The scent of smoke still lingered in the soil. Burned timber and blood had long since been cleared, but the memory of violence clung to the Ash Company's camp like soot on skin.
At the mess tent, silence was sharper than any blade.
The newcomers—former scavengers now bound by Fornos' collars—sat on the outer ring of the fire circle. Ten in total. Faces lined with bruises, cuts, and deep-set resentment. They ate with their eyes down and their shoulders tight, as if expecting blows instead of food.
The veterans of Ash Company, marked by their uniform mannerisms and clean formations, clustered in their own line. Not one crossed the invisible boundary between the two groups. Not one offered a glance of welcome.
Mark, handler of Thornjaw, broke a roasted tuber in half and chewed with a bored look, his attention drifting toward the newcomers like one might regard wild dogs. Park, always more cordial, offered a short nod to one of the new handlers, but the man ignored him.
Tension was not the right word. It was pressure. Constant and mounting.
By dusk, the camp cracked.
A fight broke out by the weapons rack—a rusted blade snatched, a punch thrown. The sound of steel scraping against stone cut through the air. Two men—one an old Ash veteran named Dell, the other a newly-collared scavenger named Trask—fell into a savage brawl.
"You killed my brother at the tower!" Trask shouted, blood staining his teeth. "You laughed while you gutted him!"
Dell didn't deny it. He only struck harder.
It took Roa and two auxiliaries to pry them apart. Trask's collar hummed—triggered just enough to incapacitate, not kill. He collapsed into the mud, twitching and snarling like a chained dog.
Fornos watched it all from a distance, perched beneath a canopy near the central command tent. His mask lay on the table beside him. A small, steaming cup of bark-tea sat untouched.
He made no move.
"Your men are breaking," Roa said, approaching him, voice clipped. Her coat was still dusted with dirt from the scuffle. "We can't afford this. We're bleeding cohesion."
"We haven't bled anything yet," Fornos replied, not looking up. "They're still alive."
"Barely. That scavenger nearly drove a spike into Dell's neck."
"If he had, I would've let him."
Roa narrowed her eyes. "They were enemies yesterday. Now they sleep beside each other. Fight beside each other. You can't brute-force unity."
Fornos finally looked up. "They were wolves, Roa. All of them. Scavengers. Bandits. Deserters. Survivors. You don't tame wolves with kindness. You give them a cage, a leash, and let them gnaw on the bars until their teeth dull or they break them. Only then do you see which ones are worth feeding."
Roa crossed her arms. "And what if they never stop fighting?"
"Then we rebuild with fewer."
A wind passed through the camp, carrying the smell of the cooking fires and distant iron. Somewhere near the central post, an auxiliary began stitching a torn banner—Ash Company's sigil, black on gray, now frayed at the edges.
Roa exhaled. "We lost five to make this merger happen. Gained ten. If we don't stabilize, we'll lose ten more."
"I know."
"You don't look like you care."
"I do. But I care more about the outcome than the feelings that get us there."
He stood and moved toward the map table, where a series of rough sketches—battle diagrams, relay posts, future expansions—were laid out. A new campaign loomed on the horizon. But before that, the company had to be whole.
"Give them space," he said. "Then give them a task. Something pointless but shared. Build a new training yard. Dig latrines. I don't care what. I need to see who follows without being told."
Roa nodded, grudgingly. "And if someone draws a blade again?"
"Let them. But only once."
Later that night, the tension remained like smoke caught in fabric.
The campfires were dimmer, conversation low. Veterans kept their weapons within reach. New recruits slept in tighter clusters. No laughter. No stories. Just cold eyes and coiled muscles.
Only the handlers, seasoned and new, seemed slightly above the fray. Park spoke quietly with a newer recruit about Thornjaw's codex calibration. Mark tinkered with a control node, occasionally glancing toward the golem pens.
Roa returned to her tent late, her twin sons already asleep under the soft flicker of charm lanterns. She paused, brushing a hand over their foreheads.
Her mind remained in the courtyard—between old enemies forced to share rations, between the weight of command and the shadow of revolt.
Outside, Fornos stood alone by the edge of the encampment. The stars were veiled behind drifting smoke.
He held a small piece of charred wood in his hand—part of the signal system used during the battle days prior. It still smelled of victory.
And unrest.
He whispered to himself as he dropped it into the fire:
"Let the cage hold... just long enough."