The next day, a bruised and battered Grask arrived for his evening lesson. He pulled aside the tent flap with ginger movements, one eye swollen, a splotch of blood staining the white. Yechvan let him drink some mead to dull the pain as they discussed battle plans, studied maps, played Thrice.

  The second night, before their lesson was to begin, a letter arrived from the qish’s camp.

  “Grask, go and fetch Zu and Ulula for me, will you?” Yechvan said as he unfurled the missive.

  There would be no peace. The qish, as promised, had refused to relent, insisting Peryn make amends for the attack on his sons, even though the Perysh king remained adamant that he’d played no part in the attempt on their lives. Grusk had almost come to blows with the lord who demanded his slaves, his property, be returned.

  As the qish’s advisor, Roog was tasked with writing the letter, and he’d added personal insights into the qish’s mood for Yechvan’s benefit. Grusk wanted a fight. It kept his people united, for no matter how much animosity there might be between orc and human and blooded, they were all Banxian at heart. The Perysh owned slaves, ate boiled bread, held balls and listened to the dainty music favored by their fragile lords and ladies. Even the humans from Banx were forged in Algernica’s breast, soldiers to the last, her name upon their lips at the moment of their death. When at war, Grusk could easily convince his subjects they had far more in common with each other than those in Peryn or the Five Nations.

  Zu arrived first, wearing the trace of a smile. Grask bounded in on his heels. A red flush crept across the boy’s cheeks. “Ulula may be a few minutes,” he said. “She was…”

  “Busy,” Zu finished.

  “Whose tent did you find her in?” Yechvan asked.

  “Borch,” the boy sputtered.

  “And Ing?” Yechvan asked with a hearty guffaw. Grask nodded, his face brightening from red to crimson. “Well, we should be safe having a drink first.”

  The three young men waited, Grask sitting meekly across from Zu as the older pair lamented the distance to Madame Sho’s.

  “How did you fare during training today?” Yechvan asked. He’d been distracted by Seg’s scouting report and the arrival of Roog’s letter and forgot to ask when the boy had first joined him.

  “Well,” he replied, curt and timid.

  “Speak up, Little Grask,” Zu said.

  “It went well,” the boy repeated, clearing his throat.

  “You needn’t be afraid of me here,” Zu chided. “Once we leave our practice behind, it is forgotten.”

  Grask’s sharp, narrowed eyes said it wasn’t so easily forgotten for him. “I understand.”

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  “What did the letter say?” Zu asked.

  Yechvan handed it to him. “I’ve no interest in repeating myself when Ulula arrives. You two read it.”

  Zu laughed as he read. When he finished, he tossed the note across the table to Grask.

  “What is so funny? You’re happy about this?”

  “We are to war, Little Grask,” Zu said. “That is what you wanted, is it not?”

  Yechvan steered the conversation to the troop locations he’d been contemplating, and Zu and Grask tacitly allowed the budding disagreement to die. They leaned forward to scan the map. As usual, Zu followed Yechvan’s finger with no input. Grask, on the other hand, was eager to learn and asked questions at every turn. Yechvan wasn’t used to such scrutiny. He tried his best to keep his cool as he went through far more detailed and laborious explanations than were necessary.

  Midway through the tactics lesson with Grask, Ulula stumbled into the tent. The three abandoned the map and turned to face the disheveled woman.

  She composed herself and tossed her auburn braids over her shoulder. “What? The boy said you needed me.”

  In answer, Grask held out the letter.

  “Ach, read it to me. Better yet, just tell me what it says.” She rubbed her eyes and staggered to the table. Perched unsteadily on the remaining tree stump, she poured herself a cup of mead, sloshing it about.

  Yechvan chuckled at the memory of trying to teach Ulula to read and write. She’d been resistant at the best of times, belligerent and downright hostile at the worst, ultimately telling him to shove the damned bird feather between his cheeks. He’d tried again on several occasions since, reading her correspondence and books, stratagems and treatises. She listened with keen interest but was never patient enough to match the sounds to the letters and runes on the parchment.

  “Shouldn’t we let her sleep it off before…?” Grask asked.

  Yechvan waved away Grask’s objections and summarized the content of the letter. If he were forced to wait for his soldiers to be sober, nothing would ever be accomplished.

  “Good,” Ulula said when he finished. “We didn’t come here for nothing.”

  “Why are you all so cavalier about this?” Grask asked.

  “This is your first fight, qince. You’ll understand after you’ve soaked your blade in blood,” she replied.

  Yechvan wasn’t so sure. He would speak to the boy alone to let him know his fears and worries were justified and normal. By dismissing Grask’s concerns, Zu and Ulula meant to be supportive, letting him know he needn’t worry. Given the boy’s horrified expression, Yechvan would guess they were failing miserably.

  Ulula fell asleep leaning against the table when they went back to discussing strategy. Zu followed not long after, though he made it to his cot. Grask’s need for information, however, was insatiable. He constantly played the countermove to anticipate Peryn’s response, making every effort to poke holes in each of Yechvan’s stratagems.

  “What do you do if you aren’t sure which strategy will work best?” the boy asked.

  “I go with my gut,” Yechvan said.

  “You—what?” Grask choked.

  “I wish I could give you a more elaborate or profound answer, but sometimes you have to make a decision without full knowledge of the situation. In those cases, I go with my gut, like in Thrice. I trust that my intuition notices something my brain can’t quite relay.”

  “And that works?”

  “So far,” Yechvan laughed.

  Ulula snorted, waking herself up and splashing a few drops of mead onto her lap. The cup slipped from her limp fingers into the dirt and spilled the remainder of its contents. She looked around, confused, before forcing herself up and stumbling to her cot.

  Yechvan saw this as a sign that he should try to get some rest, but Grask redoubled his queries, doing his best to figure out how to follow his gut. Even after Yechvan had told the boy he couldn’t make him understand, Grask insisted there must be some way, some analogy, like the ones Yechvan used while teaching him Thrice. Some time later, exhausted and bewildered, Grask finally—mercifully—nodded off.

  By then, the witching hour was fast approaching, and Yechvan could sense the restless dead. There would be no sleep for him that night.