The company marched at first light just as Captain Simion had instructed. It would be a longer march than Kaleb had expected. Yez had told him that it would take close to two days. When Kaleb had first been told that a shepherd had spotted the interlopers, he’d thought it would be a stone’s throw away from their position. It turned out the shepherd had spotted them from a very long distance, a ridiculous distance, in fact. No wonder no one believed his story. Yet they still sent a whole company to investigate, which could be attributed to previous worries about those narrow mountain passages.

The land sloped up and down on their journey, making it even more tedious for those marching on foot and slower overall. The hilly terrain would stay with them until they reached their destination, and while Kaleb couldn’t complain, considering he was in a carriage, it was still uncomfortable. The pain in his thigh was beginning to morph into a discomfort laced with an ache permanent in the background.

Once darkness overtook the sky, they stopped at a village to rest for the night. There, Kaleb decided to inform Master Beris of his new development.

He waited until the camp was set to visit the mage’s tent. When Kaleb knocked and was allowed inside, he noted that Master Beris had been preparing to sleep. Even the mage would be abandoning his nightly research, or whatever it was that he usually did, in favor of rest. It made Kaleb feel better about being dead tired. He wasn’t a wimp at least.

“Out with it,” the mage said when Kaleb was late to speak.

“I got another star,” Kaleb said, pulling up his sleeve.

“You did?” the mage’s droopy eyes widened, and his face seemed to suddenly get a shot of energy. “Did you open the node we spoke of?”

“No.”

“Then do it,” Master Beris said, stepping up to him. “Quickly, there’s no time to waste. Tell me everything once it’s open.”

Kaleb nodded, taking a seat and closing his eyes. He delved into his mindspace, his senses enveloped in the darkness of the void that contained his nodes. There, he focused on the node with an anchor coming out of a portal. After observing it for a moment and failing to figure anything out, he invested his star in it, or rather he tried to. When he went for the node, he felt as if something was rebuffing him. He tried again, and a feeling of fullness came from within him, as if he couldn’t take anymore.

He opened his eyes. “What the hell?”

“What?” Master Beris said, perking up. “What’s wrong? What did the node give you?”

“Nothing…” Kaleb frowned, clearing his throat. “It won’t open.”

Master Beris scrunched up his face. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not foolish enough to be lying to me about this, are you?” Master Beris said, peering at his face intently.

“No,” Kaleb said. “Of course not.”

“Then what happens when you try to open it?”

“It feels as if I’m pushing against a wall, or rather that I’m trying to fill a bottle that is already topped up.”

“This…” The mage lowered his eyes, looking at the ground as he fell deep in thought. “This is uncanny. Why would you be unable to open a node that isn’t even blurred? If it was unopenable, it wouldn’t have been reachable for you. Try again!”

“I already tried multiple times.”

“Do it.”

Kaleb complied, delving into the darkness again. And again, he failed to open the node. He tried a dozen times, but it always felt the same, as if he was pulling on something that failed to sink into him, bouncing off some barrier or ‘fullness’ that he felt.

He opened his eyes and shook his head at the mage. “I really can’t.”

“Damnation,” Master Beris cursed. “Even this cl–” He paused, glaring at Kaleb. “You may go. I’ll call for you if I think of something.”

Kaleb nodded. “Should I open another node instead for now?”

Master Beris narrowed his eyes. “No. Wait until I’m decided.” He waved his hand, gesturing for him to leave.

…

Again, they marched at first light. They would supposedly make it to their destination today. There were two villages that they’d come by on their path. One would be midway between this one and their destination, and the other would, in fact, be near the open mouth of the mountain passage they were heading to.

Kaleb decided to spend today’s march studying the Force rune from his book. Even if it would take him more than ordinary apprentices to learn it, he’d still do it. He imagined that if it took months for them to learn their first rune by imprinting, then it’d perhaps take him more than a year if he had a good head for it, but it was all the same. It wasn’t like he could make use of memorizing the rune anyway. He still couldn’t remove any of the runes in his book to make space for new ones, after all.

The captain let them stop at the first village to water the animals and get a brief rest. Kaleb limped around the carriage, stretching his legs. He now walked with a noticeable tilt and found it hard to put weight on his injured leg.

He noticed a teenager running between the men of the company, rapidly asking questions. Some seemed to ignore him, wave him away, or give him short answers. He was a thin Redskin, slightly shorter than Kaleb, and sporting a natural, grey bony growth in place of hair. The boy’s eyes landed on him, eying the intricate mage robes Master Beris had given him. They were damaged from the thigh stab but mostly whole. Mistaking him for someone important, the boy approached cautiously.

“Good master,” he said. “May I accompany you? My village is near the passage in the mountains. They tell me you’re going there.”

Ah, the boy was from the last village at the mouth of the passage. No wonder he seemed hasty. If those men were real and they got through the mountains, his village would be first in line.

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“I’m sorry,” Kaleb said. “I’m not the captain.” He gestured towards where the captain was speaking with some of his lieutenants. “That would be him.”

“Thank you, master.” The boy bowed before bolting in the captain’s direction.

When they moved out of the village, the boy was marching along with the men, carrying on his back goods that he’d probably been sent to barter for from this village.

It didn’t take long for the unawakened boy to begin falling behind. Kaleb observed him from the carriage window, sympathizing with his dilemma. Still, the boy bulled on, bearing the weight on his back and forcing himself to at least stay at the tail of the procession.

Kaleb pressed his lips then called for the boy. “Hey!” He waved with a hand, gesturing for the boy to come closer, but the latter struggled to catch up. Kaleb knocked on the carriage’s door to get the coachman’s attention. The Quill leaned to the side from his seat up front, his head becoming visible to Kaleb who told him to slow down.

Soon enough, the boy caught up, and Kaleb offered him a place with them in the carriage. Before the boy could respond to his offer, a voice interrupted them.

“No,” Master Beris said without looking up from the book in his hands. “It’s crowded as is.”

Kaleb looked at the mage. “He’d barely take up any space.”

“I said no,” Master Beris said, raising his hard eyes to meet Kaleb’s.

Kaleb gritted his teeth but nodded. He called for the coachman to let the boy sit beside him. The Quill grumbled but let the boy onto the front bench, hauling his baggage onto the roof of their compartment.

It was afternoon when they spotted the trail of smoke ascending the atmosphere in the distance. Kaleb heard a cry from the boy upfront and poked his head out of the window, seeing the line of dark smoke cutting a line upwards into the sky.

The company crested a hill and stopped at the same time the boy hopped off the carriage and ran forward.

There were murmurings among the regulars and some cursing. Kaleb got out of the carriage in a hurry, followed by Master Beris and Miryodel.

He half-limped half-jogged to the front of the forming line of regulars watching the distance and finally caught sight of the remaining embers of the torched village.

He heard another cry from the Redskin boy who left them and ran towards the village. Kaleb spotted Captain Simion nodding to one of the regulars, the latter bolting forward and catching up to the boy then snatching him up and carrying him back, kicking and screaming.

The captain gestured for his lieutenants to get everyone moving on, and they continued into the burned village.

Kaleb had to get back on the carriage because even that short of a distance would strain his leg, but Master Beris and Miryodel continued on foot.

Once the carriage reached the site, Kaleb got out and saw the charred husks of the sheds and hovels that had once been a village. Some of them were half-collapsed, others were standing whole but without a spot not charred by fire.

Then his eyes dropped down to the ground, where bodies were strewn between the houses, blood staining their surroundings, sometimes pooling together to form small, drying ponds of scarlet.

The boy was screaming now, kicking at the one restraining him, and the regular finally let him go. He ran towards a man’s body and checked on him, yelling. Kaleb imagined hearing ‘Father’. But his mind was too preoccupied, wrestling with the sight. He almost spoke, but instead, an uncontrollable exhalation went out of him with an unintelligible noise. Here and there, people had had their throats cut, had been stabbed, had been bludgeoned and brained to death. Even children. There was no one left alive.

The boy got up, bolting to somewhere deeper in the village. Meanwhile, the regulars were directed to check on the remains of the village.

Yez came up beside Kaleb, who was still standing stiff on the spot. “They were in a hurry,” his friend said.

Kaleb cleared his throat, taking a breath laced with the smell of burnt wood and flesh. “What makes you think so?” his hoarse voice came out.

“Because murder was the extent of the atrocities committed upon these people.”

Captain Simion soon shouted a command for them to gather the bodies. They’d dig a mass grave.

“Like you, the Redskins practice burial,” Yez informed Kaleb. “But we can’t dig a grave for each one of them.”

Kaleb swallowed. “That’s unfortunate.”

“I believe the captain wants us to march as far away as possible from here before sunset,” Yez said. “We’d be exposed to whoever did this if we camped here.”

“I see.” Kaleb nodded. He couldn’t help but look at the bodies again then he forced himself to turn around.

From within the village, Kaleb heard another cry from the boy. Must be the mother. Fuck.

…

Soon, the bodies were lined up beside each other and a large grave was being dug in the open by the regulars. Kaleb spotted a burnt grove of wiry trees beyond the grave. Master Beris was checking on it for some reason.

Kaleb’s attention was pulled back by the sobs of the boy standing over the corpses of his parents. Perhaps being an only child was a good thing for him. He had only lost two people today. Kaleb doubted that was any consolation to him though. It also felt like a twisted thing to think, as if the abundance of death around him was beginning to affect his mind.

The captain had agreed to have a single small grave dug for the boy’s parents after a lot of begging by the latter. The boy had even kneeled, supplicating himself before the stocky Quill captain, who’d finally acquiesced.

Yez had joined the others in digging the larger grave, and soon two of the regulars had finished digging the small grave for the boy’s parents, and the pair of bodies were placed within it. The boy participated by piling the dirt upon their wrapped-up bodies. It took a while, but eventually the land above his parents’ bodies was flattened and the two regulars joined the others in digging the larger graves.

The boy’s attention soon fell upon one of the other bodies, a boy of similar age. He jogged to the body lined up beside the others and began pulling on it while wiping tears and snot from his face. “This one,” he said, pausing to sob. “This one also. He was my friend. Please.”

“No,” Captain Simion, who’d been overseeing the digging, said. “We’ve buried your parents. That will have to be enough, Julian. We must go soon.”

The boy begged again, crying his eyes out, yet the captain rigidly refused him this time.

Soon, the boy stopped begging and pulled the body of his friend to the side, picking up a shovel and beginning to dig up a grave on his own. The boy’s unawakened body couldn’t do much, specially after the hurried journey they’d undertaken on the way here.

Kaleb found himself limping up to the boy. “A good friend?”

The boy nodded, stopping his digging. He looked at the dead boy’s face, a hint of a smile coming onto his features as if he was recalling a fond memory, then solemn melancholy took over again. “My closest friend.” He glanced at the other bodies as if feeling guilty for not being able to bury them all properly. Then he looked Kaleb in the eye, silently beseeching.

Kaleb saw the lines of dried tears cutting down his cheeks and picked up a shovel of his own, limping opposite the boy and beginning to dig.

It was a pathetic showing, really. He barely did any better than the boy. Pain would shoot up his leg whenever he tried to overdo it or lean on that side of his body. Yet he persevered. Dirt and dust flew into the air around him as dozens of people dug up the dry ground at the same time. Grains of dust stuck to his sweaty forehead, forcing him to scratch the itchy, burning skin.

Miryodel then came to help them. They were out of shovels, so he took Kaleb’s to let him take a breath.

They hadn’t even gotten halfway to digging a decently deep grave, when a familiar voice spoke up from behind him. “Move.”

Kaleb turned around, seeing Master Beris standing there. He and Miryodel got out of his way. Then Kaleb nodded to the boy to move away from the grave. All three of them watched as the mage came up to the shallow ditch, kneeling down and putting both hands on the ground.

Dirt bubbled out of the ditch as if it was a boiling liquid, depositing itself on the sides. The mage stayed down for a minute, and when he got up, there was a proper grave in place.

He then got up, walked back to the carriage and left them to it.