The man on the horse didn't have a name. Or, more accurately, he'd lost it.
Names carried weight where he came from. Names bound you to past oaths, to family, to debts unpaid. The smart ones gave theirs up early before the wars started, before the kings burned themselves out with blood-fevers and made orphans of half the continent.
Now, here he was: nameless, weaponless, and still breathing, which put him ahead of most.
The town was called Grath Hollow, though no one greeted him at the gates. A pair of wooden spikes, tipped with moldy heads, formed a crude warning outside the walls. No soldiers. No guards. Just silence, mud, and the smell of iron pretending not to be blood.
The nameless man guided his tired roan horse through the sagging gate.
He'd been on the road for twelve days. The last three were without food. His coin pouch had been empty since he left the ruins of Haldrith Keep, where he'd watched a baron's son bleed out clutching a golden seal he thought would save him. It hadn't.
No one stopped him as he entered Grath Hollow. No surprise. He didn't look like a sellsword anymore. No armor, just a faded cloak with the clasp torn off. One sword at his hip, old, dull, slightly bent near the tip.
The town looked half-dead. A dozen houses, maybe twenty. Smoke rose from only three chimneys. A blackened well sat at the center, its roof caved in and rope chewed clean through. He saw no dogs. No children. Just three old men sitting like statues outside the alehouse, drinking what might've been rotgut or horse piss. None looked up.
He dismounted slowly. His legs burned. His boots left cracked prints in the mud. The door to the alehouse creaked open as he approached, and a girl of maybe sixteen peeked out. Freckled face, dirt-streaked apron, one eye swollen shut.
"You ain't local," she said. Voice like gravel soaked in rain.
"No."
"You ain't no collector, neither."
"No."
"You gonna cause trouble?"
"If I wanted trouble, I wouldn't be starving."
She stared for a second longer, then stepped aside. Inside smelled like wet wood, mold, and something sharp, vinegar, or old blood.
He ducked his head under the low beam and walked in. Four tables, all empty. One wall had scorch marks. Behind the counter stood a woman in her forties with graying braids and a butcher's arms. She looked him up and down without blinking.
"No coin, no drink," she said.
"I'm not asking for charity." He pulled something from his cloak a silver brooch, crusted with dried blood. The insignia had once meant something: a serpent eating its tail, coiled around a spear.
Her brow furrowed. "That's Second Legion."
"Used to be."
"Used to be's worth piss in this place."
He set the brooch on the counter. "It's silver. Melt it, trade it, throw it in a ditch. Just give me something hot."
She studied him, then sighed and poured a bowl of thin stew from a kettle behind her. The smell hit him like a brick: onions, roots, and something meat-adjacent. He didn't ask what. He ate like a man who hadn't chewed in days.
The girl from earlier slid a tin mug of water beside him. "You got a name, stranger?"
"No."
She smirked. "You want one?"
"No."
The stew was gone too fast. The water after it. He leaned back, exhaling through his nose, eyes scanning the room. No weapons on the wall. No signs of trade. No color, no life.
"This place dying?" he asked.
The woman behind the bar laughed. Short, bitter.
"It's dead. Just too stupid to lie down."
"Raiders?"
"Worse."
She didn't elaborate. He didn't ask. Instead, he stood up and walked to the window, pushing aside the cloth. Out in the street, one of the old men had slumped over in his chair. The others didn't notice.
"What's in the well?" he asked.
The girl answered. "Used to be water. Then the black rain came. Now it's poison."
"Black rain?"
"From the west," the barkeep said. "Same time the animals started talking backwards and the trees began to bleed."
He turned to her, eyebrow raised. "You drunk, or cursed?"
She met his gaze, calm. "Neither. Just tired."
He rubbed his temples. "How long's it been like this?"
"Since the Pale Star fell. Four months passed."
The Pale Star. He'd seen it too, a streak of white fire that split the night sky and burned a hole in the world. The priests had called it divine punishment. The mages said it was a gate cracking. Whatever it was, it had changed everything.
"Anything still alive west of here?" he asked.
"Depends on your definition of 'alive,'" the girl said. "Some things still move. But they ain't breathing right."
He turned back to the counter. "Any work?"
"No one's hiring," the barkeep said. "No coin, no crops, no safety."
"Anything need killing?"
At that, the girl paused. She glanced at the woman. The woman looked at the window. Slowly, she nodded.
"You really want to know what's out there?"
He didn't flinch. "I'm still breathing. Might as well earn it."
They told him about the mine two miles north. About how the men who worked there hadn't come back. About how the last ones who did came back without skin, screaming, blind, teeth cracked from trying to bite through their own tongues.
"Sounds like curse-rot," he said.
"Maybe. But it sings," the girl added.
He frowned. "Sings?"
"At night. Like a woman humming through broken glass."
He took that in. Slowly. The kind of slow that came with experience the understanding that magic didn't sing. Magic howled. Magic screeched. Singing meant something else. Something older.
He stood.
"Show me a place I can sleep," he said.
The barkeep gave a short nod toward the back room.
The room was barely a room. One cot, no mattress, no windows. He didn't care. He sat, pulled off his boots, and stared at the sword by his side.
The blade had no name either. Too many men gave names to their swords, foolish things like Whisperfang or Bloodkiss. His just killed. Bent or not, it would have to do.
He lay down and closed his eyes.
But sleep wouldn't come.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the Pale Star still burned. Somewhere far north, something waited. And in the mine, just two miles off, something sang.