The newborn silence broke like brittle glass under Sir Eric's voice, cold and commanding.
"All men within the age range, hold fast. We depart for Ithaca at first light. You may disperse."
His tone held no sympathy, only finality.
The crowd didn't cheer or murmur. They merely drifted apart like dying embers scattered by the wind, eyes downcast, hearts heavy.
Sir Eric turned and followed the village head into his dwelling, his cloak trailing behind him like a specter.
Siege made his way back to the orphanage, legs stiff, thoughts tangled. A storm brewed inside him — part fear, part something darker and harder to define. Was it excitement?
*This must be it,* he thought. *My trial. I must aid Beowulf in slaying the dragon.*
The clarity of that realization numbed him more than it comforted. But it was something solid to cling to, like a blade's hilt in the dark.
Unlike the others, Siege felt an eerie calm settle over him. The other children, however, had retreated into themselves.
The usual chatter, the noise of their world, had been drained as if something had exhaled through the halls and stolen it all away. They sat in hushed clusters in the once-empty orphanage, now cramped with fear.
They did not speak, only glanced — at the older boys, at each other, at the floorboards that creaked too loud in the silence.
The chamber, old and warped, groaned beneath their despair. The stone walls seemed colder, the air more still.
Then the door creaked open, and Father Gregory entered. Bald, wrapped in worn brown robes, his presence usually brought peace. But today, his footsteps echoed like funeral bells. His blue eyes — bright once — were dulled by grief.
"I'm sorry," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "I tried. I begged them. The best I could do was raise the age requirement. I... I failed you."
The priest's words hung in the air. He turned quickly, his robes sweeping the dust, and disappeared into his quarters. He couldn't face them. As a servant of Idunn, he had devoted his life to nurturing children. But now, he had delivered them to death. It crushed him.
Siege didn't mourn the priest's failure. In truth, he was relieved. He had to go. This was his purpose — his trial. And if that meant walking into the dragon's maw, so be it.
The others didn't see it that way. They watched Gregory's door close with hollow stares, their innocence shriveling. Then, a voice broke the stillness.
"We'll be fine."
Edwin stood, black hair shadowing his tired eyes. His voice trembled beneath a thin veneer of courage.
"Aldur, Siege, and I — we'll come back. Maybe as Knights, even nobles! We'll build a mansion in the capital and bring you all there. You'll see."
He smiled, but it was a mask stretched too thin.
Some of the younger ones latched onto the fantasy, clinging to it like it could anchor them in a world quickly crumbling beneath their feet. Questions followed — about gold, feasts, and noble titles. The fragile hope lit flickers in their eyes.
Siege watched it all with a distant fondness. Edwin was a good soul, even if — in the quiet of his mind — Siege doubted whether Edwin was real at all. Just another illusion in this world conjured for his trial.
Later, as the sobs quieted and talk faded, Siege lay on his thin cot. The straw poked through the sackcloth, and the wooden frame creaked under his weight. He stared at the cracked ceiling and began planning. Training would come. That would be his moment. He would rise.
Sleep took him not like a blanket, but like a chain.
---
At dawn, the sky burned with color — red bleeding into gold.
Twenty men gathered in the village square. All bore the same weight in their shoulders: dread clothed in silence. Among them stood five younger ones: Edwin, Aldur, Sigmund, Godfrey... and Siege.
A single brown horse stood among them, bearing a large pack. The beast looked on the verge of collapse, as though it, too, sensed the path ahead.
Their eyes were drawn to the two figures at the center of the square.
Sir Eric stood tall, seemingly gaunt in the golden light. Before him, a young man writhed, panic dripping from every breath. Sir Eric's hand gripped the back of his neck like an executioner holding an offering.
"He fled in the night," Eric announced, his voice hollow. "He sought to escape fate. To flee is treason."
The captive twisted and screamed, eyes wide and maddened. "Please! I'm sorry! I'll go! I swear it—!"
Eric's grip tightened. With his other hand, he drew his sword — a long, pale blade that caught no reflection.
"Let this be a lesson to all," he said, as if reading from scripture. "Obey or die."
And then the blade moved.
There was no flourish, no ceremony. The steel flashed — once — and a dark red arc painted the air.
The young man staggered, blinking in disbelief, before blood gushed from his throat in thick pulses. He gurgled, hands clawing at the wound, trying to force the life back in.
It was futile.
He collapsed, twitching in the dirt. A puddle spread beneath him, soaking into the earth. One eye rolled upward. Then nothing.
A collective shiver ran through the men. Siege's body locked, a cold sweat slipping down his back. He had expected fear. But this was something else. Cold and calculated. An ancient law in motion.
Sir Eric wiped his blade clean with a single swipe, casting droplets of blood into the dust.
"This is not the usual way," he admitted. "But it is our way."
He sheathed the blade.
"Those who survive will be rewarded with ten gold penningar. Glory, wealth, and name await. We march now."
He mounted his horse in one motion and turned from the square without another word.
No one spoke. The remaining men — walking corpses in their own right — followed in silent procession.
The sun had nearly crowned the horizon, casting long shadows that bled like ink across the ground. The fields beyond the village shimmered with dew, the colors of dawn woven into the land — a parody of beauty. Even the river, usually gentle, shimmered with crimson hues.
It looked like blood.
Siege walked with them, the scent of iron still thick in his nose. He tried to remind himself that this was a dream. A trial. An illusion.
But when the man had died, he had felt it. A sympathy that didn't care about kings or gods or trials.
His eyes drifted again to Sir Eric. The man's back was rigid, unmoved by death, by fear, by anything.
*What are you?* Siege wondered.
But he didn't dare ask aloud.
All he could do was walk. And survive. No matter what monsters awaited them in Ithaca, he would face them.