A dead man's boots were only valuable if the blood hadn't warped the leather.
Theron knelt in the freezing mud, his fingers numb, working the stiff laces of a fallen infantryman. The air in the trench was a physical weight. It tasted like pulverized stone and copper, a heavy, metallic film that coated the back of the throat. Beneath that was the sweeter, thicker scent of ruptured bowels and wet soil. It was the perfume of the Empire's frontier.
He didn't rush. Rushing led to torn eyelets. A pair of intact leather boots traded for three days of hard rations. A torn pair traded for a beating from the quartermaster. The math was simple.
Theron pulled the left boot free. The corpse's foot was pale, the toes curled inward in the final spasm of a severed nervous system.
The body is a machine that forgets how to run, Theron observed silently.
At nineteen, Theron possessed the physique of a starved greyhound. He stood five-foot-ten when his spine wasn't curled against the cold, his frame carrying only lean, densely packed muscle born of chronic malnutrition and constant labor. His hair was a ragged, dark mop, thick with ash and grease. His face held no aristocratic symmetry—his jaw was sharp but hollowed by hunger, his nose slightly crooked from a guard's gauntlet three winters ago. His eyes, however, were an arresting, washed-out amber. They were eyes that recorded everything and offered nothing in return.
He tossed the boots into the burlap sack slung over his shoulder. The rough fabric scraped against his collarbone.
The silence of the trench was absolute. The battle had moved three miles east, leaving only the scavengers and the carrion birds. The sky above was a bruised, heavy expanse of charcoal clouds, threatening rain that would turn the mud into a sucking trap.
Theron moved to the next body.
This one was different. A lieutenant, judging by the silver filigree on the pauldron. The armor was ruined, a massive, jagged rent torn through the breastplate. Something massive and clawed had opened the man from sternum to navel. The viscera had spilled out into the mud, a dark, congealing mass that smelled sharply of iron and stomach acid.
Theron did not grimace. Disgust was an emotion for people who had full stomachs. He reached into the mess.
His fingers, stained black with dirt and dried blood, bypassed the ruined organs, searching the inner lining of the man's gambeson. Officers carried coin. Sometimes they carried waystones. A waystone meant a week of meat.
His fingertips brushed cold metal. He pinched the object and pulled it free.
It was a ring. Heavy iron, set with a jagged shard of obsidian. As Theron wiped the blood from the stone against his own tattered breeches, the ambient temperature around his hand plummeted. Frost immediately crystallized on the edges of the metal.
A conduit, Theron catalogued. Active. Volatile.
He didn't have time to admire it. The heavy, rhythmic sound of boots crushing gravel echoed from the top of the trench ridge.
Theron slipped the ring into his mouth. He tucked it deep into his cheek, the freezing metal burning the tender tissue of his gums. He tasted old blood and frost. He kept his face entirely slack.
A shadow eclipsed the pale moonlight.
Vargos stepped down into the trench. The Overseer of the Corpse Details was a monument to structural violence. Standing six-foot-five and weighing a dense, unyielding two hundred and eighty pounds, Vargos possessed the dimensions of a siege engine. His chest was a barrel of muscle wrapped in a dented iron breastplate. His head was completely shaved, revealing a landscape of puckered white scars across his scalp. He had a nose that had been broken so many times it rested flat against his face, a thick, dark beard braided with heavy iron rings, and a left eye that was entirely milky white. His good eye, a dark, glittering brown, tracked over the corpses like a hawk assessing field mice.
He smelled of stale sweat, cheap ale, and the harsh, chemical sting of sulfur.
"You're slow tonight, rat," Vargos rumbled. His voice was the sound of millstones grinding together.
Theron kept his head down. He tied off the burlap sack. "The mud froze. The laces are stiff."
Vargos descended the rest of the slope. His heavy leather boots sank two inches into the muck. He stopped directly in front of Theron. The physical disparity was immense. Vargos could crush Theron's skull with a casual swing of his armored forearm. The Overseer carried a heavy iron cudgel at his hip, the wood handle dark with old stains.
He's favoring his right knee, Theron noticed, watching the slight shift in Vargos's weight. The damp cold is aggravating an old joint injury. His strike will be a fraction of a second slower on the left.
"Look at me when I talk to you," Vargos commanded.
Theron stood. He kept his shoulders slightly hunched, presenting the non-threatening posture of a beaten dog. He met Vargos's gaze. The freezing ring in his cheek numbed his jaw, forcing him to hold his mouth rigid to prevent a lisp.
He's hiding something. Little shits always hide something, Vargos thought, his good eye narrowing as he scrutinized the thin boy.
"Empty the sack," Vargos ordered.
Theron untied the knot. He upended the burlap onto a relatively dry patch of earth. Three pairs of boots. Two dented iron daggers. A silver clasp torn from a cloak. Four copper coins.
It was a meager haul for four hours of work.
Vargos kicked the boots with the toe of his iron-capped boot. "An officer went down in this sector. Lieutenant Cassian. Wore a silver pauldron. Where is he?"
Theron pointed a dirt-stained finger toward the ruined corpse three paces away.
Vargos stepped over the debris. He looked down at the eviscerated lieutenant. He grunted, a wet, phlegmy sound in the back of his throat. He reached down and ripped the silver pauldron free from the leather straps, ignoring the tearing sound of the dead man's clothing. He tossed the silver into his own pouch.
" Officers carry rings," Vargos said, turning back to Theron. The Overseer didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The threat of violence was the baseline architecture of their relationship. "Family signets. Conduits. Did you find a ring, rat?"
"No." Theron's voice was flat. The freezing metal in his mouth felt like a razor blade against his tongue.
Vargos closed the distance. He moved with surprising speed for a man of his size. His massive, calloused hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around Theron's throat.
Theron didn't flinch. Flinching triggered predatory instincts. He let his body go limp, forcing Vargos to support a portion of his weight.
Vargos's thumb pressed into the hollow beneath Theron's jaw. The smell of sulfur and stale ale washed over him in a sickening wave. The grip was tight enough to restrict airflow, but not enough to crush the cartilage. It was a measured application of pain.
"I have searched thirty boys tonight," Vargos breathed, his flat nose inches from Theron's face. "I broke the fingers of two who lied to me. I will open your stomach right here and see what you've swallowed if I think you're holding out on the tithe."
Theron maintained eye contact. The amber of his eyes remained entirely unreadable. His lungs began to burn as the oxygen supply dwindled. He calculated the pressure. Vargos was applying roughly twenty pounds of force. He had approximately forty seconds before he lost consciousness.
If I swallow it, the frost will necrotize my esophagus, Theron reasoned calmly amidst the choking pressure. If I spit it out, he takes it and breaks my hands anyway.
"I found nothing," Theron gasped out, forcing the words past the iron grip.
Vargos stared at him. The Overseer was looking for the micro-expressions of guilt. The darting of the eyes. The panicked swallow. Theron offered him a blank, hollow wall.
After a long, agonizing ten seconds, Vargos released him.
Theron dropped to his knees in the mud. He did not gasp for air. He took shallow, controlled breaths, refusing to give the Overseer the satisfaction of seeing him recover. The mud soaked through the thin linen of his breeches, the cold biting into his kneecaps.
"Bag the rest. Take it to the quartermaster," Vargos spat, turning his massive back. "And if I find out you missed a copper piece, I'll use your spine for a walking stick."
The heavy footfalls of the Overseer faded as he climbed out of the trench, disappearing into the dark mist.
Theron remained on his knees for exactly two minutes. The trench was silent once more, save for the distant, guttural cry of a scavenger bird.
He leaned forward and spat the ring into his palm.
His saliva was laced with blood. The inside of his cheek was raw, the tissue burned by the magical frost. The ring itself sat heavy in his palm, the jagged obsidian shard catching the pale moonlight. It was no longer freezing. It was warm. It matched the exact temperature of his blood.
A bond, Theron realized. The cold, analytical part of his brain immediately began calculating the variables. He had just bound himself to an unknown magical artifact stolen from a dead noble. The penalty for a low-born possessing a conduit was flaying.
He didn't feel panic. He felt the familiar, heavy weight of a new equation settling into his reality.
He slipped the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand. It resized instantly, the iron contracting until it gripped the bone tightly. A sudden, sharp spike of pain shot up his arm, settling deep into his chest.
In the periphery of his vision, a faint, translucent text flickered into existence, glowing with a sickly, pale illumination in the dark of the trench.
[ Spell-Weave Integration Complete. ]
[ Host Status: Malnourished, Injured. ]
[ Primary Directive: Consume. ]
Theron stared at the floating words. The text possessed no physical substance, yet it overlaid his entire visual field. A parasitic magic system. He had heard whispers of them. Cursed things dragged out of the deep ruins.
He looked at the eviscerated corpse of the lieutenant. The air around the dead man seemed to shimmer, a faint, barely visible mist rising off the cooling blood.
The ring pulsed warmly against his finger.
Theron did not question the morality of the prompt. Morality was a luxury. Survival was mathematics. He crawled forward through the freezing mud, reaching out toward the shimmering mist rising from the dead officer's chest.