For the entirety of his first day, Valdor, as he had chosen to call himself now, found himself constantly looking up. The clear sky was such an amazing thing to him, who had grown up in the Underhive. By the second, he forced himself to stop.
There was nothing up there. That absence should have brought him a sense of peace, but safety was not a concept he trusted. In the Underhive, hesitation and a false sense of security merely meant you died faster.
He followed the river southward, guided by the grim logic of survival: rivers led to people, and people meant food, shelter, information, and danger, usually not in that exact order.
He kept to the shadows beneath the trees rather than walking the open road, as often as he could. Roads exposed a man, made him visible. They broadcast his heading to the enemy, giving them the open ground needed to ride him down.
He had no idea what sort of enemy there were in this place, though he had spotted men riding horses twice since his arrival. The first time, he had dropped into the brush, mistaking the rhythmic thudding for a much larger, mechanical war engine. The error irritated him more than he cared to admit, but he was aware that his understanding of life would most likely be challenged.
There were simply too many things he did not understand. He understood the sharp, gnawing ache of hunger, though. He understood wounds, knew exactly how long a man could fight on bleeding feet, and how much blood one could lose before the hands began to refuse the will and what he had to do to ignore all that and fight anyway.
He knew how to kill with a blade, a stone, a length of garrote wire, a lasrifle, an entrenching tool, or his bare hands if it came to it.
But he did not understand why the armed men he observed wore brightly painted beasts and symbols on their shields. He did not understand why the smallfolk touched their brows and breasts in a hurried pattern when frightened, nor the purpose of the little stone shrines beside the road, one of which bore seven pointed stars. He did not know the coins, nor the tongue.
That final problem, at least, proved temporary. Three days of trailing near settlements had been enough. At first, the 'Common Tongue' was nothing but meaningless noise. Then, the patterns began to emerge, sounds connected to objects, objects to actions, actions to intent.
A merchant haggling over prices, a mother shouting at her child, travellers cursing their mounts; slowly, the chaotic jumble separated into distinct, usable pieces. He could only guess that there were some similarities with Low Gothic, but not enough to claim it was the same language.
Then, as his strange new gift of the 'Essence of the Mirror' had done with other things, the understanding simply settled into his mind, seamlessly copying the ability to speak from a merchant he had observed, after he formed the thought to know the language inside his head.
By that third morning, he could have conversed with them perfectly and yet, he chose not to. A vagrant who learned a language in three days invited dangerous questions; a man who knew nothing and learned slowly was merely a foreigner. Miracles were remembered, and Valdor preferred to go entirely unnoticed for now. Information was far too valuable.
He had been hungry for most of those three days, a close companion from a life where billions starved whenever Warp-shipments were delayed. Food was one of the highest goods in the Imperium, just after ammunition and armoury.
He foraged berries when he recognised birds eating them, and dug up roots when he didn't. To find edible food like that was a luxury unlike any he had known. The previous evening, he had trapped a rabbit using a snare of stripped bark, eating it half-raw because waiting to build a proper fire felt like a risk. He had certainly eaten worse; the Imperial Guard had a way of making a man profoundly grateful for rations that not even the rats of this world would eat.
By midday, the river led Valdor to a mill. He heard the steady, groaning rhythm of turning wood and grinding stone before he saw the squat timber building built over a rushing offshoot of the river. A great wooden wheel turned against the current, while fields of green and gold grain stretched out to the sides.
Valdor stayed hidden in the treeline and watched for twenty minutes. He counted five people: an older man with a thick grey beard and flour-dusted sleeves, a boy hauling grain sacks, two women moving between the mill and a modest house, and a girl of perhaps seventeen drawing water from a stone well.
No visible guards, no hounds, only one wood-axe buried in a chopping block, and three small knives on belts. There were no bows, no sentries, no fortifications of any kind. The mill could not even be held against a dozen unarmed gangers if the doors were barred and the upper windows utilised properly.
Valdor caught himself automatically assigning firing positions before rubbing a weary hand across his face. There were no firing positions. There were no lasguns here, and he wanted to get away from that life anyway.
Not that he forgot his skills, but he needed to adjust to the new world. No lasguns were there, but crossbows and bows.
He stepped out from the trees, intent on gathering information from them.
The girl at the well spotted him, her hands tightening white-knuckled around the rope. Valdor stopped in his tracks, keeping his hands loose and visible at his sides, showing a non-threatening stance. She wore a plain wool dress, her skin darkened by the sun, her brown hair pulled back. She carried no weapon, though Valdor knew better than to assume that meant she was harmless.
... No, he thought. This one was harmless. He saw her stance, the way she moved and breathed... she was as harmless as they got.
She stared, and he stared back. A long, awkward moment passed before she couldn't take it anymore and finally spoke.
"Are you lost?" she asked.
Valdor let the silence hang, then pointed a thick finger at his own chest and repeated, butchering the accent, "Lost?"
He acted as though he didn't understand what she was talking about. If you wanted someone to trust you, you didn't give them something, but had them give something to you, even if that was something very small. That way they invested something in you. Unconsciously, of course.
The girl's face shifted as she understood.
"Oh," she murmured, glancing back toward the mill before returning her gaze to him. "You don't speak the Common Tongue."
Valdor allowed another pause.
"Common?"
"The tongue. Words."
She tapped her fingers against her lips. He knew exactly what she meant, but pretended he didn't.
It was a tedious game, but a highly useful one. The girl began pointing to the world around them, naming things with exaggerated slowness. Well, Water, Mill, River, Bread, House, Horse, and Tree. Valdor repeated each word back to her, lacing his pronunciation with enough clumsy mistakes to make the charade plausible.
When he completely mangled the word for bucket, she laughed.
Valdor's hand moved before conscious thought could stop it—a fraction of an inch toward his hip, reaching for a sidearm that no longer existed. Laughter, mostly meant Chaos and the Arch Heretics of 'She-who-thirsts'.
The girl noticed nothing of the reflex. Valdor forced his hand to relax, breathing out. She had merely laughed, that was all. It wasn't a distraction while a ganger slipped up behind him to plunge a shiv in his kidneys, nor was it the cruel mockery of a hive-city noble, or the laughter of thirsting gods.
It was just a laugh. Valdor had genuinely never heard a human being make that sound without malice or being corrupted.
"You're dreadful at this," she said with a bright smile.
He understood that, too. Before he could say something back, his stomach betrayed him. The low growl wasn't that loud, but in the quiet that seemed to be omnipresent in this new world, it might as well have been the boom of a boltgun.
The girl's eyes dropped to his midsection, then moved back to his face and smiled knowingly.
"Hungry?" she asked.
He already knew that word. He hesitated, then gave a stiff nod. She pointed toward the house and told him to wait.
Valdor's every instinct screamed at him. He had just shown weakness to somebody. That was an imperial crime.
After a while, the girl returned carrying a wooden board and a cup. A thick slice of rye bread, a wedge of cheese, an onion, and water. Valdor stared at the meal as she offered it out to him. He didn't reach for it.
Her brow furrowed as she pushed the board towards him.
"For you."
"For... me?"
"Aye. You learn quickly." When he still didn't move, she shoved the plate closer. "Go on, then."
Valdor finally took it. The bread was still soft, its smell making his stomach cramp.
"What... work?" he said.
She blinked, confused about what he was talking about. He pointed to the mill, then to himself.
"Work. Food."
Understanding dawned on her face.
"Oh. No."
She shook her head, misinterpreting the flat look in his eyes.
"You may help if you want. Father won't say no to another pair of hands, but the food is yours. It's a gift. You are hungry, so I gave it to you. That's natural."
Valdor was certain that this bright light would not survive very long. He hadn't seen much of this world, but he had survived through enough to know that such gentleness and kindness was never rewarded.
He looked down at the soft bread. In the Imperium, there was always a price. A ration chit was issued because your life belonged to the regiment. Water was measured out solely to keep a meatshield marching forward. Ammunition was granted so you could kill whatever horrors the officers pointed you at. And if you couldn't do that, then you were at least good as a meatshield.
"Why?" Valdor asked.
"Why?" She frowned. "Because you are hungry, silly."
Valdor tore off a chunk of the rye, chewed, and swallowed. The taste almost made his eyes water, and he felt like dying right there, a happy man. He ate the entire meal in silence while the girl sat on the edge of the stone well, watching him with curiosity.
When he wiped his mouth, she pointed to her own chest.
"Mara."
His old name belonged to a dead meatshield on a world buried in ash and rot. He had thought instead of a name that had been echoing in his mind since he crossed through the Mirror Dimension, a name from myths older than his regiment.
He touched his chest.
"Valdor."
"Val-dor," she repeated, tasting the syllables. He nodded.
.
Ser Harlan of Crowswell rode into the mill yard just as the sun began to set on the horizon.
The rider was a man weathered by harsh years in the saddle, or so it seemed, somewhere above fifty. Deep lines bracketed his eyes, and grey frosted his thick beard. He wore rusted mail beneath a faded brown surcoat. A wooden shield hung from his saddle, bearing the painted sigil of a crow with spread wings, though years of rain and sword-blows had chipped much of the paint away. A worn broadsword hung at his hip. Valdor's eyes instantly locked onto the weapon.
The old man dismounted with a wince, favouring his right leg heavily as his left boot struck the dirt. An old injury, Valdor could tell at a glance. The knee, most likely. He masked the pain but not as well as he should have, since Valdor noticed right away.
It was strange seeing someone so old in a profession that clearly involved fighting. Usually old people were to be feared, as men and women died young. So if someone managed to get old, that was a sign of danger and skill. But this knight wasn't skilled or dangerous at all.
The knight tossed his reins to the miller's boy as Mara's father emerged from the mill, wiping flour from his hands.
"Ser Harlan. Seven hells, we weren't expecting you again so soon, man."
"Nor was I expecting to come again so soon, Bennard," the knight grumbled. "Yet here we both are, uglier than last time."
The miller snorted.
"You may speak for yourself, ser."
Harlan's eyes drifted over to Valdor, and there they stayed.
Valdor, who had been introduced to the entire family, had been stacking firewood. The knight's gaze flicked from the steel head of the axe to the massive pile of split wood, then back to Valdor's face.
"New hand?" Harlan asked.
"Found him this afternoon," Mara chimed in.
Valdor threw her a sideways glance. Found. As if he were a stray dog wandering the wilderness.
"Found him, did you?"
"Near the trees. He doesn't speak much."
"Ah, a skill most men fail to master their entire lives," Harlan remarked.
"Where's he from?" he asked.
"No idea."
"Did you ask?"
"No."
"I see. Very well."
Later that evening, Valdor learned that Ser Harlan was a hedge knight, a man who had ridden the roads for three decades and somehow survived. The title was often spat as an insult, though Harlan didn't seem to care.
The man owned a sword, a horse, dented armour, a few pots, and absolutely zero lands. He had bled for a half-dozen lords, guarded merchant caravans, lost tourneys, and once spent half a year guarding a muddy bridge because two landed knights couldn't decide who owned the toll rights.
Valdor understood the man much better after hearing that last detail; it was so reminiscent of the petty warfare of the ruling classes he so despised.
Harlan took his rest in the miller's house that night. Bennard allowed Valdor to sleep in the barn as a reward for working tirelessly until the sun vanished. They were very good people, Valdor understood, and he was intent on not abusing their hospitality.
So as he lay there in the hay, he thought about his new power and what he could truly do apart from what he had already done. It was time to experiment.
[Valdor's look]