I did not sleep.
I sat with my back against a broken wagon wheel at the edge of the camp, my cloak pulled tight, my sword laid across my knees like a reminder that the night was not yet finished with us. Dawn came slowly, gray and reluctant, as if the sky itself was unsure whether this place deserved light again.
We had won.
That word felt wrong in my mouth.
The field beyond the river was quiet now. Too quiet. Bodies lay where they had fallen, dark shapes half-swallowed by mist. The water moved on as it always did, carrying blood downstream as if it had no memory at all. Rivers never remember. Men do.
Somewhere behind me, a man laughed—sharp, broken, almost hysterical. It ended abruptly, choked off by another voice telling him to shut the hell up. Fires crackled low. The smell of burned grain, sweat, and iron hung thick enough to taste. Every breath scraped my throat raw.
I stood when my legs began to shake, joints stiff with dried blood and exhaustion. Pain flared as I moved, a reminder of the gash along my ribs where a spear had kissed me hard enough to draw red but not hard enough to end me. Luck. Nothing more.
As I walked through the camp, men noticed.
Conversations died. Some straightened. Some averted their eyes. A few nodded, slow and deliberate, the kind of acknowledgment shared by men who had stood close to death and found themselves still breathing.
They expected something from me.
Words. Assurance. Meaning.
I had none to give.
Near the central fire, the surgeons worked in silence. No shouting now, no frantic commands. Just the steady rhythm of knives cutting cloth, hands pressing wounds, men biting down on leather straps to keep from screaming. One boy—no older than seventeen—met my eyes as they cauterized his leg. He did not cry. He just watched me, face pale, lips trembling.
I looked away first.
Command tents had gone up during the night, crude but functional. Inside the largest, maps were spread across a rough table, held down by daggers and stones. The river was marked in charcoal, the ford circled again and again like a wound that refused to close.
Rethan stood over it, shoulders slumped, helmet discarded at his feet. He looked older than he had the day before, beard matted with sweat and blood.
"You alive?" he asked without turning.
"For now."
"That makes two of us." He finally faced me. "Scouts say the enemy's main body broke south. They didn't even try to regroup."
"They couldn't," I said. "Too many dead. Too many leaders gone."
Rethan exhaled slowly. "We hit them harder than I thought we would."
That wasn't pride in his voice. It was disbelief.
"We paid for it," I replied.
His jaw tightened. "We always do."
Reports came in through the morning. Fragmented. Messy. Like the battle itself.
Units scattered. Companies reduced to half strength. Knights missing—some dead, some unaccounted for, some undoubtedly drowning somewhere downriver with their armor dragging them to the bottom.
No one spoke numbers aloud at first. It was as if saying them would make them real.
Eventually, they could not be avoided.
We lost nearly a third of the men we brought to the ford. Veterans, too. Not just green levies. Men who had survived three, four campaigns. Men who knew when to stand and when to run—and stood anyway.
The enemy losses were worse. Far worse.
Their center had collapsed when their banner fell, panic spreading faster than any order could have stopped. Cavalry had tried to withdraw across ground too soft to support them. Infantry had drowned trying to flee armor-heavy into the river.
A decisive victory.
That phrase would be written later by men who weren't there.
By midday, the dead were being gathered. Those we could reach, anyway. Fires were built downwind. Priests moved among the bodies, murmuring rites with cracked voices. Some names were spoken. Most were not. There were too many.
I knelt once, briefly, beside a man from the eastern villages. I remembered him only because he had smiled the night before the battle, nervous and hopeful, telling anyone who would listen that he planned to buy land after this war.
His eyes stared at nothing now.
I stood and walked away before the weight in my chest crushed something vital.
Messages began arriving in the afternoon.
Couriers from allied holds. Observers who had lingered on the edge of the field, waiting to see which banner would still be standing by nightfall. Their words were careful.
Respectful. Filled with admiration they had not risked earning themselves.
Victory travels faster than truth.
By evening, the camp had changed
. Fires burned higher. Food was cooked—thin porridge, hard bread, whatever could be spared. Men ate in silence or spoke in low tones, retelling fragments of the battle as if piecing it together might make sense of it.
I sat with my back against a tent pole, cleaning my sword again. The motion was automatic. Cloth, oil, steel. Over and over.
A shadow fell across me.
"Commander," said a voice I recognized.
I looked up. Captain Jorren stood there, helmet tucked under his arm, face bruised and cut but alive. One eye was swollen nearly shut.
"Report," I said.
He hesitated. "We've secured the ford. No sign of enemy regrouping within ten miles. But…" He paused. "There are whispers. Among the men."
"About?"
"You."
That got my attention
.
"They say this victory won't save you," Jorren continued carefully. "That once word reaches the capital, they'll twist it. Say you acted without sanction. That you overcommitted. That the losses—"
"—will be laid at my feet," I finished.
He nodded once. "Yes."
I stared at my blade. It reflected firelight, warped and flickering. "They can say whatever they want."
"They will," he said quietly.
After he left, I remained where I was, watching sparks rise into the darkening sky.
Victory did not feel like triumph. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing someone was already pushing.
Night fell again, colder than the last. Wind picked up, carrying the scent of ash and river water. Guards doubled. Watches tightened. No one trusted peace yet.
I lay down eventually, though sleep refused me. When it came in fragments, it brought dreams of water closing over my head, of banners sinking into mud, of hands clawing at me from beneath the surface.
I woke before dawn to the sound of hooves.
A rider entered camp at speed, mud-splattered and hard-eyed. He dismounted near the command tent, thrusting a sealed message into Rethan's hands. I watched from a distance as the seal was broken.
Rethan's shoulders went rigid.
He found me minutes later.
"It's started," he said.
I took the parchment from him. The words were formal. Cold. Stripped of context and mercy.
I was ordered to present myself to the High Council. Immediately. To answer for "unsanctioned military escalation" and "unacceptable casualty rates."
No mention of the ford secured. No mention of the enemy broken
.
Just the cost.
I folded the message slowly. Around us, the camp stirred, men preparing for another day they had not expected to see.
"They want a head," Rethan said.
"Maybe," I replied. "Or maybe they want a warning."
"To whom?"
"To anyone who thinks winning a war gives them power."
I handed the message back. "Prepare the men. We move at first light."
Rethan frowned. "To the capital?"
"No," I said. "We move before they decide whether I arrive in chains."
The truth settled between us, heavy and unavoidable.
The battle at the ford had ended one war.
It had started another.
And this one would not be fought only with steel.