Ashes Of the Führer

"Sir Leon, are you alright?" a scout called, jogging up beside me.

"I'm fine," I said, sliding my blade back into its sheath. "Check the oxen. See if any spooked."

We left the beast where it fell—slumped against the mountain floor, half buried in snow. One man was dead. Two more lay unconscious in the rear wagon. That left three of us still walking... but even then, only barely.

The mountain swallowed our footsteps as we moved on.

Hours passed. No more signs of life—no birds, no beasts. Just stone, cold wind, and a trail scraped thin from time and gravity. The sun had sunk low behind the peaks by the time the smoke appeared.

And then the village.

No walls. No banners. Just squat homes made of stone and scrap wood, perched on cracked earth too cold to ever bear a harvest. Smoke drifted from chimneys. Shadows moved between doorways.

They didn't know who we were.

They didn't know what was coming.

I halted the caravan with a raised fist. The wagons stopped behind me, wheels groaning.

"Let me go ahead," I shouted to my group. "No weapons. If they panic, this ends badly."

I stepped forward alone.

They saw me coming. Figures began to emerge—older men with axes, women with crude spears, and boys gripping tools they'd never swung in battle. I counted maybe two dozen in the open. More behind windows. One girl peeked out from behind a half-hung fur, eyes wide.

At the center of them all stood an elder.

He looked no less rugged than the rest—broad shoulders, thick beard streaked with white, cloak sewn from furs and frayed cloth—but his eyes were sharp. Measured. They watched everything.

I stopped ten paces out.

"My name is Leon," I said, projecting my voice just enough to carry. "I lead this caravan. We're not here to rob you. We're not here to hurt anyone."

The elder standing in front did not respond. He glanced behind me, likely noting the bloodstained wagons, the limp forms tied down, the heavy silence of a group that had clearly fought and bled on the way here.

"You're not merchants," he said finally.

"No."

"You're not nobles."

I shook my head.

"Then what are you?"

I hesitated.

What was I? What could I say?

"We're part of something new," I said carefully. "A gathering of humans, no longer living under demi-human chains. That's all I can say for now."

He raised an eyebrow. "You bring grain?"

"Yes."

His gaze didn't change. "Then what do you want in return?"

The question sat heavy in the air.

I didn't answer right away. Not because I didn't have one—but because saying the wrong thing here could cost lives. I glanced back at the wagons, then at the villagers, who stood like brittle twigs waiting for wind.

"No blood. No pledges. No banners," I said quietly. "Only a meal. Shelter for the night. And the hope that—if we're needed again—you won't bar your doors."

The elder studied me for a long while.

He stepped closer. Not threatening. Just near enough to speak without raising his voice.

"You've got wounded. You've got grain. You've got something behind your eyes that says you've seen more death than you're ready to admit."

He looked past me again.

"You'll unload at the center of the village nothing more."

I didn't flinch. "And if I want to do more?"

"Then you're free to take your wagons and roll back into the cold," he said evenly. "But I don't think you will."

Another pause.

I nodded.

"I won't."

The old man turned and started walking.

Behind me, I gave the signal. The caravan creaked into motion, wheels rolling over frost-bitten dirt. The villagers parted slowly, their eyes darting between the wagons and the strangers beside them.

None of them cheered. None of them smiled.

But they didn't stop us.

And that was enough—for now.

The elder said nothing more as he walked. I followed in silence, boots crunching over frost-bitten dirt. Behind us, the sound of creaking wheels and muted voices faded into the wind.

He led me past low homes and storage huts, through a narrow path between two cliff faces, and toward what looked like a collapsed quarry wall—at least at first. Then I saw the entrance: a stone arch barely taller than a man, half-covered by tarps and loose slate. A torch flickered above it, its flame barely holding in the mountain breeze.

He ducked inside without pause. I followed.

The air changed instantly—cooler, heavier, smelling of smoke and something sharp, almost oily. The tunnel descended at an angle, winding just enough to hide its end from view. Two men stood in the shadows near the walls, each with thick coats, sun-creased faces, and axes slung casually—but deliberately—across their shoulders.

Neither spoke.

The elder raised a hand, and they stepped aside.

We passed through an open doorway into a chamber carved straight from the mountain's bones. Rough-hewn walls. An uneven floor. And against one end—stacks of dark, jagged stone that caught the lamplight like charred glass.

Dozens of heaps, each mound made up of dense, black lumps no larger than a clenched fist. The surfaces were dull and dusty, but I noticed thin silver-gray veins laced through some of them—faint glimmers beneath the grime. The smell here was different. Bitter. Sharp. Not like soil or ash. More metallic, like something pulled from the earth to burn.

As I passed one of the stacks, my glove brushed a chunk. When I looked down, a sooty streak ran across the leather—fine and clingy, with a weight that settled deep in the lungs.

The air near the piles felt slightly warmer. Almost unnatural.

I'd seen this stuff before—rarely, and only in smithing villages or old war camps. Stone that burned hotter and longer than wood ever could. Stone that meant fire.

The room glowed under the dull light of a single oil lamp hanging from a hook overhead. Crates lined the corners, some cracked open and half-empty. Tools. Rope. Spare cloth. No furniture but a table and two chairs—one set near the center, the other against the far wall. The air tasted like char and steel.

The elder gestured to the closer chair. "Sit."

I did, slowly. The two men with axes remained by the door. Still silent. Still watching.

The elder sat across from me, hands folded on the worn tabletop. His eyes didn't blink much. They didn't need to.

"You speak like a soldier," he said. "But you don't wear a noble's crest. And you're not with the old kingdoms. That much I know."

"I never said I was."

"No, you didn't." He leaned forward slightly. "So I'll ask again. Plainly."

A pause.

"What did you really come for?"

I held his gaze.

There was no point dressing it up.

"We came to trade," I said evenly. "We brought food, salt, medicine. Tools. Weapons. In return, we're hoping for materials—iron, pelts, manpower if it exists." I motioned toward the stacks. "We heard of your village weeks ago from a lone scout. We came to open the door."

The elder studied me, silent for a long moment.

Then he shook his head.

"No," he said coldly. "There will be no trade."

I kept my expression still. "Why?"

"We've lived here for twenty winters. Alone. We survived while nobles bled the valleys and demi-humans taxed the rivers. They forgot we existed—and that's why we're still breathing."

He leaned forward slightly, his voice quieter now but firmer.

"We don't want your food. Or your weapons. We don't want your wars, your flags, or your ideas."

"Then what do you want?" I asked.

"To be left alone."

Before I could answer, a voice broke the stillness.

"No offense, Chief," said one of the axe guards near the wall—young, maybe no older than twenty. His voice cracked slightly. "But my wife and daughter haven't eaten in two weeks. They've been boiling bark and snow just to get through the night. This—this could be our only—"

"Enough!" the elder snapped.

The word cracked like a whip. He turned on the young man, eyes flashing.

"You ungrateful little fool."

The guard flinched but didn't back down. His knuckles whitened around the haft of his axe.

"I built this village," the elder growled. "I carried stone from the ridge. I buried your mother with my own hands when the frost took her. I kept you alive when wolves scraped at our walls and blizzards killed three in one night."

He stepped closer.

"I gave you shelter. Fire. Order. And you repay me with disrespect and disloyalty? You forget your place."

The guard dropped his gaze. But his jaw tightened.

The elder turned slowly back to me.

"You can sleep here tonight. That's all. Come morning, you and your wagons will be gone."

He stepped toward the tunnel entrance, his voice like a closing door.

"Trade leads to talk. Talk leads to roads. And roads bring ruin. We've lived too long without them to start now."

Then, quieter—

"And if your kind keeps climbing mountains... don't expect open gates."

He vanished into the tunnel, boots echoing on stone.

I looked at the two guards. The younger stared at the floor. The older one simply exhaled and shifted his grip on the axe.

Neither said a word.

And in the silence, I realized something more dangerous than cold was taking root in this place.

Pride.Desperation.And a leader too stubborn to see the cracks forming under his feet.

I sat there for a moment, staring at the rough table, the dust still on my gloves. Then, just as I stood to take my leave, one of the guards shifted.

"Wait—please," he said suddenly, stepping in front of me.

I stopped. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I mean no harm. But... can you spare food? For my wife and child? Or even just for my child. That would be enough."

I looked at him. His face was worn thin by hunger, but it was his eyes that struck me—desperation, raw and honest, with none of the elder's coldness.

"I can't do that," I said, shaking my head slowly. "Not like this."

"You would let a child starve?" His voice rose—pain now sharpening into anger.

"I'm not letting your child starve," I said, softer this time. "Your chief is."

That made him falter.

"We don't want a confrontation," I continued. "Not here. Not now. We're not your enemy. But if I start handing out food behind the chief's back... I become one."

He said nothing—just stood there like a man caught between duty and grief.

"I wish I could help you," I said honestly. "But that's just not happening. Not yet."

He looked down, shoulders slumped. A man defeated not by war, but by silence.

As I stepped past him, I paused. Just long enough to leave a seed.

"Find a way to convince your chief to trade," I said quietly. "And we'll give you food and medicine—for free."

Then I walked to the exit, not waiting for a reply.