We returned not in triumph, but in grim resolve. The carts creaked under the weight of looted weapons and armour. Spare swords, battered shields, chainmail still wet with blood. None of it is clean. None of it is untouched by death. Eighteen prisoners followed under guard, heads lowered, shoulders slumped, some limping from fresh wounds. A few were hard-eyed and silent, but most looked broken. Defeated.
But we carried more than just steel and flesh. We carried the ashes of the dead.
Our fallen were given proper rituals. Each body was burned with care, names whispered over the pyres by friends or comrades who remembered them as more than just swords in the line. Even the enemy dead were not discarded like cattle. I made sure of that. Abda took charge, moving among the bodies, asking the prisoners softly about their kin, their names, their gods.
In Sturgia, death was not the end. Fire was the passage, but the sea was the destination. The ashes of the fallen were to be scattered upon the ocean's waves, carried to the afterlife by the tide itself. So we preserved their ashes. Sealed them in urns, each marked with crude symbols and wrapped in cloth. I could not promise them the sea, but I could promise that we would try.
It mattered. To them. To us.
By the time we reached Nicasor’s castle, the air was colder and thinner. Sora and Abda began sorting the loot while I assigned guard shifts and rotated the wounded to rest. The castle guards helped us unload and showed little concern for the prisoners—to them, this was routine. But for me, the matter of what to do with eighteen captured men was far from simple.
We had neither the space nor supplies to keep them long. Feeding them would strain our stocks. Guarding them would wear out my already tired men. And while ransoming them back to their lords was the cleanest option, there were no guarantees. Many might not be worth the coin. Others might not be missed at all.
Selling them was an option. A harsh one. But the truth was, this company could not run on honour alone.
Still, as I walked down the line of prisoners, inspecting each with the practised eye of a commander, one figure stood out from the rest.
He was tall—just over six feet—with a thick, solid build beneath his ragged tunic. Dirt clung to his face, and a bruise swelled around one eye, but there was something in the way he stood. Something that resisted surrender.
And then I saw it. A faint golden glow.
I’d only seen that twice before—once with Abda in that Aserai tavern. It wasn’t something others could see. It was... a knowing. A cheat code, almost. This man was special.
"Name?" I asked.
He looked up at me, eyes steady but exhausted. "Kjeld."
"Sturgian?"
He gave a short nod.
I studied him. He looked like most of the other recruits we hired in past, though the muscles in his arms and shoulders told a different story. Scarred hands. Broken nails. Not a soldier. A worker. A survivor.
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I looked at his status screen
Kjeld - Potential: BlackSmith
-Rank: Prisoner
- Companion status: Can be Converted
- Morale: Low
- Gear: Poor
- Daily wage: 0 denars
Rare. Valuable.
I gave Sora a nod. "Bring him to my tent."
Later, under the soft flicker of torchlight, I sat across from Kjeld at a rough wooden table. I gave him bread, a bowl of stew, and a cup of water. He didn’t touch the food at first.
"You understand me?"
"I do," he said. His voice was low, even. No fear. Just weariness.
"Your Common is good."
"Most of the islands trade in it."
He paused, then took a bite of the bread.
"I know about your potential," I said. "But your fate is up to you. You could be useful to us. Not just as a soldier. As a blacksmith."
He snorted. "I’ve never forged anything in my life."
"Leon hadn’t either, until a year ago. Now he keeps half our gear running. He can train you."
Kjeld said nothing for a while. Then, quietly, he told me his story.
He came from a cold, wind-swept island in the northern seas. Life there was hard, simple, honest. He had cattle. A wife. A home. He spoke of her with a distant look—not sadness, exactly, but reverence. Her name was Edda. She had died two winters ago, killed defending their livestock from wolves. Alone. Bleeding in the snow.
"She died fighting," he said. "And I... I started drinking. Gambling. Couldn’t stand the quiet of the house anymore. The smell of her cloak still hanging by the door."
He glanced up at me.
"I tried to die. I joined the raiders hoping someone would kill me. I thought, if I died in battle, maybe I could face her. Maybe the gods would let me see her again."
I let the silence stretch between us. Words would have been a disservice.
Eventually, I said, "You didn’t die. Not yet. The gods aren't done with you."
He chuckled, bitterly. "Maybe. Or maybe they just want me to suffer longer."
I leaned forward. "What if you could do something else? Live differently. Not for yourself, maybe not even for the gods. But for the ones who can't."
He frowned. "You offering to take me in?"
"Yes. But not all of you. I can’t take every prisoner. Even if I wanted to. We lost men too, friends. There’s tension, and I won’t ask my people to trust strangers overnight."
Kjeld nodded slowly. "So what happens to the others?"
"We’ll send a rider to Fafen. If your lord can ransom them, they’ll go home. If not... we sell them. It’s the only way."
His hands clenched. "I have no one waiting for me. But they might."
"Then we’ll do what we can."
He took another bite of stew. "And you want me as a smith."
"Not just that. As part of this company. A new start. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing is."
He interrupted in between and nodded once. "Alright. I’ll try."
I stood. "Then welcome to the Nova Company, Kjeld. We'll find your gear, a bed, and a purpose. That’s more than most get."
He gave a small, grim smile. "Aye. That it is."
As he left the tent, I looked back once. The man who had come seeking death was still sitting there, staring into the firelight. But his shoulders weren’t slumped anymore. Something had changed.
Later, as I sat by the fire and reviewed the day’s decisions, I checked that status screen again. I focused on Kjeld, now officially a member of the Nova Company.
Kjeld
-
Potential: Blacksmith
-
Rank: Regular soldier
-
Companion status: Not Converted
-
Morale: Low
-
Gear: Poor
-
Daily wage: 5 denars
I frowned. He wasn’t ready yet. I tried but I couldn’t make him a full companion. Not until his morale and loyalty grew. The man had agreed to join, but his heart was still somewhere in the snow, with the wolves and the ghosts of his past.
He had taken the first step. The rest would take time.