Chapter 14: Staging Grounds

Koda stopped walking when the ridge ended, and the demon behind him walked straight into his back.

Below them, the land fell away into a basin the size of a small kingdom, and every inch of it was full. Tents of scorched hide stretched in endless rows. Iron barricades cut the camp into sectors; watchtowers stood over them like black teeth. Far beyond the tents, rivers of magma crawled through the rock, lighting the underside of the smoke a sullen red.

Huge banners hung from the towers, each one marked with Vaelric’s insignia, a horned skull split down the middle by a blade.

’Thousands,’ Koda thought. ’No; tens of thousands.’

Grevall Town had felt enormous to him a week ago. Now he understood that it was only one of many settlements Vaelric had emptied. Columns like theirs were pouring into the basin from every direction, and the camp swallowed all of them without getting any less crowded.

Serah stood at his left, her eyes moving across the basin. "Count the execution posts," she said quietly.

Koda counted. He stopped at forty, because there were more than he could track, and because some of them were not empty.

---

The sorting took half the afternoon.

Officers in dark plate walked the lines with ledgers, reading seals with the flat of an iron rod. Each time the rod touched Koda’s shoulder, the brand pulsed, and so did the whole formation around him as the master array adjusted to the new arrivals.

He felt every pulse through the mark. Each one pressed a little against the false position he had given it, like a thumb testing a bruise.

The officer read the seal, frowned at nothing in particular, and wrote in his ledger.

"Squad Nineteen, Seventh Vanguard Cohort," the officer said. "Move on."

The reaction behind them was immediate. A scarred demon in the next line over actually took a step back from them. Another spat on the ground and muttered something Koda didn’t catch.

"The Seventh?" Varkos said, once they were out of earshot. "Is that supposed to be bad?"

"It’s bad," said Serah.

"How bad?"

A passing conscript answered before she could, without slowing down. "They send the Seventh Vanguard in first. Whatever’s waiting in the dark, the Seventh Vanguard bears the brunt of it." He looked at Varkos with something close to pity. "Last campaign they sent three thousand. Maybe four hundred walked home."

He kept walking.

Koda watched him go, eyes twitching as he stopped himself from screaming out loud, ’What the actual fuck!’

They were being sent to their graves.

---

The ration station for their sector was a long iron counter staffed by two bored officers, and the line in front of it stretched back past the barricades. When Squad Nineteen finally reached the front, an officer slid a small crate across the counter without looking up.

Koda opened it. There was three bars of dried, iron-gray meat, a pouch of crushed essence grit, and one roll of bandage cloth.

"That’s for the three of us?" he asked. "For how long?"

"Until the next distribution." The officer finally glanced up. "If you’re still here for it."

"How long is that?"

The officer smiled and pushed the next crate forward for the demon behind him.

Koda stepped away from the counter and looked at what the crate held again. It wasn’t enough for three demons for a day, never mind the days of preparation ahead. The rations of the squad beside them were no larger. Neither were those of the next one.

Then he noticed a shocking detail. A group of big demons dragging a smaller squad’s crate away while that squad stood and watched without putting up a fight. An officer on a nearby tower, looking directly at the theft, and doing nothing about it.

"The guards let that happen?" Koda said.

"Of course they would," said Serah. "It’s the cheapest filter there is. Only the strong gets to survive."

Hunger weakened the weak. Scarcity forced violence. Violence showed who could actually fight, and the strongest survivors got the food that made them stronger still.

Vaelric didn’t need to test his conscripts one by one. The camp did the testing for him, and it didn’t cost a single ration more than it took to keep the survivors alive.

It was cruel, but also efficient, and Koda hated that he could see why it worked.

’Hell doesn’t need chains to bind you,’ he thought. ’It just needs to make everyone hungry enough to hold each other down.’

"You. Small ones."

The voice came from behind them, deep and unhurried. Koda turned.

The demon blocking the path was a head and a half taller than Varkos, with thick blood-red flesh that looked more like muscle than skin. Heavy horns curved back from his skull. He had four arms; the upper pair folded across his chest, the lower pair hanging loose at his sides with fingers like iron hooks.

Behind him stood a squad of nine, all of them large, all of them standing like they’ve done this a thousand times before.

"Gorg," Serah said under her breath. It sounded like a warning.

"I’m Gorg," the big demon agreed, as if the name were enough. He looked at the crate in Koda’s hands. "Seventh Vanguard. Squad Nineteen, I heard. Three of you." He tilted his head. "Give me two of the bars."

It wasn’t said as a threat. Gorg said it the way a landlord says rent is due.

"No," said Koda.

Gorg’s expression didn’t change much, but the lower arms flexed once. "You don’t understand how this goes."

"I understand fine," Koda said. "The answer’s... still no."

The nine behind Gorg shifted. Koda felt the pressure settle on him, nine sets of eyes, four sets of knuckles, and the ember behind his ribs stirred in answer, hungry and interested.

’No,’ he thought hard. ’Calm down for a bit. You can’t just flare up at every chance of violence.’

Having calmed the ember down, he looked them. Gorg was at peak-stage Demon Awakening Realm, same as him, but considering how old he looked, he had been there for a long time; probably even forming a core already, from the way the air pressed violently around him.

And there were nine more Demon Awakening Realm behind him, two at late stage and the rest at middle stage. Even if Koda’s group won, the fight would draw officers, and it was unknown how they’d react.

A dead Gorg wouldn’t buy him a single extra ration, and a win in the open would put them under watchful eyes.

There was nothing to gain from killing him, and plenty to lose.

So Koda did what he had decided on, and took a step back.

But Varkos took one forward.

He didn’t say anything. He simply stood where Koda had been, shoulders square, and let the heat in his blood show. The air around his horns rippled faintly. Even with the fire held down, the pressure coming off him made the nearest members of Gorg’s squad lean away.

"Bloodline," one of them muttered.

Gorg look startled. He looked at Varkos for a long time, and Koda saw him doing the same calculations he had done, only in the other direction. One Hellfire-blooded fighter wouldn’t beat his nine. But it wouldn’t be quick, and it wouldn’t be cheap, and Gorg would lose some of his own to find out.

He wasn’t a fool. That was the worst part.

"Hm," Gorg said at last. The lower arms relaxed. "Three small ones with one fire among them. I’ll your group off today."

"Oh, letting us off," Varkos said mildly, a hint of mirth in his eyes. Serah stifled a laugh at the side.

Gorg let out a wretched smile. Then his eyes slid to Koda, and the smile went away. "I’ll remember you," he said. "All three of you. This camp is huge, and the Rift is dangerous. Don’t get yourself killed..."

He turned and walked off with his squad trailing behind him. Not once did he look back, which Koda took as a deliberate courtesy and a deliberate insult in the same gesture.

When they were gone, Varkos let out a breath through his nose. "That was too close."

"You looked calm," said Koda.

"I always look calm." Varkos rolled his neck. "Don’t tell him I wasn’t."

Koda glanced at the empty path where Gorg had stood. ’That’s not the end of it,’ he thought.

Serah’s eyes narrowed once Gorg’s squad had melted back into the crowd. "We can’t hold a spot near the ration lines. There’s too many eyes; too many people who might come causing trouble."

She was already walking, head turning slowly as she read the basin. Koda and Varkos followed.

She stopped at the edge of a rocky shelf on the camp’s northern rim, where the ground broke into a shallow crater. A thin column of steam rose from a crack at its center, and the stone around it was warm under Koda’s feet.

"Geothermal vent," Serah said. "Warmth for the nights. Mineral water condenses on the rock; we can drink it after we boil it. And look at the approach."

Koda looked. The crater had one wide opening facing the camp, funneled by two spurs of rock. Anyone coming at them would have to come through it, in a line.

"Two can hold that," he said. "Three, easily."

"That’s the idea." Serah crouched by the vent and tested the stone with her palm. "Everyone’s fighting for rations because rations are visible. Position is what keeps you alive after the rations are gone. If we hold this location, that would be nice."

"I hate it when you’re right this fast," Varkos grumbled, and dropped his pack by the vent.

They set up quietly. Serah arranged the crate and the bandage where she could see them from any angle. Varkos took the opening, sitting with his back to the rock and his eyes on the camp. Koda took the warm stone near the vent and finally let himself check what the day had cost him.

The ember behind his ribs was steady, but it felt thin. He had eaten nothing for a while now. The Core Seed sat in his chest, and it had been burning through what little essence he had gathered from the seal strand.

’If I starve, the seed’s growth stalls,’ he thought. ’Maybe worse. It could crack, or fuse badly.’

One crate of rations wouldn’t carry three demons through the camp, never mind feed a core that was still forming. He needed essence, and a lot of it. The camp was full of creatures, remains, discarded gear, and damaged magical tools. There had to be something he could take.

He thought about the Devouring Origin and what it might do with it all. Then he thought about the seal he had barely held back from eating that morning, and he pushed the idea down.

’Not yet. I don’t understand it enough to trust myself near strangers.’

He would watch first, and plan. When he did try something, it would be small, and he would be ready for it to go wrong.

Down in the basin, the squads were already arranging themselves like pieces on a board. Some had formed alliances and were sharing fires. Some were circling the weaker ones, patient as scavengers.

A few big demons had gathered followers around them, and Koda could see the beginnings of small factions, the kind that would turn on each other as soon as supplies ran short.

’Before anyone enters the Rift, it’s already political,’ he thought. ’The war’s started; it’s just not against the enemy yet.’

BLAAAA!

A horn blasted without warning.

It was a deep, rolling sound that started far away and arrived like a blow. All across the basin, the noise of thousands died at once. Fires crackled and nothing else did.

At the far end of the camp, the great gates ground open.

Riders came through.

Each one sat astride a hell-hound the size of a wagon, armored in plates of black iron fitted to its skull and shoulders. The riders wore armor darker and more refined than the enforcers Koda had seen, edged in a dull crimson that seemed to drink the firelight. They rode in a tight line, and the crowd parted for them without being told to.

Even from the rim of the crater, Koda felt their pressure. They were far beyond the Awakening Realm.

The lead officer drew rein at the center of the camp. His voice carried across the whole basin without any effort.

"Seventh Vanguard Cohort," he said. "Hear me."

Thousands of heads turned toward him.

"Your first squad-elimination trial begins soon. Only the squads that prove their worth will receive full rations and march toward the Rift. The rest will not."

He let that sit for a moment.

"Do not mistake this for training."