Rane awoke to the pounding stomps of a tally’s boots striking against the wooden floor of their barracks, accompanied by the cries of a meeting time that was always a bit too soon to actually make. As Rane turned in his cot to stretch his legs over the edge, he contemplated the art of it he had developed.

Being on time wasn’t really possible; however, being too late could land you in a world of trouble. The key was to arrive in a group, all piling in at the same time. That way, no one could be said to be slacking. If he were honest with himself, though, it wasn’t actually much of an art, he thought as he pulled a pair of wool socks up to his knees. He simply had to get ready as soon as possible. There weren’t any significant variations in how long it took a veteran soldier to complete a morning routine.

Rane threw the uniform vest over his shirt and looked around the room to find Klein lacing his vest, and Aabe throwing his right arm through. As they looked to the others to confirm they were all ready, they each gave a curt nod and began to file out the door, into the hallway that was already bustling with other half squads filing out of their respective dorms.

They met in front of the barracks, where their tallies were all present to oversee their dispersal into formation. As soon as the last slot in the formation was filled, High Tally Hertz gave the marching order.

They moved through the streets of Kelston’s military district in a practiced unison. The streets were filled with the sound of dozens of boots stamping in unison, and the shops were, for the most part, closed, or nearly empty. All their patrons were doing the same thing as Rane, marching towards the fortress. To the Kelston Fortress Plaza, where they would be given the final addresses, and official marching orders.

Rane was eager, and had to steady his focus in order to prevent from breaking the pace and distance of his strides, as he had nearly clipped the heels of the one marching in front of him multiple times in just the past few minutes of marching.

Soon, they reached the plaza, and Rane looked side to side as he beheld the sight of six platoons filing into the wide courtyard.

The plaza was shaped like the maw of some great beast, opening wide towards the city, but growing more and more narrow as one went closer to the fortress itself. The open space was sparsely decorated, with the only raised features of the plaza being the short knee wall that marked the main entrance to the plaza, and continued to the fortress proper.

Three platoons gathered on each side of the dividing wall, facing inwards toward the fortress where a stage had been hastily erected. Atop the stage were all of the commanders Rane knew, and a few people he had never seen before.

He thought nothing of it. He was rank and file, after all. For him and his squad, they would listen to the address and leave the plaza. For their tallies, it would also be a logistics and intel meeting. No one below the rank of tally needed anything besides a departure time.

It appeared that the primary address would be given by High Commander Havertz. He stood tall in the midst of many powerful figures. The dark clouds this morning had brought humidity, and the wet air made his dark skin glisten with a thin sheen of sweat. His eyes, though, were not quite like that of his father’s. He was powerful, but Rane knew. He was no monster.

At least not yet. From what Rane knew, the man was barely over 30 winters, just half the age of his monstrous patriarch.

As the last of the platoons arrived and stood at attention, all the characters on the stage sat besides the High Commander, who then took several steps forward, his presence suddenly a bit more than it was before. Perhaps he was more formidable than he had thought.

The presence silenced the murmurs of the soldiers that had previously filled the plaza with an excited ambiance. Now, in just moments, Rane could hear insects buzzing through the humid air, and the heavy breathing of those that had arrived moments ago.

The High Commander spoke with the same booming command that the tallies utilized.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“I will not stand here before you today to mince words. As of this very morning, we are at war. The axtls tribes have formed a coalition army that, on the night of the 15th day of The Emperor’s 8th Calendar Month, engaged in a brutal slaughter of the nearby Castonville milling village. This information comes to us late, as the dogs left no survivors.

The silence that followed each sentence of the high commander was now broken by shocked gasps and whispers that contained pure vitriol. “We knew only of their treachery shortly after the first shipment of lumber failed to arrive. As is our duty in service to the Great Ambient Empire, we have received orders to march into the Kelston Great Wood and suppress the demi human threats within.”

Angry shouts now were erupting from some within the buzzing crowd. High Commander Havertz’ tone rose as he gave the final note of his oration. “We will show their vile spawn the same mercy that they showed our brothers and sisters in Castonville.”

The plaza erupted into fervent cries for battle, blood, and vengeance. Rane, though excited still, was silent. There was something that he needed to do before he began his march into the depths of the cursed wood that surrounded the city where he was raised.

*****

Rane actually had very little to do in preparation to march. He held few belongings, and their squad hoarded very little in the way of gear or weapons.

Though they had been ordered not to leave the city before their march on the following dawn, Rane had still slipped out before the sun had gone down to hide below the horizon. He wore a long, dark cloak that hid all of his military issue gear aside from the short blade that hung from his side.

He had been putting this off for a while. He told himself that he would visit as soon as he arrived in the city, but when he arrived, there was always some excuse he could give himself to avoid it.

Just a few minutes after he had exited the Northeast side of the city, he passed by the first gravestone. Soon, there were more scattered about, none in uniform pattern. Some stones were small and smooth, like the rocks found at the bottom of a river. Others must have been carried here from some quarry.

Not every headstone faced the same direction either. Some faced the sunrise. Others faced the sunset. Some faced the capital, Ambien. Others faced back towards Kelston.

Rane came to a stop before an unassuming headstone that bore only the name, Winz, and marker that he had died as a soldier in service to the Emperor.

A memory surfaced at that moment, of someone who knew his father telling him that the engraved marker was a great honor. He had not cared, then. He did not care now, either. He would have preferred to have his father back. In the end, his father’s honor had not been enough to save him from an impoverished life in Auryck, so what good was this honor to Rane?

Rane didn’t know if this headstone faced anyway in particular, but he knew that it was unique in at least one way. There was no body beneath this rock. None of the bodies of his father’s squad had ever been recovered.

But a grave was less about the dead anyways. Graves were for the living.

Rane spoke very softly, maintaining the subdued atmosphere.

“Hey, dad. I told mom I would come by and clean your headstone, maybe drop some flowers. Sorry about that. I still didn’t bring any flowers.

“I used to think the same way mom did, about what you did, about leaving us behind. Now, I’m in the same place. It was exciting, wasn’t it? Going out there, always seeing something new. I don’t know much about where you grew up, but I’ve been in Auryck for a while. It wasn’t a horrible place, but it was boring. We worked ourselves to the bone to scrape by, but I don’t know. Maybe I’d rather die than live like that, too. Of course, dying isn’t in the plan.”

“Oh, and mom got a new person too. He’s a good man, as far as I can tell. I won’t bore you with any more details of your wife moving on.”

Rane didn’t have any poignant closing remark to tell the empty grave of his father, so he just knelt down and used his ambient to remove the moss and grime from the stone.

He just stood there, for a while. The sky was filled with the same dark clouds that had painted gray lines in the sky that morning, and the setting sun cast long shadows that told him that he had little time before he had to be getting back.

He had told Puddles what he was going to do, so he wouldn’t be reported, but that did not mean that he could not simply get caught by the prowling senses of a tally.

Rane clasped his hands together and whispered, “may you rest in The Ambient, always.” He turned away, and with a serious expression on his face, began his trek back to his barracks.

His cot was waiting, and he was determined to use it one last time before such a right would be taken from him for a long time.