The oppressive grandeur of the imperial city, with its scheming shadows and the lingering thunder of ten thousand boots, falls away like a discarded cloak as Dukar, Puripal, and Ta emerge through the West Gate of Pezijil. The late afternoon sun, unfiltered by palace screens, hits them like a physical blow, warm and thick with the dust of countless caravans. The air smells of dung, sweat, spices, and freedom. Before them sprawls the chaotic tapestry of the Merchant's Mile, a writhing beast of carts, camels, shouting hawkers, and temporary shelters clinging to the city walls like barnacles.

They pick their way through the chaotic maze. Ahead, nestled beside a well where water-bearers jostle good-naturedly, stands a familiar sight: the sturdy, brightly painted wagon of Old Man Bataar and his wife, Kashek. Their Agan-an tribe markings – a stylized hawk clutching a sunburst – stand out against the drabber Moukopl conveyances. Bataar, face like sun-cured leather beneath a worn fur hat, squints through the haze, then breaks into a gap-toothed grin as recognition dawns. He nudges Kashek, who's stirring a simmering pot over a small fire. She looks up, her eyes crinkling into familiar warmth.

"Prince Puripal!" Bataar booms, his voice cutting through the hubbub like a war horn. He executes a deep, respectful bow, the gesture practiced but genuine. Kashek follows suit, wiping her hands on her apron. "Honored riders! The city spit you back out, eh? Less shiny than when you went in, I'd wager!" Bataar chuckles, eyeing the fine layer of dust coating their once-pristine disguises.

Puripal dismounts with fluid grace, offering a regal nod that acknowledges their deference without diminishing his stature. "Old friends." He gestures towards the wagon. "Our journey resumes swiftly. Westward. Dawn tomorrow. Tell me, Bataar, have you perchance acquired anything… refined? Silk? Jade carvings?"

Bataar scratches his grizzled chin. "Refined, eh? Got some decent Siza porcelain – survived the trip, miraculously. A bolt of Pezijil brocade, blue as a twilight sky. Not imperial treasury quality, mind, but presentable. Kashek, fetch the brocade for His Highness?"

As Kashek bustles towards the wagon's rear, Ta grins, swiping a candied plum from a distracted vendor's stall with practiced ease. "Ah, civilization!" he declares, popping it whole into his mouth. "None of that whispery, stab-you-with-a-teacup nonsense out here. Just good, honest thievery and overpriced noodles." He sniffs the air appreciatively. "Any of that stew going spare, Grandma? Breakfast was so long ago!"

Before Kashek can answer, a voice, high-pitched, fierce, and cutting through the encampment noise like a knife, rings out.

"UNCLE DUKAR!"

The shriek cuts through the market din like a blade. Heads turn, merchants pause mid-haggle, camel drivers crane their necks. From between two overloaded ox-carts, a small figure erupts, running full tilt towards them. Jinhuang. Her dark hair is escaping its neat braids, her fine academy robes dusty and askew, her face flushed with exertion and fierce determination. She skids to a halt before Dukar, chest heaving, eyes blazing.

Dukar stares, stunned. "Jinhuang? What in the Ten Thousand Winds—? How did you—?"

"I followed the merchant trail! For hours!" she declares, panting, planting her fists on her hips. The sheer audacity momentarily silences even Ta, who stares at her with something akin to respect.

Puripal pinches the bridge of his nose. "Child, this is beyond foolish—"

"I'm coming with you!" Jinhuang interrupts, her voice trembling but unwavering. She points a finger at Qixi-Lo, or at least the general direction of northwest. "To the Yohazatz capital!"

Dukar stands, his weariness momentarily burned away by exasperation. "No. Absolutely not. We discussed this. It's a warzone, Jinhuang. Not a school excursion."

"You took the idiot!" she counters, pointing an accusing finger at Ta, who gives an offended gasp.

"Hey!" Ta protests. "I'm actually essential."

"Is it because I'm a girl?" she challenges, her chin jutting out.

"Because you're fourteen summers old and liable to get yourself killed!" Dukar snaps, his voice rising. The watching merchants exchange knowing glances; family drama is always good market theatre.

Jinhuang's eyes narrow, the fire in them hardening into something cold and sharp. She takes a deliberate step back, creating space. "Then prove it," she hisses, her voice suddenly low and dangerous.

Dukar frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"A duel," Jinhuang states, loud enough for the surrounding onlookers to hear. A murmur ripples through the crowd. "Here. Now. Hand to hand. If I win," she gets into her stance, "I ride west with you at dawn. If you win," her voice hitches slightly, but she forces it steady, "I crawl back to my mother like a good little Moukopl mouse."

Silence descends, thick and sudden. Ta lets out a low whistle.

Dukar stares at his niece. He sees the tremor in her hands, the desperate hope warring with terror in her eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw that mirrors his own aunt's. He sees a child playing at war. And he also sees the fierce, untamed spark that refused to stay hidden in a grain sack. A weary sigh escapes him, heavy with the weight of impossible choices.

"Fine, little tiger," he rumbles, the ghost of a grim smile touching his lips. "Have it your way. But remember," he adds, his eyes locking onto hers, "I won't hold back."

The dust of the Merchant's Mile hangs thick and golden in the slanting afternoon sun, stirred into lazy spirals by the sudden, violent ballet unfolding within its makeshift arena. Jinhuang doesn't lunge blindly this time. She explodes.

It's not the jab Dukar expects. It's the desperate, low sweep she saw him use on herself – a move meant to cripple, not spar. Her boot heel arcs viciously towards his leading knee. Dukar reacts with the fluid economy of a predator, shifting his weight back, letting the kick whistle past harmlessly. But the evasion puts him slightly off-balance.

"Predictable!" Jinhuang snarls, echoing his own words from the courtyard fight. She's already flowing into the next motion, a whirlwind of limbs. His motions. The wrist lock escape San Lian recognized as Bazhin's signature? She tries it now, twisting her body like an eel against the ghost of his anticipated grab. He hasn't grabbed her yet, but the preemptive dodge throws his rhythm off for a fraction of a second.

She capitalizes. Lunging inside his guard, her small fist drives upwards in a brutal palm-heel strike – the throat strike she demanded under the moonlight. Not perfect. Her thumb strays dangerously close to his eye, just as it had during their shadowed practice. But the intent is lethal, the target unmistakable: the vulnerable hollow beneath his jaw.

Dukar's head snaps back. Not from impact, but from the sheer, shocking audacity of the blow aimed at his windpipe by his own niece. His block is instinctive, forearm slamming down hard on her wrist, diverting the strike high. Pain flares up her arm, but her eyes blaze with a feral triumph. She made him react. She used his lesson.

"Not bad," Dukar rasps, the words tight. His amber eyes, moments ago weary, now hold a sharp, dangerous glint. "But sloppy." He traps her diverted wrist, not with brute force, but with a cruel leverage lock he knows she hasn't mastered. The one he used to force her forehead to the gravel. He begins the inexorable downward pressure, aiming to plant her face in the dung-strewn dust of the marketplace.

Jinhuang doesn't yield. She screams – a raw sound of fury and defiance. Instead of resisting the lock directly, she does the unexpected. She drops, using his downward force, turning the movement into a desperate forward roll under his arm. It's clumsy, graceless. She scrapes her shoulder raw on the gritty ground, but she breaks the lock. She comes up spitting dirt, hair wild, one sleeve torn, but facing him again, panting.

The watching crowd gasps. Ta, perched on Bataar's wagon, nearly chokes on his plum pit. "Ha! Go on, kid! Make him eat dirt!"

Puripal watches, utterly still, his earlier icy calculation replaced by something akin to morbid fascination.

Jinhuang ignores them all. Her world narrows to the man before her. She remembers the leg sweep that sent her into the koi pond. She feints another wild lunge, then drops low, mirroring the sweep, aiming for his ankles. Dukar, anticipating the repetition, hops lightly.

But Jinhuang isn't repeating. She transitions. The aborted sweep becomes a powerful push off the ground, launching her upwards in a desperate, spinning kick aimed not at his ribs, but at his temple. It's the kick she saw him use to shatter the bamboo rake – raw power channeled through furious momentum.

Dukar's eyes widen a fraction. Pure instinct takes over. He intercepts. His hand snakes out, catching her ankle mid-spin with crushing force, stopping the lethal arc inches from his skull. The impact jars up her leg. He uses her own momentum, swinging her leg violently sideways, trying to hurl her off her feet.

Jinhuang twists in the air like a cat. She doesn't fight the throw; she embraces it, tucking her body, landing hard but rolling through the impact, coming up several feet away, swaying but still standing. Blood trickles from her scraped shoulder and a split lip. Her chest heaves.

"Yield," Dukar commands, his voice a low growl. He advances, no longer the reluctant uncle, but the hardened warrior who survived Moukopl camps and desert death. His movements are predatory, closing the distance with terrifying efficiency. "You're done."

"Never!" Jinhuang spits blood. Desperation fuels her now. She sees an opening – a slight shift in his weight as he steps over a rut in the ground. She remembers the chokehold, the suffocating pressure. She doesn't try to escape it; she rushes into it. Before he can fully set the hold, she drives her forehead forward like a battering ram, aiming for the bridge of his nose – a move utterly devoid of finesse, pure, panicked brutality.

Dukar jerks his head back instinctively. Her forehead glances off his cheekbone with a sickening thud. Stars explode behind his eyes. Pain, sharp and surprising, blooms across his face. It's not a disabling blow, but it's the first real hit she's landed. It stuns him for a crucial heartbeat.

In that split second, Jinhuang is a whirlwind of elbows and knees, a flurry of strikes learned from watching him dismantle opponents, from stolen midnight practices. A sharp elbow towards his floating ribs. A knee driving upwards. None land cleanly – he deflects, parries, absorbs – but the sheer, relentless ferocity drives him back a step. Another.

Ta is on his feet now. "That's it! Get him!" Puripal's hand has drifted unconsciously towards the dagger concealed in his sleeve.

Dukar weathers the storm. He takes a glancing blow to the ribs that knocks the wind from him for a moment. He blocks a knee aimed at his groin, the impact vibrating up his forearm. Her knuckles graze his jaw, reopening an old scar. The dust churns around them, a miniature sandstorm born of their violence.

Finally, he sees his moment. As she telegraphs another wild haymaker – fueled by exhaustion and adrenaline – he steps inside the blow. Not blocking, not dodging. He lets her fist thud against his chest, using the impact to trap her arm against his body. Simultaneously, his leg hooks behind her knee. It's not the elegant sweep of before. It's a brutal, utilitarian takedown.

Jinhuang crashes onto her back, the breath driven from her lungs in a painful whoosh. Before she can even gasp, Dukar is on her. One knee pins her thigh with crushing weight. His forearm presses horizontally across her collarbones, not choking, but immobilizing, pressing her spine into the hard-packed earth. His other hand pins her flailing wrist to the dirt beside her head. His face, streaked with dust and the blood welling from the cut on his cheekbone where her forehead struck, is inches from hers. His breath is ragged, his eyes chips of flint.

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"Enough," he rasps, the word raw. "You lose."

Jinhuang struggles, a trapped animal, but the leverage is absolute. Tears of frustration mingle with the blood and dirt on her face. She strains against the immovable pressure, her muscles screaming, but she cannot budge him. The fight bleeds out of her, replaced by shuddering gasps and the sting of utter defeat.

The dust settles slowly, coating them both in ochre.

Dukar doesn't move. He stares down at her, seeing not just the stubborn child, but the fierce, reckless spark that drove her to follow them, to challenge him, to fight with everything she had, using the tools he gave her. He sees the scrapes, the blood, the wild, untamed fury that mirrors his own, buried deep. He sees the echo of his sister's defiance. And something shifts in his eyes. The flint softens, just for an instant, revealing a weary, grudging respect beneath the warrior's mask.

"You fight..." he begins, his voice low, rough, "...like a cornered sand viper." He releases her wrist slowly, then eases the pressure on her chest, though his knee remains a heavy anchor on her leg. "Stupid. Reckless. But... you learn."

He pushes himself up, every muscle protesting. He offers no hand to help her rise. He simply stands over her, a silhouette against the setting sun, breathing heavily, the taste of blood and dust in his mouth, the phantom echo of her desperate blows still vibrating in his bones.

Dukar wipes sweat and grit from his brow with the back of his hand, smearing a streak of grime. His gaze, no longer flint but weary, fixes on the girl struggling not to cry in the dirt. "Why?" The single word rasps out, low and gravelly. "Why this madness? Pezijil has walls. Silk. Tutors. Safety. Everything a Moukopl noble could want." He gestures vaguely towards the imposing city gates, their vermilion paint dulled by distance and dust. "Everything you should want."

Jinhuang flinches as if struck. She pushes herself up onto her elbows, wincing. Her eyes, swimming with unshed tears, refuse to meet his. She stares instead at the blood welling from her scraped knuckles, mirroring his own scars. When she speaks, her voice is thick, trembling, fighting against a sob that threatens to tear her apart. "Everything?" The word cracks. "Loneliness. That's what it has. Empty rooms. Eyes that slide away. Whispers that follow me down every corridor – 'The bastard general's daughter...'." A tear escapes, carving a clean path through the grime on her cheek. She swipes at it furiously, smearing blood and dirt. "I annoy them. I know I do. My temper... my... me. They tolerate me because of Mother."

She finally looks up, her gaze blazing with a raw, wounded pride. "This is what he died for!" Her hand jerks out, encompassing the chaotic market, the distant, oppressive bulk of Pezijil. "This rotten, scheming, gilded cage! I have no pride in being Moukopl. None." The admission hangs heavy in the air, treasonous and desperate. "But then... I learned you existed. Family. Real family, maybe. Not just blood, but... warriors. People who fought. And I thought..." Her voice breaks completely, dissolving into a ragged sob she can't suppress. She buries her face in her bleeding hands, shoulders shaking. "...I thought I could leave. Be someone else. Somewhere else. And it felt... like sunlight after a lifetime in shadow."

The raw vulnerability in her confession hits Dukar like a physical blow. He looks away, his jaw working, scanning the curious, murmuring crowd, the patient camels, the mountains of trade goods – anything but the crumpled figure leaking despair at his feet.

He takes a slow breath, steeling himself. "Our journey," he states, his voice deliberately flat, pragmatic, testing her resolve, "includes horses. Long days. Longer nights. In the saddle. Will you ride?"

Jinhuang lifts her tear-streaked, defiant face. "I'll learn," she whispers fiercely, the sobs still hitching her breath. "I'll learn to ride like you."

"No honeyed duck for breakfast," Dukar continues, almost conversationally, though his eyes remain hard.

A ghost of her old fire flickers. "I barely ate breakfast anyway," she retorts, wiping her nose on her torn sleeve.

Dukar finally looks back at her. His gaze holds hers. "Your mother," he says, the words dropping like stones. "Lady Kai Lang. She'll weep. She'll rage. She'll think I stole you."

Jinhuang's defiance wavers, replaced by a profound, aching sadness. She looks down, tracing a pattern in the dust with a trembling finger. "I'll write her," she murmurs, the promise thick with guilt but unwavering. "Every year. Tell her... tell her I'm alive. Learning. Being... less annoying, maybe." A tiny, choked sound escapes her, almost a laugh, drowned in tears. "Tell her I'm fine."

Dukar stares at the top of Jinhuang's dusty, bowed head. He sees the scrapes, the tear-tracks, the stubborn set of her shoulders and the desperate, impossible hope he represents. He sighs, a long, slow exhalation that seems to carry the weight of the steppes and the looming thunder of ten thousand boots. He turns abruptly, his movements decisive.

He strides towards a nearby stall piled high with scrolls, inkstones, and brushes manned by a wizened scribe blinking owlishly at the spectacle. "Paper," Dukar commands, his voice rough but clear. "Ink. A brush. Now." He flips a small silver coin onto the counter. The scribe scrambles, producing the items with trembling hands.

Dukar bends over the makeshift counter, the brush clumsy but determined in his calloused hand. He writes stark truth in blunt, functional Moukopl characters:

Sister-in-law Kai Lang,

Jinhuang is with me. She is safe. I take her. I will guard her as my own blood. Forgive the manner of leaving.

Dukar.

He blows on the ink, folds the paper roughly, and thrusts it towards a wide-eyed urchin loitering nearby, drawn by the commotion. He drops another coin into the boy's grubby palm, a copper this time. "Tun Zol mansion. Fast. To the Lady's own hand. Go." The boy stares at the coin, then the folded paper, then at Dukar's intense, blood-smeared face. He nods mutely and sprints off, a small dart vanishing into the labyrinth of carts and animals.

Dukar turns back to where Jinhuang still sits in the dust. He doesn't smile. He doesn't offer platitudes. He simply jerks his head towards the Agan-an wagon. His voice is gravel scraping bedrock. "Get up. Dawn comes early. And you have many things to learn."

A sound escapes Jinhuang – a gasp, a sob, a disbelieving laugh. It's raw, messy, utterly human. She scrambles to her feet, ignoring the protests of her battered body. Tears still stream down her face, but they are different now – tears of release, of a desperate hope realized. She doesn't hug him. She doesn't thank him. She just stands, swaying slightly, meeting his gaze with eyes that hold the first fragile glimmer of a future beyond Pezijil's gilded cage. The dust of the Merchant's Mile, thick with the scent of adventure and impending war, settles on them both as the last rays of the sun paint the western sky the colour of blood.

...

Time fractures.

Noga moves. Not with thought, but with the primal, electric surge of a predator sensing annihilation. His half-eaten bowl of greasy mutton broth – mundane, heavy ceramic – is already a blur in his hand. He doesn't throw it at Ahal; he throws it through him. It strikes the General square between the shoulder blades with the force of a battering ram, propelled by Noga's desperate strength.

Ahal, caught mid-snarl of frustration, is launched forward like a felled ox. He sprawls headlong, onto the spilled powder and the open crate of clay jars. His massive body becomes a grotesque, involuntary shield.

Simultaneously, Goeghon, the Seop elder, acts with the speed of ingrained instinct. He whirls, throwing his wiry frame over his two younger sisters, dragging them down beneath him, his arms forming a bony cage over their heads. "DOWN!" he screams, the word lost before it fully forms.

Inside the yurt, Lanau's eyes widen in pure terror at the blinding flash erupting beyond the flap. Temej, still peeking, reacts faster. He snatches Lanau's arm, yanking her violently backwards into the dim interior. "FLOOR! NOW!" he bellows in a voice stripped of disguise, pure urgency. They hit the packed earth together, Lanau instinctively curling into a ball, Temej covering her as much as his bulky furs allow.

Then, the detonation happens.

The sound is not a boom, but a savage, tearing CRACK-WHUMP! that punches the air from lungs and rattles teeth in skulls. Ahal's body, draped over the epicenter, vanishes for a microsecond within a sun-bright ball of flame and concussive force. The shockwave hits like a physical wall. Noga, already off-balance from his throw, is slammed backwards, skidding across the frozen ground. Yurts within a thirty-pace radius shudder violently, their felt walls billowing inward like sails in a hurricane before tearing with sickening rips. Secondary explosions rip through the camp as other crates ignite – sharp, percussive BANGS adding to the chaos.

Ahal absorbs the heart of the blast. What remains, when the blinding light and the initial, deafening roar subside, is a scene from a butcher's nightmare. The General is… rearranged. His torso, shielded partially by his thick leather armor, is a blackened, smoking ruin, ribs protruding like snapped kindling through charred flesh. Below the waist, little remains but tattered cloth and unrecognizable pulp embedded with shards of the clay jars and splintered wood. His head, thrown back at an impossible angle, is mostly intact but horribly scorched, one eye boiled away in its socket, the other staring sightlessly at the smoke-choked sky. The air reeks of overcooked pork, sulfur, and the coppery tang of fresh blood mingling with the acrid stench of explosives. Gore – chunks of flesh, splintered bone, and ropes of intestine – is spattered in a grotesque radius around the smoking crater where he lies.

Noga pushes himself up, ears ringing, vision swimming. He coughs, spitting blood and grit. His gaze sweeps the devastation: panicked horses screaming, warriors staggering, clutching bleeding ears or burns, several smaller fires already licking at the edges of damaged yurts. Frustration, cold and volcanic, replaces the initial shock. Not at the loss of Ahal – the fool got what his idiocy deserved – but at the sheer, wasteful stupidity of it. Precious supplies destroyed. Morale shattered. His elite guard gone south chasing shadows while chaos erupted in his own lap.

Near the guest yurt, Temej and Lanau scramble to their feet, coughing. Temej's bulky disguise is torn, revealing glimpses of his own gear beneath. Lanau's face is smudged with soot, a trickle of blood running from her temple where debris struck. They ignore their own minor hurts. Their eyes lock onto a nearby yurt, its felt walls already licked by hungry orange flames, thick black smoke pouring from the entrance.

"Fire!" Lanau gasps, pointing.

Temej doesn't hesitate. "Come on!" He sprints towards the burning structure, Lanau close behind. The heat is intense, the smoke blinding and choking. Through the swirling blackness near the entrance, they see figures huddled inside – two women, trapped and coughing violently, disoriented by the blast and the sudden inferno.

"Get out!" Temej roars, his voice rough but clear, no longer muffled by furs. He tears at the smoldering felt flap, burning his hands, ignoring the pain. Lanau darts inside, grabbing the arm of the nearest woman, pulling her towards the ragged opening. A burning beam overhead groans, threatening to collapse. Temej lunges, shoving both Lanau and the first wife clear just as the beam crashes down inside the entrance, showering sparks. He grabs the second, practically throwing her through the gap Lanau holds open. As he scrambles out after her, a falling ember sears his forearm, and a piece of collapsing frame strikes Lanau's shoulder, eliciting a sharp cry.

They stumble clear, dragging the coughing, terrified women to safety just as the yurt's central pole gives way with a groan, collapsing the structure into a roaring pyre.

Noga arrives, drawn by the commotion. He sees his wives, shaken but alive, supported by the two figures from the guest yurt. He sees the charred remains of Ahal. He sees the smoldering camp. His gaze fixes on Temej, who is ripping off the last of the bulky, scorched furs, revealing his true form beneath. Blood wells from the burn on Temej's forearm, and Lanau clutches her bruised shoulder.

Noga stares at Temej, then at the discarded furs. His lips twitch. Not quite a smile. More like a predator momentarily baffled by a rabbit wearing a wolfskin.

"The Khan of Tepr," Noga states, his voice dry as desert bones, cutting through the crackle of the fire and the moans of the wounded. "Has a remarkably deep voice. And a penchant for… dramatic rescues." He gestures towards his wives. "My gratitude. Unexpected, but… noted."

Temej meets his gaze, breathing heavily, wiping soot from his face. The pretense is ashes now, like the yurt. "The disguise," he rasps, his voice raw but unmistakably his own. "It was meant to fool you. Buy time. This…" he gestures at the devastation, "...wasn't part of the plan."

Noga surveys the wreckage – the smoldering crater, the burning debris, the injured men, the terrified camp. He looks back at Temej and Lanau, standing defiantly amidst the chaos they inadvertently caused and then mitigated. A strange, grudging respect tempers the icy fury in his eyes. "Plans," he rumbles, a hint of dark amusement finally touching his tone. "Like spiderwebs in a gale. Utterly useless." He nods curtly. "Your wounds. My physicians will see to them."

Lanau tenses, suspicion flashing in her eyes. "Why? So they can poison us slowly?"

Noga's gaze hardens, but it's directed at the burning remnants of the wives' yurt, then back to the women clinging to each other. "The man who saves my wives," he states, each word heavy as stone, "earns the service of my physicians. Even if he is the man who tried to trick me with bad theater." He snaps his fingers at a nearby, dazed warrior. "Healer! Now!"

Temej doesn't wait for the healer. His eyes scan the smoky chaos frantically. "Goeghon!" he shouts, spotting the huddled forms near the blast crater. The Seop elder brother lies motionless, his sisters weeping over him, their own faces blackened, clothes smoldering. Temej rushes over, ignoring his own pain. "He needs help! Now!"

Noga follows his gaze, his expression unreadable. He sees the shattered crates, the spilled tools, the unconscious Seop. The source of the catastrophe… and potentially, the source of unimaginable power. "See to him too," Noga commands the warrior scrambling for the healer. "That one lives. By order."

...

The Tiger Guard arrives at the Nedai camp like a silent, lethal shadow. Hooves thunder to a halt. Spears lower. The camp is… empty. Utterly deserted. Not a soul stirs. Not a goat bleats. Only the wind sighs through abandoned fire pits and empty corrals. The silence is absolute, unnerving.

In the very center of the deserted settlement, one single yurt stands defiantly intact. It looks out of place, deliberate. The Tiger Guard captain dismounts, hand on his sword hilt. Warriors fan out, scanning the emptiness for ambush. Finding none, the captain pushes open the yurt flap.

Inside, chained to the central pole, sits Akun. His face is a mask of utter, broken terror, eyes wide and unseeing. Around his neck, threaded crudely onto a leather thong still sticky with old blood, hangs Batu's severed head. The dead eyes stare blankly across the yurt, the mouth slightly agape, frozen in a final gasp.

The captain stares, then slowly removes his helmet, running a hand over his shaved scalp. He looks from the broken prisoner to the grisly trophy, then back out at the vast, empty steppe. A low growl of frustration escapes him. They had ridden hard, expecting battle, expecting glory. They found only desolation in the lands of Tepr.

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