Dawn came gray and wrong.
The kind of dawn that didn't promise anything—no warmth, no hope—just more hours to survive.
Fog clung to the hills like a shroud, swallowing sound and distance alike. Good ground for ambushes.
Bad ground for men who were already bleeding.
We moved before the sun fully rose.
No horns.
No shouted orders.
Just hand signals and murmured curses as packs were lifted and weapons checked.
The wounded walked if they could.
Those who couldn't were carried.
Every step slowed us.
Tarek knew that too.
By midmorning the fog began to thin, and that's when the arrows came.
No warning horn. No challenge.
Just death whistling out of nowhere.
"Down!" someone screamed.
I barely had time to raise my shield before an arrow slammed into it hard enough to numb my arm. Another punched through a man's calf behind me, dropping him with a howl.
We scattered instinctively, diving behind rocks and low rises.
Archers. Multiple angles.
"Fuck!" Rethan barked. "They've got the high ground!"
I scanned the ridgeline through the thinning mist and spotted movement—Council cloaks, disciplined, spaced. This wasn't harassment.
This was a net closing.
"Lysa!" I shouted. "Left flank—can you see a break?"
She shook her head, jaw tight.
"They've layered it. Scouts in front, killers behind."
Tarek had finally committed.
"Advance," I ordered. "Slow. Shields up. We push through or we die here."
No one argued.
We advanced under fire, shields locked, feet slipping on wet stone. Arrows rained down in steady rhythm. One man took a shaft through the eye slit of his helm and went down without a sound. Another screamed as one lodged in his shoulder; he snapped it off and kept moving.
That kind of courage doesn't come from hope.
It comes from refusal.
We reached the base of the ridge and charged.
The archers broke formation immediately, dropping bows and drawing short swords. They were lighter troops, meant to soften, not hold. We tore into them with a fury that surprised even me.
Steel met flesh. Blood sprayed across fog-damp stone. I drove my blade through a man's stomach, kicked him free, and spun to parry another strike. Rethan waded in beside me, axe rising and falling like a butcher's tool.
For a moment—just a moment—it felt like victory.
Then the real troops arrived.
Heavy infantry surged down the ridge in perfect order, shields overlapping, spears bristling.
Their captain raised his sword.
"Advance!"
They hit us like a wall.
The impact knocked men off their feet. Spears punched through gaps. Shields slammed faces. The sound was deafening—metal, bone, screams all blending into one endless roar.
I fought like a man possessed. Not smart. Not careful. Just brutal.
A spear glanced off my ribs, tearing cloth and skin. I rammed my shield into its wielder's face and finished him with a downward stab. Another soldier grabbed my arm; I headbutted him and felt cartilage give.
Around me, the line buckled.
Rethan went down to one knee under three attackers, axe swinging wildly. Lysa was fighting back-to-back with Joren, blood streaming down her temple.
We were being pushed.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
Then the horn sounded.
Not retreat.
Not charge.
Encirclement.
I felt it before I saw it—the pressure from behind, the sense of space vanishing. I twisted and saw fresh Council troops emerging from the treeline, cutting off our rear.
"Shit," Rethan gasped, hauling himself upright. "We're boxed."
He was right.
This wasn't a battle anymore.
It was an execution in progress.
I searched the field, desperately, for some mistake. Some arrogance. Some opening Tarek had left.
And then I saw it.
The right flank. Slightly overextended.
Confident. Pushing forward too fast.
"Rethan!" I shouted. "With me—right side!"
He didn't ask questions. He never did.
We charged into the flank like madmen, slamming into shields before the unit could brace.
The sudden impact threw them into chaos.
I hacked low, cutting tendons, while Rethan went high, splitting skulls.
"Press!" I roared. "PRESS!"
Our men followed, pouring everything they had left into that one point. For a heartbeat, the Council line bent.
Then it broke.
We burst through into open ground beyond the encirclement. Fresh air. Space.
"Fall back!" I shouted. "NOW!"
We didn't run—we staggered. Dragged the wounded. Threw smoke pots behind us.
Anything to slow pursuit.
The Council troops regrouped fast, but not fast enough. They chased, yes—but cautiously now. Tarek wouldn't let them overextend again.
We escaped into the ravines by the skin of our teeth.
By nightfall, we were done.
Not defeated.
But close enough to taste it.
—
Camp that night was silent.
No jokes. No boasts. Just the crackle of a low fire and the sound of men breathing through pain. We counted the dead.
Twenty-seven.
I closed my eyes as each name was spoken.
When it was over, I stood and walked away from the firelight, hands clenched so tightly my nails cut skin.
Lysa followed.
"You can't keep doing this," she said quietly.
I didn't turn. "Doing what?"
"Trading men for moments."
That stung because it was true.
"Tarek wants a decisive battle," she continued. "You're giving him pieces instead."
I exhaled slowly. "If we stand and fight him head-on, we die."
"And if you keep running and striking, we die slower."
Silence stretched between us.
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
She hesitated. "Something desperate."
I finally looked at her. "Go on."
"We stop thinking like an army," she said.
"We become a knife."
Rethan's voice came from the darkness behind us. "I like knives."
He stepped into the firelight, face grim.
"Scouts report Tarek himself is moving closer to the front. He's tightening command."
My heart thudded.
"Tarek doesn't do that unless he's ready to finish it," Rethan added.
Good.
"Then we finish something first," I said.
They both looked at me.
I knelt and drew a new map in the dirt—rough, fast, precise.
"Tarek's supply line runs through the Black Gorge," I said. "Narrow. Steep. Guarded, but not heavily enough."
Lysa's eyes widened. "That's suicide."
"Yes," I agreed. "For an army."
Rethan grinned. "But not for a knife."
"We hit the supply train," I continued. "Burn it. Kill the officers. Leave survivors to run screaming."
"And then?" Lysa asked.
"Then Tarek loses control," I said. "Not of his men—but of time."
Rethan laughed softly. "You're trying to piss off the most dangerous man in Aereth."
I stood. "I'm trying to make him bleed."
They didn't argue.
Because deep down, they knew the truth.
We were already past the point of safety.
—
Far away, in a command tent lit by steady lamplight, Tarek al-Rhazim studied reports with calm, unreadable eyes.
"Losses acceptable," an officer said. "They escaped again."
Tarek nodded. "As expected."
He moved a piece on the map—slowly, deliberately.
"They're growing desperate," he said.
"Desperation makes men brave."
The officer swallowed. "And dangerous?"
Tarek's mouth curved into something that was not a smile.
"No," he said. "Predictable."
He tapped the Black Gorge with one finger.
"Set the bait."
Outside, the night stretched long and merciless.
And both sides prepared to cross a line that could never be uncrossed.