The Line

The rain had not stopped in three days.

It turned the roads around Wharf Town into trenches of black mud and rotting straw, churned endlessly beneath boots, wagon wheels, and the weight of too many soldiers packed into too small a place. The sea sat just beyond the village, grey and restless beneath an iron sky, while the smell of salt mixed poorly with wet timber, horse dung, and smoke from damp fires that refused to stay lit.

Derren sat beneath the overhang of a cooper’s workshop sharpening a blade that did not need sharpening.

Around him, the men of Marketh spoke in low voices, though fewer conversations filled the camp now than there had a week ago. Too many empty bedrolls. Too many names no longer spoken aloud.

Across the square, a boy no older than sixteen struggled to string a longbow with hands still swollen from drilling. A year ago he would have been apprenticed to a fisherman or dockwright. Now he wore boiled leather and Marketh colours and waited for Dominion soldiers to come marching down the southern road.

That was the state of the Free Cities now.

Every year, fewer gifted.

Every year, more nulls handed spears and told to hold borders built by stronger men generations before them.

Derren spat into the mud as he crossed over the square.

“String’s twisted,” he muttered toward the boy.

The lad looked up, startled, then hurriedly loosened it.

“Sorry, sir.”

“I’m not your sir.”

The boy nodded quickly and looked away.

None of them knew how to hold themselves yet. They still moved like civilians pretending at soldiery.

Marketh’s army had once been feared across the southern coast. At least that was what Derren’s father used to say. Back when the city still produced enough gifted to stand against the Dominion without scraping every dock and farm for bodies.

Now they counted every child born beneath the moons like desperate gamblers counting coin.

Hoping.

Praying.

Most received nothing.

Null.

The word had become common enough that no one even lowered their voice when saying it anymore.

Derren glanced toward the southern watchtower rising above Wharf Town’s palisade. The beacon remained dark for now, though he knew it would not stay that way forever.

The Dominion had been probing the border for months.

Not openly. Never openly.

A missing patrol here. Burned farms there. Merchants vanishing on the southern roads. Always deniable. Always just distant enough that the city councils could waste weeks arguing over whether it was truly the Dominion responsible.

Cowards hiding behind debate while border villages buried their dead.

A shape emerged through the rain at the far side of the square.

Captain Harl.

Broad-shouldered despite his age, cloak dripping water, one side of his face marked by an old burn that twisted his mouth permanently downward. He carried no helmet beneath his arm today.

Never a good sign.

The men nearby quietened as he approached.

“They’ve crossed the river,” Harl said plainly.

No dramatics. No speeches.

Just fact.

Derren set the whetstone down slowly.

“How many?”

“Enough.”

A few men cursed under their breath.

The captain looked toward the southern road.

“Scouts counted near two hundred. Maybe more behind them.”

Someone scoffed nervously. “Two hundred for Wharf Town?”

Harl’s expression darkened.

“No. Two hundred to see if we bleed.”

That silenced them.

Because that was how the Dominion fought.

Not with rage.

Not with glory.

Pressure.

Constant, relentless pressure.

Small advances that became forts. Forts that became settlements. Settlements that became Dominion territory before the Free Cities had even agreed there was a war happening.

Derren had seen it before further east.

Whole towns slowly swallowed until the banners changed and the taxes and grain flowed east instead of west.

The captain stepped beneath the overhang out of the rain.

“They brought magi.”

That drew real tension.

Even the younger recruits understood what that meant.

The Dominion’s gifted were fewer than they had once been, but unlike the Free Cities, they hoarded power. Fed it carefully into noble bloodlines. Guarded it jealously.

And where power failed naturally—

they stole it.

Derren remembered the first time he had seen the source slaves.

The memory still turned his stomach.

A line of shackled men and women chained to iron posts behind the Dominion line, their wrists carved with glowing sigils while gifted officers drained strength from them like wine from a cup. Some survived the battle afterwards.

Some did not.

The Dominion called it necessity.

Derren called it rot.

“They bringing source stock?” another soldier asked quietly.

Harl nodded once.

“Spotted wagons.”

A bitter murmur spread through the shelter.

The captain let it settle before speaking again.

“Marketh’s ordered us to hold the village.”

That earned a dry laugh from somewhere in the back.

“With what?”

Harl’s eye shifted across them.

“With what we have.”

No one laughed after that.

Outside, thunder rolled somewhere far out to sea.

Derren stood, sliding the sword back into its sheath before stepping toward the edge of the overhang. Rainwater dripped steadily from the rooftops around Wharf Town. Villagers moved through the streets carrying what belongings they could toward the northern road while soldiers hammered stakes into the muddy earth beside the palisade.

The whole village already felt like something waiting to drown.

“You think they’ll attack tonight?” the young archer asked behind him.

Derren watched the southern road disappear into rain and mist.

“No,” he said quietly.

The boy seemed relieved for half a heartbeat.

Then Derren continued.

“They’ll wait until morning.”

“Why?”

Derren’s eyes remained fixed southward.

“Because they’ll want us awake to watch them come.”