The mud in Blackwood didn't just coat you; it claimed you. It sucked at your boots with a wet, heavy sound, like a dying man gasping for air, and it smelled of rotting pine needles and pig shit.
Cian hated the mud. He hated the smell. Most of all, he hated the dull, chipped axe in his hands.
"Swing it again," Garret said. He was sitting on a dry stump under the overhang of the smithy, nursing a cup of something that smelled like turpentine. Garret was the village's only guard, a title that meant he was the only man too old to farm and too stubborn to die.
"I've swung it a hundred times," Cian snapped, wiping sweat and drizzle from his forehead. His arms burned. The axe was heavy—a wood-splitting wedge, not a weapon. "It's stupid. No one fights like this."
"You don't fight at all, boy," Garret grunted. He took a sip, grimacing as the liquor hit his gut. "You chop wood. If a bandit comes, maybe you can ask him to stand still and pretend he's a log."
Cian drove the axe into the chopping block with a frustrated grunt. The handle vibrated, stinging his palms. "I could fight. If I had a real sword. If you'd teach me the High Guard like I asked."
Garret laughed. It was a dry, rattling sound, like leaves skittering over stone. "The High Guard. You heard that from a bard, didn't you? Some prancing fool in a tavern singing about knights in the capital."
"It's a real stance!"
"It's a way to get your gut opened," Garret said, his voice losing its humor. He leaned forward, his grey eyes hard under bushy brows. "Listen to me, Cian. You want to hold a sword? A sword is a promise. It promises that you are ready to kill a man. And if you aren't ready to kill him, he will certainly be ready to kill you."
Cian looked away, jaw set. He was sixteen, an age where he knew everything and understood nothing. He saw the way the village girls looked at the merchant guards when they passed through—men with scarred knuckles and steel at their hips. He looked at himself—lanky, covered in muck, smelling of the pigs he tended.
"I'm not afraid," Cian muttered.
"That," Garret said softly, "is why you're dangerous. And not to the bandits."
A bell tolled in the distance. The dinner bell. The sound drifted through the grey rain, signaling the end of the day's labor.
Garret stood up, his knees popping audibly. He adjusted the leather brigandine he wore—ancient armor, the leather peeling, the studs rusted. "Go home, Cian. Your mother will have the stew on."
"Are you taking the night watch?" Cian asked.
"Aye. Someone has to make sure the wolves don't eat the sheep. Or the sheep don't eat each other."
Cian hesitated. "I could stay. Keep you company."
Garret looked at him, and for a second, the old man's face softened. He saw the boy's desperation, the hunger to be near something that felt like a warrior's life. "Go home, boy. It's a wet night. Nothing happens in Blackwood on a wet night."
Cian watched him walk away toward the perimeter fence. The fence was a joke—rotting palisades that leaned drunkenly outward. A determined cow could knock them over.
Nothing happens in Blackwood, Cian thought bitterly. Nothing ever happens.
He pulled the axe from the block. He didn't put it back in the shed. Instead, he slipped it into his belt, the heavy iron head dragging his trousers down. It wasn't a sword, but it was steel. It was something.
He didn't go home.