By the third day of these brutal trainings, the fortress had changed. Where once soldiers laughed, sparred, boasted over stale bread, now there was only hushed tension. Men walked in pairs even inside the walls, hands close to hilts, eyes darting.
Kael watched it all from the outer yard where the new Blight-bonded squads struggled through drills. A recruit screamed as black veins split his skin, his comrades circling him with drawn blades. The man buckled, vomiting dark fluid onto the packed dirt, then staggered up again — panting, eyes wild. Somehow he didn't die.
Mareen took notes feverishly nearby, her gloved hands smudged with ink and gore alike. She caught Kael's eye once, gave a small nod, then returned to her records. To her, this was progress.
---
Captain Eryz approached without a word. He stood beside Kael, arms folded, gaze flat as they watched another squad flinch back from a comrade's sudden convulsion. The man bit down on his own arm to keep from screaming, teeth tearing flesh. Blood ran in rivulets, steaming in the cold.
Eryz didn't react. His eyes were like cold glass.
"You'll take them beyond the walls tomorrow," he said finally, voice low. "See which ones turn on command, and which ones just… turn."
Kael stiffened.
"That's suicide. Half of them can't even stand."
Eryz shrugged. "Dominion wants proof of concept. Or corpses to study. Either way, we get something useful."
---
That night, Garrick found Kael sitting alone on a low stone wall overlooking the western gate. He handed over a chunk of salted meat — didn't say anything as Kael took it. They sat together in silence for a long while.
"You ever wonder if we'll see what's beyond all this?" Garrick asked at last, voice quiet. "Past the Seethe, past the walls. Maybe a place without all this shit."
Kael didn't answer right away. He let his eyes drift over the darkness, imagining a world without dreadborn screams in the night, without Blight singing through his veins. A world where Garrick's biggest worry was chasing some pretty farm girl, not whether he'd wake up mutated.
"It's a nice thought," Kael said finally.
Garrick just grunted, kicking a loose stone into the dark. "Yeah. Thought so."
---
At dawn, Kael gathered the chosen squad — a ragged assembly of frightened, half-sick men and women, eyes shadowed, bodies already betraying signs of the Blight's creeping touch. They marched out past the heavy iron gates, into the grey fields where frost clung to the dead grass and silence ruled.
Kael led them, feeling the Blight inside him stir with interest. It liked this — the hunt, the raw edge of fear in those who followed. Behind them, the fortress loomed like a tomb, torch-fires guttering under the sullen sky.
He wondered if any of them would return at all.
Or if this was just another test — for them, for him, for the Dominion's monstrous dream.
They hadn't marched half a mile before the Blight began to show its teeth. One of the recruits, a boy barely older than fifteen with hollow cheeks and desperate eyes, stumbled over a buried root. He grunted, hands bracing against the ground, but when he pushed himself up, his fingers dug too deep. Claws. Dark, thick claws split the tips, dirt packed under jagged edges.
The boy stared at them in horror. Then his back arched, mouth opening in a strangled cry as black veins surged along his neck. His eyes rolled, going slick and dark.
Kael moved without thinking, driving his arm across the boy's throat. It wasn't clean — hot blood sprayed, soaking Kael's sleeve, and the body twitched violently before crumpling.
The other recruits froze, some with hands on their own throats, as if afraid to feel the same ridged veins pulsing there. Kael stood over the corpse, chest heaving. His Blight was warm and pleased. It disgusted him.
---
They pressed on. Each step seemed to drag the infection closer to the surface in these men and women. Garrick trudged near the front, eyes narrowed, scanning the fields for any sign of movement. His usual chatter was gone, replaced by tight, tense silence.
In the rear, Toma kept pace with the recruits, barking sharp orders to keep them moving. Kael could tell he hated it — his voice cracked once or twice, the authority undercut by raw fear. They all knew this was as much a test for him as it was for them.
Overhead, thin grey clouds shredded themselves against a cold wind. It moaned across the fields, rattling the sparse dead branches. Kael tried not to imagine that the sound carried voices — but the Blight inside him thrilled to it, as if recognizing kin.
---
Then, without warning, the earth itself seemed to come alive. A patch of frozen brush exploded, a Seethe lunging out with impossible speed. Its mouth split across its face, serrated bone jutting out, snapping down on a screaming soldier's shoulder. The man's shriek cut off in a wet gurgle.
Kael didn't think. He was already moving, claws out, driving them into the creature's flank. It howled, thrashing, its claws raking across Kael's side in burning lines of pain. The Blight rushed to meet it, muscles hardening, bones grinding, as Kael tore the monster apart in a spray of steaming gore.
Around him, the recruits either rallied or broke. Two dropped their weapons and ran. One turned — literally turned, spine cracking, limbs distending, as he fell to all fours with black saliva dribbling from his jaws.
---
Kael slammed into him before the transformation could finish. They rolled through the frost, claws tearing. Kael drove his hand through the half-formed monster's chest, felt the ribs collapse around his wrist. He yanked free in a geyser of dark blood. The thing twitched, then lay still.
When he stood, panting, he found the rest staring at him — wide-eyed, terrified. Not at the Seethe bodies. At him. Even Garrick looked rattled, hand on his sword hilt, though he made no move to draw.
Kael wiped his hand across his mouth, smearing blood like war paint. "Anyone else feel like sprouting extra teeth?" he rasped. No one answered.
They regrouped in a shivering cluster, Toma herding the few remaining recruits. Kael didn't miss the way even his friend flinched when Kael clapped a hand on his shoulder.
---
By the time they made it back to the fortress gates, half their number was dead or mutated beyond saving. The guards opened the iron doors just enough to admit them, eyes darting past Kael as if expecting him to drag monsters in behind him.
Inside, Captain Daric waited, jaw tight, hand on his blade. "Report."
Kael gave it flat, every brutal detail. Daric just nodded grimly. "Good work. We'll thin the next batch harder before we send them out."
Kael said nothing. As he turned to leave, he caught his reflection in a sheet of armor hanging on the wall — dark blood drying on his face, eyes too bright, too sharp. The Blight inside him pulsed, eager for the next hunt.
And for the first time, Kael didn't know if he could keep hating it.