Chapter 22 - Near the endNolan felt as if time had stopped inside his body, even as his pulse hammered high in his throat. The figure in front of him looked too real to belong to the same world of misery and desolation they were drowning in. Rodrick Viulk was not just a name. He was a dark legend, a terrifying shadow that had traveled through soldiers’ stories and civilians’ whispers for decades, an icon of the Universal Government whose hardened face had been printed on propaganda posters, schoolbooks, and war chronicles. A presence that, according to rumor, could shift the course of a battle simply by stepping onto the field.
Having him only a few meters away felt like staring down a ghost pulled from the blackest myths. The air thickened, and Nolan realized he had been holding his breath without meaning to.
For minutes he watched Viulk remain seated against the wall, still and expressionless, as if that pit were no different from a quiet waiting room. The prisoners, tense and alert at first, gradually slid back into their usual state of resignation and barely audible murmurs. At death’s doorstep, even a figure like that could start to feel almost trivial. But Nolan could not look away from the man his entire generation had feared and admired since childhood, the one they spoke of as something impossible to break.
Viulk slowly lifted his gaze and, without warning, found Nolan’s eyes directly. A chill ran down Nolan’s spine. Those dark, deep eyes held something beyond threat. Looking into them felt like looking into an abyss that looked back.
With deliberate slowness, Viulk stood, ignoring the furtive, frightened glances of the other prisoners, and began walking toward Nolan. His steps were steady even down there, even surrounded by broken bodies and ruined souls. Nolan felt adrenaline tighten every muscle, as if he were about to face an enemy or be judged by a terrifying idol.
Rodrick Viulk stopped inches away and studied him in silence for what felt like an eternity. When he spoke, his voice was strangely calm in the middle of that inferno.
“Do you know who I am, Nolan Ryen?”
Hearing his own name in Viulk’s mouth hit Nolan like an electric shock. It took him a second to answer, tasting the mix of fear and reverence that kept him from holding eye contact for too long.
“Of course I know who you are,” he said at last, forcing his voice to stay steady. “Everyone down here knows. You’re Rodrick Viulk. The Black Spider.”
Viulk nodded slowly, his eyes not softening in the slightest. If anything, they seemed to measure Nolan with clinical precision, like a commander inspecting troops before combat.
“And what exactly do you know about me?”
The question caught him off guard. Nolan took a deep breath, trying to organize his thoughts. What did he really know? Government propaganda painted Viulk as an unstoppable hero, but in the ranks, among wounded, exhausted soldiers who came back changed, Viulk was something else. More feared than admired. More shadow than light.
“You’re… you were the most feared and most respected general the Universal Government has,” Nolan said. “You led more campaigns than any other officer still alive. You’re a legend…”
“The feats you’re talking about were massacres,” Rodrick cut in, sharp. “And calling me a legend is just a cheap polish. Be honest. I didn’t come here so you could protect my morale or my pride.”
Nolan swallowed, uneasy. He had never imagined facing Viulk, much less having a real conversation with him. He felt as if one wrong word could drop him deeper into that hole.
Rodrick seemed to catch that fear and did nothing to soothe it. Instead, he lowered his voice, forcing Nolan to lean closer to hear him.
“But you’re right about one thing, Ryen. I do have that capacity for destruction. If I’m talking to you now, it’s not coincidence and it’s not courtesy. Things are going to happen. Very soon. I’m ready, and it matters that you’re ready too.”
Nolan felt his shoulders tighten.
“What’s going to happen?”
Rodrick glanced around, making sure none of the nearby prisoners were listening too closely. Then he locked eyes with Nolan again. His gaze was oddly distant, unfocused, far from the fire Nolan had always imagined living in him.
“Save your strength. Tomorrow at dawn, there will be an armed attack on this camp. It’ll be fast and ruthless. Chaos. And in that chaos, we’ll have one real chance to get out of here.”
The words hit Nolan with a dizzying mix of hope and panic. His legs trembled slightly. His heart slammed hard against his ribs. Hope. Harlan would get out. His friends would get out. There was a chance.
“An armed attack?” Nolan repeated. “How? Who’s doing it? Why? I don’t understand…”
Rodrick tilted his head slightly, patient and grave.
“Right now that doesn’t matter, Nolan. What matters is that it will happen. And if we’re smart, if we stay calm and move fast, we can use it to escape.”
Nolan felt emotion rising in his throat and forced it back down. He looked around instinctively, searching for Harlan and the others. Then he looked at Viulk again, still uncertain.
“Are you sure it’ll work?”
Viulk studied him for a moment in silence. His stare was serious, unforgiving.
“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be telling you anything.”
The conviction in his voice cracked what was left of Nolan’s doubt. A fire lit in Nolan’s chest.
“I have to tell them,” Nolan said, taking a step back. “All of them.”
Rodrick reached out and grabbed him, firm.
“No.”
The word was dry. Final.
Nolan turned to him, confused.
“What?”
“Don’t call them,” Rodrick repeated. “Not yet.”
“Why?” Nolan’s voice tightened. “If there’s a chance, everyone needs to know.”
Rodrick held Nolan’s gaze for a long moment.
“Because not everyone is going to survive.”
Nolan felt his stomach drop.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that besides you and me,” Rodrick continued, “only one more person down here will still be alive when the fighting ends.”
The world narrowed.
“Who?” Nolan asked, barely able to speak.
Rodrick didn’t hesitate.
“It won’t be Harlan.”
The answer landed like a blunt удар.
“No.” Nolan shook his head. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can.”
“How?” Nolan demanded.
Rodrick lowered his eyes for an instant. When he spoke again, his voice was just as steady. Not a trace of doubt.
“Because I’m a collaborator of the Orphean Order.”
Nolan stared at him, not understanding.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you remember Thelenopios?” Rodrick asked.
The name stirred something raw. A badly sealed memory. The one that had opened the crack between Nolan and Harlan. The one who had walked into death. The one who had predicted he would be attacked.
“That whole thing about seeing time? That’s not real,” Nolan said. “It’s stories. He was insane.”
Rodrick shook his head slowly.
“You’re going to have to believe me when I tell you I’m more skeptical than you are. But the Order is real. It always was. And the future…” He paused, almost imperceptibly. “The future is already written. And you’re important. Very important. We have to get you out of here alive.”
Nolan stepped back.
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe you. You’re insane.”
Rodrick nodded, as if he’d expected that response.
“I understand.”
“Then leave me alone,” Nolan snapped. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” Rodrick replied. “What’s going to happen will happen anyway. But I respect your wish.”
Nolan clenched his teeth. He looked at Harlan, rocking gently, unaware of everything.
“You’re insane,” Nolan said. “A broken general who thinks he’s a prophet.”
Rodrick watched him with a calm that was almost sad.
“Maybe.”
He turned and walked back into the shadows of the pit.
Nolan stood frozen. His father’s voice echoed in his mind like an old accusation:
Traitor. Again you’re going to let others die for you.
He couldn’t stand it.
He caught up to Rodrick in two strides.
“How can you be so sure?” he exploded. “How do you know all this? How do you do it?”
Rodrick turned slowly.
“That’s irrelevant right now, Nolan. Save your energy.”
“It’s not irrelevant to me!”
For the first time, Rodrick showed irritation.
“Don’t pester me with useless questions,” he whispered. “Preparing is the only thing that matters.”
“You’re wrong!” Nolan shouted. “You don’t know anything!”
Rodrick let out a short, bitter laugh.
“You’re right about almost everything,” he said. “Except one thing.”
He leaned in slightly.
“I know exactly how this ends.”
Then he walked away for good, swallowed by the dark.
Nolan turned toward Harlan. Harlan was looking at him, confused and afraid. He hadn’t heard a word, but he knew something had cracked.
Nolan hesitated.
He lifted his thumb in a faint, clumsy gesture.
Harlan looked away without reacting.
And Nolan went back to the others.
Night fell slowly over the pit, as if darkness had patience. It didn’t hit like a blow. It came like a tide: first it erased the details, then the distances, and in the end it took the faces, leaving only shadows and eyes.
For the first time in many days, the air between the prisoners felt different. Not because it was any less rotten or damp, but because something had shifted in the way they breathed. A new murmur lived there now, a contained buzzing that slid from corner to corner, as if hope, too, knew how to speak softly so it wouldn’t be heard.
Their attention was fixed on the newcomers, especially Rodrick Viulk, who sat alone with his head tipped back against the rock, eyes closed. An old statue. Untouched. He didn’t even seem to breathe like the others. It was as if the pit wouldn’t take him.
Karr, Mikael, Vela, and Harlan spoke quietly together while Nolan kept himself apart.
“What’s wrong with you, Nolan?” Mikael asked, raising his voice slightly with a hint of friendly worry. “Is he getting to you?”
Nolan glanced up and forced a smile that didn’t quite land.
“Yeah. I guess. Just anxious. That’s all.”
He looked again toward the far end of the pit, toward Rodrick Viulk’s distant shape. It couldn’t be true. It didn’t make sense… but what if it was?
Harlan stared at him, trying to steal the truth with his eyes. Nolan looked back at him with something like pity. All he had ever wanted was to save him, and now that might already be impossible.
Vela moved in fast, leaning toward Nolan with rising urgency.
“What did Viulk tell you?” she asked quickly. “Tell me what he said.”
“I’m sorry, Vela,” Nolan replied. “I’m not going to repeat it.”
“Why?” Vela’s voice climbed. “Why not?”
Karr lifted a hand, trying to lower the tension.
“Vela. Calm down.”
She ignored him.
“Nolan,” she said, and now her voice sounded scraped raw, “I’m not going to live through another night not knowing. Don’t ask that of me. I can’t…”
She stopped and swallowed. Her eyes were wet, not with tears, but with contained fever.
Mikael stepped closer.
“We’re all holding onto the same thing,” he said. “If you know something, say it.”
Nolan looked at each of them. He saw something worse than fear in their faces. Hungry expectation. A need for an anchor.
And then he really saw Vela.
Her stare was sharp, but cracked. Her breathing was short. She’d been a prisoner too long. The pit was eating her too.
Nolan exhaled.
“Tomorrow at dawn,” he said at last, “there’s going to be an armed attack on the camp.”
Silence fell instantly, as if the pit had snuffed the torches for a heartbeat.
Karr blinked.
“An attack? By who?”
“I don’t know,” Nolan said quickly. “That’s all I have.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Vela shot up. “Who said it? How does he know? What do we do?”
Nolan shook his head.
“I don’t have more.”
“No.” Vela stepped toward him, desperate. “You can’t tell me ‘I don’t have more’ and expect me to…”
“Vela,” Mikael cut in, firm. “Lower your voice.”
“No!” Vela’s voice broke. “Don’t shut me up! How many more nights are we going to survive without knowing anything? How many?”
Karr half rose, as if trying to cover her with his body, not against blows, but against herself.
“Vela, please.”
She grabbed her head with both hands, and for a second Nolan thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t. What came out was something else. Hysteria. The product of no sleep, hunger, and sustained humiliation.
“Tell me something, Nolan!” she screamed. “Give me at least a direction. A name. A damn clue!”
Nolan clenched his jaw.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I don’t have one.”
Vela looked at him as if that were betrayal.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re lying!” she screamed, and the sound bounced off the wet walls. “You always keep something back. You always decide alone!”
“It’s not that,” Nolan said, hardening his voice. “It’s all I know.”
The others murmured, asking her to calm down, asking him to calm down. But the damage was already done. The pit had heard.
In the corners, other prisoners began lifting their heads. A murmur spread fast, like fire on damp paper: attack, tomorrow, escape.
Then the voice rang out.
“Tribute to Bagdur!”
The High Priest’s voice, cold and absolute, filled every corner of the underground prison. His tall, gaunt figure stood against the torchlight like a nightmare’s shadow, followed by two Balmorean guards who climbed down slowly over the rocks, moving toward the group.
The air in the pit seemed to harden. Prisoners raised their heads, eyes wide with renewed terror. Breathing quickened into panic. Some whimpered. Others pressed back against the walls, begging uselessly not to be seen.
Desperation went straight through Nolan. He tried to speak, to do something, but the words stuck in his throat, useless and hollow in front of something inescapable. Was this Harlan’s moment? Damn it. Damn it. What was he going to do?
The High Priest’s steps drew closer. The guards shoved prisoners aside as tension climbed by the second.
At last the High Priest lifted a pale, bony hand and pointed straight at them. His eyes gleamed, cold and calculating.
“Her.”
Everyone froze.
The priest’s finger pointed clearly at Vela.
Vela’s eyes widened. She stumbled back on instinct, but the guards were faster. They seized her by the arms and dragged her toward the center of the pit.
“No!” Vela screamed, her voice breaking as she looked at her friends. “Please. Help me!”
Her voice turned into a raw, tearing plea.
“Harlan! Karr! Mikael! Please, don’t let them take me! Don’t let them kill me!”
Harlan didn’t react. He stayed still, blank, distant. Mikael lunged forward on instinct, but Karr stopped him, jaw clenched with helplessness. They couldn’t do anything. They knew it too well.
“Please, no!” Vela screamed, thrashing uselessly against the guards’ brutal hands. “I know things! I have information! I know something important!”
The High Priest raised an eyebrow and paused, watching her with cruel interest.
“What information could a miserable prisoner like you possibly have?”
Vela looked at Nolan and Harlan, eyes blown wide with absolute panic. She was beyond control.
“There’s going to be an armed attack tomorrow!” she shrieked, pointing at Nolan. “He knows. We all know. Please don’t kill me, I can tell you more!”
Silence slammed down.
Nolan felt the world collapse. He felt every gaze swing toward him, toward Harlan, toward Viulk. But the High Priest only smiled, satisfied in a way that was almost pleased, showing no alarm at all.
“Interesting,” he murmured, moving closer to Vela. “You’ll have time to tell me every detail during the rite. I’ll enjoy hearing everything you know.”
Vela let out a broken scream as the guards dragged her out of the pit, her voice fading into the dark above. Her sobbing echoed for seconds more before disappearing.
A terrible, accusing silence settled over the pit.
Nolan was stunned. He sank against the wall, the weight of guilt too heavy to hold. But something drew his attention, something even worse than what he’d just watched.
Harlan remained still. Apathetic. Almost indifferent.
Then it happened fast, impossibly fast for a body that battered. Like something inside him yanked him upright. Nolan felt pressure slam into his legs and he stumbled, swallowing grit. And Harlan started hitting him.
It wasn’t clumsy. It was a release. Dry, desperate punches, as if each one could erase a truth.
“I knew it!” Harlan screamed, his voice not entirely his. “I knew it!”
Nolan tried to shield himself.
“Harlan, stop!”
“The voices told me!” Harlan spat. “I could always see it! Always!”
A fist split Nolan’s lip.
“You’re insane!”
“No!” Harlan grabbed him by the collar and shook him. “New prisoners come in. New prisoners. They give you information. What kind of prisoner does that happen to? What kind, huh?”
Nolan stared at him, blood on his mouth, unable to tell whether Harlan was inventing it or twisting something real into madness.
“Vela screamed at you!” Harlan raved, gone. “She screamed and now they took her to kill her. Because you talked to him. Because you brought this. You’re an infiltrator. You killed her. And now you’re going to kill me too!”
“I’m nothing!” Nolan yelled. “I’m not an infiltrator. You don’t know what you’re saying!”
Harlan raised his fist again, but Karr and Mikael shoved themselves between them.
Karr grabbed Harlan from behind, locking his arms as best he could.
“Harlan, enough!”
Mikael dropped beside Nolan, pushing him back.
“Nolan, move. Move!”
Harlan thrashed, shaking all over. His eyes were wild. Not rage. Persecution. Like the entire pit was conspiring against him and Nolan was the face of it.
“I saw it!” he kept repeating. “I always saw it! I… I…”
Karr tightened his grip.
“Harlan, look at me. Look at me.”
Harlan didn’t.
Mikael looked at Nolan urgently, not harsh, just practical, trying to stop something worse.
“Leave him,” he said. “Leave him now. Go.”
Nolan stayed still for a second. His breathing was broken. His mouth tasted like iron.
He looked at Harlan.
And something became clear in the worst possible way. It wasn’t only that Harlan was broken. It was that now he wouldn’t let himself be saved. He would fight any hand that tried to pull him out of his own head, because in his mind that hand was the enemy.
Nolan stood slowly, careful not to move too fast. He touched his lip and looked at the blood on his fingers as if it belonged to someone else.
He backed away from the group.
Not because he wanted to.
Because they were pushing him out of the last thing still holding him up.
And night pressed down again.
They had walked all day.
The tunnel, narrow and winding, became their entire world. No natural light, no surface sounds, only the dull echo of footsteps and the constant rasp of breathing trapped behind filters. The air smelled of rusted metal and wet stone, and every so often an electrical click from recalibrating visors broke the monotony.
Fatigue clung like a second skin. Some walked with their boots untied. Others, like Bren, barely looked ahead anymore, just placed one foot after the other as if that alone was enough to stay alive. Reis had been chewing something dry for hours just to fool his stomach. Alis took off her gloves for a moment to rub her reddened palms. Jevin had a small cut on his knee he couldn’t be bothered to treat. No one spoke. No one complained. But they all reeked of sweat, dust, and silence.
Miren, rifle resting on his shoulder, kept his eyes on the prisoner. Akhven walked hunched, as if he carried the weight of every stare. His feet were caked with grime, his ankles swollen. No one spoke to him, but no one stopped watching him either.
When the march finally halted, it felt like the world took its first breath in hours.
Exhausted, Akhven pointed with a trembling finger at a rough section of rock. Dossian examined it, knocked twice, and found the hollow behind the crack. An old hatch, half hidden, edges rusted. Forced open years ago, maybe decades, like a forgotten maintenance access.
“We’re close,” Akhven said in a hoarse voice. “About three kilometers. Straight ahead, no branches. After that, broken rock. Exit to open sky.”
The idea of sky sounded like a vague rumor, barely understandable.
The tunnel opened into a gentle slope between cracked stone plates. The air was different. Still damp, but no longer sealed in. There was something else too. A trace of old smoke, trampled vegetation, extinguished fire. Outside.
Dossian crouched, extended his arm, and released the eye-drone. It floated out like a silent metallic insect. The group waited low while the feed came in on the tactical panel.
Bren dropped against a rock. Jevin checked his ammo like he didn’t want to look at the screens. Alis rubbed a hand over her face, dark circles deep under her eyes. Even the smallest movements were expensive now.
“Five camps,” Dossian said at last, voice low but clear. “Poorly distributed perimeter. But active. Guards spread out. Weapons visible. They’re confident.”
“And the core?” Reis asked.
Dossian expanded the thermal image. Orange silhouettes clustered like points on a breathing map.
“More than five thousand people. Confirmed. And that’s only the main base.”
A heavy silence fell. No one moved. Not even Akhven.
Five thousand.
Not a rebel cell. Not a hideout. A full infrastructure.
Dossian keyed the comms. Interference. Clicks. Dead air for seconds. Then a voice, finally.
“Received. Coordinates being validated. Manticore Team: hold position. Mirror to 7.4-9D. Begin defense of the indicated point. Centralized strike scheduled for the first hours of the solar cycle. Do not commit resources. Repeat: you secure the objective. We take the rest.”
The signal cut out with a dull snap.
Dossian lowered the radio and turned to the group. His face showed no emotion, but his eyes carried the weight of what he’d just heard.
“We stay where we’re told. Set the perimeter. Thermal camouflage. Basic traps. Double guard shifts.”
“What’s at the point we’re guarding?” Bren asked, wiping dried mud from the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” Dossian admitted. “But if they order us to defend it while they hit everything else… then it’s worth more than any of us.”
No one answered. The land outside the tunnel looked asleep, but it breathed in uneven intervals. In the distance, they could see scattered fires, the hum of portable generators, even a couple of laughs. The Balmoreans had no idea how close they were.
Dossian checked visors, assigned shifts, distributed rations. No one protested. There was something in the air, maybe dust and ash and nerves mixed together, that made everything feel sharper, more real.
Silently, one by one, they settled into the cracks. They built what cover they could: loose rock, camouflage netting, thermal blankets. Miren tuned passive sensors. Jevin planted three pressure mines. Bren retied his laces and spat into the dirt. Alis sat with her back straight, as if her spine was the only thing left that refused to bend.
Reis still wouldn’t look directly at Akhven. He’d been like that all day. Dossian knew why, of course.
Akhven was chained to a rock without violence. Just precaution.
“You alright, soldier?” Dossian asked.
Reis pressed his lips together and nodded. That was enough.
And when everything was set, Dossian remained standing, staring toward the night horizon. The enemy camp lights flickered in the distance like sinister fireflies.
War would begin in a few hours.
But for them, war had already started.
Night at the separatist camp was quieter than usual. Not because the war had eased, but because in that sector of the front everything felt suspended, as if the conflict were taking a breath before clenching its teeth again.
Kael Durnan had stepped away from the main pavilions. He sat on an empty supply crate, jacket unzipped and boots untied, something he rarely allowed himself. From there he could see the whole camp: tents lined up with a discipline no one bothered to inspect anymore, soldiers walking without urgency, hanging floodlights casting long, warped shadows over churned earth.
He watched it all as if it no longer belonged to him.
For years, that landscape had been his home. The constant noise. The smell of fuel, hot metal, old sweat. Shouted orders. Maps spread across makeshift tables. Exhausted bodies sleeping wherever they could. That had been his world, his language, his place.
Now, for the first time, he wondered if he would miss it.
The thought made him uncomfortable. Not because of nostalgia, but because of what it implied. If he didn’t miss the battlefield, what did that say about him? Had he been living a borrowed life all that time? Or worse, had he made the conflict his only purpose because he’d never allowed himself to look for another?
He leaned back and the crate creaked under his weight.
Resigning had been easy on paper. A request. A signature. An awkward silence. What came after was the hard part. Because without rank, without structure, without the constant roar of war, one bare question remained:
Who was Kael Durnan if he wasn’t a soldier?
Maybe he wasn’t losing the purpose of his life, he thought. Maybe he was finally on the way to having one of his own. And that possibility, instead of calming him, scared him more than any enemy offensive.
Beside him, Jackie smoked in silence, leaning against another crate. The cigarette’s glow rose and fell like a чужой pulse, steady and indifferent.
Jackie had spent the whole day acting as if the brothers hadn’t argued twenty four hours earlier. It was the same when he asked, casual as if nothing had ever happened:
“Do you remember when I was a soldier?” Jackie said suddenly, breaking the silence with a tired, half mocking tone. “What a soldier they lost, huh.”
Kael took his time answering. He kept looking at the camp, as if the question wasn’t meant for him but for the past.
“Barely,” he said at last, a faint smile. “You do, though. Don’t you?”
Jackie shrugged.
“Sometimes I like lying to myself,” he said. “Thinking that when I started I had some noble cause in my head. Something big. Something worth telling.”
He flicked ash away carelessly.
“But the truth is… I just wanted to hit someone without getting arrested for it.”
Kael let out an exhale that sounded closer to a laugh than anything else.
“And look where you ended up,” Kael said. “Now you’re the one with prisoners.”
“Yeah,” Jackie nodded. “And they pay me less than when I used to do it for free.”
The low fire of their improvised brazier fluttered across their faces. For a moment, the world seemed calm. Far away. Like the war was happening on another planet.
“Either way,” Jackie added, with a seriousness he didn’t often wear, “I don’t regret it. Those Balmoreans had to pay.”
Kael smiled without warmth.
He missed these moments. Being able to talk to his brother without ranks between them, without other eyes weighing every word. Being able to tell him he was wrong, or to hug him, or simply to listen without military formality standing in the way.
Different times, he thought. Or maybe the same times, and he was the one changing.
Kael inhaled slowly.
“Jackie,” he said, turning his head slightly, “come closer for a second.”
Jackie looked at him, surprised by the tone, and leaned in.
“What is it?”
Kael hesitated. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because saying it would make it real.
“I resigned.”
Jackie blinked.
“What do you mean…?”
“I quit,” Kael repeated. “A few nights ago. When Roq gets back, I stop being a soldier. For good.”
A second of silence. Kael expected a different reaction. A joke. Doubt. Reproach.
But Jackie smiled. Wide, genuine, almost childlike.
“Seriously?” he said. “Finally.”
He laughed, and the laugh sounded clean.
“I knew it would hit you,” Jackie continued. “All of this…” He made a vague gesture with his hand. “It wasn’t for you. It was eating you alive.”
He looked at Kael with shameless pride.
“And let’s be honest. If it weren’t for me pushing you, you wouldn’t have gotten here.”
Kael shook his head slowly, not arguing.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “At least partly.”
Jackie opened his mouth to say more, but stopped when he saw someone cross the lit stretch of camp.
“Tessio!” Jackie called, lifting the cigarette. “Come here a second. We need a toast.”
Tessio paused, looking at them from a distance. His eyes moved from Jackie to Kael, quick, calculating something neither of them could read.
“Not now, Jackie,” he said, flat.
And he kept walking, disappearing between the shadows of the tents.
Jackie stared after him a beat too long, then shrugged.
“Always so cheerful.”
Kael didn’t answer. He kept watching the camp.
But now he wasn’t seeing it the way he used to.
Now he was seeing something he was about to leave behind.
Then, without warning, Nuka’s unpleasant face appeared in the dim night light.
He didn’t hurry, but his presence alone warped the air. He stopped by the fire without greeting, watching the flames as if deciding whether they were worth crushing under his boot. His skin was smeared with dried blood that never seemed fully old. Kael noticed there was no trace of Nuka’s usual smile. His face looked serious. Almost tired.
“Look at that,” Jackie said without lifting his gaze. “The nightmare of ugly people, the terror of psychopaths, the phobia of dwarves.”
Nuka didn’t react. He turned his head slightly toward Kael.
“One of Bagdur’s prisoners,” he said without preamble. “Says there’ll be an attack tomorrow. At dawn.”
Jackie looked at him like he’d just announced the sky was going to split in half.
Kael frowned.
“Which one?”
“The smaller one. Short hair…” Nuka made an imprecise gesture with his hand. “Doesn’t matter. Not like you’d know them, Durnan. She says she heard detained officers talking among themselves.”
Kael sat up slowly.
“You believe a slave?” he asked. “Who could she have talked to to know something like that?”
“I don’t care if it’s true,” Nuka said. “I’m informing you officially so you’re prepared. I’m not sacrificing Balmoreans because your soldiers are lazy.”
With that he turned to leave, as if he’d done his part, then stepped back as if he remembered something.
“By the way. Get lost, Durnan Junior. I need to talk to Kael.”
Jackie raised his eyebrows, but at Kael’s small nod he moved a few meters away.
Nuka looked Kael straight on.
For a few seconds neither spoke. The camp kept breathing behind them.
“I heard a rumor,” Nuka said at last. “That you’re going to resign.”
Kael wasn’t surprised. In a place like that, rumors traveled faster than bullets.
“Yeah,” he said. “When Roq gets back, I’m done.”
Nuka watched him in silence. No mockery. No anger.
“Shame,” he said finally. “I won’t have anyone left to chase.”
Kael lifted an eyebrow.
“I never understood that,” he admitted. “Why you got so obsessed with me.”
Nuka tilted his head, as if weighing the best way to explain it.
“If I knew, Durnan, I’d tell you,” he said.
Then he extended his hand.
“Good luck, Durnan.”
Kael hesitated only a second before taking it. Nuka’s hand was firm, rough. There was no ceremony, no hidden challenge. Just a brief, direct contact.
As he did, Kael thought, without knowing why, that maybe there was still a crack there. A small one. Something through which even the Balmoreans could become something else. It felt utopian, almost stupid, but maybe there was a chance.
Nuka let go first. Gave one last nod and walked away without looking back, disappearing between the tents.
Jackie returned almost immediately.
“That guy,” Jackie said, shaking his head, “makes me want to sleep with my eyes open. And I already sleep like trash.”
Kael crossed his arms. The fire cast shadows that didn’t fully match their movements.
“It’s not impossible they attack,” Kael said. “But I’m not moving off a rumor alone.”
“We don’t have to move,” Jackie replied, standing up. “But I can talk to Tessio. He’s got that crate of explosive grenades he swears he’s saving for a ‘real emergency.’”
Kael watched him for a second, weighing it.
“And if nothing happens?”
“Then Tessio hates me for two days and gets over it,” Jackie said. “But if something does… we’ll have something besides rocks to throw. And it’s more fun.”
Kael nodded slowly.
“Bring them. Keep them ready. But don’t tell anyone else. I don’t want to plant unnecessary chaos.”
“Done.”
Jackie flicked his cigarette into the fire. The glow died in a heartbeat.
“And if tomorrow nothing happens, I’m buying you a drink. A good one. The kind Tessio hides in his pack, not that ration garbage.”
Kael didn’t answer. He sat back down as if nothing had happened.
But he wasn’t watching the fire anymore.
He was looking east.
“When does all of this end, Jackie?” he asked quietly.
He thought of home. Of his children. Of his wife. Of entire days where calm had been the only possible state.
Jackie glanced at him.
“The day you hand in the badge, little brother.”
And for the first time, Kael didn’t know whether that answer relieved him… or terrified him.
