The Jade Throne Room of Qixi-Lo is no longer a haven for meditation. It is a slaughterhouse draped in silk. Cedar smoke mingles with the coppery stench of blood and the reek of voided bowels. Fifty of Qaloron Khan's personal guard form a shrinking ring around the obsidian dais. Against them press nearly five hundred Moukopl infantry, their emerald banners now spattered crimson, their disciplined ranks chipped but relentless. Pikes stab like metallic serpents; crossbow bolts thwack into shields and flesh with sickening regularity.

Qaloron Khan is a whirlwind of gore-drenched fury. His ancient steppe sword, Altan Kherem, the Golden Scourge, is a blur of singing steel. He kicks the massive cedar brazier towards a cluster of advancing pikemen; glowing embers and hot ash scatter, igniting robes and blinding eyes. He wrenches a heavy silk scroll from its stand, its bamboo tube thick as a forearm, and swings it like a mace. It cracks against a Moukopl sergeant's helmet, staggering him before Qaloron's sword finds his throat.

"Tighten the ring!" Qaloron roars, his voice cutting through the din. A guard falls beside him, a pike transfixing his chest. The Khan doesn't flinch. He uses the falling man's body as a momentary shield, parrying a sword thrust aimed at his flank, then riposting with a vicious upward cut that cleaves through a Moukopl gorget and jawbone. Blood fountains, hot on his face.

He's a master, but age and numbers tell. A crossbow bolt punches through the layered lamellar high on his left shoulder. He grunts, staggering back a step onto the dais. Another bolt grazes his temple, drawing a line of fire. His guards are falling like wheat. Ten left. Then seven. They fight back-to-back on the steps of his stolen throne, turning the obsidian into a red-slicked killing floor. Qaloron plants his foot on the edge of the throne itself, using its height for leverage as he decapitates a soldier trying to scramble up. The head rolls down the steps.

"Come then, Emperor's hounds!" he bellows, spitting blood. "See if your steel bites deeper than my scorn!" He deflects a pike thrust with his vambrace, the impact numbing his arm, and thrusts Altan Kherem deep into the attacker's eye socket. The Moukopl press harder, sensing the end. A spearpoint scrapes across Qaloron's ribs, drawing a line of fire beneath his armour. Another pike slams into his shield, driving him back against the cold obsidian throne. He's cornered, bleeding, breath rasping. Five guards left. The Moukopl scent victory, a hungry glint in their eyes.

Suddenly, a sound cuts through the battle-roar.

From the shattered bronze doors, chaos erupts in a new form. Prince Nemeh, resplendent in his midnight blue robes, rides astride a massive, snorting camel. Behind him, pouring into the vast throne room like a shaggy, spitting tidal wave, are at least two hundred more camels, their riders clad in the lighter leathers of Qixi-Lo's desert patrols. These are the ill-tempered ships of the desert, towering, and utterly alien to the Moukopl.

"Father!" Nemeh shouts. He urges his camel forward, its broad, padded feet surprisingly nimble on the blood-slick marble. "Apologies for the interruption! Found your palace guards somewhat understaffed!" His camel lowers its head and bites, with terrifying force, the shoulder of a Moukopl pikeman trying to block its path. The man screams, dropping his weapon as bone crunches audibly.

The Moukopl discipline, already strained, shatters. Unlike horses, camels tower over the infantry. They bite. They kick sideways with devastating, bone-breaking force, shattering morale far more effectively than arrows. The confined space of the throne room, perfect for Moukopl pike formations, becomes a deathtrap. Camels knock men flying, trample the fallen, and create utter pandemonium.

Nemeh, looking incongruous yet lethally effective, guides his camel towards the dais. He's directing the chaos like a conductor, pointing with a slender sword. "That cluster, Jalair! On them! Yes, good boy! Vile! Utterly vile!" His camel obediently slams onto a group trying to form a shield wall. They gag, stumble, and are promptly bowled over by another camel's charge.

Reaching the base of the dais, Nemeh pulls up beside his father. A Moukopl soldier lunges at Qaloron's exposed back; Nemeh's camel casually kicks out with a hind leg. The sound of ribs caving in is sickeningly loud. The soldier flies through the air like a discarded ragdoll.

"Your steed, Father," Nemeh says, gesturing towards Qaloron's magnificent black stallion, miraculously unharmed and held by a loyal guardsman near a side exit. "Best leave the desert to the professionals." He offers a hand, not to help Qaloron up, but to steady him as the old Khan, bleeding from shoulder, temple, and ribs, pushes himself off the throne. The remaining guards form a desperate cordon.

Qaloron looks at Nemeh, his gaze a complex mix of pain, exhaustion, and something akin to recognition. No words pass between them. The old Khan grabs the stallion's reins, hauling himself into the saddle with a grunt of agony that speaks volumes. He grips Altan Kherem anew, its blade notched but still deadly.

Nemeh watches him for a second, then turns his camel back towards the fray. He raises his voice, dripping with sarcastic grandeur. "Right then, gentlemen! The intermission is over! Let's show our Moukopl guests why we don't need walls! Forward! Try not to step in the… ah… organic matter!" He spurs his camel into a surprisingly fast, loping charge, heading not for the throne room exit, but deeper into the palace corridors, his camel cavalry flowing after him like a shaggy, spitting, biting avalanche, driving the shattered, demoralized Moukopl remnants before them in a rout born of utter, bewildered terror. Qaloron Khan, bleeding but unbowed, spurs his stallion towards the clearer air outside.

...

The command dune feels suddenly brittle beneath Puripal's boots. The mirrored signal flashes towards Qixi-Lo's southern districts meet only indifferent stone and smoke. No answering glint. No ripple of coordinated chaos from within. Below, the Moukopl spearhead still clings to the Temple district, but its advance has stalled, bogged down in grinding street fights devoid of the loyalist whispers and sudden barricade collapses that marked its early progress.

Puripal's shark-smile is gone, replaced by a cold, calculating stillness. He scans the rooflines, the alley mouths, seeing not opportunity, but ominous quiet where there should be frantic signals. "Third Brother… he didn't take the bait on the dunes."

Dukar follows his gaze. Jinhuang presses closer to his stirrup, her earlier awe replaced by wide-eyed tension. "The loyalists?" Dukar asks, the implication heavy.

"Eliminated. Or silenced." Puripal's jaw tightens. "Clever. Brutal. Efficient. I expected he could… just didn't think the scholar-prince had the stomach for the knife-work in the dark." A flicker of reluctant respect crosses his face. "Underestimated him. A costly error." He takes a deep breath, the desert air tasting of dust and defeat. "Time to stop playing from the hilltop. Time to get our hands dirty. Dukar, Jinhuang – stay close. Very close."

They descend the dune, Puripal a crimson figure leading a wedge of grim-faced Moukopl veterans towards the maelstrom of the southern gate. The air thickens with smoke, screams, and the coppery tang of blood. Inside, the chaos is palpable. Moukopl squares hold intersections like islands in a raging river of confusion, harassed by sporadic arrows from unseen rooftops, hampered by debris and the bodies of their own. The vital synergy with the loyalists is severed.

Near a smoldering bakery, a different kind of chaos erupts. Ta, his fine merchant's robes torn and soot-stained, wields a heavy bread paddle like a club, bashing the knee of a Yohazatz militiaman trying to drag a bound figure. The figure is Kan, wrists tied, face bruised but spitting fury. As the militiaman stumbles, Kan, despite her bonds, drives her forehead into his nose with a sickening crunch. Another militiaman lunges; Ta hooks his ankle with the paddle, sending him sprawling, then drops onto him, knees first, accompanied by a grunt and the sound of cracking ribs. Kan, rolling, snatches a fallen dagger with her bound hands and slashes wildly at a third attacker's thigh. It's vicious, messy, devoid of grace – two cornered strays fighting with teeth and claws.

"Ta! Kan!" Puripal's voice cuts through the din. Ta looks up, panting, wiping someone else's blood from his cheek with a filthy sleeve. He gives a ragged, triumphant grin.

"Bit of a snag!" Ta yells, kicking the groaning militiaman he'd sat on. "Rescuing the stage manager!"

Puripal nods curtly. "The play must go on. The final act. Now!"

Ta scrambles up, helping Kan to her feet and slicing her bonds. He grabs a discarded brass horn from a dead herald. Kan, despite her ordeal, snatches another, her eyes burning with renewed purpose. They split, darting down side streets, their voices, amplified by the horns, rising above the clash of steel:

"Hear the word of Prince Puripal! Amnesty! Lay down your arms! This fight belongs to the rival lords, not to you! Spare your blood! Puripal offers peace to the warriors of Qixi-Lo!"

"The Khan and his sons fight their own war! Don't die for their pride! Surrender and live! Puripal guarantees your safety!"

The message ripples outwards, carried by other loyalists Ta and Kan rally. It finds fertile ground among the exhausted, confused Yohazatz trapped in the city. Hope, fragile but potent, flickers amidst the despair.

Then, a shadow falls across the sun-drenched plaza before the palace steps. Qaloron Khan, astride his black stallion, emerges from a side avenue. Blood soaks his shoulder and streaks his temple, his lamellar scarred, his face etched with pain and iron resolve. Beside him, incongruous yet undeniable, rides Nemeh on his tall, disdainful camel, its lips curled as if smelling something foul. A contingent of battered but fierce Yohazatz warriors follows.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A disbelieving murmur runs through the nearby Moukopl ranks. The heralds' cries falter momentarily.

Qaloron reins in, his gaze sweeping the plaza, finding Puripal near the temple steps. He lets out a bark of laughter. "Amnesty? Peace?" His voice, though strained, carries the old Khan's authority. "A pretty lie for those who cannot see the truth!" He gestures at himself and Nemeh. "Do we look dead, Prince Puripal? Do we look captured?"

Nemeh, perched high on his camel, surveys the scene with sardonic detachment. He raises his own voice, sharp and clear, cutting through the momentary silence. "Warriors of Qixi-Lo! Men of the Blood Desert! Look upon your Khan! He stands! He fights! Do not heed the whispers of traitors and invaders! Shout it! Let the stones hear! THE KHAN LIVES!"

His personal guard takes up the cry, a rolling thunder that builds through the ranks of Yohazatz warriors nearby: "THE KHAN LIVES! THE KHAN LIVES!"

Puripal nudges his horse forward, stopping halfway between his Moukopl guard and his father and brother. The air crackles with tension. "Third Brother," Puripal calls, his voice surprisingly devoid of its usual mockery. "I underestimated you. I offer an apology for that. It was… unworthy." He inclines his head slightly. "Look at this. Father bleeding. Our people terrified. For what? A throne dragged from the steppe to gather dust in a stone cage?" He gestures at the opulent, smoke-stained palace. "It doesn't have to end in ashes. Step aside, Father. Let Nemeh and I rule a regency. Share the burden. No one else needs to die today."

Qaloron stares at his youngest son, a maelstrom of grief, fury, and profound weariness in his eyes. Nemeh's expression is unreadable, a mask of polished stone, though his knuckles are white on his camel's reins.

"Share?" Qaloron's laugh is bitter. "You bring fire to my doorstep, shatter the peace I forged, then speak of sharing?" He shakes his head, the movement stiff with pain. "There is only one language left, Puripal. The oldest one." With a grunt of effort, the old Khan dismounts. He strides towards a fallen Yohazatz warrior, wrenches the man's heavy halberd free from his death grip, and hefts it. He plants the butt on the blood-slicked stones. He points the wicked blade towards Puripal. "Steel. Come, boy. If you dare. Settle this the way our ancestors did. One blade against another. Or are you only brave behind the Moukopl despots?"

Puripal looks at the halberd, at his father's bleeding but unbowed figure, at the desperation in the offer. A flicker of something – pity? contempt? – crosses his face. He makes no move to dismount. "Father… I don't fight doomed old men for sport. Stand down. For the sake of the blood still left in your veins."

The stalemate holds, thick and suffocating. The shouting warriors pause, watching the princes. The Moukopl hold their breath. Jinhuang grips Dukar's arm so tightly her nails bite through the leather.

Then, a whisper of sound. Not a shout, not a clash of steel. A soft, deadly thwip cutting through the heavy air. Nemeh's eyes widen but no sound comes out of his mouth.

Qaloron Khan staggers. His hand flies to his neck, where the fletching of a short, brutal arrow suddenly protrudes, like a grotesque feather. A look of profound surprise, almost comical in its simplicity, spreads across his face. He looks down at his fingers, coming away slick and red. He sways, the heavy halberd slipping from his grasp to clatter loudly on the stones. He takes one stumbling step towards the smirking Puripal, his mouth working, but only a wet, bubbling gasp emerges. Then his knees buckle, and the last Khan of the united Yohazatz steppe collapses onto the plaza stones he'd fought so hard to claim, his obsidian eyes fixed on the smoke-streaked sky, unseeing. Puripal spreads his arms, the final act complete.

...

The frozen lake near Noga's camp is the stage for a saga carved in blood and ice. Naci Khan and Prince Noga, silhouetted against the bruised sky, circle each other on their warhorses, primal forces unleashed. The din of the larger battle fades to a distant roar. Here, only the rasp of breath frosting the air, the crunch of hooves on frozen slush, and the silent scream of impending violence exist.

Noga moves first. A guttural roar tears from his throat as his black stallion surges forward like a landslide. His massive sword whistles through the air, aimed not at Naci, but at her white mare's legs. Naci doesn't flinch. She leans, her body flowing with the horse's instinctive sidestep. The blade misses by a hair, biting deep into the ice with a spray of frozen shards. In the same fluid motion, Naci's lighter saber flicks out to score a bright line across the stallion's haunch.

The beast screams, bucking violently. Noga, impossibly balanced, uses the momentum, standing tall in the stirrups as his horse rears. Naci mirrors him, rising like a vengeful spirit on her own mount.

Their blades meet mid-air as the horses pivot beneath them.

CLANG!

The sound rings across the ice like a shattered bell. Sparks fly. Naci's strikes are viper-fast, probing weaknesses in Noga's guard, forcing him to parry wildly. Noga's swings are avalanches, each one threatening to shatter Naci's saber and her arm with it. She doesn't block; she deflects, redirecting his monstrous strength past her, using his own momentum to unbalance him. He stumbles on the shifting horseflesh. She lunges; he catches her blade on his vambrace, the screech of metal on metal setting teeth on edge. He grabs her forearm, fingers like iron vices. She twists, using his grip as leverage to kick him squarely in the chest plate. He grunts, releasing her, and both leap clear as their exhausted horses bolt away, fleeing the epicenter of their fury. They land on the blood-slicked ice, boots skidding.

The duel becomes a hurricane moving through the larger battle. Naci ducks behind a clashing Moukopl shieldman, using him as a momentary barrier; Noga simply cleaves through shield and man in one brutal swing, showering Naci in gore. She rolls beneath a panicked Yohazatz horse, slashing its hamstring as she passes, sending it crashing into Noga's path. He vaults the thrashing beast, landing with a ground-shaking thud. They trade blows amidst the chaos – Naci using a frozen corpse as a stepping stone for a high strike, Noga hurling a discarded pike like a javelin that shatters against the ice where she stood a millisecond before.

Time stretches, warps. Each breath is fire in the lungs, each parry sends shockwaves up the arms. Naci's saber notches; Noga's lamellar is scored and dented. Blood, theirs and others', paints the ice in macabre patterns.

Noga gains the upper hand. A powerful backhand blow sends Naci's saber spinning from her numbed fingers. He lunges, a killing thrust aimed at her heart. Naci throws herself sideways, but not fast enough. His sword grazes her ribs, slicing through furs and leather, drawing a line of fire and crimson. She stumbles, gasping. Noga raises the blade for the final blow, triumph burning in his pain-racked eyes.

Then, a streak of black and white fury erupts from the smoke. Khanai the tiger, a living bolt of lightning, slams into Noga's flank. Razor claws rip through lamellar like parchment. Noga bellows, more in surprise than pain, staggering back as the massive cat rakes him again. "You… beast… the steppes are too small for the two of us!"

But Khanai doesn't linger; with a growl that vibrates the ice, she disengages, melting back into the fray to aid Horohan's embattled flank, her duty to her bonded partner done. Noga clutches his bleeding side, the deep gouges adding agony to his exhaustion. The moment cost him the kill. Naci scrambles towards a fallen Moukopl soldier, snatching up a heavy war-axe.

Desperate, wounded, but far from broken, Noga throws himself at Naci with pure, feral rage, abandoning technique. He swings his sword in wide, berserk arcs, forcing Naci back towards the lake's treacherous center. She blocks with the axe haft, the impacts jarring her bones, each blow threatening to shatter the weapon and her arms. She's tiring, her breath ragged plumes in the cold. Noga sees it, a predator sensing weakness. He gathers himself for a final, obliterating overhead chop. "TEPR ENDS WITH YOU, KHAN!" he roars.

Naci doesn't try to block. The axe drops from her hands. High above, a piercing shriek rends the air. Uamopak, her eagle, stoops like a feathered thunderbolt. Clutched in its talons isn't prey, but Naci's bone-white musket. Naci catches it smoothly, the movement practiced a thousand times on the steppe. She drops to one knee on the ice, the musket coming up. The world narrows to the sight picture: Noga's enraged face, frozen mid-swing, less than ten paces away.

He sees it. His eyes widen. Instinct takes over. His free hand, the one not wielding his sword, snaps up – the hand that plucks arrows from the air like annoying insects. He thrusts it forward, palm out, fingers splayed, aiming to catch the lead ball hurtling towards him.

BOOM!

But the bullet, faster than any arrow, harder than any arrowhead, meets his palm. It doesn't stop. It punches through flesh and bone like rotten wood, explodes through his wrist, shatters his forearm bones into splinters, tears through muscle and sinew, and finally exits just below his elbow in a grisly eruption of blood, bone fragments, and mangled tissue. His arm, fuming, disintegrates from the elbow down. His sword drops from the shock in his whole body, embedding itself point-first in the ice with a mournful shiver.

Noga stares, dumbfounded, at the ruin of his arm. The pain is a white-hot supernova still traveling up his nerves. He sways, the berserk fury replaced by shock so profound it's almost comical. Blood pumps in rhythmic, horrific spurts onto the crimson ice.

Naci stands, already moving with lethal calm. She ejects the spent casing, the hot brass hissing on the frost. Her fingers, steady despite the battle's toll, pull another lead ball and paper cartridge from her bandolier. She begins to reload, her eyes never leaving Noga's face. "That," she states, her voice cold and clear as the ice beneath them, "was for Temej's arm."

Noga meets her gaze. There's no plea, only a dawning, brutal acceptance, and pure respect in the depths of his pain. He knows what comes next. The bone-white muzzle begins to rise towards his forehead.

Before it finds its mark, a whirlwind of desperation hits Naci from the side. A war-horse slams its shoulder into her—hooves spraying ice chips, the impact driving the air from her lungs and spinning her half-around. Two Yohazatz warriors, eyes wild with terror and loyalty, have galloped through the fray. One leans perilously from his saddle, strong arms wrapping around Naci's torso, yanking her off her feet and onto the horse's rump with brutal force. The musket flies from her grasp. The other warrior, ignoring the arrows suddenly peppering his mount's flanks, grabs Noga by his remaining arm and the collar of his lamellar. With a grunt of agonized effort, he hauls the half-conscious, bleeding prince across his saddlebow like a sack of grain.

"RIDE! WEST!" the first warrior screams, spurring his horse. They plunge through the thinning chaos, weaving past stunned Moukopl and fleeing Yohazatz, a desperate retreat towards the vast, distant desert.

A battered figure bull-rushes from the mêlée—Fol, face streaked with soot. He hooks a staff around the escaping horse's stirrup, jerks Naci off the rump, and hauls her gasping to her feet before the mount can trample her.

Noga's blood paints a dark trail on the churned snow. Naci struggles, cursing, but Fol's arm locks around her waist, anchoring her amid the swirling fight. She watches the retreating figures, the conqueror who shattered tribes reduced to broken meat fleeing. Her musket lies discarded on the ice, smoking faintly beside the shattered ruin of a prince's arm and the black sword standing sentinel. Around her, the remaining Yohazatz resistance crumbles, the will to fight extinguished with their Khanzadeh's fall. A ragged cheer, thin at first, then swelling into a thunderous roar, rises from the Tepr and Moukopl forces.

"TEPR STANDS! TEPR STANDS! ALL HAIL NACI KHAN!"

They have blown the invader back to his desolate sands. The cost is written in blood on the ice, but the steppe, at last, is free. Naci, finally shaken loose by her rescuer, stands amidst the roaring victory.

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