When the horns blew thrice in the dead still of dawn, no one dared ignore them.
Ash Company veterans stirred immediately. New recruits lagged, confused—some muttering curses under their breath, others checking their collars as if expecting them to spark.
They gathered in the wide clearing at the heart of the camp. The ash from the last funeral pyre still stained the dirt, leaving a ring of black where memory had not yet faded.
Fornos stood atop a stack of armor crates, coat buttoned high, hair slicked back like polished iron. Behind him stood Roa and three auxiliaries—each bearing tablets and codices etched with blood-hued runes.
There were no greetings. No preamble. Just his voice.
"I am not here to inspire you," Fornos said. "I am not your father, not your priest, not your king. I am the system you now serve under. And systems do not beg."
Silence followed. Thick, tense.
"The Ash Company survives not through strength of arms, but through order. What we took from you—your loyalties, your choices, your free command—we will replace with a new order."
He raised a hand, and Roa unfurled a scroll. From it dangled a chain of black steel links, each no larger than a thumb bone, forged crudely and welded shut. One by one, Fornos began to speak the tenets:
"Black Chain Doctrine. Memorize it. Bleed by it."
1. Rank Rotation.
"Status is not inherited. It is not assigned by birth or collar. Your value is measured by results. One mission at a time. You rise or fall based on performance—nothing else."
Murmurs stirred from both scavengers and veterans. It was an equalizer, but a threat, too.
"Those who cling to old ranks will find themselves replaced. No title is permanent under the chain."
2. Red Trials.
"Feuds are poison. But poison can be burned."
He gestured to a crude dueling pit, recently dug and ringed with shattered wood.
"Disputes are resolved here. Under watch. Under rules. First blood, disarmament, or surrender. No lethal strikes. Roa, Erene, and Harl will serve as the first tribunal. Win a trial, earn respect. Lose one, you swallow it. But the feud ends."
Kit crossed his arms in the crowd. A former scavenger named Davik cracked his knuckles. Roa, standing behind Fornos, kept her expression still, but her fingers flexed.
3. Command Silence.
"In battle, chaos devours clarity."
Fornos lifted a silver-coded badge from his belt. It pulsed once—bright red—then flashed green, then fell dark.
"From this moment forward, spoken commands in combat are forbidden. Signals only. Flags, Codex glyphs, light-flares. Handlers will speak only through Codex-linked channels, relayed to golems via embedded vocal runes. Learn the system, or you will be treated as noise."
A few new recruits looked baffled. A scavenger muttered, "What the hell's a vocal rune?"
"Ask your trainers," Fornos said. "Or die guessing."
As the speech ended, the auxiliaries began distributing etched slates. Each bore the core glyphs of the Black Chain: tenets, symbols, flare codes, hand signals. No questions were invited. Understanding was not assumed—it was demanded.
Later that afternoon, the golem handlers trained alone by the wrecked husk of a Gen-6 war golem—a mangled fusion of brass limbs and melted core plating. Its torso had been split by a cannon shot months ago, but Fornos had kept the wreckage intact.
It now served as puzzle and lesson.
Park, lean and sunburnt, tapped one of the golem's disjointed arms with a stick. "What's this joint?"
The scavenger handler opposite him—Kreth, collar-bound and scowling—hesitated.
"Uh...elbow lock?"
Park's stick smacked his shin.
"It's a lateral spin brace. If you call it an elbow, your golem's going to rip its arm off on a leftward pivot."
Kreth grunted. "It looks like an elbow."
"And you look like a dead man if you keep talking like that."
Nearby, Mark worked in silence with two others. His method was quieter. He had removed a golem's ocular plate and handed it to a handler named Fenn. "Reconstruct the Codex input from memory. You have ten minutes. No feedback. If it doesn't light up when you reinsert it, you don't get dinner."
Fenn fumbled the runes. His hands shook.
Mark sat back on a crate and chewed on dry stalkroot.
"You're not supposed to be fast," he said. "You're supposed to be precise."
In the evening, the first Red Trial was declared.
Kit—Roa's squadmate—and Davik—one of Harl's old crew—stepped into the pit with wooden blades.
Fornos watched from a distance, eyes narrowed. No one intervened.
Kit fought like a wildfire—uncontrolled, furious. Davik fought like a wall—patient and brutal. The duel ended with Kit flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him, blade pressed to his throat.
Davik offered no taunt. Just a hand.
Kit took it, after a pause.
The camp didn't cheer. But it noticed.
That night, the fire in the center of the camp burned hotter than usual. New recruits no longer sat in a tight separate knot. Some mingled. Others shared rations. A few began practicing the command signals in hushed repetition.
Black Chain links were hammered and strung across each squad leader's armor—symbolic, for now. But they would mean more in time.
In his tent, Fornos reviewed new rank assessments. Roa brought in the day's dueling records.
"The doctrine's working," she said, placing them beside his ink-stained map.
"It's not doctrine," Fornos replied. "It's gravity. Pulling all of them toward one weight."
Roa tilted her head. "And what's that weight?"
He looked up, expression unreadable.
"Me."