The road did not improve.
It widened slightly, enough to lull travelers into thinking it was safer, but the signs told a different story. Cart tracks veered off suddenly. Boot prints overlapped in places where no one lingered willingly. Arthur followed them with care, eyes down, pace steady.
He did not hum.
He did not daydream.
The road had already beaten that out of him.
————±————±————±————
He found another village near dusk.
It was small too matter to anyone with power. A ring of low huts, a broken fence, fields trampled into mud. Smoke lingered in the air, stale and dirty, as if the fire had burned days ago and refused to leave.
Arthur stopped at the edge.
No voices.
No movement.
He waited longer than necessary, hand resting near his sword. When nothing changed, he stepped forward.
The first body lay near the well.
An older man, face down, one arm twisted beneath him. No blood left to speak of. Just stiffness and rot. Arthur swallowed and moved on.
There were more.
Inside houses. Near the fence. In the fields. Men and women alike. A child no older than six lay curled beside a toppled stool, eyes open, unseeing.
Arthur closed them gently.
He counted them without meaning to. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
And then he stopped at nineteen.
————±————±————±————
Night was coming fast.
Arthur worked anyway.
He dragged bodies to the edge of the village, hands shaking from effort and something else he refused to name. He used broken planks for markers. Stones for weight. Dirt scraped raw beneath his nails as he dug shallow graves where the ground allowed.
He did not pray.
He did not apologize.
But he did the work no one asked him to .
When his arms gave out, he rested. When his stomach twisted, he breathed through it. When his vision blurred, he wiped his face and continued.
No one would remember them if he didn't.
————±————±————±————
By the time the last body was covered, the sky had gone dark.
Arthur stood alone among uneven mounds of earth. His cloak was filthy. His hands were numb. The smell clung to him, heavy and unavoidable.
"This isn't justice," he said quietly.
The words vanished into the night.
He knew that burying the dead did not undo what had been done. It did not punish those responsible. It did not protect the next village down the road.
But it mattered.
He needed it to matter.
————±————±————±————
He made camp just outside the village, fire small and shielded by stone. He ate without tasting. When sleep came, it did so unevenly.
Dreams followed.
Not visions. Not prophecy.
Just dead face looking faces at him.
————±————±————±————
Morning revealed tracks.
Fresh enough to follow. Too many for him to face alone. Arthur crouched at the edge of the road, studying the marks carefully. Boots. Horses. A cart dragged heavy.
Raiders. Or worse.
He straightened slowly.
"I'm not ready," he admitted aloud.
The truth did not shame him. It clarified things.
Arthur turned away from the tracks and returned to the village one last time. He adjusted the stones on a grave that had shifted overnight. Set a plank upright where the dirt had sunk.
Then he left.
————±————±————±————
The road stretched on.
Arthur walked it with a heavier pack than when he'd started—knowledge, restraint, responsibility. He had not saved this village. He had not fought its killers.
But he had seen.
And he would not forget.
The world was not waiting for him to be ready.
So he would keep moving until he was.
————±————±————±————
Arthur left the graves behind at dawn.
He did not mark them with stone. There were too many, and the land was hard. He aligned the earth as best he could, pressed it flat with his hands, and memorized the place instead. If memory failed, then the dead would be gone twice.
He walked east.
————±————±————±————
The road widened, then narrowed again. Mud clung to his boots. The air smelled of damp wood and smoke that never quite faded. He passed abandoned carts, broken axles, a dropped shoe half-sunk into the ground. Signs of people moving too fast, carrying too much, leaving what they could not hold.
By midday, he reached a hamlet that still lived.
Barely.
Houses stood intact, but shutters were closed despite the light. No animals wandered the road. No children ran. When Arthur stepped into the open, movement stilled, as if the place itself had drawn breath and decided not to exhale.
Someone watched him from behind a door.
Then another.
Arthur slowed his pace. Hands away from his sword. Helmet unfastened, armor dulled with dust and travel. He looked like a knight only if you knew what to look for.
An old man finally stepped out. Thin. Bent. A spear in his hands that shook more than it threatened.
"You won't find much here," the man said. Not hostile. Just tired.
"I'm not looking to take," Arthur replied.
The old man studied him. His eyes lingered— not on the sword, but on Arthur's face. His posture shifted slightly, uncertain, as if something about Arthur unsettled him beyond reason.
"Where are you headed?" the man asked.
Arthur hesitated. Then, "Forward."
The answer earned a quiet laugh. No humor in it.
"Then don't stay for too long," the man said. "Trouble follows roads now."
Arthur nodded. He thanked him. He moved on.
————±————±————±————
No one stopped him. No one offered shelter. But as he passed, doors opened just enough for eyes to follow. Some held fear. Some held curiosity. One or two held something else— an unspoken pull that made Arthur's skin prickle.
He did not like it.
At the far edge of the hamlet, a woman stood with a child pressed to her side. She did not speak. She only watched him go, fingers tight in the fabric of her sleeve.
Arthur did not look back.
————±————±————±————
The road dipped into trees soon after. The forest was thinner here, scarred by old cuts and recent fire. He heard voices before he saw them.
Three men stood in the road ahead. Not bandits, not soldiers. Armed, but poorly. One held a crossbow he hadn't learned to carry properly.
They blocked the path without stepping forward.
Arthur stopped.
"Turn around," one of them said. "This road's claimed."
"By who?" Arthur asked.
The man opened his mouth—then paused. His eyes narrowed, not in suspicion, but confusion. He shifted his weight. The others glanced at him, uneasy.
Arthur felt it then. The same wrongness as before. A pressure in the air. Not magic as spell or flame, but something deeper. Something that made people hesitate when instinct told them not to.
"I don't want trouble," Arthur said.
The crossbow dipped. Just a little.
Neither side moved for a long moment.
Finally, one man stepped back. Then another. They parted without a word, leaving the road open.
Arthur walked through.
None of them attacked him.
None of them met his eyes as he passed.
He did not feel victorious. He felt marked.
————±————±————±————
That night, Arthur camped alone. No fire. Cold food. Armor loosened but not removed. He checked his surroundings twice before sleeping.
As he lay there, staring at the dark between branches, a thought settled in his mind, heavy and unwelcome.
The world was changing how it treated him.
Not because he demanded it.
Because something about him now made people choose differently.
Arthur exhaled slowly.
"I didn't ask for this," he murmured.
The forest did not answer.
Tomorrow, he would keep walking.
And somewhere ahead, the road would stop pretending he was just another traveler.