Haze.

 That was all I could feel,  thick, blinding, searing through the corners of my mind.

It wasn’t pain, not entirely. It was something softer, like smoke choking my thoughts, a fuzzy sense of broken vision, as if I were staring through shattered glass and trying to see the world beyond. Everything was calm now, cold, and unbearably still. My mind felt trapped between light and darkness, unable to tell where one began and the other ended.

“He awake?”  The voice was sharp, light and clear, sober in a way that demanded respect. It carried the authority of a man who had seen war, survived it, and grown tired of petty disputes.

“Aye, after that twack, he should be.” came the second. This one was drunk, his words rolling out heavy and slow, wrapped in the stink of ale and the clumsiness of a fool.

My eyes fluttered open. The world swam.

I swallowed hard, my throat dry and raw. The ground beneath me was cold, rough, and wooden. When I shifted, pain shot through my spine and I groaned, “Ow…”

As my vision steadied, I saw them, two men standing over me.

The first had the look of command. Keen eyes, golden hair streaked with gray, his face a map of scars and half-healed wounds. Bloody bandages crossed his cheek and forehead. His armor was mismatched iron and steel beneath a torn tabard, stitched together from scraps of cloth dyed in different hues. His very presence reeked of battle and exhaustion.

“Alive,” he said flatly. “The same can’t be said for the rest of the miscreants in your home.”

My head snapped toward the forge, my forge. Or what was left of it.

The roof was gone, beams blackened and cracked, the once-proud chimney collapsed in on itself. The connected house,  my master's house, was nothing but a hollow shell of ash. I felt my heart clench, an instinct to run toward what was lost, but even my grief was too weak to move me. There was nothing left to save.

The second man was nothing like the captain. He looked young,  too young. His face was smooth, untouched by blade or burn. But his armor, bright and new, was marred by scorches and dents. His hands were wrapped in filthy, powder covered bandages, and at his belt hung a jagged weapon,  a sword broken in half, reshaped into something cruel and crude.

Mercenaries. Killers. Animals without god or banner,  bound only by gold.

The captain shifted his pike and handed it to the younger man. “You were the blacksmith, yes?” he asked, kneeling and drawing a dagger from his boot.

The younger one grinned, lifting his arquebus. “Let me have a little target practice, captain? Can’t miss at this range.”

The captain’s expression hardened. He turned slowly, glaring.  “Go to the others.”

The boy hesitated,  then fear took him. He saluted, shouldered his gun, and fled without another word the pike still in his hand.

Silence settled. The captain looked back to me. His eyes were steady, unreadable,  but I could sense the weight of his thoughts, as if every motion he made had already been considered twice over.

He exhaled slowly and pressed the knife to my throat. “The blacksmith?” he repeated, voice low. “You are the blacksmith?”

My heart hammered away like my hammer was in my hands..

“What happens if I say no?” I asked, my voice trembling.

He smiled. “I send you to God quickly, and without hesitation. I won’t let you suffer and die like others would.”

The knife pressed closer to my neck, not enough to cut, but enough to promise.

“Not the blacksmith, then? The apprentice?”

I swallowed, nodding weakly. “Yes.”

He paused, then withdrew the blade and slid it back into his boot. “Good,” he said simply. “Last battle took my smith. And my company doesn’t march far without one. You’re coming with us.”

“No.” The word slipped out before I could stop it, just like it was before in a pervious life where I could have a semblance of power… it was small, defiant, foolish.

The captain chuckled. “No?”

He rolled his neck, the joints cracking audibly like breaking branches. “That’s not a good answer for a new recruit.”

“I’m not going to—”

The slap came fast, but not hard,  a measured blow, the kind that wasn’t meant to punish but to instruct. His palm was calloused, his hand scarred. It stung less from the force and more from what it implied: he owned the situation, and me with it.

“I’m not looking for another soldier,” he said, his tone quiet, firm. “I need a blacksmith. Someone to keep my men’s blades sharp, their armor whole. We’ve no time to waste waiting for iron to cool when there’s a war to fight.”

He stood, the weight of command returning to his shoulders. “There are worse men than me out there,  men who’d gut you just to keep you from being useful to their enemies. At least with me, you’ll have a roof, a fire, and a purpose.”

My throat tightened. “Why me?”

“I told you,” he said. “Because you can make something from nothing, help the men maintain their armor and weapons. That’s all that matters.”

He extended a hand.

I hesitated for a brief moment, searching for death in his eyes, perhaps hoping for it, and then took his hand. His grip was strong, calloused like a man who had held both sword and shovel, but there was something else in it too. A faint care. A flicker of decency that felt almost foreign amidst the ruin.

He pulled me to my feet, brushing the soot and ash from my clothes as though I were some soldier under his charge rather than a half-dead smith dragged from the wreckage. His scarred face twisted into a crooked, jagged smile that seemed half pity, half grim amusement.

“Good,” he said again, his tone almost… almost… warm. “You’ll live. For now. Can you walk?”

My legs protested, but they obeyed. The ground felt strange beneath my boots, soft with ash and char, but I moved under my own power. One step. Then another. My body remembered motion even if my mind did not.

The captain watched me closely, nodding as though confirming something to himself. Then, as we walked, he slowed his pace, close enough that I could feel the weight of unspoken words behind him. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a new voice cut through the haze.

“Captain!”

The man who approached was younger, barely past twenty by the look of him. His neck was wrapped in a filthy bandage, still dark with old blood. He walked with a stiffness that betrayed the wound beneath it. Yet his eyes were clear, and there was an anxious sharpness in them that hadn’t yet been dulled by war.

“Why didn’t we move with the rest of the army?” he asked. “They should be waiting for us, unless…” His tone faltered. “Unless we’re deserting?”

The captain didn’t answer right away. He looked over the ruins, the broken stone, the twisted beams, the blackened iron that had once been my forge, and then exhaled through his nose.

“We’re not deserting,” he said at last, his voice calm, unbothered. “The contract’s over. The war’s done for us, lad. We’ve earned our silver and spilled enough blood to fill a river. We’re free to do as we please before heading home.”

He gestured vaguely toward the devastation. “Find what you can in the ruins—anything worth keeping. Food, water, iron, goddamned pots and pans if you find any. And fetch what tools you can for the new smith.” He jerked a thumb toward me. “He’ll need them. Bring me a full set, and I’ll pay triple.”

The young mercenary grinned, gave a wide, theatrical salute, and bounded off toward the wreckage with the reckless joy of a boy freed from his chores.

I watched him go and then turned back to the captain. “Home?” I asked, the word catching in my throat.

He gave a low, humorless chuckle. “Home,” he repeated, as if testing the word. “Aye. The camp. Or the boots on our feet. Take your pick. Not many nobles want men like us marching through their towns, so we make our own road, and our own home.”

He gave a short cough, spat into the ash, and straightened. Then, in a bark that broke the still air, he called out, “Finish getting what we can! We leave at first light!”

The sound carried through the ruins, answered by the distant clatter of armor, the shuffle of tired feet, the muffled voices of men picking through the dead and the debris.

Soon, the fog of war gave way to the smoke of a small camp, a patchwork of tents and lean-tos pitched in the shelter of an old barn’s skeleton. The air smelled of sweat, oil, and dying embers. A few men gathered around the fires, repairing straps, oiling muskets, whispering prayers to god who had long since stopped listening to butchers like them.

Or maybe He was listening, and I couldn’t hear Him speak to me.

The captain stopped abruptly, his gloved hand rising in front of me, a silent command that froze me where I stood. My breath caught in my throat. My mind felt clouded, my legs heavy as lead. I swallowed hard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice smaller than I intended.

A low chuckle rasped from his mouth, a sound that seemed to crawl rather than escape. He rolled his shoulders back, stretching until his joints cracked in a dry, hollow rhythm, the noise of age and command, mixed with amusement. In that moment, with the firelight catching his sharp, worn features, he seemed less a man and more some skeletal thing wrapped in ink-dark flesh.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said finally, his voice oddly calm. “At least, not yet. We’ve been paid, and soon it’ll be time to move on. Time to find more work.”

“Work?” I repeated. The word tasted strange in my mouth, foreign and heavy. The thought of it pressed on me, that dull, endless labor, that camp of smoke and mud and cold iron before being sent to battle. My heart sank beneath a dreary pall, and I shivered without knowing why.

The captain laughed again, the sound scraping against my nerves. There was satisfaction in it,  or perhaps cruelty. “Work, yes. Honest work. War pays our bills and fills our coffers, but it isn’t the only trade in this world.”

As he spoke, the sharp crack of a whip split the air. Two men stumbled out of a nearby tent a fine one, gilded and tasseled, its silk edges stained with dust and wine.

“Buggering bastards!” one of the men shouted over his shoulder. “We’ll be paid when the Captain—”

He stopped mid-sentence as another figure emerged behind him: a man of refinement and danger in equal measure. He wore a polished monocle over his right eye, his mustache neatly trimmed, and a sword and pistol dangled loosely from his belt as though they were more decoration than tools.

“Ah,” he said smoothly, his gaze falling on us. “I see he’s returned.”

“Dietrich,” the captain muttered, sounding tired already. “We've got a new smith joining us. One who will, I hope, remember his role and not seek glory on the battlefield when he will be paid better than my gunners.”

“Ja, ja,” Dietrich replied, waving dismissively as he reached into his coat. He drew out a bundle of papers, neatly bound and creased from use. “Let’s make it official, then. You—” his monocled eye fixed sharply on me “you can write your name, can’t you?”

I froze. “What?”

“Your name,” he said, as if explaining to a dull child. “It must go on the contract. So you may be properly entered into the rolls of Der Wolfsschwarm.” He tapped the papers with one gloved finger, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smirk. “One year’s service. One year of honest employment… if you survive it.”

“By signing this contract,” he intoned, “you, the undersigned, do hereby enter into one year’s employ under Der Wolfsschwarm, a mercenary company in good standing and lawful service to its captain and officers. You are to labor as a smith, maintaining arms, armor, and powder tools for the use of the company and its associated forces.”

His eyes flicked up briefly. “You will receive payment of three thalers a month, plus your share of any spoils taken in battle, and any additional payment from fellow company men. Lodging, food, and protection are provided by the company within the cities, though not guaranteed.”

He turned a page, his tone growing colder. “You swear to obey the commands of your captain and superiors. You are forbidden from deserting, striking, or defrauding your company. Any such act shall be punished by lash, beating, extra duties, branding, or death, according to the captain’s discretion.”

The campfire crackled as he paused, letting the words sink in. I felt the weight of each sentence press heavier on my chest.

Dietrich continued, “At the conclusion of one year’s service, you may renew your contract, or depart with your earned pay.” He paused. “if you live to see that day.”

He rolled the parchment closed, the edges crisp and curling from the damp. “That,” he said with quiet finality, “is the sum of it. Do you understand what you’re agreeing to?”

My tongue felt heavy, clumsy, useless. I looked between the two men, the captain’s hollow, almost skeletal grin, and Dietrich’s cold, glassy stare, and a slow realization settled over me: there was no right answer here, no safe path.

Still, I nodded. Slowly. My throat tight, I forced the words out. “I… I was told that if I refuse, the captain would kill me?”

Dietrich’s monocled eye studied me for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he inclined his head once. “True. Until you sign, you are considered a prisoner in every sense. Your fate rests entirely with the captain.”

A shiver ran through me, but I forced my hand to the quill. The feather trembled slightly as I gripped it, and I leaned over the parchment. My hand felt alien, unsteady. Slowly, I traced the letters of my name onto the page.

“Johan,” I said aloud, as if speaking the words gave them weight, made them real.

Dietrich’s lips twitched, almost a smile, though it never reached his eyes. “Very good,” he said quietly. His voice carried a hint of gravity, as if pronouncing the name sealed more than just a contract. “God help us all.”

He carefully rolled the papers and tucked them away, securing them beneath his coat. For a long moment, the camp around us seemed to hold its breath — the crackling fires, the distant shouts, the clatter of metal, all fading into silence.

Then Dietrich turned back to the captain. “Captain, let us discuss dividing the pay for the men. Afterward, we can march towards… Lübeck, or the Palatinate. There are local merchants needing escorts, and with the war as it is, our services are becoming something of a premium.”

The captain stretched, cracking his joints like dry wood, and let out a low whistle. “Premium indeed. Plenty to keep us fed, clothed, and armed,  if we survive long enough to get it.”

I stayed silent, my stomach tight with unease. I had joined Der Wolfsschwarm, and there was no turning back. The firelight danced across Dietrich’s monocle, the captain’s grin, and the camp around us, as if mocking the small, fragile hope that I might somehow remain unbroken.

“Welcome to Der Wolfsschwarm.” The captain said. “May God help you, for He will not help us.”