Legionnaire

The rest of the trip passed without another ambush.

That did not make it easy.

Training did not stop just because no one was trying to kill us. Tovan still found time every day to put a practice blade in my hand and remind me how many ways a man could die by putting his feet in the wrong place. Vale still took pieces of my night for language and Binding. We still walked, ate dust, made camp, broke camp, and did it again the next morning.

But somewhere along the way, my body stopped acting surprised.

It reminded me of the Army, back when I was actually in shape. Not pretty shape. Not gym shape. Working shape. The kind where you could be tired, sore, hungry, and pissed off, and still move because moving was what came next.

At first, the body complained about everything.

Then, after enough days, it got the message.

My hands hardened. My shoulders stopped hating the shield quite so much. My legs were never fresh, but they stopped feeling unreliable. Even the tired felt different. Less like damage. More like something I could work through.

I had forgotten that feeling.

Not the pain. I had enough pain.

The condition.

The quiet confidence of knowing my body could take a beating and still do the job. I had missed that more than I wanted to admit.

By the time we reached Rifthold, I was not comfortable.

But I was ready to keep going.

Joryn was mostly whole again too. He still moved carefully, and his face went pale if he twisted too fast, but he could walk on his own. Sella had stopped checking him every few hours, which probably meant she no longer expected his guts to make another appearance.

That was good enough.

Rifthold came into view in the gray light of morning.

It sat against the mountain like it had been carved out of the same dark stone. Thick walls. Squat towers. Iron-banded gates. Narrow windows. No polished white stone. No bright banners. No statues of heroes watching the road.

Just weight.

Stone, smoke, iron, and men and women on the walls with bows, spears, and the bored look of people who had been waiting for trouble long enough to be disappointed by peace.

Past the walls, I could hear training.

Commands carried over the yard. Wood cracked against wood. A horn sounded once, short and sharp. Boots struck hard ground in rhythm.

After three weeks of hearing about Rifthold, seeing it did not feel like reaching a school.

It felt like reaching a test that had already started.

The gate guards did not care that I had traveled across half the kingdom to get there. They did not care that Joryn had nearly died. They did not care that Vale was the only reason either of us had a place to stand.

Dain handed over papers.

Vale showed his seal.

The guards checked the carts, checked the loads, looked over Joryn, looked over me, and waved us inside.

That was it.

No ceremony. No speech. No line of instructors waiting to welcome new candidates.

We were another delivery.

Half the gear was unloaded just inside the gate. Crates, wrapped bundles, sacks, tools, weapons, and whatever else the Legion had ordered. Once that was done, the caravan began preparing to leave.

Just like that, the road was over.

Dain clasped Vale’s forearm first, then Joryn’s.

“Do not waste this,” he told him.

Joryn nodded.

“I won’t.”

Dain studied him for a second, then stepped away.

Mira gave me a small nod from beside one of the carts. Sella told Joryn to keep his bandage clean, drink water, and not mistake standing upright for being healed. Rusk shoved a heel of hard bread into my hand, complained that we had delayed breakfast, and walked off before I could answer.

Tovan was last.

He stopped in front of me and clasped my forearm.

“Keep your feet under you,” he said.

“I will.”

“You will forget.”

“Probably.”

“That is why I said it.”

His grip tightened.

Then I felt something small and round slide under the edge of my leather gauntlet near my elbow.

A core.

Tovan’s face did not change.

“Think of it as an advance,” he said. “You’re going places, kid. Someday I might need a favor.”

I was thirty-six years old.

After three weeks of training with him, I let it slide.

“What kind of favor?”

“Nothing today.”

“That does not make it sound better.”

“It was not meant to.” He released my arm. “Use it tonight.”

I wanted to say something useful.

The man had spent three weeks making sure I did not walk into selection completely useless. He had corrected me, fed me, beat mistakes out of me, and taught me enough to survive two gnolls when I probably should have died to one.

Thanks felt too small.

A joke felt wrong.

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So I nodded.

Tovan nodded back.

That was enough.

Vale turned toward the inner yard.

“Come along, lads.”

Joryn and I followed him deeper into Rifthold.

The inside was larger than it looked from the road.

The gate opened into a wide yard of packed dirt and stone. It was busy, but not chaotic. People moved everywhere, and every one of them seemed to have a purpose.

To the left stood long barracks with steep roofs and narrow windows. Candidate quarters, by the look of them. Plain buildings made to hold bodies, not comfort them.

Past those was a washhouse with steam drifting from roof vents. Beside it, dark uniforms hung in rows across a laundry yard.

To the right sat the mess hall. Long, ugly, loud, and already smelling like bread, grease, and boiled something. Some things carried across worlds. Apparently military dining was one of them.

Behind the mess hall were storehouses, a smithy, and an armory with two guards posted outside. Weapon racks lined one covered wall. Wooden swords. Practice spears. Shields. Padded jackets. Training axes. Bundles of blunted blades and poles sorted by size.

Farther in, the yard opened into the drill field.

That was where most of the noise came from.

Candidates ran in formation while instructors watched from the side. Others worked in pairs with wooden weapons, striking and resetting, striking and resetting, until the movement looked less like fighting and more like punishment with structure.

A line of candidates slammed into hanging dummies with shields. Another group crawled through mud under a low frame while an instructor walked beside them and counted down. Beyond that, people climbed ropes, crossed beams, dragged weighted sledges, vaulted walls, and carried sandbags around a track carved deep into the dirt.

There were archery lanes with straw targets set at different distances. Sand circles for sparring. Posts for shield work. Hanging logs for footwork. Pits to cross. Ropes stretched over muddy water. A climbing wall with handholds worn smooth by thousands of desperate fingers.

It looked like someone had taken every miserable training idea ever invented and built a home for it.

At the center of Rifthold stood the keep.

It was not pretty.

It was square, dark, and heavy, rising above the rest of the fortress like a clenched fist. Narrow windows. Iron shutters. Legion banners hung from the upper level, black cloth marked with silver and red.

Vale followed my eyes.

“Central keep,” he said. “Command offices, records, lecture halls, assessment chambers, and senior instructors’ quarters.”

“Lecture halls,” I said.

“The Legion prefers candidates who can think while exhausted.”

I watched a candidate miss a grip on the rope course and drop hard into the mud below.

“I can see why that needs practice.”

Vale’s mouth almost moved.

Almost.

“There is an infirmary behind the keep,” he continued. “A core vault below. Restricted training chambers beneath the eastern wing. You will not enter those without permission.”

“Understood.”

“You may still be tempted.”

I looked at him.

This time, I caught the humor in his eyes before it disappeared.

“Candidates often are,” he said.

We crossed the yard.

A few people looked our way.

Mostly at Vale.

Some at Joryn, who still had the careful posture of a man trying not to pull open a wound.

A few looked at me. New face. Road clothes. No candidate mark. Enough to be noticed, not enough to matter.

A group ran past carrying a log across their shoulders. One candidate stumbled, caught himself, and kept moving.

The instructor beside them pointed back the way they had come.

“Again.”

No yelling. No speech.

Just one word.

The whole group turned around and started over.

Joryn watched them go.

“What did we volunteer for?”

I looked at the mud, the walls, the weapons, the instructors, the candidates driving themselves forward because stopping was worse.

“Selection,” I said.

He swallowed.

“Right.”

Vale led us to the armory first.

Inside, the air was cooler and smelled of oil, leather, and metal. A gray-haired quartermaster sat behind a counter, writing in a ledger.

“Senior Vale,” he said without looking up.

“Quartermaster.”

The man finished his line, then looked at us.

“New candidates?”

“One candidate,” Vale said. “One pending candidate under medical and legal exception.”

The quartermaster’s eyes moved to Joryn.

Joryn stood very still.

The man sighed and dipped his pen.

“Names.”

“Wade Archer,” Vale said. “Joryn Hale.”

The quartermaster wrote them down.

“Travel weapons on the counter.”

I looked at the sword and shield I had carried for weeks.

They were not mine. I knew that.

Still felt strange handing them over.

The sword went first. Then the shield. The quartermaster inspected both, made two marks in his ledger, and passed them to an assistant without another word.

Then he shoved a folded bundle across the counter.

“Candidate issue.”

I picked it up.

Dark trousers. Black tunic. Gray undershirt. Padded training jacket. Belt. Socks. Plain cloak. A small strip of cloth stitched at the shoulder marked me as a candidate and nothing more.

Not Legion.

Not yet.

“Boots,” the quartermaster said.

I gave the size as best I could. Vale corrected one word. The quartermaster disappeared into the back and returned with black boots that looked stiff enough to draw blood out of spite.

“Practice weapons are drawn during drill and returned after,” the quartermaster said. “Lose issued clothing, you pay. Damage through stupidity, you pay. Damage through training, bring it for inspection. Steal from stores, and you are removed from selection.”

His eyes shifted to Joryn.

“And if applicable, returned to prior sentence.”

Joryn said nothing.

Smart man.

We left the armory carrying our bundles.

Outside, Rifthold kept moving around us.

Nobody stopped because we had arrived. Nobody cared that the road had ended. Candidates trained, instructors watched, weapons cracked, and the fortress swallowed us into its routine without slowing down.

This place was not built to impress anyone.

It was built to find out what was left after everything soft had been stripped away.

We left the armory carrying our bundles.

Outside, Rifthold kept moving around us. Candidates trained, instructors watched, weapons cracked, and no one gave a damn that we had arrived.

Vale led us to a low stone wall near the edge of the drill field.

“Wait here,” he said. “I need to confirm where you will be housed.”

Joryn nodded at once.

“Yes, Senior Vale.”

Vale looked at him.

“Your situation is not ordinary. There are records to adjust and instructors to inform. Until I return, do not wander. Do not enter any building. Do not give anyone a reason to question why I brought you here.”

“I understand.”

Vale turned to me.

“The same applies to you. Stay here. Keep your issued gear with you.”

“Yes, Senior Vale.”

He nodded once and walked toward the keep.

For a while, Joryn and I stood in silence.

The drill field filled it for us.

Candidates ran with weighted packs. Others fought in pairs with wooden weapons. A group crawled through mud under a low frame while an instructor walked beside them, counting each movement like mercy was not part of his job.

Joryn watched it all with his bundle held tight against his chest.

“He did not have to do this,” he said quietly.

“No,” I said. “He didn’t.”

“I do not know why he did.”

“Because you saved my life.”

Joryn shook his head.

“I grabbed a monster through bars because I was afraid.”

“You still grabbed it.”

He had no answer for that.

A whistle cut across the yard. Every candidate froze. An instructor raised one hand, waited, then dropped it.

The whole field exploded back into motion.

Running. Climbing. Striking. Crawling.

Rifthold looked chaotic at first.

It was not.

It was controlled pressure.

A machine built to find weak points.

Vale was gone long enough for my legs to start stiffening. I set my bundle carefully on the wall and kept one hand on it. Joryn did the same after watching me.

No one yelled.

So we waited.

When Vale returned, he carried a folded paper in one hand.

“You have quarters,” he said. “Both of you.”

Joryn let out a breath.

“Thank you, Senior Vale.”

“Do not thank me yet,” Vale said. “This is opportunity, not forgiveness. Your sentence still exists. If you fail selection or are removed for misconduct, you return to it.”

“I understand.”

Vale looked at me.

“Formal selection begins in two days. Until then, rest, eat, learn the layout, and continue your language study.”

“Yes, Senior Vale.”

“Come,” he said. “I will show you where you sleep.”

Joryn picked up his bundle immediately.

I took mine and followed.

Vale looked at me.

“I will ask about the core glass they keep here,” he said. “If it is available, I will bring it and test your pathways properly. That should tell us more about your talents and whether you have any sigil affinity.”

I did not have to think about that.

“Absolutely.”

“Good.”

He tucked the folded paper into his sleeve.

“We will continue your language and Binding lessons every evening.”

“Even after selection starts?”

“Yes,” Vale said. “The instructors will have your days. I will take what the evenings allow. You must display proficiency in the language in order to graduate, and your Binding cannot be ignored simply because your arms and legs are tired.”

That sounded miserable.

It also sounded useful.

Vale’s eyes dropped to my hand.

“When formal selection begins, you will return the translation ring to me. You will not be permitted to use it during training.”

I glanced down.

Not at the bronze ring that had decided it owned my finger.

At the plain iron translation ring Vale had loaned me on the road.

“No translation ring during the day,” I said.

“No translation ring during instruction, drills, lectures, or assessments,” Vale said. “You are here to learn the language, not hide behind borrowed understanding.”

“And the other ring?”

“Your bound ring cannot be removed. It will be recorded and watched. You will not attempt to use it unless I instruct you.”

I nodded.

“Understood.”

“Good,” Vale said. “Selection will test what you can endure. I will make sure you continue learning what you must understand.”

Then he turned toward the barracks.

“Come. I will show you where you sleep.”

With that, Vale led us to the candidate barracks.