Captain Ortossi, Guard of Ar — your cloak still bears the dust of the city gate, your sword loose in its sheath, your eyes already scanning the tree line ahead.
The caravan is yours to keep alive:
• Twelve wagons — grain, salt, iron tools, and sealed casks of paga wine bound for the timber camps beyond the Vosk
• Twenty guards in the scarlet and grey of Ar, spears shouldered, shields slung
• Six drovers, two merchants from the House of Cernus, and a scribe who keeps looking back at the walls of Ar as if they might follow him
The North Forest does not forgive a slow column.
You ride at the head, your tarn... no, your kaiila snorting at the scent of pine and wet earth. Behind you, the wagon wheels groan. Ahead, the road narrows, swallowed by pines so tall they blot the morning sun.
A scout rides back hard, reining in beside you.
"Captain," he says, breathless. "Fresh tracks off the east verge. Not tharlarion. Booted. Two days old, maybe less. And something else — a wagon rut, broken. Off the road."
The men look to you. The merchants look to you. The forest waits.
Go," you tell Tens, voice low and flat. "Back to the circle. Tell them what we found. No wagons move. No one breaks formation. If we are not back by the time the sun touches the treetops, they are to turn and make for Ar at speed. Understood?"
Tens nods, swallows hard, and wheels his kaiila. He doesn't look back. Good. Fear is fine. Hesitation is not.
You, Lar, and Marcellus are left in the sudden quiet.
You dismount. Tie the kaiila to a low pine, out of sight. Spears low. You take the center, Lar to your left, Marcellus to your right, ten paces apart, moving slow through the trees toward where that branch cracked.
The forest floor is soft here. Moss. Old leaves. Every step wants to make a sound.
Then you see it.
A clearing, no more than thirty paces ahead. In the middle, the remains of a campfire, cold. Around it — scattered gear. A broken spear. A waterskin, slit open. A helmet, dented inward, as if by a great blow.
And in the mud at the edge of the clearing, a print.
Lar crouches beside you and breathes out through his teeth.
"Captain... that's no sleen. That's larger."
Marcellus whispers, "Forest urt? No. Too big."
The print is wide as a shield. Five toes. Claws dug deep.
And the tracks lead away from the clearing — deeper into the North Forest. Fresh. The mud at the edges hasn't even dried.
Behind you, a twig snaps.
Not in front. Behind.
You turn, slowly.
The kaiila are gone. The ropes you tied them with are cut clean.
Someone — or something — is between you and the caravan now.
You make the call before fear can make it for you.
"If it wanted us dead, we'd be dead in the clearing," you say. "It took the kaiila to keep us here. Or to draw us in. Either way, running blind back to the road gets us killed in the trees. We follow the tracks. Quiet. Eyes up."
Lar nods. Marcellus spits in the dirt and tightens his grip.
You move.
The tracks are easy to follow now — too easy. The thing that made them wasn't trying to hide. It plows through brush, snaps saplings, leaves deep heel-marks where it paused.
The trees get older here. Thicker. The light goes green and dim. The air smells of wet fur and old blood.
After maybe two hundred paces, the tracks stop at a hollow — a natural bowl in the earth, ringed by fallen pines, like a den.
And in the middle of that hollow, lying on its side, is one of your kaiila.
Not dead. Hobbled. Its legs bound with woven vine, its mouth gagged with cloth. Alive. Watching you with wide, terrified eyes.
Beside it, a second kaiila. And a third.
All three. Taken, not killed. Bound, not eaten.
Lar freezes. "Captain... this is a trap. This is made."
He's right. Beasts don't tie knots.
From the tree line above the hollow, a voice — low, rough, speaking Gorean with a strange, northern lilt — calls out:
"Captain of Ar. Put down your spears."
A figure steps out onto a fallen log. Tall. Wrapped in furs and cured leather, face half-painted in white ash. A longbow in his hand, arrow notched, but not drawn. Behind him, two more figures rise from the brush, spears lowered but ready.
"Your beasts are unharmed. Your men in the clearing were not mine. I found them as you did."
He pauses.
"But the thing that made those tracks... it is still hunting. And it is hunting your caravan now."
He looks toward the road, toward the circle of wagons you left behind.
"You have a choice, Captain. Kill me and lose the only man who knows what it is. Or listen."
You hold Lar's eye for a heartbeat — steady — then you lower your spear, butt to the earth.
Not dropped. Lowered. Your right hand stays near your sword hilt. Marcellus follows your lead a half-second later, jaw tight.
"Talk," you say. "Fast. And true."
The man on the log lowers his bow a fraction. Not all the way. He is not a fool either.
"My name is Varl. I am of the Forest People. We do not love Ar. Ar does not love us. But we both hate what is loose in these woods."
He steps down, careful, keeping distance.
"The tracks you followed are a kur. A great beast, taller than a man, with arms like tree trunks. It came down from the northern mountains three moons ago, driven out by hunger. It does not kill for food alone. It kills for sport. It broke your patrol in the clearing — I found two of them dead, one still breathing. I carried him to my camp. He lives, but he will not walk for many days."
Lar's grip loosens. That explains the dented helmet. The broken spear.
"Why take our kaiila?" you demand.
"To stop you from riding into its den," Varl says. "You would have ridden straight to it, four men on loud beasts. It would have killed you. I took the beasts to force you to walk. To listen."
He points back toward the road, his face grim under the ash paint.
"It is not in the forest now. It circled you. While you followed its old tracks here, it followed your scent back to the road. It is going for the wagons. For the noise. For the meat."
A distant sound carries through the trees then — faint, but unmistakable.
A scream. From the caravan.
Then the clash of spears on shields. And a roar that shakes the pines.
Varl is already moving, untying the kaiila with quick, practiced hands.
"You have seventeen guards in a circle, Captain. They will hold for a time. But not against a kur."
He shoves the reins of your kaiila into your hands.
"Ride with me. I know a short cut through the ravine. We can hit it from behind, while it is busy with your shield wall.
Mount up!" you bark.
No more debate. The screams from the caravan decide it.
You swing onto your kaiila, Lar and Marcellus right behind you. Varl is already ahead, leaning low, his beast — a shaggy, forest-bred kaiila, smaller but faster through trees — cutting off the main track and diving into a narrow cut in the earth.
The ravine.
It's steep, slick with wet stone and pine needles. Branches whip your face. Your kaiila slips once, catches itself, plunges on. You can hear the fight growing louder ahead — shouting, the splintering of wood, that roar again, closer now.
Varl calls back without turning: "Hold tight! At the end, we come out behind the circle! The kur will have its back to us!"
You burst out of the ravine into a clearing of broken saplings — and you see it.
It is worse than Varl said.
The kur is eight feet tall, maybe more, covered in matted black fur, its eyes burning yellow. It has one wagon tipped on its side, a guard pinned under a wheel, and it is tearing at the shield wall with both hands, ripping a spear clean out of a man's grip and snapping it like kindling.
Your guards are holding — barely. Seventeen men in a ragged circle, shields locked, but two are already down. The merchants are screaming inside. Tens is at the front, blood on his face, still shouting orders you gave him.
The kur hasn't seen you yet. Its back is to the ravine. To you.
Varl has his bow up, arrow drawn, aimed at the beast's neck.
He looks at you. Waiting for your order.
This is your moment, Captain.
Now, Varl!" you hiss. "Neck shot — then left!"
Varl doesn't hesitate. He looses.
The arrow hisses through the trees and buries itself deep in the thick muscle at the base of the kur's neck.
The beast screams — not a roar, a scream of pain and rage — and whirls toward the ravine, toward you, its great arms swinging, its yellow eyes locking on Varl.
Exactly as you planned.
"WITH ME!" you roar.
You, Lar, and Marcellus break from the trees at full gallop, not at its front — at its exposed left flank. The kur is turned away from your guards, away from the shield wall. For two heartbeats, its side is open.
Lar drives his spear in first, low, into the hamstring. The beast staggers, bellowing.
Marcellus follows, spear thrusting up under the ribs.
You come last, fastest, your kaiila leaping over a fallen log. You stand in the stirrups and drive your spear with both hands, all your weight behind it, into the beast's side where the ribs part.
The kur convulses. It swats — a backhand that catches Marcellus' kaiila and sends man and beast tumbling into the mud, Marcellus rolling clear, gasping, alive.
But the wound is deep. Blood — dark, thick — pours down its fur. It drops to one knee. Then the other.
Your guards see it. Tens sees it.
"AR! AR!" Tens screams, and the shield wall surges forward as one, spears bristling, driving the beast back, pinning it.
The kur thrashes once more, tries to rise, and then, with a final shudder, collapses face-first into the mud, dead.
Silence.
For a moment, just the panting of men and beasts, the creak of the tipped wagon, the moaning of the wounded.
Then the cheering starts.
Varl walks forward slowly, bow lowered. Your guards part for him, uncertain. He kneels beside the beast, pulls his arrow free, wipes it clean.
He looks up at you.
"The patrol man I saved — he is at my camp, two hours north. If you send two men with me at first light, you can bring him home."
The merchants are already counting their losses, already arguing about the broken wagon. Tens is helping Marcellus to his feet.
The caravan is battered, but alive. The road north is still open. Night is coming fast, and you are deep in the North Forest.
Camp here," you say, and your voice carries. "No one rides in the dark with wounded men and a broken wagon. We fortify."
The order spreads fast. Relief, mostly. Men who were ready to die an hour ago are suddenly very busy being alive.
You point to the clearing where the kur fell.
"Wagons in a tight circle — tighter than before. Fires inside the circle, not outside. Double watch, in pairs. No man walks alone to piss tonight."
Tens nods and gets the men moving. The tipped wagon is righted, though its axle is cracked. The wounded are laid on cloaks near the center fire. Marcellus has a bruised shoulder and a split lip, but he waves off the healer and takes a watch post anyway.
You turn to Varl.
"You saved my men. You eat at my fire tonight. Your people too, if they're close."
Varl hesitates — a Forest man eating in an Ar camp is not a small thing — then nods once, slowly.
"I have two with me. They will keep watch in the trees. It is what we do."
By full dark, the camp is a ring of firelight in the black forest. The smell of roasting meat — some of the kur, at Varl's urging, tough but filling — mixes with pine smoke. The merchants have stopped arguing and are drinking paga in sullen silence.
You sit across the fire from Varl. Lar sits to your left, sharpening his spear.
Varl speaks quietly, so only you hear.
"The kur was not alone in the mountains, Captain. There were two. A mate. I tracked this one south. The other... I lost its trail a week ago."
He pokes the fire.
"It may have followed. Or it may have gone back north. I do not know."
He looks up, his ash-painted face grim in the firelight.
"But if it comes tonight, your circle will not hold it alone. My people will hear it first. If you will let us stand with you, we will."
You look around the circle — at your tired guards, at the wounded, at the dark trees pressing in on every side.
You stand.
The fire crackles. Every man in the circle looks up.
"Listen to me," you say, loud enough for the whole camp. "This man is Varl of the Forest People. He could have left us to die in that hollow. He could have left us to the kur. He did not."
You look at Varl, then at your men.
"Tonight, his people stand watch with us. Not outside. Not apart. With us. Any man who has a problem with that can take it up with me in the morning."
A beat of silence. Then Tens — blood still dried on his cheek — steps forward and offers Varl his waterskin. Lar claps Varl on the shoulder. One by one, the guards nod.
Varl's two companions melt out of the trees and take their places at the gaps between wagons, bows ready. Your guards shift to make room, not crowding them, not shunning them. Two watches become one.
The night passes slow. Fires burn low. The forest is loud — owls, wind, something moving far off that makes the kaiila stamp — but nothing comes.
At first light, the mist is thick in the pines. Varl is already up, breaking camp with his people.
He comes to you as you check the wounded. The patrol man, he says, is waiting.
"I will take two of your men to my camp," Varl says. "We will bring your man back to you by midday. He will need a wagon, but he will live."
You nod. "Lar, Tens — go with him. Bring him home."
As they ride out, Marcellus comes to stand beside you, watching the road north.
"Captain," he says quietly. "What do we tell Ar about this? About... them?"
The caravan is ready to move. The timber camps are still two days north. The sun is just breaking through the trees.
The men are waiting for your order to break camp.
Marcellus," you say. "You ride south. Now."
He blinks. "Me, Captain?"
"You. You're the fastest rider we have left, and you can tell it straight. No scribe's flourishes."
You pull him aside, away from the merchants, and give him the words exactly as Ar needs to hear them.
"Tell the Council this: The North Road is not safe. A kur came down from the mountains. It broke a patrol — two dead, one living, being brought to us now by Varl of the Forest People. It attacked the caravan yesterday at dusk. We killed it, at cost. Two guards wounded, one wagon damaged, but the goods are whole."
You pause.
"And tell them this too: Varl saved our kaiila, saved our lives, and stood watch with us through the night. If there is a second kur, Ar will need the Forest People more than it needs its pride. Tell them to send no patrol north without speaking to Varl first."
Marcellus nods, solemn. He understands the weight of that last part. A Captain of Ar does not lightly speak for the Forest People to the Council.
He mounts, salutes, and rides south, disappearing into the mist.
You turn back to the camp. The men are already hitching the teams. Lar and Tens are not yet back, but the sun is climbing, and the road will not wait forever.
You mount your kaiila, ride to the head of the column, and raise your hand.
"Column! Forward! Scouts out — one hundred paces ahead, one hundred paces to each flank! No stragglers! We move for the timber camps, and we move together!"
The wagons groan. The wheels turn. The caravan rolls north, deeper into the North Forest — battered, bloodied, but unbroken, with a new alliance forged in firelight behind it.
And somewhere ahead, in the pines, a second set of tracks waits to be found.
For a heartbeat, every eye is on you.
Charge, and you might save the camps. Charge, and you might lose the whole caravan in that narrow pass — wagons trapped, men cut down, goods burned.
You are Captain of the Guard of Ar. Your duty is not to die gloriously. Your duty is to bring your people home alive.
"Turn them!" you roar. "Turn the wagons! Now! Back to the clearing! Double time!"
It is chaos for a moment — drovers shouting, kaiila balking, wheels grinding as twelve wagons swing around on the narrow road — but your guards know this drill. Shields up, spears out, forming a rear guard as the column reverses.
Lar and Tens ride with the wounded patrol man in the center, protected. The scouts fall back to the flanks, eyes on the trees.
You ride at the rear, sword drawn, watching the pass behind you.
You are halfway back to the clearing when you hear it.
Not a roar. Not a scream.
A horn. Low. Deep. Blown three times from the direction of the timber camps.
Varl, riding beside you now — he came with Lar and Tens — goes rigid.
"That is not a camp horn," he says. "That is a war horn. The men in black cloaks. They are calling the second kur."
Behind you, in the trees to the east, a branch cracks. Then another. Something very large is moving parallel to the road, keeping pace with the caravan.
Varl looks at you, his face grim.
"Captain, if we reach the clearing, we can fortify. My people are already there — I sent word ahead. They will have sharpened stakes, pits, fire arrows. But we must reach it. The kur will try to cut us off at the stream crossing, half a mile ahead. It is the only place the wagons can ford."
He points ahead. The road dips down to a shallow, rocky stream, trees thick on both banks.
"When we cross, we will be exposed."
Wagons across! NOW!" you shout. "Drovers, whips! Do not stop for anything! Guards — with me! We hold the trees!"
The drovers don't need to be told twice. Whips crack. Kaiila scream. Twelve wagons lurch forward, wheels bouncing over rocks, plunging into the shallow stream, water spraying white.
You, Lar, Tens, Varl and ten guards wheel your kaiila and form a line across the road, just south of the crossing, spears leveled, shields up.
The forest goes quiet.
Then it explodes.
The kur bursts out of the eastern trees — even bigger than the first, its fur matted with ash, its eyes burning — and behind it, for the first time, you see them.
Men in black cloaks. Six of them. Hooded. Carrying long spears and torches. Not running from the beast. Running with it. Driving it toward you with shouts and fire.
Varl curses in his own tongue. "The Kurii's servants! I knew it!"
The kur roars and charges your line.
"Hold!" you roar. "Hold for the wagons!"
The first wagon clears the stream. The second. The third.
The kur hits your line like a battering ram.
Lar's spear snaps. Tens is knocked from his saddle, rolls, comes up swinging. Varl's arrow takes the beast in the shoulder, but it barely slows.
You drive your spear into its leg, twist, and your kaiila rears as the kur swats at you — claws raking the air inches from your face.
Behind you, you hear the last wagon splash through the stream. "Clear!" someone screams. "All wagons clear!"
You have bought them the time.
Now you are on the wrong side of the stream, with a kur and six cloaked men between you and your caravan.
Varl is beside you, breathing hard, bow empty.
"Captain," he says, "we cannot outrun it to the clearing. Not on foot, not on tired kaiila. But we can lose it in the deep pines to the west. My people have a trap there — a pit, dug for tharlarion, covered with branches. If we can lead it there..."
Lar, bleeding from a cut above his eye, looks at you. "Or we fight here, Captain. Die here, but the caravan lives."
West!" you roar. "To the trap! GO!"
No hesitation. No hero's death at the stream. You fight with your head, not just your sword.
You wheel your kaiila, Varl already ahead, shouting directions in his own tongue. Lar and Tens and the rest of the guards break from the line, scattering — not in panic, but in a ragged, baiting run, shouting, waving cloaks, making noise.
The kur sees you run.
It wants you to run.
It roars and gives chase, crashing through the trees, the cloaked men behind it screaming, trying to keep up, falling behind in the thick brush.
The pines close in. Branches whip. Roots snag. Your kaiila stumbles, catches itself. Varl veers left, then right, then left again — leading you through a maze only a Forest man would know.
"There!" he shouts, pointing ahead.
A clearing. Innocent-looking. Grass, fallen leaves, a few branches laid across it — too neatly laid.
The pit.
Varl veers hard right, around the edge. You follow, your heart hammering.
Lar veers left. Tens right. The guards split, peeling away at the last second.
The kur does not peel away.
It charges straight for you, straight across the clearing, straight onto the branches —
Crack.
The ground gives way.
The beast plunges, roaring, arms flailing, into the pit — a deep, sharpened pit, its fall broken by stakes. It thrashes, screams, tries to climb, but the walls are too steep, the stakes too deep.
It is trapped. Wounded. Dying.
The cloaked men burst into the clearing seconds later — and stop dead.
Six men. No beast. And in front of them, you, Varl, Lar, Tens, and ten guards of Ar, spears leveled, bows drawn, fresh from the chase and very angry.
The leader of the cloaked men — taller than the rest, a silver brooch at his throat — raises his hands slowly.
"Captain of Ar," he says, voice smooth, almost amused. "You have cost my masters a great deal today. Two kur. A patrol. A caravan you refused to lose."
He smiles under his hood.
"But the timber camps still burn. And my masters have more beasts than you have spears."
He takes a step back.
"Kill us, and you will never learn who sent us. Let us go, and... we will talk."
Varl's bow is trembling, arrow aimed at the man's throat.
Your guards are waiting for your word.
You lower your spear a fraction. Not all the way. Just enough for them to see you are listening.
"Go," you say.
Lar stares at you. "Captain—"
"Go," you repeat, louder, to the cloaked men. "Run back to your masters. Tell them Ar holds the North Road. Tell them the kur are dead."
The leader bows his head, almost mockingly. "Wise, Captain."
He turns. The other five turn with him. They melt back into the trees, moving fast, heading north — toward the burning timber camps.
The second they are gone, you turn to Varl.
"Follow them," you whisper. "You and your two. Quiet. No arrows unless you must. I want to know where they sleep tonight. I want to know who feeds them."
Varl grins — a fierce, wolfish grin. "Forest work. This is what we do."
He and his two companions vanish into the pines without a sound, like smoke.
You turn to your men. "Bind the kur? No. Leave it. It will die in the pit. We go back to the caravan. Now."
You ride hard for the clearing.
By the time you arrive, the wagons are already circled, fires lit, the wounded man from the patrol propped up and drinking water. The men cheer when they see you — alive, all of you.
Night falls.
You wait.
Near midnight, Varl returns alone, crawling under a wagon, breathless, face streaked with ash.
"Captain," he whispers. "I found them."
He draws a map in the dirt with a stick.
"Two miles north of the timber camps. A hidden valley. Tents. Cages. More kur. At least three more, in pits like the one we used. And men — not six. Thirty. Maybe forty. With wagons of their own. With the banner of..."
He hesitates.
"Captain, they fly no banner. But I saw a wagon wheel, broken, with the mark of the House of Cernus on it. The same merchants who hired you to bring goods north."
He looks up at you.
"Your caravan was not attacked by chance. You were led here. The merchants knew."
The fire crackles. Across the camp, the two merchants from the House of Cernus are asleep by their wagon — or pretending to be
You say nothing.
You look at Varl, put a finger to your lips, and give the smallest shake of your head.
Varl understands. He nods, and melts back into the shadows at the edge of the camp.
You walk the camp as if nothing has changed. You check the watch. You check the wounded. You laugh at one of Tens' bad jokes. You even stop by the merchants' wagon and ask, casually, if they need more paga.
They smile. Too quickly. They say no. They are awake. They are listening.
Good. Let them listen to nothing.
When the camp is asleep — truly asleep — you gather your trusted men in the center, low, by the dying fire. Lar. Tens. Marcellus is gone south. So just the three of you, plus Varl, who appears from the dark like he was never gone.
"Varl's people are watching them," you whisper. "If they try to run tonight, we will know. If they try to signal anyone, we will know."
Lar leans in. "Captain, if the House of Cernus is behind this... the caravan, the kur, the camps burning... why?"
"To clear the road," Tens says, young but not stupid. "If the timber camps burn, and the kur kill everyone on the road, then Cernus can buy the timber rights for nothing. And blame it on beasts."
Varl nods. "And the kur in pits. They were not wild. They were kept. Trained. Fed. Someone in Ar is paying for this."
You look toward the merchants' wagon. One of them shifts in his sleep. Or pretends to.
Morning comes grey and cold. The caravan is ready to move. The merchants are suddenly very eager to push north to the timber camps — "to check on our investments," they say.
Varl watches them with flat, hunter's eyes.
You have a choice to make before the wagons roll.
Let them ride," you say, quiet enough that only your circle hears. "Smiling. As if we know nothing."
Lar's jaw tightens, but he nods. Tens grins — he likes this kind of hunt.
At dawn, you give the order to break camp. The merchants are already up, fussing with their wagon, eager, too eager.
"Ah, Captain!" the elder one calls, too hearty. "To the timber camps, yes? We must see what can be saved!"
"Yes," you say, matching his smile. "To the timber camps."
You march north.
But not on the main road.
At the fork past the stream, you take the old logging trail — narrower, rougher, the one Varl knows. The merchants notice. They frown. They whisper to each other.
"Captain, this is not the way," the younger one says.
"It is today," you say. "Scouts report the main road is blocked. We go around."
It's a lie. A good one. You watch their faces. They don't argue. They can't argue without admitting they know the main road is supposed to be clear.
Varl rides ahead, out of sight. His people are in the trees on both sides of the column, invisible.
By midday, you reach a high ridge overlooking the valley Varl described.
And there it is.
Below you: tents. Cages. Pits. Wagons. And at least thirty men in black cloaks moving among them, feeding three kur in pits, just as Varl said.
And at the center of the camp, a larger tent, with a banner you now recognize — not black. Not kur.
The scarlet and grey of Ar. But torn. And beneath it, the wheel-mark of the House of Cernus.
The merchants in your caravan go pale when they see it. They know they've been caught. They know you took them here on purpose.
The elder merchant turns to you, sweating. "Captain... you misunderstand—"
You cut him off.
"No," you say. "I understand perfectly."
Your guards have already moved, quietly, surrounding the merchants' wagon. Spears not raised, but ready.
Down in the valley, a horn blows. They've seen you on the ridge.
Thirty cloaked men are grabbing weapons. The kur in the pits are roaring, straining at their chains.
You have the high ground. You have surprise. But you are outnumbered, and you have wagons full of goods behind you.
You look down at the valley.
At the broken cages. At the men on their knees. At the merchants, bound and shaking in their wagon.
You think of the patrol — two dead in a clearing, one who will never walk right again. You think of Marcellus riding south with a report that is already out of date. You think of what would happen if these men reached Ar alive — gold changing hands, Council members bought, witnesses disappearing, Varl and his people hunted as "savages" for speaking against the House of Cernus.
No.
Not this time.
"Lar," you say, voice flat. "No prisoners."
Lar nods. He has seen this look on your face before, on other roads, in other wars. He does not argue.
The guards move down the ridge in formation. The cloaked men try to beg, to bargain, to offer names. You do not listen. You have heard enough names.
It is quick. It is clean. It is war.
After, you turn to the merchants. They are weeping now, pleading.
"You led us into a trap for gold," you say. "You fed men to beasts. You burned your own camps. Ar will not hear your lies."
You do not watch the end. You walk away, toward the ridge.
"Tens," you call. "Burn the camp. Everything. Tents, cages, wagons, papers. Leave nothing that can be used again."
Tens and his men set the fires. The valley fills with smoke — thick, black smoke that will be seen for miles. A warning. A funeral pyre.
Varl stands beside you, watching the flames.
"You have made an enemy today, Captain," he says quietly. "The House of Cernus will not forgive this."
"Let them come," you say. "They will find the road guarded."
You turn to your column. The wagons are waiting. The men are waiting.
"Column! Forward! To the timber camps! We ride to save what is left — and we ride now!"
The caravan rolls north, past the burning valley, past the smoke, toward the timber camps where the fires are still burning and people are still waiting for help.
You are Captain Ortossi of Ar. You did not bring back prisoners. You brought back the road.
You look down at the valley.
At the broken cages. At the men on their knees. At the merchants, bound and shaking in their wagon.
You think of the patrol — two dead in a clearing, one who will never walk right again. You think of Marcellus riding south with a report that is already out of date. You think of what would happen if these men reached Ar alive — gold changing hands, Council members bought, witnesses disappearing, Varl and his people hunted as "savages" for speaking against the House of Cernus.
No.
Not this time.
"Lar," you say, voice flat. "No prisoners."
Lar nods. He has seen this look on your face before, on other roads, in other wars. He does not argue.
The guards move down the ridge in formation. The cloaked men try to beg, to bargain, to offer names. You do not listen. You have heard enough names.
It is quick. It is clean. It is war.
After, you turn to the merchants. They are weeping now, pleading.
"You led us into a trap for gold," you say. "You fed men to beasts. You burned your own camps. Ar will not hear your lies."
You do not watch the end. You walk away, toward the ridge.
"Tens," you call. "Burn the camp. Everything. Tents, cages, wagons, papers. Leave nothing that can be used again."
Tens and his men set the fires. The valley fills with smoke — thick, black smoke that will be seen for miles. A warning. A funeral pyre.
Varl stands beside you, watching the flames.
"You have made an enemy today, Captain," he says quietly. "The House of Cernus will not forgive this."
"Let them come," you say. "They will find the road guarded."
You turn to your column. The wagons are waiting. The men are waiting.
"Column! Forward! To the timber camps! We ride to save what is left — and we ride now!"
The caravan rolls north, past the burning valley, past the smoke, toward the timber camps where the fires are still burning and people are still waiting for help.
You are Captain Ortossi of Ar. You did not bring back prisoners. You brought back the road.
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