Yechvan rode his mare through the carnage of the battle, their biggest yet. Grask proudly took the place beside him. The boy wore an impenetrable scowl as they guided their horses through the bloodied field. Ulula and a few of her bantax followed, spread out wide to prevent an ambush. But Yechvan was less concerned about an ambush than the looming parley.

  Zu and Ulula had led the eastern front to its first victory as Yechvan had agonized in his tent, much to his relief and annoyance. He’d missed the thrill of the fight, the greater thrill of the celebration at its conclusion.

  His horse took a misstep, sending a painful reminder through his wounded shoulder.

  A pyre blazed atop the small rise ahead where the bulk of the fighting had taken place, according to Grask’s report. Yechvan could only make out the individual Perysh at work when Solonia’s bright afternoon rays glinted off their armor, but the acrid smell of burning corpses assailed him. Coupled with his twisting insides, he thought he might lose his porridge. The Perysh soldiers gathered bodies, orc and blooded and human alike, to fuel a massive bonfire of the dead. Peryn had requested—and Yechvan granted—a quarter turn of peace under Algernica’s rite of Dür Grasca so that they might gather the fallen from the various battle sites without fear of retaliation. Yechvan’s own soldiers were doing the same on the northern end of the field.

  The past season of Terython had been packed with fighting. Hundreds and hundreds dead on both sides, more of his own people captured while falling back during Peryn’s push to take Teg. But that was where the southern advance had ended. The tide had turned with this first major victory for Banx’s eastern army, and Yechvan now held the upper hand. He would be able to change course and, instead of retreating in every conflict, force Peryn back little by little. They would begin by retaking Teg. He and Grask had come up with sound tactics, and Telu Myrrh had finally overextended her lines.

  “Why are you so nervous, Yog?” Grask asked as Yechvan readjusted in his saddle. Again.

  Yechvan considered the question. He had no real reason to be nervous. His strategy was solid, but Telu Myrrh was clever, steady, creative. He couldn’t? shake the nagging suspicion that she still had a nasty surprise in store, something he might have missed. It was a whisper he couldn’t quite silence. More than that, though…

  “He’s awful at negotiations,” Ulula said, pulling her horse up to Yechvan’s other flank.

  “But you’re a brilliant strategist,” the boy said.

  Yechvan shrugged in response, his cheeks growing hot. During the back and forth of any hostile dialogue, his thoughts were half formed and ineffective. When presenting a plan to his subordinates, he took ample time to prepare, to formulate his ideas and cogitations. When he spoke with an opposing emissary, the tension and pace of the verbal duel caused his arguments to be disjointed and fall short of the mark.

  “Then why are you the one meeting with the Perysh?” Grask continued. “Why not have Zu do it? He speaks their language. Or Ulula? Or why not send for Roog?”

  Ulula snorted. “You think Zu or I’d be any better?”

  “I requested Roog, but your father didn’t see things my way,” Yechvan said.

  “He doesn’t believe the Perysh will listen,” Ulula clarified.

  “And you do?”

  Yechvan bowed his head. “No, but I have to try. They have more of ours than we know, and they’ve likely already transported them south in shackles to be exploited for hard labor. Some have been captive for over half a year.”

  “But we only have a hundred of theirs,” Grask said.

  “Ninety-six,” Ulula corrected.

  “True. And if they agree to an exchange, that is ninety-six men and women who won’t be forced to live another day under Peryn’s boot.” Yechvan nudged his horse around a broken sword wedged between a pair of rocks.

  “Is that why Zu is so interested in protecting the prisoners?” Grask had spent much of the morning watching his brother carry bowls of porridge to the Perysh two at a time, Zu speaking and joking with them in their own tongue.

  “Not entirely. For Zu, it is the only way to treat them,” Yechvan said.

  “I’ve heard that the soldiers of Peryn and the Five Nations have raped, tortured and even killed our captives, both in this war and previous ones.”

  “So they have.”

  “How come we don’t do that to theirs?”

  “Think for a moment about what you just asked. It is easy to witness an injustice and want revenge, but where would that leave us?”

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  The boy remained silent.

  Yechvan continued, “Algernica’s decrees dictate that prisoners of war are to be treated with compassion. They are helpless, at our mercy, much like babes.”

  “Why doesn’t Peryn follow Algernica’s laws?”

  “They do when fighting against other humans,” Ulula replied, “but many see us as inferior. This is the way of the world for the orcs and blooded on the surface.”

  “I don’t understand,” Grask argued, his neck flushing with a frustration born of innocence, of indignation, of inequity. “Why would Algernica allow that? Shouldn’t we punish them since she refuses?”

  “That isn’t our place. It is hers and hers alone.” Yechvan pointed to the heavens. “If we sacrificed our beliefs simply because others profane those ideals, we’d be left to walk our path blind and forsaken.”

  “So we should hold true, even though our people may return to us abused, battered, broken?”

  Yechvan allowed Grask a moment to reflect and scratched at the itch that plagued his shoulder. The arrow wound was healing—misery. He wanted to rip the bandage free and satisfy the agonizing urge to attack the mending flesh, but he knew from experience it would do more harm than good. Instead, he pulled a handful of dried venison from his bag and tossed a piece to Grask, another to Ulula, and stuck a third in his mouth.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” the boy chewed.

  “What would you propose as an alternative?”

  At that, Grask bristled. He balked at the injustice he couldn’t reconcile. “I—I don’t know.”

  “Think on it,” Yechvan said. “I’ll be here when you devise a solution.”

  As the trio rose above the incline of the final steep hill, Peryn’s forward party fanned out along the plateau. Several archers nocked arrows upon sighting Yechvan and his cadre but left the bows at their sides. Four riders broke from the group: two standard bearers and two lords, one a higher-ranking egl, the other a melghul, according to the cut of their flags—if Yechvan remembered his training on Perysh titles from his yesteryears. He recalled them with some difficulty; the written language contained far too many letters that weren’t pronounced. Useless letters for useless titles.

  The only titles he cared for were the general of the Perysh army and the Perysh wryn, the rank given to Roog’s counterpart, who served as the closest advisor to the king or queen. Both were held by indomitable noblewomen: Telu Myrrh, the firebrand whose crafty tactics and swift maneuvering never ceased to impress, and Isa Drau, a shrewd negotiator and one of the cleverest people Yechvan had had the honor of meeting.

  He had requested to parley with either of them in his letter. It seemed his request had not been granted, despite the Perysh having insisted he attend personally. Flustered by the insult but determined to do what he could, Yechvan motioned for Ulula and Grask to move with him as they rode out to meet the Perysh lords.

  The rider on the right, the egl, was tall but gangly. His armor clacked and clattered as the group approached. Though it was masterfully constructed and well fitted, it carried too much mass for the lack of flesh it covered. The other rider, the lower-ranking melghul, wore his faceplate down, one hand resting on the pommel of his saddle, the other on the pommel of his blade.

  “I requested to speak with someone in charge so that I might receive assurances as to the safe return of all prisoners,” Yechvan began in Bannax as soon as the horses were the customary ten strides apart, forgetting all his diligent work to craft the traditional niceties and formal apologies for not speaking Perysh. Yet another reason he was a poor choice to lead this parley. But alas.

  “I assure you,” said the gangly man, in surprisingly fluent Bannax, “that my decision here carries the full weight of the Perysh throne.”

  “You are authorized to make decisions as an egl?”

  “If you had read the cut of my flag properly,” the human growled, “you would see that I am Rogal, eldest son of House Gadrack, an egl-gra, and ninth in line to the throne.”

  Gods be damned, titles be damned. “My apologies.” Yechvan tried to hide his agitated sigh. “I thought your people elected their king or queen based on a vote of some sort.” Koruzan’s hair, why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut?

  “Have I come here to teach a civics lesson to an ignorant orc?” Rogal spat.

  “No, of course not.” Yechvan chuckled nervously, further enraging the man, who now resembled an armored praying mantis. Yechvan stifled another anxious, shaky laugh, trying his best to conduct himself with the decorum befitting such proceedings.

  Gods be damned. Stop. Laughing.

  “You called for this parley,” Rogal said, his patience even thinner than he. “Why?”

  The somber reminder of his mission at last gave Yechvan the reprieve he needed to compose himself. “I am here to propose a prisoner exchange.”

  “Why should we agree?”

  “You may not understand, but the tide of the war has turned. Hence why I asked to treat with your wryn or your general. I expect one or the other understands this and—” Yechvan stopped, a chilling realization wrapping icy tendrils around his heart.

  Telu Myrrh knew something he had not yet divined—her nasty surprise. That was why neither she nor Isa Drau had come.

  “And…?” the man prompted.

  “And would agree to an exchange,” Yechvan finished distractedly.

  “We are not interested in exchanging prisoners at this time. Is that the only reason for the parley?”

  “We are holding ninety-six of your men and women, many injured and desirous of returning to their homes and families.”

  “We have far more of yours,” came Rogal’s icy reply.

  Yechvan berated himself for allowing the negotiations to begin on such rocky footing, for letting his nerves get the better of him and insulting the man. He had hoped the Perysh would give his letter due consideration. He’d expected to speak to someone with real authority, though he likely would have ruined that relationship just the same.

  “Listen, why don’t we trade in equal numbers?” Yechvan suggested.

  “You are grasping at wheat, bols.”

  What an odd expression, Yechvan thought. “So be it. Return ninety-six of our injured, and we’ll return an equal number of yours. There is no reason—”

  “I have already denied your request. Go back to your camp—and don’t forget to retrieve your dignity along the way. I hope we meet on the field.”

  With that, Rogal and his entourage swept their horses around and left at a trot, laughing as they receded into Solonia’s dying light.

  “Well, that went better than your last attempt at a parley,” Ulula snickered.

  “Really?” Grask asked. “That was awful.”

  “They are planning something big,” Yechvan said as he turned to face his companions. “I need my maps. Now.”