They did not speak his name again.
Once Blackstone vanished behind a bend and the trees took the last angle of it, the group became what it had been all along.
A road that moved.
Wheels, feet, breath, and the small decisions that kept it from breaking.
Eryk kept his eyes forward.
The pack sat wrong on his shoulders. Not too heavy in the simple way stone was heavy. Heavy the way obligation was heavy. It pulled at strap and skin and made each step a bargain between pain and pace.
His ankle throbbed under the cord and splinter brace. The wrap held, but it held like a fist. Each footfall sent heat up the bone and back down into a wider ache that did not leave.
The woman who had offered him the second option walked ahead.
Not at the point. Off to the side where she could see both carts and treeline. She did not look back. She had already decided what happened to men who did not keep up.
Near the rear wheel of the first cart, the guard with the work scarred hands drifted like a shadow that belonged to the road.
A few steps left. A few back. A pause to listen. Eyes on the mud where prints held their shape.
Then forward again.
He did not give speeches. He made the line stay alive.
The carts creaked behind them. Cloth still wrapped the rims, not for silence now, but to keep mud from building and throwing the wheels crooked. The road was damp from old rain, and the damp turned small mistakes into falls.
A boy walked beside the second cart with one hand on the axle housing, feeling for heat. He had a pale streak in his hair where it should not have been, like something had drained color out of him and left it there.
When he noticed Eryk looking, he lifted his chin.
"Don't stare," he said, not unkind. "Makes you easy to count."
Eryk looked away.
The boy snorted once, like that was the closest thing to a laugh he allowed himself on a march.
They climbed.
The quarry road rose in patient curves built for stone and bodies that could be replaced. Eryk's breath came harder with each incline. His stomach was an empty knot. The bread from yesterday was long gone, and the warmth it had pretended to give had never reached him.
They passed a burned cottage set back from the road, roof collapsed and black timbers sticking up like ribs. Someone had tried to drag the door away, leaving a gouge in the mud and a trail of splinters that ended in nothing.
No one slowed to look.
The woman in front only shifted the line wider, keeping space between bodies, as if fire could jump from memory to cloth.
Eryk caught the smallest change in her shoulders as they passed. A tightness that came and went. Not grief. Not sympathy. Something older and more practical, like a man checking weather.
Then it was gone.
Farther on, the smell of charcoal hung in the trees. Mounds of earth, half fallen in, marked old pits where men had cooked wood into fuel. Someone had worked here once, steady and patient.
Then the work had moved on.
Or been driven off.
His mouth was dry enough that swallowing scraped.
Water would fix it.
He did not ask.
They reached a narrow cut where rock pressed close on one side and the land fell away on the other. A low wall marked the edge, uneven and missing stones. The drop beyond it was dark with wet leaves and trunks. The kind of slope that swallowed sound.
The rear guard lifted two fingers.
The line tightened without anyone speaking.
Eryk widened his stance. The pack shifted and tugged at his shoulder. His ankle complained sharp and hot. He kept his face blank and stepped where the ground looked most honest.
A cart wheel slipped on slick rock.
The driver swore under his breath.
The rear guard caught the hub and stopped the roll from becoming a slide. Precise. No glance at the driver. No thanks from the driver. The correction was what mattered.
When the road widened again, the woman spoke.
"We stop when I stop," she said. "You drink when you can, not when you want."
A rule set down like a stone. Not cruel. Not kind. Just there.
They reached a shallow stream not long after. Clear water ran over stone. The sound of it made Eryk's mouth hurt.
The rear guard went down first, scanning banks and treeline, then he drank.
The woman filled a small skin from her belt.
Then the rest.
No rush.
Eryk waited, watching the shape of the group more than the water. The way they knelt spaced. The way hands stayed near knives without being obvious. The way heads turned in small arcs, not darting.
His throat burned.
He stepped down toward the stream a little too soon.
The rear guard's voice caught him, quiet and sharp.
"Hold."
Eryk froze with one foot in wet mud, shame rising in his chest like heat.
The guard did not look at him. He did not need to. He lifted his chin toward the far bank.
A twig lay broken there, fresh enough that pale wood showed. Nothing else moved. It could have been nothing.
Or it could have been a man's careless foot.
The woman knelt, scooped water, drank, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes went once to the twig, then to the trees beyond it.
She spoke without turning.
"Now," she said.
Eryk went down and drank until his stomach cramped. The water was cold enough to shock his teeth. He did not care. He drank until the thirst stopped screaming.
When he stood, his ankle wobbled.
The woman watched him with a measuring look.
"You wrapped it," she said.
"Yes."
"That won't hold," she replied, and her tone held no satisfaction in being right.
The rear guard stepped close and held out a strip of cloth cleaner than anything in Blackstone.
"Rope burns," he said. "And ankles."
Eryk took it with both hands and wrapped it over the brace. Tight enough. Flat enough. Quiet. He tucked the loose end so it would not flick against the pack strap.
The guard nodded once and moved off.
The boy with the pale streak sat on a stone after drinking, rubbing his shin like it had been hit.
He glanced at Eryk's hands.
"You tie like you mean it," he said.
Eryk did not answer.
"I'm Fenn," the boy added, like the name cost him less than silence. "Don't spend it wrong."
Then he stood and went back to the cart, hand on the axle again, feeling heat that did not exist yet.
They moved.
As they pulled away from the stream, the woman fell back until she was level with Eryk for a few dozen steps. Her pace stayed even. Her breath did not show strain. Her eyes stayed on the road.
"Keep that wrap dry," she said. "If it loosens, fix it before I see it loosen."
"Yes," Eryk said.
She studied him with the edge of her gaze.
"You want names," she said.
Eryk did not answer fast enough.
She did not wait for him.
"You will get them when you stop treating them like rope," she said. "Rope is for pulling. People aren't."
Then she moved ahead again as if she had not said anything at all.
The forest thickened. Dampness sat close to the skin. Sounds carried oddly under the leaves. A bird burst from a branch overhead and Eryk flinched.
No one else did.
Fear, shaped into habit.
Late afternoon opened into a clearing marked by old stumps and smoke stained stones.
The camp was not perfect.
It was lived in.
Two small fires banked low. Canvas stretched between trees. Packs hung from poles to keep them off wet ground. A ditch half dug and half filled with leaves, done and redone because the road never waited. A few faces looked up as the carts rolled in, then went back to work.
A man stepped out from behind a pile of cut wood.
Older than the guard and the woman, hair grey at the temples, face weathered into calm. A short sword at his side, grip worn smooth by use rather than pride.
He looked at the carts first. Then the woman.
"You're late," he said.
"We had a yard to walk out of," she replied.
His eyes flicked to Eryk for a heartbeat, then away again like a man refusing to invest too early.
"Anything follow," he asked.
"Nothing that wanted to be seen," she said.
The man grunted.
He tapped a crate with his knuckles.
"What did we lose."
"Two wheels bruised," the driver said. "No breaks. One crate shifted. Nothing spilled."
"Unload," the older man said.
Men moved in murmurs and quick curses. Someone laughed once when a crate nearly tipped, then caught it and called the carrier a name that made two others grin.
Noise that belonged to living.
Eryk stood with the pack still on his shoulders, unsure whether to move or wait. In Blackstone, moving wrong got you hit. Here, moving wrong could get you cut loose.
The woman looked at him.
"By the second cart," she said.
Eryk lowered the weight without letting it thump.
The older man finally looked at him properly. His gaze went to the brace.
"That fresh," he asked.
Eryk nodded.
"Can you walk," the man asked.
"Yes."
"That is not an answer," the man replied, calm. "Can you walk hungry. Can you walk tired. Can you walk when someone is trying to stick you."
Eryk felt his throat tighten.
"I can walk," he said.
The man's mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
"Name."
"Eryk."
"Where from."
"Blackstone."
The older man's eyes narrowed.
"That was a hole," he said. "Where before."
Eryk chose the smallest truth.
"A village," he said. "South."
The older man held the answer a moment, then let it go.
He turned to the woman.
"You pick him up."
"He was standing," she said. "He did not beg. He did not run. He watched."
"Good habits," the older man said. Then to Eryk, "You eat. Then we decide what you are good for."
He walked away like that was the end of it.
The woman tapped Eryk's elbow.
"Come."
She led him to the nearest fire pit.
A man crouched there stirring a pot that smelled like salt and fat and something real. A scar ran down one side of his face and pulled the corner of his mouth upward, giving him a look of permanent amusement.
"New weight," he said.
"Temporary," the woman replied.
The scarred man snorted.
"Everything's temporary."
He poured stew into a bowl and held it out.
"Careful," he said. "It bites."
Eryk took it with both hands. The heat burned. He ate too fast at first, then forced himself to slow.
The stew was thick. Grain and onions and bitter greens that tasted chosen, not scraped. A few pieces of meat made his body flinch with shock.
Around him, voices moved.
A woman argued with a man over a whetstone, half angry, half laughing. Someone told a story about a town that paid in salt and tried to cheat by weighing it wet. A thin boy cleaned mud from a wheel while an older man warned him he would lose fingers if he kept placing his hand where the spokes could take them.
The scarred man watched Eryk eat, then leaned in slightly.
"I'm Harl," he said. "If you call me cook, I'll pretend I didn't hear it."
Eryk nodded once.
Harl's scarred mouth pulled up.
"You'll be a miserable bastard in no time."
The older man returned while Eryk was still eating and squatted near the fire. He was close enough now that Eryk could see old scars on his knuckles, pale lines where skin had split and healed.
"You heard the word contract," he said.
Eryk swallowed.
"Yes."
"You know what it means."
"Work for coin."
"That is the clean version," the older man said. "The real version is we do what we said we would do. If we break it, we pay. Coin or blood."
Harl made a sound, offended.
"Let the boy breathe," he said.
The older man's eyes did not soften.
"He breathes when I say," he replied.
Harl rolled his eyes, then leaned toward Eryk.
"Don't mind Brann," he said, low. "He thinks kindness spoils like milk."
So the older man had a name.
Brann.
Eryk kept his face still and stored it.
Across the camp someone called, "Captain."
The woman did not look up.
"What."
"Ditch is half full again."
The woman's jaw tightened, and for a moment the calm slipped enough to show tiredness under it.
"Then dig it again," she replied.
As she turned away, she rubbed her thumb once against a dark stain on her sleeve. Dried mud, maybe. Maybe something else. She did it as if she could erase the day by erasing the mark.
Brann pointed at Eryk's ankle.
"You break down, you say it early," he said. "Not when you drop. We can work around early. We don't carry dead weight unless we owe it."
"What do you owe," Eryk asked before he could stop himself.
Brann looked at him for a long moment.
"Nothing," he said. "That means any help you get is chosen. Do not confuse chosen with gentle."
He stood.
"After you eat, you work," he said. "You do what you are told. You keep your hands busy and your mouth shut. Tools are kept. Tools are repaired. Tools are not left in the mud."
He walked away.
A small laugh came from a stump nearby.
A girl sat there with a bow across her knees, string off, fingers working wax into it. She was not smiling, but her eyes had softened for a moment at something Harl had said.
When she saw Eryk looking, she went blank again.
"Eat," she said. Then, quieter, "Slow."
She worked wax into the bowstring as if she were sealing a seam. When the wax was set, she began to twist the string back on, shoulders tightening with the pull.
The string slipped and snapped against the wood, loud in the small space between them.
Eryk's hands twitched. His body leaned half a breath toward her without permission. It would have been easy to reach, to steady the bow, to offer his fingers and make himself useful.
Her head lifted.
"Don't," she said, before he had moved more than a thought.
Eryk froze.
"I wasn't," he said.
Her eyes narrowed as if she were deciding whether that was true. Then she looked at his wrists, empty but for dirt and old scars, and her gaze softened by a fraction.
"Good," she said. "If you help, you get owed. Owed turns to expectation."
Eryk swallowed.
"I don't want," he began.
She cut him off.
"No one wants," she said. "They just end up with."
Harl glanced over, amusement in his scarred mouth.
"Leave him be, Sella," he said.
The girl's eyes flicked to Harl.
"That isn't my name," she said.
Harl shrugged.
"It's the one I use," he replied. "Keeps the real one safe."
Sella, or not Sella, looked back at Eryk.
"If you're smart," she said, "you'll do the same."
Then she went back to her bowstring, the conversation closed like a hand around a coin.
After Eryk finished, Harl put bowls and a rag in his hands and pointed toward the stream.
Eryk scrubbed until his fingers went numb. Two men stayed with him, not to help, to watch the treeline while he worked. One was Fenn. The other had a missing tooth and a face that looked like it had forgotten how to be young.
"You're fast," the missing tooth man said.
"I'm not slow," Eryk replied.
"Garr," the man said. "Don't get clever. Useful gets you fed."
Fenn glanced at Garr.
"You always say that."
"It's always true," Garr said.
Eryk carried the bowls back on the walk in.
One slipped in his wet grip and knocked the rim of another.
The sound was small.
It was still sound.
Garr's hand shot out and caught the stack before it fell. His fingers closed hard around Eryk's wrist for a breath, not pain, warning.
"Quiet," Garr said.
Eryk nodded once.
Garr released him like the correction was enough.
When Eryk returned the bowls, Harl checked them and made a show of finding a spot of grease that was not there.
He rubbed it with his thumb, then held the bowl up like a priest presenting a relic.
"Shame," Harl said. "Thought you were competent."
Eryk stared.
Harl's scarred mouth pulled up.
"Good," he said, and handed the bowl back into the stack. "You didn't apologize. Apologies sound like bargaining."
On the walk back from the stream, Garr pointed with his chin toward the edge of the clearing.
"You sleep where you can see the rope," he said. "Not where it can see you."
Eryk frowned.
Garr kept walking.
"If you wake and you can't find the edge, you're in someone's way," he said. "And if you're in the way, you get stepped on."
Fenn glanced back at Eryk, expression unreadable.
"Welcome," he said, and there was almost humor in it.
"Hopeless," Harl sighed.
Then he handed Eryk a crust of bread anyway.
Night fell.
Sentries changed without call. Fires were banked down. Rope retied. The ditch deepened by another handspan. The camp held its shape because men made it hold.
Eryk was given a place near the edge.
A blanket, thin but real.
He lay down and listened to the camp live.
A quiet argument. A cough. The scrape of a whetstone on steel. Harl muttering at the fire as if it had insulted him. Someone humming under their breath until another voice told them to stop.
Then the captain's voice, low, speaking close by.
"Blackstone is gone," she said.
"Gone how," Brann asked.
"Taken apart," she replied. "Not abandoned. Cleared."
"So the hole was never the point," Brann said.
The captain waited.
"No," she said. "It was a funnel."
Eryk's fingers curled into the blanket.
Brann spoke again, quieter.
"We move at first light. River crossing before the week turns," he said. "Then to the Company camp and out again before their eyes settle."
"Before the toll gets worse," the captain replied.
"They've started charging for air," Brann said.
The captain made a small sound, sharp. Not quite laughter, but close enough to prove she was human.
"Keep coin ready," she said. "And keep your mouths shut."
A branch snapped beyond the clearing.
Careful.
The captain stopped speaking.
For a moment the camp went still in the way animals went still. Then a soft whistle cut the dark, two notes, and the stillness turned into motion.
Fenn moved along the edge, quiet as smoke. Garr shifted near the rope line. Harl's hand slid closer to his knife.
No shouting.
No running.
The watcher did not come closer.
Eryk kept his eyes closed.
He did not want to see the world's face in the dark.
He only wanted to survive long enough to learn which faces could be trusted in daylight.
When the quiet eased, the captain spoke again, lower than before.
"Sleep," she said.
Not gentle.
Not cruel.
A command that meant you will need your strength tomorrow.
Eryk let his breath out slowly.
Tomorrow they would march again.
If he kept pace, he would become useful.
If he became useful, he might be allowed to become real.
He did not know if that was hope.
He only knew it was a direction.