# Chapter 583: The Warden's Burden
The air on the training grounds was thick with the scent of sweat, churned earth, and cheap leather. It was a smell Captain Bren knew intimately, a perfume that had clung to him for most of his adult life. But the rhythm was wrong. The disciplined, lethal cadence of a Crownlands barracks had been replaced by the clumsy, aggressive chaos of men unlearning a lifetime of violence. These were not new conscripts; they were veterans of the Ladder, their bodies maps of scar tissue and their cinder-tattoos a dark, mottled grey against their skin. They were being reforged into peacekeepers, a title that tasted like ash in Bren's mouth. He watched from the shade of a lean-to, his arms crossed over his chest, as two men circled each other in a dirt ring, their wooden swords clacking with a venom that belied their material.
One of them, a hulking brute named Roric with a shattered nose and a fighter's cunning in his eyes, pressed his advantage. His opponent, a leaner man named Joric, stumbled back, his guard high but shaky. Roric feinted low, a classic Ladder ploy designed to draw an opponent's eyes down before a devastating strike to the head. Joric fell for it, dropping his sword slightly. In the arenas, the follow-up would have been a bone-shattering pommel strike or a throat-crushing chop. Here, it was supposed to be a controlled tap to the shoulder. Roric's muscles bunched. He saw the opening not as a lesson, but as a kill.
"Enough!" Bren's voice cracked like a whip, cutting through the afternoon heat. He didn't raise it, but the sheer weight of command in it made both men freeze, Roric's sword inches from Joric's unprotected neck. The hulking fighter's chest heaved, his eyes still wild with the bloodlust of the arena. He wasn't sparring; he was hunting.
Bren strode into the ring, his boots sinking slightly into the loose dirt. He didn't look at Joric, who was rubbing his throat with a trembling hand. His gaze was fixed on Roric. "What was the objective of this drill, Roric?"
The big man lowered his sword, though his grip remained white-knuckled. "Disarm and subdue, Captain."
"Disarm and subdue," Bren repeated, his tone flat. "Not 'cripple and kill.' You went for a finishing blow. A neck strike. In a civilian dispute, that's murder. In a peacekeeping action, it's a war crime. What part of 'peacekeeper' do you not understand?"
Roric's jaw worked, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "In the Ladder, you don't give an inch. You show mercy, you end up in the pits. It's… it's habit."
"It's a habit that will get you hanged," Bren said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. He gestured to the other recruits who had stopped to watch. "All of you. Listen to me. The Ladder is dead. The rules you lived by are poison now. You are not gladiators. You are not animals in a cage. You are the Wardens of the New Dawn. Your job is to protect, to de-escalate, to be the wall that stands between order and chaos. That wall is not built with lethal strikes. It's built with discipline. With control."
He took the wooden sword from Roric's hand. The weight was familiar, the balance perfect for killing. He held it loosely. "Again. With Joric. This time, you will tap him on the shoulder. If you so much as bruise him, you'll spend the next week scrubbing latrines with a toothbrush. Do you understand me?"
Roric's eyes burned with a sullen fire, the fire of a predator being caged. He gave a curt, jerky nod. "Yes, Captain."
"Good." Bren tossed the sword back. "Begin." He turned his back on them, a deliberate show of trust and dismissal. He knew Roric would comply, but the resentment would curdle. It was the same in every drill. These men had been lauded for their brutality, rewarded for their lack of restraint. Now, he was asking them to unlearn the very instincts that had kept them alive. It was like trying to teach a wolf to graze. The New Dawn, he thought with a familiar weariness, was built on the graves of monsters, but it was staffed by them, too.
As he walked back toward the command tent, a rider approached, the horse kicking up plumes of dust. The rider wore the livery of the Prince's personal guard, a silver hawk on a field of blue. He reined in his mount, dismounting with a crisp efficiency that spoke of rigorous training. He approached Bren and offered a sealed, wax-stamped cylinder. "Captain Bren. A summons from His Highness, Prince Cassian. For your eyes only."
Bren took the cylinder, the cool metal a stark contrast to the heat of the day. The seal was unbroken, the hawk sigil crisp. This was not a public missive. This was a command spoken in a whisper. "Thank you," he said, his voice gruff. He watched the rider remount and gallop away before turning toward his tent.
Inside, the air was cooler, smelling of oiled canvas and old maps. He broke the wax seal with his thumb and unrolled the vellum. The script was Cassian's, neat and precise, a stark contrast to the turbulent words it contained.
*Bren,*
*I write to you not as a member of the Concord Council, but as your Prince. The council is a nest of vipers, debating the color of curtains while the house burns down. They are paralyzed by politics, by fear of upsetting the fragile peace they believe they have won. They are fools.*
*Intelligence has reached me through channels I trust—channels that do not answer to the Synod or the League. A massive Bloomblight has been confirmed near the ruins of Old Sable. It is not like the others. It is organized. The creatures within it move with purpose. They build. They communicate. This is not the chaotic remnant of a dead cataclysm. This is an army, and it is marching.*
*I cannot order a full-scale response through the council. They would debate it for a month, and by then, it would be too late. So, I am asking you. I am tasking you with leading a preemptive expedition. A fast, hard-hitting force. Your best men. Go to Old Sable. Assess the threat. If you can, neutralize it. If you cannot, you are to send word and fall back, but make them bleed for every inch of ground.*
*This mission is not sanctioned. It is deniable. If you fail, you acted on your own. If you succeed, the council will claim the victory. I know the price I ask. But you are the only man I trust with this. You know the Bloom better than anyone. You know what must be done.*
*Your authority is absolute. Take what you need from the armories. Leave at dawn.*
*Cassian.*
Bren read the letter twice, the words sinking into him like stones. An army of Blights. The thought was so monstrous it was almost absurd. And yet, it felt right. It felt like the inevitable, horrible consequence of the world's arrogance. They had stared into the abyss of the Bloom and thought they had mastered it, simply by building a cage around its children. He thought of Roric, of the primal, unkillable violence that lived in men. Now they were seeing it reflected in the monsters they had created.
He rolled the vellum up, the paper feeling fragile, like a dead man's skin. The burden of it settled onto his shoulders, a familiar weight. He had spent years training men to fight, to kill, to survive. Then he had spent months trying to teach them to be gentle. Now, the Prince was asking him to sharpen the blade again. To take his wolves and set them loose against a greater pack.
There was no choice. Not really. The council could debate. Nyra could plot. The Chronicler could write his histories. But when the monsters came at the walls, it was men like him who had to stand on them. It was a burden he had carried since the day the Bloom had taken his family, a debt paid in blood and solitude.
He left the tent, the summons tucked into his belt. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. The training drills were winding down. He found Roric by the water trough, splashing his face, the anger in his posture now replaced by a sullen exhaustion.
"Roric," Bren said. The man looked up, his eyes wary. "Forget the latrines. Pack your gear. We're moving out at dawn."
Roric stared at him, the water dripping from his chin. "Moving out where, Captain?"
"Into the Wastes," Bren said, his voice devoid of emotion. "We're going hunting."
A slow, dangerous light returned to Roric's eyes. It was the light of the arena, the light of a man who understood his purpose. He didn't ask why. He didn't need to. He just nodded, a single, sharp gesture of acknowledgment. For the first time that day, he looked like a soldier, not a reformed criminal.
Later, in the solitude of his quarters, Bren prepared his gear. The space was spartan, containing only a cot, a footlocker, and a small, worn table. He laid out his equipment with the methodical precision of a man who had done this a hundred times. A whetstone ran along the edge of his bastard sword, the *shing-shing* of steel a comforting rhythm in the quiet room. He checked the leather straps on his breastplate, polished the gorget that protected his throat. Each piece was a part of him, a shell he built to keep the world at bay.
His movements slowed as his gaze fell upon a small, silver-framed portrait that sat on the edge of the table. It was faded, the colors soft with age. It showed a woman with a gentle smile and hair the color of wheat, holding a little girl with a gap-toothed grin. His wife. His daughter. Lost in a Bloom-spawned storm on the southern plains twenty years ago. He had been away, fighting in a border skirmish for the Crownlands. He had come home to an empty house and a world of grey ash.
He reached out, his calloused fingers tracing the outline of his daughter's face. The grief was no longer a sharp, stabbing pain. It was a dull, constant ache, a part of his bones. It was the fuel that had driven him for two decades, the reason he had never taken another lover, never sought a quiet life. He had dedicated himself to fighting the Bloom's legacy, in whatever form it took. First as a soldier, then as a trainer, and now, as a Warden again.
The summons from Cassian was not just a command. It was a calling. An army of Blights. It was the ultimate manifestation of the evil that had stolen his world. To face it, to destroy it, was the closest he would ever come to avenging them.
He picked up the portrait, holding it in the palm of his hand. The faces of his family smiled up at him, oblivious to the darkness that had consumed them. He looked from their faded images to the cold, lethal steel of his sword laid out on the table. The past and the present, the reason and the means.
He placed the portrait back on the table, carefully, as if it were made of glass. Then he picked up his sword, the weight of it settling into his grip, an old and familiar friend. The burden was not just the mission, or the men he would lead. It was the memory. The promise he had made over two fresh graves in the ash.
He looked at the portrait one last time, his voice a low whisper in the lamplight, a vow spoken to ghosts.
"This time, we end it for good."