"The dead don't care if you cry."
That's what his mother used to say, back when they still buried corpses instead of stripping them for coin.
Now he kneeled in the mud, fingers stained red, prying a silver ring from a cold, bloated hand that hadn't stopped twitching.
The ring came off with a wet snap, like sinew tearing free from bone. Vayle wiped it on the corpse's tunic—cracked leather, black with old blood. The stink rose stronger now that the body had shifted, stomach bloated and splitting, eyes two sunken marbles sunk deep in skull-dark sockets. He kept his face still. Breathing through the mouth didn't help. The scent coated the inside of the throat, not just the nose.
He turned the ring over once in his hand. Iron, maybe. Painted gold to fool a wife or a debtor. Worth a handful of copper at best.
Above, the sky sagged low and heavy, a bruised grey sprawling toward dusk. Crows circled high, calling to one another with rough, wet cries. They were growing bold again.
He stood, sack slapping against his hip. Ash dusted his trousers, clung to the edges of his boots. From the ridge, the battle site looked like a failed burial—limbs jutting from the dirt, torn banners half-submerged in soot.
Maybe enough in his sack for half a loaf. Maybe not.
He rolled his shoulder, cracked his neck, and looked toward the far edge of the field.
One more.
The last body lay crumpled near a shattered spear. The armor was burnt, one pauldron melted into the torso. Probably high-rank. An officer. Maybe something better than scrap.
Vayle crouched low and reached for the belt–
A hand grabbed his calf.
Fingers like cold iron clamped around muscle and bone. He jerked back with a gasp, heel slipping in the ash.
The soldier's eyes were open.
Blood lined the lips. Face pale. Jaw working slowly, like it hadn't remembered how to speak in days.
"Protect… her…"
The words scraped out like splinters.
And then came the pain.
It tore through his leg in a single instant—burning, like something alive had burrowed into the meat of his calf. His mouth opened but no sound came, just a strangled breath. He dropped to one knee, fist pounding the dirt. The heat climbed, searing muscle and vein, not from the outside, but within. Like red-hot wire twisting deeper and deeper.
His hands trembled. Nails dug into the soil. He bit the inside of his cheek until it bled.
The grip loosened.
The pain didn't.
It lingered, pulsing like a second heartbeat in his leg, a rhythm of raw heat and steel-deep ache.
After what felt like a hundred breaths, it began to dull—still there, but simmering instead of roaring.
He looked down.
The soldier's arm lay limp now, the fingers curled, still half-reaching. The eyes stared blankly at the sky. Not clouded by death—just hollow.
Vayle staggered upright, wiping ash from his palms, wincing as he put weight on the leg. His breathing came in shallow gasps.
Whatever that had been—it was done.
He scanned the body. Blood-caked satchel. Medal still pinned to the scorched armor. Could've been something valuable.
He knelt. Reached for the satchel—
The crows above shrieked, louder now. Closer.
Vayle clicked his tongue and straightened, grimacing.
"Guess no bread today either."
---
The wall that marked the market's edge loomed high, built of stone and rusted iron, scorched black from old fires. A dozen people sat slumped near the gate, some with bowls, others just with hands out. He ignored them.
The guards didn't even glance at him. They'd long stopped caring about ashwalkers with sacks of dead men's things.
Inside, the market buzzed under hanging cloth canopies. The stalls were all patched wood and broken nails, meat hung with flies, cloth soaked with blood and dye.
Vayle moved fast, weaving past a seller hawking charred fruit and a tanner slapping the hide of something long-dead. He found the buyer near the end—an old man missing three fingers and half a nose.
"Steel?" the man asked.
Vayle dropped the sack. "Rings. Bits. Buttons. One dagger. Nothing fancy."
The man rifled through the contents, sniffed once, then grunted. Coins clinked.
"One silver. Fifty-six copper."
Vayle took the pouch without complaint. No point in haggling—there were others who'd bring cleaner goods.
He turned the pouch in his palm, counting by feel.
One silver.
Fifty-six copper.
Still short of what he'd hoped, but better than nothing. He could stretch it—maybe.
The coin system was simple enough:
One hundred copper made a silver.
One hundred silver made a gold.
He had no idea what gold even looked like.
He left the market behind, the scent of rotting fish and vinegar clinging to his clothes.
---
Home wasn't much. A slant-walled shack of cracked stone and scavenged wood, just two turns off the main market road. The roof dipped in the middle like it wanted to collapse but hadn't yet made the decision.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The space was tight. A single cot, a clay stove gone cold, and a battered chest with a splintered lid. He dropped the pouch onto the table and slumped into the chair beside it, exhaling like he'd been holding breath all day.
Silence.
Then the pain in his calf returned—a dull, persistent throb like coals beneath the skin.
He rolled up his trouser leg.
No bruise. No cut. Just skin. Pale. Clean.
He poured a bit of water from the cracked jug on the shelf. It tasted of iron and ash, but it was wet, and that was enough. He downed it all, then tossed the jug aside where it clattered across the dirt floor.
The silence was heavier here, even thicker than the battlefield. No cries, no wind, no stench of death. Just the quiet creak of wood as the shack settled on itself. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and let the weight of the day settle in his bones.
The pain in his leg hadn't left. It had changed—no longer the violent burn, but something deeper, stranger. Like a bruise that didn't hurt until he moved a certain way.
He rolled up his trouser leg again. Still nothing to see. No wound, no scar. But the memory of the grip, that death-pale hand and the soldier's empty eyes, wouldn't leave him.
"Protect her…"
Who?
He muttered a curse and stood, stretching out his limbs with a groan. His stomach gave a low, angry rumble.
Bread. Meat if he could find it. Something warm to shut the ache up.
He stepped out of the shack again. The sky had darkened more, with smears of violet and charcoal across the clouds. Most vendors would be closing down, but some still traded well past nightfall—desperation made people reliable that way.
The market was quieter now. Fewer hawkers. The smell lingered, though—salt, rot, spices ground too fine to be tasted.
He passed a food cart and bought a roll barely the size of his palm—stale, hard-edged, but not moldy. It cost him six copper.
Next, a sliver of dried meat from a toothless man sitting on an overturned crate. Twelve more copper gone.
He ate as he walked, chewing slowly, savoring every fiber of muscle and bread as if it were something rich and rare.
By the time he circled back to his shack, the silver coin in his pouch was lonely.
He locked the door with a heavy latch of bone and metal. Just superstition—locks kept honest men out, not the kind he feared. But it helped him sleep, some nights.
He lay on the cot. The ceiling above him was warped wood and dust-choked beams. The ache in his leg throbbed once, and then again.
He closed his eyes and tried not to remember the soldier's face.
Tried not to hear those words.