The Place
The Mire Barracks is a barracks of black mud and broken stone in the deep marsh, and the barracks is 1 km long and 200 m wide, and the barracks drinks and holds. The mud of the barracks is black where the Ogres keep it, and the black breaks where the oaths are sworn, and the break is the barracks' only light. The black of the mud is the barracks' only ground, and the ground is where the strength is kept. The broken stone of the barracks is rust where the marsh has given it, and the rust is the barracks' way of keeping the year. The air above the barracks is thick with the smell of the mud and the strength, and the smell is the barracks' only voice. The walls of the barracks are 4 m high, and the walls are black mud where the marsh has kept them, and the keeping is the barracks' way of holding the marsh.
The largest hall, the Oath Hall, runs 80 m end to end, and the red of the fires glows in the walls where it is kept, and the red is the barracks' only fire, and the fire is what the oaths keep in the dark. The barracks does not echo, because the mud takes the sound in and holds it, so the halls sound like a place that is holding its strength. The entrance to the barracks is a single gate of broken stone, and the gate is kept by the strongest ogre, and the keeping is the barracks' only welcome. In the deep of the marsh, where the mud is thickest, the black turns green, and the green is the barracks' way of saying the marsh is kept. This is the place where the strength is the only honest thing, and the strength is the barracks' only harvest.
How They Live
The Ogres keep the barracks in the mud, and the mud is the barracks' only house and the halls are the barracks' only room. The halls are raised by the strength, which is the Ogres' only tool, and the strength raises the black mud as easily as air, and the raising is the barracks' only building. Food comes from the marsh: the small game that the Ogres take on the mud, the fish that are drawn from the deep water, and the strength that is kept when the game is thin. The taking of the game is the barracks' only hunting, and the hunting is the barracks' way of keeping the hunger. Water is drawn from the marsh itself, and the marsh gives its water to the barracks in the slow drip of the deep, and the dripping is the barracks' way of keeping the day. Light comes from the fires of the Oath Hall, and the fires are the barracks' only lamp.
The defense is the barracks, and a visitor who steps into the mud is already inside the word, and the word is the alarm, the welcome, and the sentence. The day is measured by the strength, and the strength is also the calendar, because the marsh is the only clock the oath needs. The rite of the barracks is the oath: when a young ogre swears in the Oath Hall, the mud keeps his name, and the name is the first oath he will ever pay, and the paying is the barracks' only word.
People
Home of the Ogres, whose barracks are counted by strength, and the Ogres of the barracks number in the hundreds of heads that keep the deep marsh. The strongest ogre holds the single gate, and rank in the barracks is decided by how much strength one has kept, and the keeping is the barracks' only rank. No bird is welcome in the barracks, because the birds drink the strength, and the strength is the barracks' word, and the drinking is the barracks' way of turning the birds off. A fen-trader who has sold at the gate calls it the honest mud, and he says the barracks there keeps the strength and the strength keeps the oath, and he says the black of the mud there is the only ground that keeps its word.
In Stories
The place where the strength is the only honest thing, and the thing is the word, and the word is the oath, and the oath is the end. Uaellaen passed the gate in the first year, and the mud did not drink his strength. He did not stop, and the barracks did not ask him back.