The dawn after the regiment's return brought no reprieve.
While the wounded were dragged into the infirmaries and the dead carted to the pits beyond the walls, the rest of the soldiers, those still useful, were fed, armed, and shoved back into formation. The citadel wasted nothing, not time, not blood.
The reserves had been waiting for it, whispering about it, fearing it. Now there was no buffer of battered men to stand in front of them. They were the fresh meat.
The gates opened with the groan of stone, and the uninjured veterans promptly formed the vanguard, their armor patched, their expressions flat as old iron. Behind them, the reserves fell into step, their boots striking the ground in uneven rhythm.
Ashen marched with them, the weight of his spear biting into his shoulder. The road stretched out ahead, gray and endless.
'This is it.'
His thoughts curled in on themselves. Every lesson Sabrina had hammered into him throbbed in his bones: don't hesitate, don't falter, don't fear.
A forest swallowed them within the hour.
Shadows clung to the trees, damp earth muffled the sound of boots, and the air carried a scent of rot that stuck in the back of the throat.
The veterans kept their gazes fixed ahead, but the reserves couldn't stop stealing glances into the undergrowth, flinching at every rustle.
"Eyes forward," a grizzled sergeant barked.
The line adjusted.
The march dragged on, hours stretching into a blur of mud, silence, and the occasional grunt when a soldier stumbled.
And then a howl tore through the forest. It was guttural and sounded very close. Some of the reserve soldiers at the back froze.
Thankfully, the veterans didn't. Shields shifted, spears angled, the column reshaping like a creature executing actions just from muscle memory.
Ashen's hand tightened on his weapon, his breath caught in his chest.
'Shrieking Hounds...'
And as the howls multiplied, surrounding them like a tightening noose, it was finally his turn to step forward as dozens of packs swirled around and attacked the flank.
The soldiers braced, but their lines wavered the moment the hounds broke from the undergrowth.
CRASH!
Branches snapped, shadows burst forward. Gaunt shapes with too-wide maws, their eyes glowing like coals.
WROOOOAR!
Each howl ripped through the treeline with a sound that clawed straight into bone and stripped thought from the mind.
CLANG! THUD!
Shields slammed into place. Some of the reserves faltered. A spear clattered to the ground as a boy's hands shook. Another stumbled back, his breath ragged. A third turned and bolted, crashing through the brush.
SNAP-CRUNCH!
His scream was short-lived. Wet tearing followed.
Ashen fought to stay in line. His grip whitened on his spear.
THUNK!
His spear kept darting forward, burying through throats. Blood sprayed hot across his hands.
KRSSHH!
He ripped the weapon free and pivoted just in time. Another hound slammed into him, its weight crushing against the haft. His arms buckled but held. Its rancid breath washed over him, hot and fetid.
Ashen twisted the shaft, shoved hard, then rammed the spearhead into its chest.
SKRRRK-THUNK!
The beast shrieked, a high-pitched screech that rattled his skull like broken glass. He shoved it off, heart hammering.
Around him, chaos exploded.
Recruits swung wildly, most blows glancing off thick hide instead of biting deep. Paul, who was by his side, kept screaming hysterically while swinging his axe with every ounce of strength he could muster, but Ashen didn't have any capacity to pay attention to his allies.
All his focus went to his spear and to the monsters who kept endlessly lunging at him.
The world narrowed to thrust, withdraw, pivot, strike. His training kicked in—Sabrina's brutal drills and his days in the tutorial paying their bloody dividend.
When a hound leaped for his throat, he dropped low and drove his spear upward into its belly. When another flanked him, he spun the weapon like a staff, cracking bone before finding the killing thrust.
Time became meaningless. He didn't know if he kept fighting for minutes or hours, but by the end of it, his armor was completely drenched in blood, and the uncovered parts of his hands and feet were full of bite marks and scratches. Some parts even had missing flesh.
Thud.
He fell on his rear and let the spear drop as he saw the last of the beasts finally collapse.
"These things are only Wild Beasts? Why are they so much stronger than the beasts at the tutorial forest...?" He wondered grimly as he made the comparison.
The answer came from a passing veteran who spat bloody saliva into the dirt. "Tutorial beasts were mostly starved, boy. These ones hunt free and feed well."
"Medics!" A long shout echoed, and the formation opened for the medical personnel to patch up the injured.
Ashen finally breathed a sigh of relief, feeling better after it was his turn to be treated. The medic, a weathered woman, worked quickly to clean his wounds and apply rough bandages after casting some healing spell that was unknown to him.
"First real fight?" she asked without looking up.
"Yeah…"
"You did better than most. Still breathing, still got all your limbs. Count it as a win."
Ashen could only bitterly smile.
The new soldier's relief at surviving was short-lived as that attack seemed to be a normal occurrence instead of an isolated case.
During their march across the forest, they were attacked at least once every day.
Sometimes it was Shrieking Hounds. Other times, Iron-Back Serpents that crashed through the canopy like falling spears.
Once, they encountered a pack of Shadow Stalkers that picked off more than ten men before the veterans could organize a proper defense.
The only positive thing about this was that the reserve soldiers started shaping up, looking more and more like their veteran seniors. They learned to move as one organism, to trust the man beside them, to stay sane under the threat of constant death.
Of course, it wasn't the case for all of them. Those who faltered or couldn't handle the pressure died within the first few days, their corpses burned to prevent the beasts from feeding on them.
Ashen, too, had gotten into a certain rhythm, no longer feeling as overwhelmed as in the first Hound ambush.
His spear work became cleaner, more efficient. He learned to read the forest's moods, to anticipate attacks by the way birds fell silent or shadows moved wrong.
Finally, after a week of non-stop marching, they exited the forest, and not a day later, arrived at a camp housing more than a thousand tents.
The regiment that Ashen was part of—actually only a detached force of the main army—trudged into the main camp as the sun crept low over the horizon.
Hundreds of soldiers moved like a single tide, their boots grinding mud into the beaten paths between rows of tents.
At the center of the camp, a larger standard snapped in the wind: the Bloodwall's banner, a black-stone wall streaked with crimson, the words "TO THE LAST MAN" etched across it in jagged white. Even at a distance, the flag radiated the regiment's grim resolve.
On the backs of every soldier, the same symbol was stitched into their armor. Cracked stones painted in black, crimson streaks trailing down the shoulders.
Ashen's eyes scanned the rows; each man bore the mark with silent pride, or perhaps with quiet resignation.
The Bloodwall army's general waited near the central pavilion.
He had sparse gray hair and a permanent frown etched between his brows, but the authority in his stance left no room for doubt. Officers stepped forward to report, the Bloodwall's detached force forming a disciplined line.
The camp was a sprawling network of movement.
Tents lined the edges, hastily erected yet sturdy enough for the short stays that always followed marches.
Cook fires sent smoke curling into the evening air, and the smell of stew and hardtack mixed with the ever-present scent of leather and steel.
Finally, it was Ashen's turn to get his supplies: food, water, and a portable tent.
As he moved to the area where the newcomers huddled together and started setting up the tent, his mind couldn't help but wander to the talk he had with Lucia when he asked her about Sin Lords.
That title had stuck in his head since Dorian mentioned it, but he was too out of it to ask at the time, and Lucia had been the only alternative.