bridge sagged, ropes gnawed thin by damp. Villagers clustered on the bank, their voices tight.
The cloaks drew eyes at once. Men stilled their arguments, a woman pulled her child close, and all the muttering turned into a careful quiet.
"Ajtz'akol," one man said, half-curious, half-guarded.
Kaelen raised a hand in greeting but left space for them to speak.
An elder leaned on his cane. "Children cross here for school. One slip and the river eats them. Will you…" His voice faltered, but his eyes held steady.
Rohuun crouched by the ropes, thick fingers prodding the fibers. "Wood tired. Not broken. We can teach it patience."
Bren waded into the current, water pushing at his waist. He drove a stake deep with his spear haft, teeth gritted. Nara knelt on the bank, hands quick with rope, knots tightening as if they were born to her fingers. Kaelen whispered a steadying thread, the ground hardening under their boots so it would hold weight.
Arsanguir hauled rope alongside Rohuun, but his palms prickled. The plank in his grip felt alive, weary, whispering its strain. He tugged without meaning to. The wood shuddered.
Nara's hand snapped to his wrist. "Stop."
"I wasn't—"
"You were," she cut him short, calm but sharp. "Kucholel listens even when you don't. Learn first, then speak."
His throat closed. He let the rope bite until it hurt.
When the bridge stood steady, children darted across, shrieking laughter at the bounce beneath their feet. Villagers pressed a basket of flatbread into Rohuun's hands and poured water into their skins.
A boy tugged Arsanguir's cloak. "Are you really Ajtz'akol?"
Arsanguir's mouth opened and closed. "I… walk with them."
The boy frowned, then grinned anyway, running after his friends.
They left without ceremony. Just work done.
The road that followed was barely a road at all. Wagon ruts in dirt, cairn stones with their runes eroded into soft curves, milestones leaning like tired men.
Sometimes they passed another traveler who stepped aside with a respectful nod at the cloaks. Sometimes they stopped to help.
One farmer's ox had dropped to its knees, foam at its mouth. Rohuun eased its head to the ground while Kaelen pressed a hand to its flank, his voice low and even. Breath returned to the beast; it rose, shaking off its weakness as though waking from a dream.
Another time, a cart wheel split. Bren crouched, fingers brushing the rim. He whispered a thin thread of Kucholel, and for a few minutes the wood remembered itself. It held together long enough for the farmer to reach home.
Shrines dotted the way: stones painted with ash, fruit piled at their base. Once, Rohuun plucked an apple without asking. Nara smacked his arm so hard the fruit tumbled into the dirt.
"Offerings," she scolded.
Rohuun picked it up anyway and bit deep. "Offerings spoil. Better in a belly."
"Yours, always," Bren muttered.
Their fire at night was small, smoke stingy. They ate thin strips of K'ahal meat stretched with roots or traded grain. Around these fires, lessons began.
Nara sat across from Arsanguir, bow laid across her lap. "Breath square. In four, hold, out four, hold. If your rhythm scatters, Kucholel won't listen."
Arsanguir tried. His shoulders rose too fast.
"Again." Her voice softened, but she did not let him quit.
Bren added, "Feet next. The ground talks before it lets you fall. Step, wait, listen." He tapped two fingers to his ankle. "Don't hear with your head. Hear here."
Rohuun chewed meat until it squeaked. "Patience. Stone waits longer than blood. Learn from stone."
Arsanguir failed more than he managed, but none of them scolded. Laughter followed his mistakes, never cruel, and patience returned each night like bread broken between them.
By the fifth evening, they found a cave. Its mouth yawned in the hillside, ceiling blackened with old soot. Relief swept the group at the promise of dry shelter. Fire crackled small, and the last of the K'ahal meat hissed in fat on stone.
Bren told a tale of a river eel that stole a fisherman's wife. Nara rolled her eyes. Rohuun hummed low as though adding weight to the silence between words.
For the first time in weeks, Arsanguir felt almost safe.
Then the shadows moved.
At first he thought the fire played tricks. But the movement had direction—many, all at once. Chitin scraped rock. Wings whispered like too many pages turned too fast. Dozens, then hundreds: Night-Roaches, abdomens pulsing with faint light.
"They're coming home," Bren muttered. "We've taken their bed."
Nara kicked dirt over the fire. Darkness swallowed them whole. Still, the swarm edged closer, drawn to the heat that lingered, to the faint glow of threads clinging to their cloaks.
Rohuun gripped his hammer, but Kaelen's voice cut through before he swung. "Not force. Instinct."
From his satchel, Kaelen pulled the small clay vial. He pulled the stopper. A sharp, bitter tang spilled into the cave, copper and rot together.
The swarm paused. Wings stuttered. The foremost roaches pulled back, abdomens flickering faster. Then the whole mass recoiled, hissing, crawling high to the ceiling instead of forward.
"They eat light," Kaelen whispered. "But not death. Even hunger knows poison."
The group huddled close. Chittering filled the cave, the sound of patience held above their heads. No one slept well. Arsanguir tried square breaths until his ribs ached, until his fear steadied into something he could carry.
When dawn came, they left fast. The swarm watched but did not follow.
The days after grew easier. Roads widened into clearer paths. Patrol huts bore Larion's sigil, and the cloaks drew respectful bows. For two miles, the road even wore cobbles before sinking back into dirt.
They filled the travel with words.
Bren and Nara bickered about food—flatbread versus boiled grain. Rohuun claimed flatbread was honest because you could see the work. Nara said boiled grain fed twice as many.
One evening, by fire, Rohuun spoke plainly. "Ajtz'akol is weight. We carry it so others don't have to. That's all."
Arsanguir looked into the flames. "And if you drop it?"
Kaelen answered without pause. "Then someone else bleeds. So we don't."
Later, Kaelen pressed him further. "Tell us about your home."
Arsanguir hesitated, then let the words come: a crooked fence by the well, a pear tree that fruited too early, children's laughter chasing each other through dust. None of it grand, but all of it real.
The group listened as if those small things mattered as much as kingdoms.
Kaelen said softly, "When you tell us, you're not only telling us. You're reminding yourself. Hold on to that."
On the ninth day, the land opened. Fields stretched with low stone walls, orchards lined in neat rows. Smoke rose from chimneys. Hammers struck in rhythm.
Arsanguir's legs slowed. His chest pulled tight.
There—palisades of sharpened logs, iron-banded gates. Beyond, he could almost hear the echo of familiar voices.
His village.
Kaelen stepped beside him. "Are you ready?"
Arsanguir swallowed. He thought of swamp fog, the hum of K'ahal throats, the sound of arrows bending in flight. He thought of square breaths, of the pear tree that gave fruit too soon.
"I don't know," he said.
Kaelen nodded once. "Good. Certainty lies."
The others gave him space. Rohuun shifted his pack, Nara adjusted her bow, Bren crouched to study the gate's hinges as if they were worth all the world's attention. None pressed him forward.
Arsanguir took a single step and the ground held.