The Orphan and the Empire
The first thing Halibart remembered was hunger. Not the passing discomfort of a missed meal, but the kind that gnawed in his guts and kept him awake at night. The kind that made every shadow in the street appear as if it were a wolf ready to pounce. He had been eight years old, or so he guessed, when his parents died from fever. Their small farmstead outside Arkoli had been burned in a raid years earlier, forcing the family to scrape by on meager work and dwindling coin. When his parents fell ill, there was no money for medicine.
Halibart had buried them himself, their graves shallow and unmarked beneath an old oak tree. After that, he wandered.
For weeks, he lived on scraps, stealing bread from market stalls or fishing in the muddy streams that crisscrossed the outskirts of the empire. The other orphans he met were as ruthless as the streets demanded, forming tight-knit gangs that preyed on the weak. Halibart learned quickly: trust no one, and keep your knife sharp.
One chill morning, scavenging near the remains of a burnt-out village, he saw them for the first time: imperial soldiers. They rode into view on huge warhorses, their uniforms blue and gray, immaculate despite road dust. Halibart knew of the empire's military, though he had never seen them close up. To his young eyes, they looked like gods.
"Oi, boy!" one of them yelped; a grizzled sergeant with a scar down his cheek. "What are you doing out here alone?"
Halibart froze, clutching the small blade he always kept hidden in his sleeve. "Just… looking for food," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
The sergeant dismounted. His boots crunched on the frost-covered ground. "You don't look like much of a thief. Got a name?"
Halibart," he returned, stepping a foot rearward.
The sergeant regarded him for a moment, nodded. "Well, Halibart, you are in luck. The Empire is taking in orphans like yourself. Feed you, cloth you, even teach you how to fight.
Halibart didn't believe him, of course. Nobody gave anything away for free. Not to the likes of street rats like him. Yet, the hunger in his belly and the cold that bit into his bones became desperation enough to follow.
---
The Barracks
The imperial orphanage wasn't what Halibart had expected. It was harsh, almost brutal, but it was structured. For the first time in his life, he had a roof over his head and three meals a day, even if the portions were small. The other boys were just like him: scrappy, angry, untrusting.
The overseers wasted no time breaking them in. The orphans were drilled from dawn to dusk, learning discipline, combat, and loyalty to the empire. Weakness was not tolerated. Those who couldn't keep up were sent to work in the fields or dismissed altogether.
Halibart thrived. He wasn't the strongest or the fastest, but he was smart, and he learned quickly. When the others picked fights, he fought back twice as hard. When they mocked his ragged appearance, he stayed quiet, waiting for the day he could prove them wrong.
By the time he was fifteen, Halibart had grown tall and broad-shouldered, his once-starved frame now hardened by years of training. The overseers began to take notice, especially an older captain named Garran.
"You've got potential, boy," Garran told him one evening after sparring practice. "But potential means nothing without loyalty. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, sir," Halibart replied, though he wasn't sure he did.
"The empire is your family now," Garran went on to say. "It's the only thing standing between you and the chaos out there. Remember that."
---
The Battle of Greylin Pass
Halibart's loyalty was for the first time tested at Greylin Pass. He was twenty by the time he rose to the rank of sergeant, leading a small squad of soldiers in skirmishes along the empire's borders.
It was supposed to be a routine patrol of Greylin Pass. Instead, it had become a bloodbath. A band of rebels had ambushed their unit, outnumbering them three to one. Halibart's squad was pinned down behind a crumbling wall, arrows raining down from the cliffs above.
"Sergeant, what do we do?" one of his men shouted, his voice shaking.
Halibart's mind raced. Retreat was impossible; they'd be cut down before they made it fifty paces. But staying put meant certain death.
"Follow me," he said finally, his voice steady despite the fear clawing at his chest.
With a yell, Halibart launched his squad in a desperate charge up the rocky slope. The fighting was brutal: blades clashed, blood sprayed, men screamed. Halibart's sword bit home again and again, but he hardly noticed. All that mattered was getting to the top.
When it was over, the rebels were dead or scattered, and Halibart stood victorious, his armor dented and smeared with blood. Of his squad, only three had survived.
"You did well, sergeant," Captain Garran said later, surveying the battlefield. "The empire needs men like you. Men who can lead."
Halibart didn't feel like a leader. He felt like a survivor. But he nodded anyway.
---
A Soldier of the Empire
The years that followed cemented Halibart's place in the imperial military. He rose through the ranks quickly, earning a reputation for his tactical mind and unshakable resolve. He fought in countless battles, always with the same thought in the back of his mind: the empire saved me.
But loyalty came at a price. Halibart saw the cruelty the empire was capable of firsthand: the forced conscriptions, brutal crackdowns on dissent, endless wars of expansion. He told himself it was necessary, that the empire's strength was the only thing holding the world back from chaos.
Now, as a general, Halibart often thought back to the orphan he had been, the boy who had nothing and owed everything to the empire. As he oversaw death marches and innocent people suffered, he wondered: was the empire still worth his loyalty, or had it become the very chaos it claimed to fight against?
Halibart said nothing. But for now, he marched, his sword in hand and his doubts buried deep.