The self-proclaimed "Flower Soldiers" were growing bolder. Their ranks swelled with freed criminals from raided guardhouses, mercenaries seeking coin and comfort, and young men eager to prove themselves in the chaos of rebellion. Numbers brought confidence. Confidence bred recklessness.

Jeoffrey traced his finger along the notched edge of his barbed axe, an alien weight in hands better suited to quills and ledgers. His fingers, long and ink-stained, still remembered the smooth grip of a pen, the careful dance of letters across parchment. As the youngest son of a guild scribe, he had been groomed for a life of ledgers and correspondence, a future as predictable as the tide.

But that future died the night he hurled his father's precious inkwell against the wall, watching black streams spider down the whitewashed stone like veins in dying flesh. "I won't spend my life recording other men's deeds," he had shouted, his voice cracking with the raw fury of youth. His father's response was swift and final—disinheritance, with all that remained passing to his dutiful older brothers. Jeoffrey stormed out into the night with nothing but his pride and a handful of copper pennies that gleamed like dead men's eyes.

Those pennies bought him several hours of forgetfulness in a Lower City tavern, until the surly keeper grabbed him by the collar. But before he could be thrown into the gutter, a man with a coal-black beard caught his arm. The stranger's eyes held something Jeoffrey desperately needed—purpose, yes, but something darker too.

Now, he was a fresh recruit in the Flower Soldiers, gripping a notched barbed axe and wearing a dented kettle hat—whatever meager equipment his new brothers-in-arms could spare. If today's ambush paid off, perhaps he’d earn himself proper armor. Maybe even a few coins to call his own.

The back alley reeked of damp wood and unwashed bodies, the familiar stench of poverty that permeated the Lower City. A market bustled just beyond their hiding place, the shouts of vendors and clatter of carts masking the tension coiling in Jeoffrey's gut like a serpent preparing to strike. He scanned the slums uneasily—narrow streets crammed with people living shoulder to shoulder, hardened by a lifetime of scraping by. He didn't belong here. Alone, he'd have been robbed, maybe worse. But he wasn't alone. A dozen armed men crouched alongside him, waiting with the patience of vultures.

Then their target arrived.

A patrol of city guards—twelve men, copper helmets gleaming in the morning sun. They moved with wary confidence, hands resting on their weapons, eyes flicking over the streets for threats. They still believed the daylight belonged to them.

Not for long.

A sharp whistle cut through the market noise. ‘Black’ Karel, their leader, had given the signal.

The alley exploded into motion. Flower Soldiers poured from both sides, catching the patrol in a steel vice. The narrow street dissolved into chaos—screams of terror and rage, the ring of blade on blade, the wet sound of steel parting flesh. Market-goers fled in panic, some still clutching half-filled baskets, others abandoning everything in their desperate flight.

Jeoffrey saw Karel—expressionless gray eyes, thick black beard—lock blades with the guard captain. The captain fought like a man who had seen real war, his relentless strikes forcing Karel back, step by step. Blood spattered the cobblestones in abstract patterns, like some macabre artist's vision.

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His own hands trembled violently, the iron stench of blood filling his nose, threatening to empty his stomach. He had thrown punches in tavern brawls, but this—this was different. This was death, distilled to its purest form, stripped of poetry and pretense.

A sudden opening—Karel's shoulder armor tore beneath the captain's blade, crimson gushing down his arm like spilled wine. Something snapped in Jeoffrey's mind. The world narrowed to a single point of focus, everything else falling away like dead leaves in autumn. His father's dismissive sneer, his brothers' mockery, all the accumulated rage of a lifetime spent in others' shadows—it crystallized into purpose, hard and sharp as obsidian.

The axe felt lighter now, almost eager in his hands.

Breathe. Move.

Jeoffrey forced himself forward, gripping his axe with both hands, wet with sweat and something darker. He needed to do something, prove himself, needed to show he belonged here. He thought of his father, of the night he walked away from that life forever, invoking the simmering rage that had brought him here.

He raised the axe and swung.

The barbed head struck just below the captain's shoulder blade, tearing through cloth, iron, and flesh alike with a sound like wet parchment tearing. The man jolted forward with a strangled gasp, staggering. Karel finished the job with a clean thrust to the throat, opening a second crimson smile beneath the captain's chin.

The body crumpled at their feet. Silence rang in Jeoffrey’s ears, louder than any battle cry.

In the sudden silence, Jeoffrey could hear his own ragged breathing, impossibly loud.

Karel wrenched the bloodied axe free and shoved it back into Jeoffrey's trembling hands. "Snap out of it, lad. Time for that later," he barked, already scanning for his next target with the dispassionate eyes of a butcher choosing his next cut. "Fight's not over yet."

It was the only kill Jeoffrey made that day. Without their commander, the guards lost their cohesion and started to fall one by one, like autumn leaves in a storm. They were surrounded, unable to run. The more experienced fighters finished the rest with brutal efficiency, their blades rising and falling with mechanical precision. The battle was short, savage. The dead were stripped of weapons and valuables, their bodies left sprawled in the filth for the slum dwellers to deal with, fresh offerings to the city's endless hunger.

Jeoffrey stared at the blood on his hands, his mind blank. Somewhere in the distance, the market carried on.

That night, the victors gathered in a smoke-filled tavern. Greasy platters of roasted goose and watered-down ale filled the tables, laughter and boasts ringing loud beneath the low wooden beams. But in a shadowed corner, a different conversation unfolded.

Karel sat with a well-dressed man, his ice-blue eyes glinting with cold fury. The murmurs of their conversation drifted across the room: "Boundaries overstepped... Behave like a soldier..." But Karel merely listened, nodding once before draining his tankard.

Jeoffrey ignored it. He slouched over his ale, staring into its murky depths, hoping to drown the sound of his own thoughts. The sickening crunch of his axe still echoed in his mind, the moment playing over and over, impossible to silence. He clenched his jaw, fingers tightening around the mug as he tried to shake the memory, but it clung to him, a shadow he couldn’t escape.

Karel returned to his troop. The commander’s plain gray shirt was torn, his shoulder heavily bandaged. Pain shadowed his expression, though he masked it with a smile. He waved off questions with a turn of his head and clapped Jeoffrey on the back with his good hand.

"Well done, lad. First fight’s always the hardest”

Jeoffrey barely nodded. The noise of the tavern pressed in around him, too loud, too full of laughter that made his skin crawl. Around them, men laughed, swapping tales of their kills, dividing the spoils of the day like children trading marbles. A set of gleaming bracers changed hands, a heavy purse passed from one fighter to another.

The young man barely noticed when his own reward was pushed toward him—a mail byrnie, heavier than it looked, and a black waffenrock embroidered with a silver flower.

He traced the embroidered emblem with a trembling finger. The blood on his hands had been scrubbed away, but he could still feel it, phantom warmth clinging to his skin. He had killed a man today. He had chosen this path.

No longer a scribe. No longer a runaway.

Tonight, he was a Flower Soldier.