The scream tore through the canyon like a blade through silence.
It wasn't fear. It was signal.
Kaelen moved before the guard's head fully turned, a ghost in the dust. Thin, starved limbs had strength when fueled by necessity—and Kaelen's was pure, honed necessity. His hand shot out, grabbed the iron shard he'd hidden beneath his leg, and drove it hard into the guard's thigh. The man screamed—a hoarse, gurgled sound—but Kaelen was already climbing his body like a starving wolf.
The knife came loose with a twist. A blur of motion. A grunt. Then silence again—broken only by the thump of the body hitting the rocks.
Kaelen didn't wait.
"Move!" he barked.
The others hesitated.
"NOW!"
The girl who screamed was already diving for the fallen guard's crossbow. Kaelen grabbed the keys from the corpse and began unlocking manacles. His fingers bled from the rusted metal, but he didn't stop. Two more prisoners were free, then four.
Then came the whistles.
High, sharp, from the ridgeline.
"Archers incoming!" he snapped. "Scatter to the cliffs! Pull the wagons—block the choke!"
The pass was narrow—too narrow for horses to charge, and just wide enough for a dozen men shoulder to shoulder. Kaelen had seen it the moment they entered: the weakness, the bottleneck. If he could force the fight here, if he could block their retreat and turn the wagons sideways...
"Get the rope! Brace it on that boulder! Pull!"
Two older men obeyed, their muscles aching from days of captivity but fear lending strength. The slave wagon groaned as they rocked it. Kaelen leapt to the front, slicing the reins of the dead horses free. A whip crack of pain shot through his back as he twisted—but he gritted his teeth and kept moving.
A javelin clattered off the wagon's side.
Too late.
Guards were storming down the ridgeline, blades out, shouting orders. Two dozen at least. More than Kaelen expected.
"Pull the damn wagon!"
A final heave sent it crashing onto its side, blocking half the pass. Enough. It would have to be enough.
Kaelen grabbed the fallen guard's shield, ducked behind it, and called out: "Archers behind the second cart. Fighters with stones—get above them! Hit the left flank!"
Someone shouted, "You're not in command!"
Kaelen turned, blood on his face, eyes burning.
"I am now."
The first clash came fast and brutal.
The guards surged into the bottleneck, blades high. But the terrain betrayed them—narrow footing, poor line of sight, and no room to flank. Kaelen's people—untrained, unarmored, terrified—fought like cornered dogs. They hurled stones, swung iron scraps, used chains like flails.
Kaelen moved through the chaos like a conductor of violence.
He shoved a boy down before a javelin impaled his skull. Rammed his shoulder into a charging guard, toppling him off the ridge. Kicked a loose boulder and watched it crush two men below.
Blood spattered the stones. Screams echoed. Dust turned to mist.
Still they came.
The guards had better weapons. Discipline. Formation.
Kaelen had desperation and terrain.
"Pull back five paces!" he shouted. "Let them in!"
A risky call—but he knew the psychology. The guards thought they had broken the line. They surged into the gap.
Then came the crash—Kaelen and two others slammed the overturned wagon forward, pinning five guards against the canyon wall. One of them howled as his ribs shattered.
Kaelen lunged, burying his stolen knife into a throat.
Noctus sparked—just a flicker. A surge of heat in his mind. For a second, everything slowed. The dust danced in the light. The screams dimmed. The blade in his hand seemed to want to strike again.
Then it faded.
But Kaelen didn't need power. Not yet. Not when his mind was sharper than any blade.
Minutes passed. The last of the guards fell screaming from the cliff or bled into the dirt. The canyon was silent save for the dying.
Kaelen leaned against the wagon, chest heaving.
He took stock. Twelve dead on his side. More wounded. But they had survived. More than that—they had won.
A group of children stared at him, eyes wide. Blood smeared his chest. His arms trembled. But he stood tall, knife still in hand.
Someone whispered, "What now?"
Kaelen didn't answer at first. His gaze swept the bodies. The terrain. The scattered weapons.
His voice came low but clear:
"We bury the dead. We scavenge everything. And then we vanish."
He turned to the girl who had screamed—the girl who had started this fire.
"Your name."
She hesitated. "Sera."
"You screamed for freedom. That makes you first in command after me."
Her eyes widened.
"We'll need watchers, runners, cooks, scavengers. Fighters, once they learn. Everyone has a place."
Someone else asked, "Who made you our king?"
"I'm not your king," Kaelen said. "I'm the only one who saw the battlefield before it became one."
Night fell.
Fires burned low in the canyon. A crude camp had formed, ringed by salvaged shields and jagged stones. Kaelen sat alone by a shallow trench, digging it with a stolen spearhead.
Not for fortification.
For the bodies.
He watched the flames flicker across the blood-streaked faces of children, ex-slaves, broken men and women who had killed today to survive. None of them had uniforms. None had banners.
Just ash.
Ash and fire.
He reached into the dirt, drawing lines—a diagram. A memory of formation. Defensive positioning. Where they'd gone right. Where they'd almost failed.
He carved it into the rock beside him.
Codex of Bannerless War — Entry One:
Use terrain to turn fear into delay. Delay becomes formation. Formation becomes victory.
Behind him, someone murmured.
"The Ashbrand… That's what they're calling you."
He turned. It was Sera again. She held a torch, its flame guttering.
"You rose from fire and blood. Like a brand pulled from coals. Ashbrand."
Kaelen didn't answer.
He looked down at the blood and dirt on his hands. At the knife still slick in his grip. At the flicker of Noctus that hummed faintly in the edges of his mind.
Maybe it was a name he could wear.
Maybe it was a legend waiting to be written.