The night Logan left Ravenshollow, the wind rose like a living thing, howling across the hills and tearing at the earth with invisible claws. Clouds raced across the moon, shrouding the road in shifting shadows, and rain followed soon after—cold, relentless, and heavy enough to soak through wool and leather alike. Logan welcomed it. The rain blurred tracks, dulled scents, and washed away the lingering traces of the village he had left behind. By morning, it would be as though he had never been there.
He walked with his head lowered, cloak pulled tight around his shoulders, boots striking the hardened mud in a steady rhythm. Each step carried him farther from memories he could not outrun: laughter once shared, faces long buried, a home reduced to ash. Ravenshollow had been a pause in his journey, nothing more. A brief shelter from the storm of his life. But storms, he knew, never truly passed.
The land stretched wide and wounded before him. Fields that once swayed with grain now lay flattened and blackened, their soil churned by marching boots and siege engines. Burned-out farmhouses leaned like drunkards against the wind, their doors torn away, their interiors exposed and looted. Logan's eyes lingered on one such ruin as he passed. A child's wooden toy lay half-buried in the mud, its painted face cracked and staring sightlessly at the sky.
King Xerath's work.
Logan felt his jaw tighten, the familiar pressure building behind his eyes. Rage had been his companion for so long that he barely noticed its presence anymore. It was there when he woke and when he slept, when he fought and when he dreamed. Once, it had nearly consumed him. Now, it was tempered—sharpened into something cold and deliberate.
By the time the rain thinned to a mist, dawn was beginning to bleed into the sky. Pale gray light crept over the horizon, revealing the silhouette of an ancient watchtower ahead. It stood on a low rise overlooking the Grey Pass, a narrow corridor between two mountain ranges that had served as a strategic route for armies for centuries. The tower itself was a ruin—its upper levels collapsed, its stone walls cracked and overtaken by creeping vines. Yet from within its broken shell, smoke rose in a thin, cautious spiral.
Logan stopped.
Smoke meant fire. Fire meant people. And people, in times like these, meant danger.
He approached slowly, circling wide to study the ground. Fresh footprints marked the mud—many of them, heavy with armor and burdened packs. Not soldiers on patrol. Too disorganized. Too cautious. Logan moved closer, keeping the wind to his face, his senses alert for the smallest sound.
As he slipped through a gap in the tower's outer wall, a voice shouted, sharp with panic.
"There!"
Steel flashed.
Logan reacted without thought. A young man lunged toward him, sword raised high but grip uncertain. Logan stepped inside the arc of the swing, twisted his body, and struck once—hard and precise—with the pommel of his blade. The young man collapsed with a grunt, his sword falling from numb fingers.
In an instant, Logan found himself surrounded. Six men, perhaps seven, blades drawn, eyes wide and wary. Their armor was mismatched: pieces scavenged from fallen soldiers, dented helms, cracked shields bearing faded insignias. Mercenaries. Deserters. Survivors.
"I don't want a fight," Logan said calmly, raising his empty hand while keeping the other near his sword. "But I'll finish one if you force me."
The men hesitated. They had seen how quickly he had moved, how easily he had disarmed one of their own. Finally, a deep voice cut through the tension.
"Lower your weapons."
A broad-shouldered man stepped forward into the firelight. He was older than the rest, his beard thick and streaked with gray, his face lined with years of command and loss. A long scar ran from his temple to his jaw, pulling one side of his mouth into a permanent scowl.
"My name is Garrick," he said. "And you're either very brave or very foolish to walk into a camp uninvited."
Logan met his gaze without flinching. "I could say the same about men lighting fires in open ruins."
Garrick snorted, then waved his hand. "Fair enough. Stand easy," he told the others. Slowly, reluctantly, the blades lowered.
They shared the fire once the tension eased. Garrick offered Logan food—hard bread, dried meat, and a skin of weak ale. Logan accepted without ceremony. Hunger was another enemy he refused to indulge.
As the light grew stronger, Logan studied the men around him. Each bore scars, some fresh, others long healed. One man's hands shook when he lifted his cup. Another stared into the fire as though expecting it to speak. These were not bandits. These were men broken by war.
"Former soldiers," Garrick said, following Logan's gaze. "All of us. Different banners once. None that matter now."
"Xerath?" Logan asked.
Garrick's expression darkened. "Aye. His armies swept through our lands like a plague. Some of us fought. Some fled. Some lost everything before they ever held a blade."
One man spat into the fire. "He calls himself king," he growled. "But he rules through fear."
"He marches east," Logan said quietly. "Taking the Grey Pass."
The camp went silent.
"That road leads to the Free Cities," Garrick said slowly. "If he takes them…"
"He won't stop," Logan finished. "He never does."
They spoke for hours. Stories spilled out like blood from an old wound. Garrick had once commanded a respected regiment, loyal to a just ruler who had refused to bend the knee to Xerath. The king had been captured, paraded through his own capital in chains, and executed before his people. Others spoke of villages burned as warnings, children taken as leverage, men forced into service or slaughtered where they stood.
Logan listened, his hands clenched around his cup. Every tale echoed his own past. Different names. Same cruelty.
"I'm going after him," Logan said at last.
The men looked up.
"Alone?" one asked bitterly.
Logan shook his head. "Not if I can help it. I've hunted him for years. Studied his movements. His weaknesses."
Garrick raised an eyebrow. "You speak as though you expect to kill him."
"I do."
A murmur rippled through the group—half disbelief, half longing.
"You'd challenge a king with what?" another man scoffed. "Seven tired swords?"
Logan's eyes hardened. "I've killed better men with worse odds."
Silence followed. Then Garrick stood. Slowly, deliberately, he knelt before Logan and pressed his fist to the earth.
"I followed kings once," Garrick said. "I buried one who deserved better. I won't kneel again—unless it's for a cause worth dying for."
One by one, the others joined him.
That night, beneath a sky pierced by cold stars, they swore an oath. Garrick drew his knife and cut his palm, letting his blood spill onto the ground. The others followed, grim-faced and resolute. When Logan added his own blood, he felt the weight of the moment settle over him like armor.
"We swear," Garrick said, voice steady, "to stand against tyranny, to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and to see King Xerath fall—or perish in the attempt."
The words burned themselves into Logan's soul.
As the fire died down, Logan stared into the darkness beyond the ruins. He was no longer just a weapon shaped by loss. He was something more—something dangerous.
Far away, in a fortress carved from black stone, King Xerath stood on his battlements, watching the eastern horizon with cold satisfaction. His armies marched. His enemies fled.
He did not yet know that the orphan he had created had found brothers in blood.
But he would.
Soon.