Rookfall
The wind screamed through the hollow ramparts of Rookfall Keep, carrying the stench of rust and sanctified oil. Knight-Commander Thane walked ahead, his cloak dragging through ash, servo-links in his spine purring with every step. Behind him limped Mira Vance, a scavenger once pressed into the Order’s service, her arm wrapped in scrap-metal braces stamped with the sigil of a fallen house. They were two relics of different faiths — his forged in duty, hers in desperation — bound together by necessity.
“Sir,” Mira said, breath misting in the cold. “Why keep marching east? The road’s gone. The world’s gone.”
Thane stopped at the cliff’s edge. Below them, the valley shimmered with firelight — mercenary camps tearing down the remains of the Keep for scrap. “The world’s gone,” he agreed, “but our vows are not.”
She laughed bitterly. “Vows don’t stop bullets.”
“No,” Thane said, kneeling. The steel in his knees hissed like a prayer. “But they remind us why we bleed.”
He unrolled a relic map — lines of light on torn vellum — showing the pilgrimage route of the First Gear Knights. The final stop glowed faintly: the Shrine of Bearings, buried beneath a storm-torn forest said to hum with the voices of the old machines.
“That’s madness,” Mira whispered. “The storm eats augments. You’ll be torn apart.”
Thane smiled under his helm. “Then it will hear my confession.”
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They reached the forest three days later. Every tree was bound in cables like roots of iron, humming low hymns that only Thane seemed to recognize. He removed his gauntlet and placed a hand on one of the trunks. It pulsed faintly — a heartbeat in metal.
“The Shrine lies beneath,” he said.
“And when you find it?” Mira asked.
“I’ll return the Oathcore.”
From a compartment in his chestplate, he drew a small crystalline drive — the stored memories of every knight he had ever commanded. Voices of the dead murmured faintly inside it, echoing the code of the Order: Serve without question. Die without doubt.
Mira stepped closer. “You could sell that. Feed a city.”
“I could,” Thane said. “But the Order wasn’t built to live easy. It was built to die right.”
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When the storm came, it fell like judgment — lightning threading through the iron trees. Mira watched as Thane descended into the Shrine’s fissure, the stormlight painting his armor gold. He turned once, visor glowing faintly.
“If I don’t return—” he began.
“You won’t,” she said softly. “But I’ll remember the sound your armor made when you walked.”
Thane nodded. Then he stepped into the dark.
Below, the forest sang louder, swallowing him whole — the hymn of machines and men who had forgotten which they were. When the light died, only Mira remained, staring into the silence.
She whispered the words he’d taught her on the road:
“We keep the oath not because it saves us… but because it reminds the world it still can be saved.”
And for the first time, the storm above paused — as if it, too, was listening.
