The rain did not fall in drops; it descended as a heavy, grey curtain that blurred the line between the sodden earth and the weeping sky. In the village of Oakhaven, a place too small to be found on any imperial map and too poor to be worth plundering, the mud had become a living thing. It pulled at the boots of the weary and swallowed the hoofprints of the dying. At the edge of this forgotten settlement stood a youth whom the elders called the Son of Nobody. He did not mind the title. A name was a tether, a claim of ownership by a past he did not possess. To be nobody was to be as free as the wind, even if that wind only blew through ruins.
He stood outside the leaning porch of the only tavern, his back against a rotting pillar. He was nineteen, perhaps twenty, though his eyes held the stillness of a well that had seen too many droughts. His hands, calloused and mapped with thin white scars, rested habitually near the hilt of a rusted short sword tucked into a belt of frayed hemp. It was not a warrior's blade. It was a tool of survival, chipped and dull, much like the life he led. Around him, the village breathed in a rhythm of quiet desperation. Men moved with hunched shoulders, carrying the weight of taxes they could not pay and bellies they could not fill.
The silence of the afternoon was broken by the rhythmic splashing of horses. Three riders emerged from the mist, their cloaks heavy with water but their armor gleaming with the unmistakable arrogance of the Southern Prefecture. These were not soldiers of the frontline; they were the collectors, the men who harvested what the soil refused to give. They stopped in the center of the muddy square, their horses snorting plumes of steam into the cold air.
The lead rider, a man with a face like pinched parchment and eyes that flickered with a restless cruelty, looked around with evident disgust. He did not see people; he saw ledger entries that refused to balance. His gaze eventually landed on the youth leaning against the pillar. The youth did not move. He did not lower his head in the practiced humility of the other villagers. He simply watched, his breathing steady, his mind a blank slate.
Where is the headman? the rider demanded, his voice thin and sharp.
The youth did not answer. He watched a single drop of rain travel down the rider's cheek and disappear into the collar of his gambeson. The silence stretched, becoming a physical thing between them. It was the kind of silence that precedes a landslide.
I asked you a question, boy, the rider said, his hand moving to the whip at his belt. Do the curs in this hole no longer understand the tongue of the Empire?
The youth finally spoke, his voice low and devoid of inflection. The headman died three days ago. The fever took him. There is nothing left here but the mud and the ghosts. You are wasting your breath and your horses' strength.
The rider's face flushed a deep, ugly red. To be spoken to with such parity by a nameless peasant was a transgression that demanded blood. He urged his horse forward, the animal's flank brushing against the porch. He raised the whip, the leather whistling through the air with a predatory hiss.
The youth did not flinch. As the whip descended, he moved with a fluid, terrifying economy of motion. He did not step back; he stepped inward. His left hand caught the rider's wrist before the whip could find its mark, and his right hand pressed firmly against the horse's neck to steady himself. For a heartbeat, they were frozen—a tableau of frozen intent. The rider looked down into the youth's eyes and saw something that chilled his boiling blood. He saw an absence. There was no anger, no hatred, no defiance. There was only the cold, mechanical assessment of a predator deciding whether the prey was worth the effort of a kill.
Let go, the rider hissed, though the command lacked conviction.
The youth released him, but not before leaning in close enough for the man to smell the damp wool and the faint, metallic scent of the rusted blade. If you want what is owed, look in the granary. You will find it empty. If you want blood, you can take mine, but I promise you, I will make you pay more for it than your masters are willing to reimburse.
The other two riders moved to draw their swords, but the leader held up a trembling hand. He was a man who lived by the exploitation of the weak, and he knew instinctively when he had stumbled upon something that was not weak. He saw the way the youth stood—balanced, his weight distributed perfectly, his eyes never blinking despite the rain. This was not a peasant. This was a stray hound with the teeth of a wolf.
We will return with a decade of lances, the rider spat, pulling his horse back. We will burn this hovel to the ground and sow the mud with salt.
Then at least the mud will have a taste, the youth replied softly.
The riders turned and galloped back into the grey veil of the storm. The youth watched them until the sound of hoofbeats was swallowed by the rain. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Old Marek, the village smith, a man whose bones were as brittle as the iron he could no longer forge.
You should have let him strike you, boy, Marek whispered, his voice trembling. Now they have a reason to come back with fire.
They never need a reason, Marek, the youth said, turning to look at the old man. They only need an appetite. Whether I spoke or stayed silent, the result would be the same. The Empire is a beast that eats its own tail when the fields run dry.
But where will you go? Marek asked, looking at the youth's meager belongings. You cannot stay here.
I was never really here, the youth said. He reached into his belt and pulled out a small, smoothed stone—a river pebble he had carried since he could remember. It was his only anchor to a world that had forgotten him. He looked at the winding path that led out of the village, a vein of brown water cutting through the hills.
I will follow the iron, he said, more to himself than to Marek.
What does that mean?
It means that in a world where words are lies and laws are chains, the only truth left is the weight of the blade. I want to know why it feels so heavy. I want to know if there is a way to carry it without becoming the very thing I despise.
The youth stepped off the porch and into the mud. He did not look back. He walked with a steady, unhurried gait, his shadow stretching long and distorted in the grey light. He left behind the only home he had known, a place of hunger and silence, and stepped into the vast, screaming uncertainty of the world.
As he walked, his mind drifted to the stories he had heard from the passing merchants—tales of the Great War in the North, of swordmasters who could part the clouds with a single stroke, and of monks who found peace in the heart of a massacre. He did not believe in peace, and he did not care for glory. He only knew the hollow ache in his chest, a vacuum that demanded to be filled with something more than survival.
He reached the crest of the hill and looked down at Oakhaven one last time. From this distance, it looked like a cluster of wet stones. He thought about the rider's whip and the way his own heart had remained still during the confrontation. He wondered if he was already dead inside, or if he was simply waiting to be born.
The road ahead was a ribbon of uncertainty. To the east lay the fractured duchies, where warlords fought over scraps of dignity. To the west were the mountains, home to the ancient schools of the blade where tradition was guarded with blood. He turned his face toward the mountains. If the answers existed, they would be written in the language of steel, and he was determined to learn the grammar of that violent tongue.
He walked until the sun began to set, though the light was nothing more than a bruised purple smudge behind the clouds. He found shelter beneath a rocky overhang, the stone providing a cold but dry sanctuary. He built no fire; a fire was an invitation to those who hunted in the dark. Instead, he sat with his legs crossed, the rusted sword across his knees.
He ran a thumb along the edge of the blade. It was jagged, neglected. It reflected his own state—a weapon that had the potential for sharpness but was currently choked by the grime of its environment. He took a small whetstone from his pouch and began to work.
The sound of stone on metal was a rhythmic, meditative rasp. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. With every stroke, a layer of rust fell away, revealing the grey, stubborn iron beneath. He focused all his senses on the friction, on the heat generating between the two surfaces. He imagined he was grinding away his own hesitation, his own fear of the unknown.
He thought of the name he did not have. A name defines the boundaries of a man. If he were 'Kael' or 'Joran', he would be bound by the expectations of those who knew those names. But he was nothing. He was a vessel. He was the space between the strikes of a hammer.
By the time the moon rose, hidden though it was, the edge of the sword gleamed with a dull, predatory light. It was not a masterpiece, but it was functional. It was ready.
Sleep did not come easily. When it did, it was filled with the smell of smoke and the sound of screaming horses. He saw a woman's face, blurred by memory and fire, reaching out for him. He saw a man in black armor, his eyes two voids of absolute cold. He woke up sweating, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword so hard his knuckles were white.
The dream was always the same. It was the only thing he had inherited—a nightmare that tasted of ash. He sat up, the cold air biting at his skin, and looked out at the dark horizon. Somewhere out there was the man in the armor. Somewhere out there was the reason his village had burned long ago, before Oakhaven, before the mud.
He realized then that his journey was not just a search for strength. It was a hunt. He was the hound, and the world was the forest. The iron was his guide, and his lack of a name was his camouflage.
He stood up, slinging his small pack over his shoulder. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, a fine mist that clung to his hair like cobwebs. He felt a strange lightness in his limbs. For the first time in his life, he wasn't running away from something; he was moving toward something.
He began to walk again, his boots finding purchase on the rocky path. He didn't know that three miles away, a group of deserters from the imperial army were crouching around a fire, discussing which village to raid next. He didn't know that in the capital, an emperor was signing an order that would plunge the entire continent into a decade of darkness. He only knew that the sword felt a little lighter on his hip, and the air tasted of salt and iron.
The path narrowed as it wound into the foothills. The trees here were ancient, their branches twisted like the limbs of giants caught in a moment of agony. The wind began to howl through the gorges, a mournful sound that seemed to carry the voices of all those who had died on this road. He ignored them. He had his own silence to maintain.
As the first light of dawn cracked the horizon, revealing a world of jagged peaks and deep, shadowed valleys, the youth paused. He saw a figure sitting on a stone by the side of the road. It was an old man, dressed in rags that might have once been a monk's habit. He had a single eye, the other replaced by a jagged scar that ran down to his jaw. Beside him lay a long staff made of dark, polished wood.
The old man did not look up as the youth approached. He was busy drawing circles in the dust with a small stick.
You are late, the old man said, his voice like the grinding of millstones.
I didn't know I was expected, the youth replied, stopping a respectful distance away.
The world always expects the hungry, the old man said, finally looking up. His one eye was a piercing, unnatural blue. And you, boy, look like you could swallow the sun and still ask for dessert.
I am looking for the mountain schools, the youth said, ignoring the provocation. I am looking for the way of the blade.
The old man laughed, a dry, hacking sound that ended in a cough. The blade? You carry a piece of scrap metal and ask for the way? The way is not in the metal, boy. The metal is just the mirror. If the man is broken, the blade will only show him his cracks.
Then teach me how to be whole, the youth said, his voice steady.
The old man stood up, leaning heavily on his staff. He was taller than he looked, his frame gaunt but possessed of a hidden, wiry strength. He walked around the youth, sniffing the air like a hound.
You smell of mud and stagnant water, the old man remarked. But underneath... there is the scent of a storm. Very well. I am going that way. You can follow, or you can stay here and rot. It makes no difference to the mountain.
The old man began to walk, his pace surprisingly brisk for his apparent age. The youth hesitated for a second, then fell into step behind him.
Does the teacher have a name? the youth asked.
Names are for things that can be caught, the old man replied without looking back. Call me One-Eye. It is accurate, if not imaginative. And you? What do they call you?
Nobody, the youth said.
One-Eye stopped and looked back, a faint smile playing on his lips. A dangerous name, he whispered. If you are nobody, then you can be anything. Or you can be nothing at all. We shall see which one the mountain decides.
They continued their ascent, two solitary figures against the backdrop of an indifferent world. The sun finally broke through the clouds, casting long, sharp shadows across the path. The journey had truly begun, not with a flourish of trumpets or a vow of vengeance, but with a simple step into the high, cold air where the air was thin and the truth was sharp enough to bleed.
The youth looked at the back of the old man and then at his own hands. He felt the first stirrings of a new kind of fear—not the fear of death, but the fear of what he might become if he actually found what he was looking for. He tightened his grip on his pack and pushed forward, the sound of his footsteps echoing against the stone, a steady heartbeat in the silence of the heights.