Near the Mines

  Skeld, Feren, and Philip followed two Pale guides. They moved with confidence, almost soundlessly, as if the forest were not an obstacle but an extension of their own bodies.

  There was no real trail. They passed between trees and along the cliffs, where stone rose in sharp breaks and roots forced their way through cracks in the rock. The air here was colder, damper, carrying the scent of moss and old stone. Somewhere below, hidden by overgrowth, the abandoned mines lay dark.

  Suddenly, the guides stopped.

  One of them raised a hand, signaling them to hold.

  “It should be here,” he said quietly.

  He looked around, studying the rock face as if searching not just for an opening, but for the right shape of shadow. Then he took a few steps to the side and gestured.

  “There.”

  Feren leaned closer.

  At first, he saw nothing—just an uneven wall, fractures, dark stains of moisture. Then his eye caught something wrong. The entrance was concealed: a narrow, dark slit between stone blocks, easy to mistake for yet another crack in the cliff.

  But it was a cave.

  Deep. Dark. The kind that swallowed light.

  The guides didn’t hesitate. One after another, they slipped inside, vanishing into the darkness as if dissolving into the stone itself.

  Skeld silently tightened his grip on his weapon.

  Feren drew a short breath.

  The mercenaries followed immediately after.

  The forest world was left behind.

  The entrance was overgrown on all sides. Ivy and wild shrubs had wrapped the stone so tightly that the opening looked like a random shadow among the rocks. Roots crawled downward, as if trying to seal the passage for good, to erase the very fact that it existed.

  But the moment they stepped inside, the space changed abruptly.

  The passage widened, opening into something broad and open. This was no longer a crevice between rocks or a natural fracture in stone. Before them stretched a once-constructed corridor. The walls were straighter here, reinforced with old support beams. An overhead ceiling ran above them—partly intact, partly eaten away by time.

  Decorative arches lined the tunnel, stripped of all ornamentation, yet their shapes endured. In places, candelabras for torches still clung to the walls—empty, rusted, crooked, but undeniably artificial.

  Someone had built this place.

  And they had built it to last.

  The Pale moved quickly, without stopping or looking back. Their silhouettes slid forward, merging with the shadows. The mercenaries kept pace, not falling behind, though every step echoed beneath the vaulting.

  In several places, the tunnel’s roof had collapsed. Sunlight pierced through the gaps above—thin, sharp beams like spears of light. Dust danced within them, slowly settling onto stone and ancient wood.

  Some sections of the walls were partially buried, held in place only by tree roots that had grown into the stone. Thick, twisted roots forced their way through cracks, gripping the masonry—destroying it and yet preventing it from collapsing entirely.

  Nature had not destroyed the structure.

  It had claimed it.

  And despite the ruin, the tunnel still lived.

  Feren drew level with one of the Pale guides.

  “Do you know who built this?” he asked, studying the arches and beams above.

  The guide shrugged without slowing his pace.

  “Don’t know. These passages are a few hundred years old. Maybe more.”

  Feren ran his hand along the stone, cracked and scarred by time.

  “Maybe the same people who built Korosten,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

  The guide didn’t answer.

  Feren looked ahead again, into the darkness of the tunnel.

  “Have you explored the entire passage?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the Pale nodded. “But much of it has collapsed. Only this section survived. That’s the part we’re trying to restore.”

  There was no pride in his voice—only a statement of fact.

  Feren slowed and turned to Skeld.

  “Look at the space here,” he said, glancing around. “We could ride through on horseback. Hit them when they least expect it.”

  Skeld gave a brief nod.

  “Yes, we could…”

  He quickly looked away, careful not to show that the very same plan had been turning over in his mind from the start.

  After a short pause, he added,

  “But that’s not our task. Let’s just complete it. We can think about the rest later.”

  Feren agreed in silence.

  They moved on with almost no words.

  Only footsteps, echoes beneath the vaulting, and light that occasionally cut through the darkness from collapses above.

  About an hour later, they reached the other side.

  The exit was almost as impossible to notice as the entrance. Even knowing exactly where it should be, the eye slid past it, catching on nothing suspicious.

  The Pale had done their work well.

  There were no paths, no trampled ground, no broken branches that might betray human presence. Before the exit, branches had been deliberately scattered—chaotically, without pattern, the way the Black Forest itself would have done it. Nothing set this place apart from the other dark, unwelcoming stretches around it.

  The enemy barracks lay far below. From there, there was no chance of spotting the cave entrance—neither by direct sight nor from observation points. Stone and trees devoured the line of sight completely.

  The siege engines were visible nearby.

  Dark silhouettes stood against the earth, waiting for their moment. And it was then that it became clear: the cave exit lay in a perfect position for the mercenaries’ plan.

  Skeld realized it at once. There was only one problem. How to withdraw.

  There was no way back into the cave. At least—not a fast one. One collapse, one barrage, and the passage would turn into a trap.

  Skeld quietly told Feren to sketch the enemy camp and the surrounding terrain. No explanations. No clarifications. Just a short order.

  Feren nodded and pulled out his notebook again.

  He worked quickly, marking the relief, distances, changes in elevation, the placement of barracks, and siege engines. Every line mattered.

  For Skeld, everything was already clear. The risky plan would be carried out. The question wasn’t whether. The question was the price.

  The conversation between childhood friends had been going on for several hours. It wasn’t continuous—broken up by a meal, a short walk through the camp, casual mentions of youth, names that once meant something, and old stories that could still draw a smile.

  They remembered a time when everything felt simpler.

  When decisions didn’t carry the weight of hundreds of deaths.

  But the sun was already sinking toward the horizon, and with every passing minute, the topics grew heavier. The words are more cautious. The silences between sentences are longer.

  Varek sat opposite Rianes and Velm, leaning forward, as if trying to keep them within this circle of light while night had not yet fully fallen.

  “You don’t see the whole picture,” he said at last. “That’s an endless armada. It’s not against humanity. It’s for equal rights for all the Cast Aside.”

  Velm narrowed his eyes.

  “And what do the Cast Aside have to do with the Vishaps?” he asked.

  Varek exhaled.

  “The Vishaps are there temporarily,” he replied. “They just happened to be in the forest with the others. Our commander ordered them not to touch you. They disobeyed… and they’ll regret it dearly.”

  Velm raised an eyebrow.

  “Your commander?” he asked. “Who is that?”

  Varek fell silent for a moment.

  “You don’t know him,” he said at last. “And it doesn’t really matter.”

  “So it’s not Ovamir?” Velm clarified.

  The air seemed to thicken.

  Varek slowly shook his head.

  “Ovamir died a few months ago,” he said. “Of natural causes.”

  Rianes cursed softly, almost under his breath.

  “Damn…” he said. “That’s a loss. He did a great deal for your people.”

  “Yes,” Velm nodded. “They didn’t call him the Father of the Lands for nothing. So who stands in his place now?”

  Silence settled for a moment.

  And in that pause, Rongo stepped into the conversation.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Karasel is in charge now,” he said.

  His voice was steady, but there was clear dissatisfaction in his words. Not protest—more the acceptance of something he disliked, but had learned to live with.

  The process of transferring power among the Oaken had never been properly prepared.

  Thirty years ago, they were still scattered nomads—different families and clans united only by shared origin and way of life. They lived off raiding and mercenary work, taking any job, even those that irreversibly destroyed reputations. That was how the Oaken became unwanted guests almost everywhere on the continent.

  They were feared.

  They were despised.

  They were never invited.

  Then Ovamir appeared.

  He united the Oaken—not through fear, but through authority. Not through promises, but through results. It was he who laid the foundation of a state in the north of the Wild Lands. Over time, most clans joined him, and where once there had been only temporary camps, two small cities rose.

  Later, an agreement was concluded with the Southern Empire regarding borders. Those borders proved remarkably stable—they did not change even after the civil war.

  Ovamir also actively supported the Compact during the period when Kharin was being founded. He helped them in their hardest days, when nothing was yet guaranteed. It was then that the Oaken and the Compact became true allies—not on paper, but in reality.

  Ovamir had been preparing his successor in advance. But a year ago, he died.

  Unexpectedly. Without a clearly formalized will. And from that moment on, the struggle for the right to lead the Oaken began.

  Karasel was among the first to join Ovamir at the very beginning. He was the one who brought a significant number of warriors at a time when they were desperately needed. And yet, he never openly claimed Ovamir’s place.

  But he had enemies.

  His relationship with Atrion had been bad from the start—primarily because Atrion categorically refused to accept the Cast Aside into his clan. Karasel saw that as weakness disguised as “purity.”

  He respected Serain even less.

  Not for personal decisions, but for allowing Atrion to pursue his own xenophobic policies without interference or limitation. For Karasel, that was silent approval.

  And yet another crack in the alliance.

  Rianes leaned forward sharply.

  “Karasel?” he repeated. “Damn it… That’s the worst possible choice right now. Wasn’t it his idea to join this army of the offended?”

  Varek waved it off tiredly.

  “Enough. None of that matters,” he said. “This is the kind of moment when Serain can lose either his power or half the kingdom. He won’t be able to stop us. And neither will you.”

  He looked from Rianes to Velm.

  “But you can stay out of it. And keep what you already have.”

  Rianes stood up.

  “That’s idiocy,” he cut in. “And it’s betrayal. Without Serain, we wouldn’t have anything. And we won’t have anything without him.”

  He stepped forward, his voice hardening.

  “You haven’t won a single battle yet. How can you talk about the outcome of a war?”

  Velm intervened more calmly, but his words carried no less weight.

  “The Cast Aside have united for war before,” he said. “Do you remember how that ended?”

  Rianes gave a bitter smile.

  “It ended with them cutting each other apart for forty years over scraps of meat,” he replied. “Serain is carrying out reforms now. They’re slow, yes. Society resists, yes.”

  He spread his hands.

  “But there is progress. Slowly. He listens to us. If something works for us, he implements it across the kingdom. You’re simply underestimating what you’ve already achieved.”

  Varek frowned.

  “Serain has been in power for twenty years,” he said. “And what has that led to? To the point where, if you’re infected with Lugu, they don’t kill you outright—they just exile you east.”

  Rianes snapped toward him.

  “Because you can’t break rules that ruled for centuries overnight!” he shot back.

  The silence cracked.

  The conversation between childhood friends was heating up, slowly turning into an argument. They stood more often than they sat now, pressing their points. Hands moved on their own, gestures grew sharper, voices louder.

  So far, they weren’t accusing each other directly.

  But the line was closed.

  They were interrupted by women’s voices.

  Loud, lively—far too carefree for the conversation that had just been hanging in the tent. The canvas shifted, and Naelis, Syra, and Lianda stepped inside. They had returned from the city—drunk, cheerful, faces flushed, eyes bright with laughter.

  They laughed openly, without restraint, without even trying to hold it back. The air in the tent changed instantly.

  “Yeah,” Lianda said, barely keeping her balance. “We figured it out back in the city—no one’s going anywhere tonight.”

  She raised a flask.

  “So we brought drinks.”

  The tension that had been pressing on their chests eased. It didn’t vanish—but it slid aside, making room for something simpler. More human.

  Rianes rose without a word. Varek did the same.

  They stepped outside, into the evening air of the camp. Fires were already burning, with people gathered around them. The Oaken who had arrived with Varek were already drinking alongside the mercenaries. Someone laughed. Someone argued. Someone simply sat nearby, staring into the flames.

  Some of them had known each other for a long time.

  From other campaigns.

  From other wars.

  From times no one spoke of out loud.

  And it became clear: the talks about greater things were over for today. Politics, war, choosing sides—all of it was postponed until morning.

  Or perhaps forever.

  Maybe this was the last evening they could be together simply as friends.

  Not as future enemies.

  The next day, the Oaken left the camp.

  The farewell was heavy and somber. No unnecessary words. No loud promises to meet again. Everyone understood: yesterday’s conversations had brought no results. And most likely, there would be no second chance.

  People said goodbye in different ways. Some shook hands. Some embraced. Some simply nodded in silence and looked away. There was no laughter—only fatigue and a tense acceptance of the inevitable.

  Lianda was the last to leave the camp.

  She said goodbye to everyone as well—lightly, in her own way, as if trying not to let sorrow take over. Only at the end did she approach Rianes.

  She stopped in front of him, looking straight into his eyes.

  “One day will come,” she said calmly, “when men stop ruling. And wars will end. Because your wars are stupid.”

  She paused for a moment, as if weighing her own words.

  “Although no…” she smiled. “I’d leave a single day for war. Just to let off steam. Say, the last day of the month.”

  There was no anger in her voice. Only weariness—from having to repeat these things again and again.

  She hugged him, then stepped back and added with a faint smile,

  “The last day probably really would be the best day for war.”

  After that, Lianda lightly vaulted onto her aurochs and joined the detachment already moving toward the forest. The massive bodies of the animals slowly vanished between the trees, dissolving into shadow.

  Rianes remained standing. He watched them until the dark silhouettes disappeared completely.

  Her words wouldn’t leave his mind.

  The month will end in a week.

  Three days later.

  The mercenaries already knew that something was being planned.

  No one said it out loud, and no one asked unnecessary questions. But more and more often, they cleaned their armor, checked straps, tightened buckles. Weapons were never left far away. Things that were usually done lazily or by habit were now handled with care, as if every small detail might prove decisive.

  The number of reconnaissance sorties into the Black Forest multiplied. The teams grew larger, more coordinated. The tasks—more complex and more dangerous. People returned exhausted, silent, with looks that held more understanding than questions.

  Feren issued a separate order to mark the route into the Black Forest so it could be found easily even at night. Not for traders. Not for patrols.

  It was a signal.

  The battle was close.

  Today, a gathering of officers from all cohorts was planned. That was where it would become clear what the clan would do next—defend, wait, or strike first. Several representatives of the city guard had been invited as well. Lenar, Yakhim, and Lucius were among them.

  For the council, the city’s mayor, Ruvan, had provided a sealed location. An old windowless hall with thick stone walls, where voices could not carry outside. The invited had already begun to arrive—one by one, in small groups, without unnecessary noise.

  Rianes stood by the large map.

  It was covered in markings, lines, symbols, and notes. The Black Forest. Roads. Elevation. Camps. Possible routes of movement. He stared at it in silence, as if trying to see not the parchment, but what would soon unfold in reality.

  When everyone had finally gathered, Rianes stepped away from the map and began to speak.

  His voice was steady, without theatrics. The kind of voice used when decisions have already been made.

  “As you know, we arrived here on orders from King Serain ,” he began. “Our original task was to clear the mines of scavengers.”

  He paused briefly.

  “But during the investigation, it became clear: our enemy is not scavengers. Our enemy is a large army at the edge of the Black Forest. It is preparing to lay siege to Korosten and then advance further.”

  A few people exchanged glances but remained silent.

  “The enemy force is enormous,” Rianes continued. “King Serain is currently on the opposite side of the kingdom. That means our task is to blunt their offensive capability and hold out until the royal forces arrive.”

  He shifted his gaze back to the map.

  “Our brothers from the Black Directive and the Red Breach will join the defense of the city. We’ve also already sent a request to mobilize our lands and prepare reserves.”

  He looked back at the room.

  “But right now, only we are here. Our clan. And that is enough to seriously disrupt their plans.”

  Rianes touched the map.

  “The enemy camp is large, but it has weak points. The barracks and the siege engines are concentrated in one area. Here.”

  He clearly indicated the marking.

  “This autumn has been unusually dry. And we’re going to use that.”

  Several people tensed.

  “We’ve found a route that lets us reach the enemy’s rear. Our objective is to set the camp on fire while their main forces are asleep.”

  Rianes raised his eyes.

  “A small group of mounted riders can do this quickly and quietly. The main force will strike the camp from the front and prepare a corridor for the riders’ withdrawal.”

  He traced his finger further along the map.

  “This section here. The passage is narrow, pressed between the mountains and the edge of the ravine. It will be harder for the enemy to seal it off and strike the retreat corridor.”

  A pause.

  “If they still manage to do that,” Rianes went on, “Atrion’s clan is to move in and cover our withdrawal. Balrek may make it as well.”

  He turned back to the officers.

  “The main force will be commanded by Skeld. Velm will provide support to the primary group.”

  He gave a slight nod in their direction.

  “I’ll go with the riders. They’ll be commanded by Feren. An archer detachment under Syra will accompany us as well.”

  Now the rhythm became precise, almost clinical.

  “We move out in three days. My group will be split into many small units and will spend the night in the Pale forest.”

  “Skeld’s main force will depart early in the morning on the fourth day.”

  He looked around the room.

  “After this council, you’ll receive written instructions. They can—and must—be passed on to your fighters without distortion.”

  “The city guard will prepare a camp for us inside the city and organize our withdrawal and recovery after the battle.”

  Rianes fell silent. He swept his gaze across the hall.

  “Any questions?”

  The first question was exactly the one Rianes had expected.

  Why not wait for the other clans to arrive and strike together? One day wouldn’t change anything. Why complicate the plan and rely on reinforcements arriving on time?

  It was a logical question.

  And an uncomfortable one.

  But there was no real answer to it.

  Rianes couldn’t say that the day of the operation had been chosen because of strange, almost joking hints from The Oaken woman in the enemy camp. That wouldn’t sound like an argument. And certainly not like an order.

  So he answered differently.

  “According to reconnaissance reports,” he said evenly, “this is the best day to strike. And there won’t be a better one.”

  The officers exchanged glances.

  None of them had heard anything like that. Their scouts hadn’t reported any special changes or unique opportunities tied to that specific day. But no one objected.

  Rianes’ reputation—and the level of his tactical judgment—were beyond question.

  So they took his words on faith.

  The second question was about the Maw.

  The width of the section chosen for the battle made it possible to bypass the main mercenary force. That worried the officers. If the enemy chose to take the risk, what would stop them from riding aurochs along the edge of the Maw and striking from the rear?

  The question hung in the air. Lenar answered it.

  “No one rides along the edge of the Maw,” he said confidently. “The ground there is constantly crumbling. Over the past few years, several meters of soil have simply vanished—fallen into the abyss.”

  He didn’t raise his voice. And he didn’t add details. That was enough.

  The argument was ironclad. No one wanted to find out what lay at the bottom of the Maw—if anything lay there at all. And no one wanted to discover it firsthand.

  Rianes answered all other questions calmly, clearly, and without hesitation. No extra words. No pauses that might betray doubt. The officers received all the information they needed. And it only raised morale.

  The risky gambit was almost ready.