They took him from the vent in a narrow file, boots biting the cinder. The small volcano muttered behind them, a dull breath in the earth, and the path wound down toward a black ribbon of travel cut along the foothills: the Ash Road. The cloak they'd thrown over his shoulders smelled of oil, smoke, and another man's sweat. It scratched his skin where scales didn't cover. His legs ached, but they obeyed.
He kept his eyes low and watched them.
Seven in the band—gait sure, spacing practiced. Two carried bows unstrung but within reach. One, older, moved like he had counted this ground before and found it wanting. Their insignia was a split fang stamped in dull metal and sewn again on cloak hems. When they spoke, Zeke heard cadence rather than meaning: clipped, habitual, a language the tongue knew by marching more than by song.
"Count steps," Logos said, calm as a plumb line. "Seven in all. Two archers. Rear man carries coil—snare or tether."
"Keep breath low," Neris murmured, a hand on the spine of his will. "Conserve. Do not startle."
"Hide," Shade pleaded. "Slip. Vanish. This path is a throat."
Kael laughed, bright and reckless. "Or a drum. Let it bang."
Vael's quiet contempt moved like a blade. "Do not stoop. You are not scavenged."
Veyne burned low and steady. "If pain comes, endure, and then make them remember."
Avaris counted in a whisper. "Water skins three, full enough. Belt pouches heavy. The one with the coil wears better boots. Take those."
Threx hummed, quick with interest. "Note the weight of their knives. Watch how the old one favors his left. Learn the song of their posture."
And beneath them all Asura, the still center: "Observe. Do not act."
They reached the Road where the cinder hardened to beaten ash and black lava rock, hammered flat by centuries of boots and wheels. The air changed—wider, cleaner. Wind slid along the pass, carrying sulfur from higher vents and the iron tang of his own dried blood. The mercs shifted formation around him without looking; habit closed the gaps.
Dust rose on the bend ahead. Color glinted through it—cloth bright against the ash world. A banner, then helms, then the blunt shine of shields stepped into view. Zeke heard voices, firm and layered, call and answer in a different rhythm than the mercenaries'. The words still meant nothing. The posture did. The line of soldiers slowed without faltering; their front rank lifted palms outward as if to press the air. Halt, but not panic. They spread to make space for one another's feet. Their banner fluttered—an emblem he did not know.
"Longmarr," Logos said, pleased to name a thing. "March cadence is state-trained. See the banner—the chain over field. Official patrol."
"Keep your heart," Neris reminded. "This can cut either way."
"Danger," Shade breathed. "Steel that does not smile."
"Good," Kael said. "Steel that speaks."
Vael's disdain warmed. "They would dare dispute custody."
"Custody," Veyne rumbled, taste of iron under the word. "Break hands that reach."
"Look to their water," Avaris urged, greedy even in caution. "Their pack-lizard carries casks."
"Listen," Threx hissed, delighted. "Two dialects. The officer quotes. The rank answers. Ritual language and common tongue braided."
"Asura," Zeke whispered inside himself. The Emperor did not answer with words. The Emperor watched.
The road narrowed where a ridge shouldered forward. Both groups read the terrain the same way and slowed, not to cower but because good ground mattered. The officer in the Longmarr line—crest on helm, voice like a nail driven straight—stepped forward three paces and spoke. Zeke only heard the weight of command, the steadiness in it that made men stop running because they recognized a spine.
The old mercenary with the split fang insignia answered, lazy in tone but with an eye that never blinked. He shifted his weight so that Zeke was nearer his shadow than the soldiers' gaze would like. He put a hand on Zeke's shoulder—not heavy, not cruel. Possessive.
"Trafficker's mark," Logos said crisply. "The officer points to it. The dispute is formal."
Vael's voice sharpened. "They call you spoil."
"They argue the price of you," Neris said. "Whose right to hold."
Anger rose, cold as a winter river. Veyne breathed it, and Zeke felt his fingers wanting to close. Shade tugged him backward in terror. Kael asked for chaos. Avaris wanted water. Threx wanted to know what would happen to a banner if it caught fire. The voices crowded; Asura's quiet held them like a fist.
The Longmarr officer spoke again and pointed once at Zeke with an open hand. The merc commander's smile thinned. He kept his palm on the boy's cloak and said something short that made his own men grin. One of the mercs, on Zeke's blind side, clicked tongue against teeth—signal. Zeke didn't know the word, but he knew what happened next on battlefields: the part where talking ended.
Tension snapped like a snare wire.
A soldier stepped to separate, shield leading, spear close and low. A mercenary moved into him with a knife turned to hook, a motion so quick it almost read as courtesy. Wood met steel with a dull kiss; the knife bit. The soldier twisted; the shield boss struck, blunt and hard. Someone shouted. The air changed.
Arrows hissed. The merc archers loosed from the flanks; Longmarr's rear rank snapped shields up at an angle and the arrows skittered like rain off a roof. The merc to Zeke's left yanked him backward by the cloak—hard and automatic, using him as line-breaker, as shield. Zeke stumbled, ash slick under bare feet, throat catching heat on the edge of a reflex.
"Two archers left ridge," Logos rattled off, precise even in chaos. "Banner-guard advancing."
"Hold your breath," Neris said, squeezing, steadying his chest.
"Now," Kael chanted, glee under blood. "Now now now."
"Not your ground," Asura said.
Zeke swallowed flame down to an ember. Shapes moved in clean geometry—Longmarr closing their wedge, the mercenaries angling to peel the formation apart by dragging him through it. He felt the insult land when the hand on his cloak tightened and pulled him in front of a blade to catch a kill.
Vael's contempt went white-hot. "Chattel."
"Minimal force," Asura ordered.
Veyne gave him permission for pain. "Break the wrist."
Zeke turned with the pull, not against it. He stepped inside the line of the merc's arm and let his claws speak once—sharp, economical. They raked across tendons, not deep enough to maim, precise enough to loose the grip. The merc howled and let go. The cloak jerked free. Zeke dropped, rolled awkwardly, and came up on a knee with ash in his mouth and the road roaring around him.
A Longmarr shield dipped into his view and settled like a wall. The soldier behind it angled the curve not at him but over him, catching a glancing knife-strike meant to shear the top of his head. The soldier's other hand reached down and pressed at Zeke's shoulder—not pushing, not seizing. Placing him back.
"Protective angles around you," Logos said, satisfaction small and fierce.
"Trap?" Shade whispered, shaking.
"No pursuit posture to their rear," Neris assessed. "They are absorbing, not hunting."
The banner-guard stepped up and set the fabric back into the wind so the line could see it. The merc command clicked his tongue again. A pouch burst at Longmarr's feet, ash-dust blooming, a gray mouth trying to blind. The front rank of soldiers swept a wetted cloak low once and turned the cloud to paste on the ground. Then they pressed, measured and relentless, shields tapping in rhythm like a song no one wanted to hear but everyone obeyed.
One merc went down with an arrow in the thigh, rolled, and was dragged by his comrade. Another took a shield-bash to the jaw and spat teeth with a laugh that wasn't laughter. The old commander weighed, blinked at the banner, and made the profit calculus that governed every man in his world. He barked a single word.
Withdrawal.
They broke from contact like crows from a carcass. Half the band melted into gullies Zeke had not seen until the moment they used them. The rest backed and vanished down a runnel the soldiers' line could not follow without exposing a flank. The drumbeat of clash thinned to breath, then to the sound of boots finding their places again.
Zeke found himself half-kneeling, cloak pooled, hands trembling. Heat crawled up his throat on reflex and he let a scrap of it out along the ground. It scorched ash into a glass line a handspan wide, just enough to make a mercenary who had not run yet flinch and reconsider. He did not chase that power. He remembered Neris's grip on his breath and obeyed.
"Enough," Neris said, pleased and stern.
"Stay near their water," Avaris advised, eyes already counting casks.
The Longmarr soldiers closed around him in a circle with space in it. They lowered their weapons without sheathing them. Two crouched to his height, palms open, empty, set where he could see them. The officer spoke—a slow, even cadence like one uses for skittish animals and frightened children. Zeke knew none of the words. He knew the patience in them.
Shade trembled. "It could be pretty chains."
Logos answered without softness. "Then their angles lie. They do not."
Asura's decision fell like a seal pressed into wax. "Accept."
A canteen appeared. The soldier held it by the neck and set it on the ground, then nudged it toward him with two fingers. No grab. No snatch. Zeke picked it up, sniffed—cool, clean. Neris reminded him to sip. He obeyed. The first swallow almost tore his throat with gratitude. He coughed, then sipped again.
Another set his cloak straight—not the mercenaries' possessive weight, but a practical gesture against the wind. A third stood close enough to block the view of the dead without making a wall he could not see over. Zeke's pupils narrowed and widened as the light shifted; the soldiers did not flinch from his eyes.
They spoke more—soft words, names perhaps, places perhaps. He could not step into their speech. He could only read their bodies and the math of their kindness. He looked past their knees and saw the path ahead: the road bending toward a darker hulk on the horizon where walls cut the sky—stone and banner, the idea of a city. Civilization. The word existed only as promise and threat.
"Routes," Threx breathed, thrilled. "Tongues to learn."
"Supplies," Avaris sang.
"Endure," Veyne said, content for once.
Vael let his contempt cool. "If they presume too much, correct them later."
Kael kicked his heels against the inside of Zeke's thoughts, impatient. "Break something for the music of it."
Maw huffed, hunger in no hurry. "Later."
Neris folded her hands. "Now, breathe."
Logos marked each detail and filed it.
Asura simply watched and owned the quiet.
They lifted him—careful, two soldiers under his arms, no squeezing, no bind—and set him onto a low cart where a pack-lizard blinked sleepily. The officer spoke once more to his line and the formation loosened into a march. The Ash Road stretched, the volcano sank behind, and the band with the split fang insignia was already ash in the distance.
Steel had spoken in a language he could understand: angle, posture, intent. The soldiers' shields were not aimed at him. Volume One ended with the cart's soft jolt forward and the first rhythm of wheels that did not carry him away as spoil, but toward a place where words would eventually have to be learned, and names given, and choices made.