After around two more hours of trudging through the dead land without a single sign of life, the group finally spotted a stone guard tower etched into the side of a small mountain. Its weathered, quadratic top jutted out from the slope, though its entrance was carved directly into the mountain itself.

  It wasn’t close to the road another short detour, but with only a few hours of moonlight still ahead and no guarantee of a better refuge, they decided to take their chances.

  The doorway, once richly adorned with carvings and imperial craftsmanship, now bore deep cracks and missing chunks of stone. It led into a broken stairwell, its spiral carved into the mountain with delicate symmetry that must have once been stunning. Now, time had left it heavily damaged. Stones crumbled underfoot as they ascended, their steps echoing in the eerie silence.

  Hallr and Balder wrapped the still unconscious, blonde man tightly in the makeshift sled’s cloth and started carrying him upstairs. Balder took the feet, Hallr the head, and it didn’t take long for Balder to notice how often the man’s skull bumped into the wall. Hallr seemed to enjoy pretending not to notice.

  At the top, they emerged into a quadratic room faintly illuminated by the pale moonlight streaming through an arrow slit. Wooden crates lay strewn across the floor, their contents long since plundered or rotted away. On the far wall hung rusty spears.

  Hallr led go of the man and sat himself on the ground next to one of the crates. He was breathing heavily after dragging the man behind him for the last few hours.

  But before Hallr could rest, Kolr pointed to the iron ladder bolted to the center of the room, its rungs stretching up toward the tower’s summit.

  “We aren’t all to save here”, Kolr explained.

  Hallr groaned and waved a dismissive hand. “How do you plan on getting this guy up there?”

  “He’s already bundled up,” Balder replied coolly. “We’ll use the rope to pull him up once we’re on top.”

  Hallr looked annoyed but went along with it. When Balder climbed of the ladder he could hear it creak under his weight, but it didn’t break.

  When both Hallr and Balder were at the top Kolr tossed the rope to them and they dragged the still unconscious man up to the top.

  The top of the tower was barren, littered with broken battlements that cast jagged shadows under the moonlight.

  They placed the man in the center of the tower, away from the edges, then turned to Kolr. “We could help you barricade the entrance,” Balder offered.

  Kolr shook his head. “No need. I’ll handle it. Just keep an eye on him,” he said, gesturing to the unconscious man. “I’ll use the crates to block the stairwell, you rest.”

  Balder leaned against the dirty battlements: his clothes were already as dirty as they could get, drenched in mud, dirt and blood so he didn’t care. At least they didn’t smell that bad anymore.

  Near him lay a bunch of small cages that had small bones in them, likely messenger pigeons.

  Balder took the 4th loaf of bread and again gave on half to Hallr. He then inched closer to Hallr.

  “What is it?”, he asked without looking at Balder.

  “What is the deal with Kolr?”, Balder asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?”, Hallr asked while munching on his bread.

  “Why is he so nice to me?”, Balder clarified.

  “thankfulness”, Hallr said without explaining further while swallowing the last piece of bread.

  Balder frowned: “For what? I haven’t done anything.”

  “Not you. Your father.” Hallr leaned back, brushing crumbs from his hands, “Kolr used to be a slave in Skleverit. He swore his little oath to your father, same as the thousands of others, when your old man sacked the city.”

  “and he now extends this oath to me?”, Balder asked.

  “Now you’re catching on,” Hallr said, grinning. “But don’t let it go to your head. If your brother’s still alive, Kolr’s loyalty will shift to him in an instant. He’s next in line after all.”

  Balder nodded slowly, staring at the half-eaten bread in his hands. His thoughts drifted to Skleverit, a distant but vivid memory.

  For him his father had always been just that: his father, the man who would play boardgames with him and his brothers, tell them bedtime stories and let them ride on his back, but that changed on that day.

  Just two years after it started the campaign had come to a hold though to the siege of Skleverit. Balder still remembered playing in the mud outside of the tents together with his friend Agnarr and Balder’s older brother Hrym, oblivious to the suffering that echoed through the camp.

  There was always this deafening noise of the catapults firing in the city in both night and day, it made it hard to sleep but Balder eventually got used to it.

  Balder remembered the monthly feasts in the camp stopping after half a year, then the food he got became fewer and fewer eventually there was just bread once a day. Balder, nine years old back then could remember crying himself to sleep over the sound of his father and his officers arguing about the siege, he just couldn’t understand it: they were all friends, all northerners. Why were they fighting?

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  His father’s name didn’t carry any weight back then: he had been elected high king of the north just two years before that and the only success he had seen so far was defeating some minor imperial armies and tearing down the palisade that separated the peninsula that was the north from the rest of the continent.

  After month of siege without any end in sight the others just weren’t confident in his abilities any longer.

  But then one day, just a week Balder had turned ten the walls broke and the attackers stormed into the city.

  Balder didn’t understand the weight of what had just happened but when the now freed slaves chanted his father's name, he joined them. This day Balder was looking up towards his father standing on top of the stairs to the cities palace while the people were hailing him like he was a god and this day he became one for him.

  The city of Skleverit had been the Empire’s iron grip on the north for centuries, a symbol of oppression after they had conquered it. After the conquest, those who defied imperial rule were swiftly enslaved, sent to the city to toil in misery and despair. Over generations, its name became synonymous with suffering for the Northmen.

  The entire north had come to despise the city, these feelings didn’t change after the sun disappeared and the north had finally broken free.

  When the empire realised that they couldn’t hold on to the north they constructed a palisade alongside the border and ordered the city to guard it. But they had still launched occasional slave raids into the north.

  So when the city, that had enslaved their people for centuries had finally fallen the north didn’t hesitate to unleash its wrath upon its population.

  The northerners had stacked the slaughtered populations heads many meters high, making gigantic pyramids inside the burned down city. Alle the freed northerners, some of which had been in captivity for generations joined his father.

  Balder was snapped out of his thoughts by a loud coughing. He turned quickly, finding the blonde man writhing on the ground, hacking and spitting a foul mixture of blood and bile.

  He freed himself from the cloth, that had been wrapped around him and looked around: he quickly recognized the people sitting before him as northerners and screamed in shock and fear.

  He stumbled toward the ladder, but Kolr’s faint silhouette at the base stopped him. Panic surged anew as Hallr rose to his feet, the hulking warrior advancing with a dark smile.

  The man started aimlessly hitting into Hallr’s direction, but he just wrestled him to the ground in one quick movement, making him hit the ground hart. The man trembled with fear while, with his face in the dirt and Hallr tightly holding his hands on his back. Suddenly Hallr jumped off him.

  “The imperial wet himself”, Hallr growled, motioning to the puddle spreading beneath the man.

  Tears streaked the blond man’s face as he trembled, voice shaking: “P-please don’t kill me!”

  Balder laughed, leaning casually against the battlements: “Calm down. We’re not killing you, as long as you don’t piss of or on this guy.”

  He gestured at Hallr with a grin.

  The man crawled to the far side of the tower, trembling as he pressed his back against the cold stone battlements. Kolr climbed up from the ladder, pausing at the sight of the puddle, then chuckled quietly. He motioned for the man to come closer.

  “I don’t like shouting,” Kolr said calmly, though his tone carried a hard edge.

  Hesitant, the man inched forward, joining the group as they sat near the broken battlements. His gaze stayed low, afraid to meet their eyes.

  “How about a thank-you for saving your life?” Hallr growled, still annoyed.

  The man looked at him confused.

  “THE ORCS!”, Hallr screamed which mad the guy flinch and cover him head with his arms.

  Then he seemed to realise something, as if he had truly grasped the situation just now.

  “m-my... BROTHER!”, he screamed with a shocked look on his face, “where is he?”

  “Deep in some orcs digestive tract by the point where we found you two”, Kolr said mercilessly.

  The man let out a strangled cry, burying his face in his arms as his body shook with sobs.

  “Look at me!”, Kolr said suddenly, “it’s not helping anyone if you just keep crying and pissing yourself. WE have some questions. Can YOU answer them?”

  Balder was surprised by Kolr speaking up but now that he knew about his past it did make sense to Balder, that Kolr wouldn’t have the greatest opinion on the imperials.

  “Y-yes”, the man nodded, while tears were still running down his face.

  “Don’t you know how conversations work?” Hallr snapped, rolling his eyes, “Introduce yourself.”

  The man flinched again and although he had to laugh Kolr shut Hallr down with a hand movement.

  “I… I’m… my name is Felem”, he stammered..

  “Where were you and your friend going?”, Kolr asked.

  “To… towards Orcs End”, Felem replied hesitantly.

  Balder narrowed his eyes: “What would you want there? Orcs End is Northmen-controlled.”

  Felem hesitated to speak.

  “SAY WHAT YOU KNOW!!!”, Hallr said.

  He was hesitant: “I… it’s...”

  “You won't get punished for bringing bad news”, Balder intervened, “we didn’t expect any better.”

  “The Northmen opened the castles gates”, he spurted out seemingly happy to get it over with.

  “The castles keeper was betrayed?”, Kolr asked worried.

  “I don’t know”, Felem answered, “I swear!”

  The three Northerners exchanged silent looks, each interpreting the imperial’s sincerity in their own way. Finally, Kolr turned back to him. “If you were heading to Orcs End, I assume you know the way?”

  “D-did…you stay along the road?”, Felem wanted to know.

  “We did”, Balder answered firmly.

  “Then I think… I know where we are”, Felem confirmed.

  “Do you?”, Hallr asked with a devilish smile on his face. He was still seeking for a reason to kill the man.

  “te-the castle should be about two days away from here”, Felem confirmed again, “a day away from here the road should lead to a proper imperial stone road.”

  “And you’re no lying”, Hallr asked again to which Felem nodded.

  “You’ll lead us to the castle”, Balder said.

  “I keep days watch”, Hallr quickly volunteered, “you better not act up.”

  “I swear I won’t sir”, Felem said.

  Satisfied, Balder decided to sleep. Kolr stood, prepared to return downstairs, but Balder stopped him.

  “Rest, old man,” Balder said with a faint smile. “You’ve done enough tonight. If anything makes it up those stairs, those broken crates won’t stop it anyway.”

  Kolr considered, then nodded, sinking down beside them. Hallr began breaking down a crate to start a fire, the moonlight was fading, and the world was about to plunge into darkness.

  Balder was aware, that neither him nor Kolr wouldn’t sleep well tonight, not only was he sure they would be kept awake by his sobbing, Felem also had given them to many questions that needed to be answered.