The heavy gates of Varent Castle had creaked shut behind Leon with a sound of grim finality, a punctuation mark on the end of his old life. He didn't look back.
There was nothing there for him anymore – no warmth, no solace, only the cold ambition of his father and the smug indifference of his brothers. His mother, the only tether to that place, was gone. Now, only the unknown and the dreaded Blighted Marches lay ahead.
The two Varent guards assigned as his escort were taciturn men, their faces weathered and impassive. They rode on either side of him, their presence less a protection and more a constant reminder of his status as a prisoner being delivered to his sentence.
They offered no conversation, their occasional grunts and curt commands related only to the pace of their travel or the state of the path ahead. Leon, lost in his own bleak thoughts, didn't attempt to engage them. Their silence was preferable to the false pleasantries or open scorn he might have received from others in his father's employ.
His mount, a sway-backed mount of indeterminate age and even less enthusiasm, plodded along with a resigned air that mirrored Leon's own. The 'minimal supplies' promised by his father were indeed minimal: a thin bedroll, a small sack of hardtack biscuits that tasted like sawdust, a chunk of dried salty meat, and a waterskin that was already half empty.
The sword at his hip felt like an alien attachment, heavy and awkward. He'd tried a few practice swings in the privacy of his temporary room the night before, nearly tripping himself in the process. It was clear that his engineering skills did not translate to martial prowess.
For the first few days, their journey took them through the relatively civilized lands of the Varent Duchy. They passed through small villages, their inhabitants a mixture of hardworking peasants and wary artisans.
The Varent banner, flown from the guards' lances, ensured them passage and a grudging respect, though Leon noticed the curious, sometimes pitying glances directed his way.
He was still dressed in the remnants of his noble attire, albeit now travel-stained and worn, and his lack of retinue, coupled with the grim escort, likely told its own story. He imagined the whispers that would follow in their wake: "Another disgraced noble, off to the Marches, no doubt." The thought brought a fresh wave of bitterness.
He observed the land with his engineer's eye, a habit he couldn't shake even in his current predicament. He noted the inefficient irrigation systems, the poorly maintained roads that turned to muddy quagmires after a brief shower, the haphazard layout of the villages that offered little in the way of defensibility or sanitation.
Even in the heartland of a powerful duchy, the level of infrastructure was appallingly primitive by the standards of his former world. Chamber pots were still emptied into ditches, water was drawn from communal wells of questionable cleanliness, and the concept of systematic waste disposal seemed entirely alien.
His mother had been an exception, with her quiet affirmation on personal hygiene and her small, fragrant herb garden, but she had been a gentle anomaly in a world that largely accepted filth as a fact of life.
The stark contrast between the advanced, almost sterile, interior of the castle in the bottle and the world outside was becoming increasingly apparent, fueling a budding idea, a desperate hope, that perhaps, just perhaps, he could change things, if he survived.
As they traveled eastward, the landscape began to change. The well-tended fields and orderly villages of the Varent heartland gave way to sparser settlements, rougher terrain. The forests grew denser, the trees older and more gnarled, their branches seeming to claw at the sky.
The roads, where they existed at all, became little more than rutted tracks, slowing their progress. The air itself felt different, heavier, tinged with a wildness that was both exhilarating and unsettling.
His guards became more alert, their hands straying more frequently to the hilts of their swords. They spoke even less, their eyes constantly scanning the tree line, their ears pricked for any unusual sound.
This was border territory, less firmly under the Duke's control, a place where bandits and wild beasts were a more common threat. Leon, despite his lack of combat skills, found himself tensing at every rustle in the undergrowth, every snap of a twig. Fear was a constant companion, a cold knot in his stomach.
One evening, as they made camp in a small, rocky clearing, one of the guards, a grizzled man named Borin with a scar that bisected his left eyebrow, spoke to him directly for the first time since they'd left the castle.
"Best keep that sword handy, Lord Leon," he'd grunted, not unkindly, as he sharpened his own blade by the light of their meager fire. "Things out here… they ain't like in the Duke's halls. They bite."
Leon nodded, his hand instinctively going to the unfamiliar hilt. "I… I will." He knew it was likely a futile gesture. If they were attacked, he would be a liability, not an asset. But the guard's gruff warning was, in its own way, a small act of consideration, and Leon was grateful for it.
He spent the nights huddled in his thin bedroll, the cold seeping into his bones, the sounds of the wilderness pressing in around him. He'd stare up at the unfamiliar constellations in the night sky, so different from the ones he remembered from Earth, and feel an aching sense of displacement.
He was a stranger in a strange land, stripped of everything that had once defined him, heading towards a future that promised only hardship and likely death.
His only solace was the small glass bottle, which he would take out and hold, feeling its faint, rhythmic pulse against his palm. It was a tiny, fragile link to his mother, to a past he barely understood, and to a future he couldn't yet imagine.
He tried to ration his meager food supplies, but the hardtack was barely palatable, and the dried meat was tough and stringy. Water was a constant concern. They refilled their waterskins at streams and springs, but Leon, with his knowledge of bacteria and waterborne diseases from his past life, eyed the untreated water with deep suspicion.
He longed for the clean, purified water he knew the castle in the bottle could provide, if only he knew how to access its full potential. The lack of basic sanitation on the journey was also a trial. The guards thought nothing of relieving themselves by the side of the track, and the concept of washing hands before eating was clearly foreign to them.
Leon, acutely aware of the risks, did his best to maintain some semblance of hygiene, earning him a few curious looks but no comment.
After nearly a week of travel, they reached the edge of what the guards called the 'Wilderlands.' The last Varent outpost, a small, fortified watchtower perched precariously on a rocky outcrop, loomed ahead. This was as far as the Duke's authority truly extended. Beyond it lay a vast, untamed wilderness, and beyond that, the Blighted Marches.
The commander of the watchtower, a dour, battle-scarred captain, received them with minimal ceremony. He read the Duke's decree with a grim expression, his eyes lingering on Leon with a mixture of pity and contempt.
"So, another one for the Marches," he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. He offered them a night's shelter within the cramped confines of the tower, a meager meal of stew and stale bread, and a warning.
"The Wilderlands are bad enough," the captain told them, his voice raspy. "Goblin tribes, packs of shadow-wolves, and worse things that shun the light of day. But the Marches… the Marches are a different beast altogether. The land itself is cursed, they say. Twisted creatures, poisonous air in places, and a despair that seeps into your very bones. Few who enter ever return. And those who do… they're never the same."
His words did little to lift Leon's already sinking spirits. The next morning, his Varent escort prepared to leave him. Borin, the guard who had offered him the earlier warning, approached him as he was checking the saddle on his tired horse.
"This is where we leave you, Lord Leon," Borin said, his expression carefully neutral. He gestured towards the east, where the land dipped into a series of rugged, mist-shrouded hills.
"Follow this track, if you can call it that, for another two days. It'll take you to the edge of the Marches proper. After that…" He shrugged. "You're on your own. May the gods, if they have any presence in that forsaken place, watch over you."
He then did something unexpected. He pressed a small, crudely carved wooden bird into Leon's hand. "My daughter carved this. For luck. You look like you could use some."
Before Leon could properly thank him, Borin turned and mounted his horse, joining his companion. Without a backward glance, the two Varent guards rode back towards the west, towards the relative safety of the Duchy, leaving Leon alone at the precipice of the unknown.
Leon looked at the small wooden bird in his hand, a lump forming in his throat. It was a simple, heartfelt gesture, a tiny spark of humanity in a world that had shown him little of it lately.
He carefully tucked it into his pocket, alongside the glass bottle. Two talismans, one of mystery and power, the other of simple kindness, to accompany him on his journey into darkness.
He took a deep breath, the air here already feeling colder, sharper. He urged his reluctant horse forward, onto the faint track that led eastward. The long road to nowhere had just become even longer, and infinitely more dangerous.
The landscape grew increasingly wild and desolate with each passing hour. The trees were stunted and twisted, their branches bare even in what should have been a season of growth. The ground was rocky and uneven, covered in a coarse, greyish scrub.
There were no signs of animal life, not even the chirping of birds. A profound, oppressive silence hung over the land, broken only by the sighing of the wind through the barren hills and the plodding hoofbeats of his horse.
He was truly alone now, with only his wits, his dwindling supplies, and the enigmatic castle in his pocket to rely on. The sheer scale of the wilderness, the crushing weight of his isolation, threatened to overwhelm him.
But as he rode, his engineer's mind, the mind that Kaelen Park had honed over years of solving complex problems, began to assert itself. This was a hostile environment, yes. But every environment, however hostile, had rules, had patterns.
Survival was a matter of understanding those rules, of adapting, of innovating. The Varents had cast him out to die. He would not give them the satisfaction. He would survive. He had to. For his mother's memory. For himself. And for the faint, pulsing promise of the sanctuary he carried with him.
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