Zu roared to the heavens. His chest heaved with exhaustion, exultation. He tossed his head back and howled in celebration, his yari raised to Koruzan, to Algernica, the familiar refrain of “Yechvan toh Zu” sweet on his lips. Banx had finally won their first victory. Soldiers ambled among the hundred hundred bodies that littered the bare ground in search of survivors. Blood and flesh and broken armor blanketed what little grass hadn’t been torn up during the fighting. The overwhelming stench of gore filled the air.

  As Ulula predicted, the Perysh army’s vanguard had followed a decoy regiment of retreating orcs through the thick fog of the forest. When the pursuing southerners lost visual contact with the rest of their army, Banx’s own van leapt from the cover of the trees to rout the enemy and then moved to reinforce the riverside contingent in the east. Banx’s weaker flanks had held long enough to turn the tide, although the western arm had fallen. But not before the Perysh commander was forced to flee, leaving hundreds dead, another hundred wounded. In the end, Banx had taken the ground and held it, recapturing some of the land they’d ceded and scoring a much-needed victory. If for nothing else, for morale.

  Zu walked the field, turning over body after body with the butt of his yari. He bent to close their eyes, whispering a prayer to Hondau for the humans and to Koruzan for the orcs and blooded, that the dead may be honored and welcomed in their next life. He addressed those he knew by name. Good men and women had died that day, on both sides.

  Although the war had consumed the better part of a year, over a dozen battles and more skirmishes, Yechvan had at last forced his opening, even if he hadn’t been there to see it through. Zu laughed at himself as he flitted between relief, mirth, elation. He laughed as he struggled to enjoy his own triumph because there was no Yechvan or Ulula to share it with, laughed even harder when his thoughts strayed to the grumpy orc huddled over his maps and the fierce warrior barking orders by the river.

  With the scouring of the battlefield complete, the Banxian caravan began its slow trudge northward. Scores of southerners bound in iron manacles marched to the eastern flank’s fourth camp of the campaign. Zu watched the procession of beaten and battered Perysh dragging one foot before the other with sheer will, their bodies pushed to the limit. A powerful drumbeat kept the footsteps regular.

  When the end of the line neared, he stepped in at the rear.

  “Ninety-six in all,” Little Grask said, out of breath as he fell into stride beside Zu.

  “How does victory taste?” Zu asked.

  “Not much different than defeat if I’m honest. Like dirt and blood.” The boy wiped his sweaty brow and displayed a bloodied palm.

  “Taste a mite sweeter with some of this on your tongue.” Zu handed Little Grask a skin of mead. “Are you injured?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Our father still doesn’t know you are fighting.”

  “It’s been over half a year since the war began. Does he believe I’m sitting in my tent twiddling my thumbs all day?”

  Zu shrugged. “Not once has he inquired about either of us.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “He hasn’t written to you?”

  Zu shook his head and clapped the boy on the back. “But don’t you worry. He will be pleased to learn of your progress.”

  Little Grask beamed as if Zu had given him the first compliment of his life.

  Before Zu could give the youngling a real commendation, a ruckus broke out a short way ahead, and he left his spot to determine the cause. Sinza, the mercenary. Of course. The large orc towered over a human prisoner who had fallen or been knocked down, hitting him with a stick. His followers jeered as he beat the man bloody.

  In less than two heartbeats, Zu locked Sinza’s arm in a grip more binding than iron chains, his scowl a finger’s width from the orc’s nose.

  “Why do you stop me, Zu Bu?” he asked, defiant. “This man stepped out of line and fell. He must get up and keep moving.”

  “How do you expect him to continue while you rain blows upon him?” Zu released his hold. “There is no cause to beat a man already beaten.”

  Sinza raised his arms in mock surrender, his soldiers smirking and chuckling under their breath. The orc would die within a turn, by Zu’s own hand if he had to guess. Zu had concluded that Sinza and his followers were the drivers of the spreading malcontent, though he hadn’t yet caught them in the act. Most recently, the orc had raped a fellow human soldier, but the man was so petrified of Sinza’s crew he’d simply scurried away, limping and bloody and naked, and refused to speak of it. The young recruit who witnessed the incident was too scared of retaliation to attest to it, so there’d been no trial. A turn before that, Sinza challenged an experienced orc warrior to Lokanu over a minor slight. The soldier accepted the duel to the death out of pride but had fallen to Sinza’s skilled blade. Truth be sure, Sinza was an accomplished swordsman, but he was a bully and a liability. He’d already grown his following from a handful to two score. Weak men flocked to him, as they always flocked to false bravado.

  But he had stepped over the line one time too many. Zu would watch him with a sharp eye. The next time he so much as pissed in the wrong place, Zu would be there.

  Zu helped the Perysh man to his feet, but the human stumbled again on his first step. To keep the caravan moving, Zu unlocked the manacles and lifted him onto one of the supply carts. The prisoner protested, but his ankle was swollen to the size of a grapefruit. There was no shortage of frowns and sidelong scowls from Perysh and Banxian alike, but Zu waved them off. The man could hardly walk; he wouldn’t be attempting escape. Nor would he be a danger to anyone, though the special treatment might complicate his life for a while.

  Zu returned to Little Grask as the line continued moving. The caravan would reach the camp by nightfall, and he was looking forward to trading his venison jerky for the cook’s stew, a hard patch of earth for his padded cot and the bath he’d taken in the blood of his enemies for one in the burbling stream near camp. After five years without war, he’d forgotten how easily the essentials could feel like luxuries.

  “Why did Sinza do that?” Little Grask asked.

  “He wants everyone to know he is in charge. Now that his little group has grown, we must keep them in check by occasional shows of force. You will experience this when you become qish.”

  “How do you prevent uprisings?”

  “Pretenders will always find a place amongst the rabble, but it is important to remember they are pretenders. The way I handle it should differ from your approach. Remember that as well.”

  “How will you handle it?” the boy wondered.

  “Publicly. And quickly.”

  “You plan to kill him?”

  “Only if he forces my hand.”

  That answer didn’t seem to satisfy Little Grask, but he didn’t give voice to any further questions. Preoccupied, his gaze drifted to some unseen quandary on the horizon, and Zu snatched the mead. He ruffled the boy’s muddy, greasy hair and dangled the skin out of reach. Then he took another long pull, draining every drop before handing it back to Little Grask.

  “You drank it all,” the boy said, more a statement of fact than a complaint. He grinned and tossed the empty skin at Zu.

  “So I did.”

  Grask put a hand on his rumbling stomach. “How far until camp?”

  “Another twenty minutes. But there will be no time to rest once we arrive. We will need to tend to the prisoners, bang out those dents in your armor and sharpen your steel.”

  “I don’t care, so long as I can wash the filth from my face and fill my belly while we do.”