Bogotá, 2026. The afternoon light fell in an amber hue over the brick walls of the Cloister of Saint Thomas Aquinas University. The capital's air, steeped in that perennial scent of roasted coffee, soot, and imminent rain, blew through the faculty's colonial hallways. Douglas, at twenty-one, walked with a light step. His shoes, perfectly polished, echoed on the stone floor as he headed toward the legal aid clinic.
The campus was a labyrinth of history and law. Water fountains murmured in the central courtyards, surrounded by students debating Constitutional Court rulings or complaining about civil procedure exams. For Douglas, this place was not just a university; it was his chessboard. Arriving at the monitors' office amidst piles of case files and cardboard folders, he greeted his colleagues.
"Alright, torombolo! What's the word?" Douglas barked, tossing his briefcase onto a chair.
Marlon, his best friend and criminal law monitor, looked up from a child support lawsuit with an expression of absolute exhaustion. His eyes were bloodshot, the product of a night of studying or, more likely, a bender.
"Hey, Nigga, hanging in there," Marlon replied, stretching his arms. "Here I am, reviewing the sixth-semester freshmen. Parce, they don't even know where they're standing. They write such nonsense, God... they confuse civil dolus with criminal intent in a three-line paragraph. Makes me want to cry or burn this office down."
Douglas let out a laugh as he sat beside him. "Yeah, hahaha, I've seen 'em. But hey, at least they're learning the hard way. Better they screw up here, so when they hit the heavy cases and real hearings, they at least know how to argue their claims before an actual judge."
"I guess," Marlon grunted.
"Hey, did you catch that novel I sent you? Hegemon of the Mediterranean. It's amazing, parce. It blends law, philosophy, economics, and war. I stayed up all night reading it. It's pure gold."
Marlon arched an eyebrow, finally interested. "I saw it, man. I'm gonna start it; looks great, but I haven't gotten past the first chapters where the guy is still a mercenary who barely knows how to read."
"Hmph! No spoilers," Douglas warned with a mischievous grin, "but just wait until the good stuff starts."
"Son, come closer."
Count Alban's voice yanked Douglas from his dream of red bricks and Bogotá coffee, thrusting him violently into a nightmare of ochre and scarlet. Alban stood there, his armor dented and splattered with blood so dark it looked like pitch. Around him, the battlefield before the castle walls was an ode to human butchery.
The ambush strategy and the subsequent failed charge had borne fruit, but the price was paid in the foulest of currencies. The bodies of Narico's soldiers and some of Alban's own defenders lay scattered like discarded ragdolls. The ground, once a fertile plain ready for sowing, had been transformed into a viscous mire where mud and entrails mingled beneath the horses' hooves.
Miguel walked from the North Gate toward his father. His boots sank into the soft earth, and with every step, the crunch of something breaking beneath his soles—an arrow, a bone, a shield—reminded him that this was no novel. In the center of the esplanade, survivors piled up captured weapons: splintered pikes, cheap steel swords, and shields bearing the Marquess's emblem. The surviving horses, trembling and wild-eyed, were led by stable hands, while a line of prisoners, shackled at the neck with thick ropes, was escorted toward the tower dungeons.
Suddenly, the air turned solid. An unbearable urge to vomit seized his throat. Miguel fell to his knees, his hands sinking into the cold mud, and unable to do anything else, he heaved up the rations of hard bread and jerky that had been distributed in the emergency before dawn.
The smell was the worst part. It wasn't just the metallic stench of fresh blood; it was the musk of panic, the rancid aroma of burst stomachs, and the sickly-sweet gas already beginning to emanate from the corpses as the midday sun warmed them. It was a stifling blow to his nostrils, so dense it felt as if the very stench of death could be tasted at the back of his tongue—a flavor of iron and putrefaction that no amount of water could cleanse.
"God, I can't believe I'm here," Miguel thought, tears of exertion blurring his vision. "Seriously, what kind of cheap-ass comedy is this? Me, a future Supreme Court Justice, a man who prepared to argue jurisprudence, brought to a world ripped out of the novels I read to kill time between filler classes."
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling the small, dirty skin of this new body.
"And it wasn't enough to kill me and bring me here," his internal monologue continued, loaded with a sarcasm that was his only defense against madness. "No, they put me in the body of a kid who just survived an attempted aggravated homicide—aggravated due to being against a minor and with manifest intent—and the place where I'm reborn is attacked by some two-bit noble who just wanted more land for his turnips. Anything else? Did I forget something, God? Gods? Whatever brought me here... Ah, yes! Now I'm in a puddle of blood and mud from people who probably have God-knows-what diseases, vomiting my guts out because I've never crossed paths with a butchered corpse in my entire previous life."
A dry sob escaped him. Douglas had seen crime scene photos in criminal case files, but they were cold, two-dimensional. Here, he could see the flies beginning to congregate on the eyeballs of a young man who couldn't have been more than eighteen.
"Dammit, I was a Judge, but in the Civil and Family division! I'm not some hardcore criminal lawyer who enjoys the macabre details! Yes, I know I wasn't a saint! My own death is proof of my sins in pursuit of power and money, I know! Dammit... but you don't do this even to humanity's worst enemies. That's what Human Rights are for... if only you believed in them."
"Miguel!" Alban's voice boomed nearby, but it was laced with a strange kindness. "What's wrong, boy? A bit of vomiting is normal when you cross the threshold from childhood to adulthood on the battlefield. But you seem so... gone. I thought that creating such a brilliant strategy to wipe out the enemy meant you could also handle the day-to-day reality of war."
Alban approached, his boots splashing in the red mud, and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. Miguel looked up, his face pale and his lips trembling.
"I think that was just survival instinct, Father," Miguel said, forcing his vocal cords to obey. "A sort of cognitive dissonance. I just said what I thought would save my life, long before I even considered if it was a reliable plan or if we were just rolling the dice on everything we had."
He stood up with difficulty, once again ignoring his father's curious gaze, and feeling his legs weigh as if they were made of lead. "Do you have water, Father?"
"Of course, champion. Here, it's the canteen I inherited from your grandfather," Alban said, passing him a worn leather vessel. "One day, it will be yours as well."
The water was lukewarm and tasted of old leather, but it was the most glorious elixir Douglas had ever tasted. As the liquid went down his throat, washing away the taste of vomit and death, Miguel scanned his surroundings. The cleanup was nearing completion; the battlefield was an inventory of recovered assets.
He stepped a few paces away from Alban and approached the body of a man lying apart, surrounded by a small mountain of corpses. It was the Marquess of Narico's Lieutenant.
"The bastard fought well," Alban said, his voice turning heavy, betraying a pain he tried to hide beneath his feudal lord facade. "He managed to gravely wound three men of my personal guard before I finally stopped him."
Miguel observed the fallen man. He wore full plate armor—a rarity in this frontier fiefdom. The metal was dented and stained, but the quality of the steel was evident.
"He was a true knight, one of the few with a full suit among the enemy ranks," Alban continued. "Likely the Marquess's closest confidant. It seems a fine set of armor. If you wish, I can have it repaired for you to keep. I doubt this will be the last battle with the Marquess, and you wearing this armor could be a devastating blow to the enemy's morale in the future."
"Well, well," Miguel thought, feeling his instincts stir above the revulsion. "Now we have our own Eagles of the Legion, snatched from the enemy amidst the scourge of war. This might even be poetic."
"I think that's a fine idea, Father," Miguel replied, his voice firmer. "I like it as ceremonial armor—and as a reminder that steel cares nothing for titles when faced with intelligence. And speaking of the Marquess, where did that wretch go?"
Alban spat on the ground, his face darkening. "By the sacred mysteries of the Sacred Heart, we have no idea. The coward was in the camp when the charge began, but as soon as he saw the battle slipping away, he fled like a soul chased by the devil. Though I sent riders to intercept him, we couldn't track him into the woods without risking an ambush ourselves."
He looked toward the horizon, where the sun began its slow descent, bathing the world in a light that hid, for a moment, the ugliness of the slaughter.
"Now we must look to the consequences and rebuild what was lost in this campaign," Alban declared. "Victory is but the beginning of a new kind of conflict."
"That is true, Father."
"Accompany me to the Lord's Hall, my son. You have earned the right to enter the city's politics. Take it also as an opportunity to sharpen your skills for when you inherit this mantle of responsibility. Today, you cease to be a boy who only plays with maps."
Miguel nodded, taking one last look at the battlefield.