Over the course of the past few surreal days, Yechvan had grown impatient to leave the shaman’s hut, to stretch his legs and breathe the fresh air. The dizzying aroma of herbs and tea cloyed the room. His mind too often strayed to Zu’s chant or his perplexing conversation with Dorin Sen. Many of the soldiers stopped by to wish him well. Grusk even visited once and Roog twice before they set out on the road to Banton Castle for some much-needed rest. And, of course, Zu and Ulula and Grask never left his side. They slept in chairs or on the stone floor beside his bed. Ulula fed him, Zu helped him bathe, Grask read to him. They acted as if he had been within Trilan’s grasp.

  Yechvan finally had to say enough. He was still weak, but he was sick of being coddled. Though he did concede to Grask’s nightly readings, as his eyes had grown lazy during his extended sleep, and the runes on the page bled together. Aside from the tooth he’d lost and the insufferable headaches, he felt little worse than before the battle. The bruises had healed. The sword slashes had been stitched and cleaned, treated with poultices and ointments. His injuries were a mere trifle.

  “I’m leaving, Yog,” Grask said, helping Yechvan to sit up and propping pillows behind his back. “Back to Banton to prepare for the fete.”

  “What fete?” Yechvan eyed Grask warily.

  Ulula explained, wearing her usual crooked grin. “The qince wants to host an Inigan in Banton in half a turn. He has personally written to all corners of Banx, sending letters to Oonkowt, Jaska and Sidhan to invite every human and blooded and orc to celebrate Banx’s victory.”

  “Yechvan’s victory,” Grask declared. “It’s all been arranged with my father, so you must be better by then.” He attempted to adopt a stern mien but wriggled with uncontained excitement.

  Yechvan sighed but forced a smile so as not to disappoint the boy. “Make sure you invite Ota personally.”

  “Why?” he asked, confused.

  “Because I’ll not be participating in the Thrice tourney and you’re too young yet to win without facing stiff competition.”

  “What tourney?”

  “If you think your father agreed to host your fete without tourneys, you are more addled than I.”

  Ulula snorted and concealed her face in her teacup. But her mirth turned to annoyance when she looked at her bound arm, struck by the realization that she would be relegated to spectating alongside Yechvan.

  Zu barged into the house. “Your horse is ready, Little Grask. The party is leaving in ten minutes.”

  “You’ll compete, won’t you?” Grask asked, turning to Zu.

  Zu glanced from Yechvan to Ulula. “In your tourney? No, I think not. Not this time.”

  “Why not?”

  “We just won a war, Little Grask. I will let someone else win the melee.”

  “Gods to hell,” the boy swore.

  “You didn’t even know there would be a competition two minutes ago,” Ulula said, dragging her chair over toward the bed to sit beside Yechvan.

  “But now I do know and I feel cheated,” he complained.

  “You’ll have ample time to marvel at my prowess when I start knocking you on your butt again.” Zu bared his teeth in a smile that was both playful and menacing.

  Grask stood and tossed his remaining things into a sack. “You plan to continue training me when we return?”

  “Of course. And Yechvan will continue teaching you. Our mandate has not ended.”

  The boy tried to appear sullen, but the effect was undermined by the unbridled joy hidden deep in his eyes. He hoisted the sack and embraced Ulula, who shrugged him off awkwardly, followed by Yechvan, then Zu, and sped out the door. “I will see you in a few days,” he shouted back.

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  “Finally, some peace and quiet.” Zu closed the door and sat at the table. “How are you feeling today, Yog?”

  “Much the same as yesterday,” Yechvan replied.

  “Kezza told me it could be a painstaking recovery. I’m afraid you may be off your feet for a while.”

  Yechvan scoffed. “Not if I have aught to say about it.”

  “Who says you do?” Ulula said, her stare burrowing through Yechvan.

  “Gods be damned. What about you? You’re injured as well.”

  “My shoulder was ripped out of its socket. That big brain of yours was bouncing around in your skull, if Zu’s retelling can be believed.”

  “Tell me of your battle. I want to hear every detail,” Yechvan said.

  “It turned out I was right about Peryn’s plans,” Ulula began. “Solonia had just come over the river on the day Dür Grasca ended when we spotted Perysh banners advancing on our camp. Turns out you made an enemy of the egl.”

  “Egl-gra,” Yechvan corrected with a sheepish grin.

  “Koruzan’s hair,” Ulula swore. “We might have avoided that battle if you’d gotten it right to begin with.”

  Zu refilled Ulula’s cup with the aromatic sassafras tea and poured another for himself and Yechvan before settling in for Ulula’s story.

  She recounted the conflict in great detail: how the southerners threw caution to the wind and charged into the fortified camp. Rogal had saved the heavy horse until after the initial clash, attempting to force the Banxians into the river. But Yechvan and Ulula had chosen the latest campsite to defend against just such a possibility. The ground rose from the west, making the charge slow and far less effective than Rogal needed, and the shallow embankment provided a cushion on the eastern edge of camp, should the Banxians be pushed back. After the cavalry entered the fray, a protracted fight ensued, during which both sides endured considerable casualties. When Solonia descended past the horizon, they reached a tacit agreement to disengage and lick their gaping wounds.

  “When the bantax rode out to harry the horsemen, a fallen rider knocked me from my seat. My horse was impaled on the soldier’s broken lance and she threw me. With my bow nocked and drawn, I hadn’t had time to steer the poor girl to safety.” She grew quiet.

  Zu patted her on the back. “If the tales of your valor be true, you popped right back up and drew your blade, cutting down one Perysh soldier after another, like the berserkers of old.”

  “Oh, Fincha’s tit, I did. I got back up, sure. If I hadn’t, I’d have been trampled.”

  “And you fought.”

  “Of course I did. I fought for my life.”

  “Like a berserker,” Zu whispered from behind his cup.

  Ulula smacked him with her good arm, spilling hot tea onto his lap. He yelped in mock pain and set the cup on the table.

  “And that is the most I’ve seen Zu injured,” Ulula said. “Probably ever, the beautiful brute.”

  Yechvan laughed, but it might be true. He had no memories of Zu nursing a wound, not so much as a scraped elbow or a bruised knee.

  “How did Grask fare?” Yechvan asked.

  Ulula smiled, the soft, affectionate smile of a proud teacher. “You trained him, taught him, showed him the path. Is it any wonder he is well on his way?”

  “We all did that,” Zu said, reminding her of her part as much as his.

  “And what of our battle?” Yechvan asked. “How did it end?”

  “It ended the moment you broke through their line, as you well know,” Zu said, refilling his cup. “But seeing as how you were unconscious for the rest, I’ll fill you in.” Zu spared no detail spinning the tales of those who held the line, who pushed through, who shone. Nary a word of criticism for those who quailed under the weight of war slipped through his lips. Only someone who had never experienced the struggle—or a shred of decency—could summon the gall to be critical of others who fought, who died. “It was like one of your Thrice matches when you predict how the next several moves will go. You pinned them in by forcing the fight before they were prepared, so we won.”

  “I didn’t see many come back,” Yechvan said somberly.

  “Not many did. You and I were two of the eight who survived. More made it out on their end, but it wasn’t enough to wreak havoc in Banx like they’d intended, so they retreated. I didn’t pursue, hoping to save more of the wounded, but it froze that night in the mountains, and most died while we were trying to tend to their wounds. There were only a few of us to care for them, and one missing all his fingers on one hand. I planned to lead a team up the mountain to build cairns for the dead, but word arrived of the peace negotiations before we finished our preparations. A few of the soldiers and villagers from Go’hai went up to see it done. I wouldn’t mind making a trip before returning to Banton. To say goodbye. It’s only proper.”

  “Then go we shall,” Yechvan agreed.

  Ulula and Zu exchanged a glance intimating that they wouldn’t allow him to join, but he’d rather die than fail to honor his fallen brothers and sisters.

  “Telu Myrrh sued for peace in the next few days, after another battle—more a skirmish, really—between the main forces,” Ulula explained. “She must have received word from Rogal and the soldiers who escaped Gard Pass that her gambit had failed on all fronts.”

  “Either way, the war is ended, and we should all be happy for it,” Zu said.

  Except it should never have happened in the first place. How many lives lost? And for what? Grusk’s pride?

  Some part of Yechvan wished he’d walked through the door he’d seen in the world of grey and shadows. Maybe some part of him had.

  “I don’t think happy is how anyone should be feeling right now,” he said.