As the afternoon bled into a long, suffocating evening, Möndör's fever worsened with every passing hour. He drifted in the shallow water between life and death, struggling against the tides of his own nightmares. His body shivered violently, and his teeth ground together with a harsh, rhythmic sound—like the frantic beating of swords in the heat of a losing battle.
In his delirium, the boundary between the tent in Ntsua-Ntu and the dirt of the mountain pass vanished. The horrors he had lived through the day before were no longer memories; they were a reality replaying itself in the theater of his mind.
His breathing hitched, his chest heaving faster and shallower as the darkness of his closed eyes transformed into the jagged landscape of the valley.
In the dream, his hand was cramped, his fingers white-knuckled as he clenched his bow. He stood in the tall, dry grass, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He watched the backs of the two women who had raised him—his mother, Sarnai, and his stepmother, Maral. They weren't weeping or hiding; they were warriors. Along with the rest of the defenders of Pojin, they were rushing toward the base of Salran Hill, their silhouettes sharp against the gathering storm of the Paayasian advance.
The air in the dream smelled of ozone and wet earth. Möndör tried to shout for them to wait, to tell them about the "Wolf" or the golden arrows, but the words were trapped in his throat, choked by the rising heat of the fever that was trying to burn him from the inside out.
The words remained trapped in Möndör's throat, a suffocating silence that finally shattered as the nightmare dragged him deeper. In the vision, the air was thick with the smell of dry grass and the metallic tang of impending rain.
Möndör saw himself stumble, coughing violently as he tried to clear his lungs while running. He fumbled with his waterskin, pressing it into his mother Sarnai's hand. The process was jagged and frantic; he was a boy trying to keep pace with the stride of warriors.
They reached the first entrance of the underground tunnels—the hidden veins of Salran Hill—just as Behrouz emerged from the dark earth. He looked less like a man and more like a mountain spirit, his presence grounding the panic of the fleeing villagers.
"Chief—" Sarnai gasped, skidding to a halt a few feet away. "So—"
"So, Chinua and Hye were right," Behrouz interrupted. A grim, predatory smirk touched the corner of his mouth. "Es Ke will cross our border the moment they see a crack in the door." He turned his sharp, hawk-like gaze toward the female soldiers. "The villagers?"
"The majority have gone into hiding," Yangchen reported.
"But a few elders refused to leave," Pema added, her voice trembling slightly. "They said if everyone hides, who will be left to feed the heroes protecting the borders?"
Behrouz let out a heavy, weary sigh that seemed to rattle the very trees. "Let them be. Their pride is their armor now." He turned his focus to the four captains: Sarnai, Maral, Yangchen, and Pema.
"Take your soldiers. Guard your territories. Hye has carved a corridor for the traitor prince and his cronies to flee, and he predicts they will come screaming toward us to cross into Paayapasa." His eyes turned to flint. "Chinua's orders are absolute: Leave the prince alive. Kill everyone else, except for the two men with white cloth tied to their left wrists. They are our eyes in the dark."
He stepped forward, his shadow looming over the gathered force—a ragtag army of fierce women and wide-eyed teenagers.
"Children of Pojin!" Behrouz's voice boomed, echoing against the stone walls of the pass. "Today, tomorrow, and the days after, Pojin will face its toughest trial. We will be hammered from both sides: the Paayasian steel at our front and a traitor prince at our rear. Yesterday, you were children. Today, you are the soldiers of Pojin. You are the future of Hmagol. If you want a future without shackles on your hands and feet, you must buy it with your blood today!"
The darkness of the fever dream surged again. In the tent, the real Möndör's fingers clawed at the air, but in the memory, they were locked around the cold wood of his bow.
"Möndör!"
The voice was sharp, cutting through the haze of his fear. He blinked, the world coming into focus. He was crouched at the corner of a timber-framed house in Pojin, the smell of damp earth and horse sweat thick in his nostrils.
"Pay attention. That is the first rule of being a soldier," Sarnai whispered, her gaze never leaving the road. "If you are not up to this, you still have time to hide with the others. Go now, and I will not think less of you."
Möndör's knuckles turned white as he adjusted his grip. "Sorry, Mother. I am ready."
"I think it's best if you—" Sarnai began, but she froze. The sound of hooves hammered against the dirt—a rhythmic, desperate pounding. She didn't finish her sentence. Instead, she pursed her lips and whistled twice, a perfect, haunting mimicry of the Asian Koel.
Across the village, hidden teenagers and women shifted in the shadows, responding to the signal.
Möndör watched his mother reach back and draw a black-fletched arrow from her quiver. There were no more second thoughts. No more childhood. The enemy was here.
Sarnai's eyes were like flint, locked onto the group entering the square. She saw the circle of palace guards, the exhaustion in their movements, and the man at the center riding with a desperate, frantic energy. She had never seen Dzhambul before, but the way he sat his horse—the way the soldiers clustered around him and the two men with the white-clothed wrists—told her everything she needed to know.
She ignored the prince. She ignored the "friends." Instead, she sighted her arrow on the man riding just behind Dzhambul, close to the woman in the gray silks. Lixin.
The distance closed. The air seemed to hold its breath. Sarnai released.
The arrow hissed as it spun through the air, a streak of lethal intent. It found its mark with a sickening thud, burying itself deep into Lixin's right chest. The force of the strike launched him backward off his horse, his body hitting the dry earth like a fallen stone.
"Now!" Sarnai's voice wasn't a scream; it was a command.
With that first strike, the silence of Pojin exploded. From every rooftop, hayloft, and alleyway, the hidden soldiers of the village released their volleys, a storm of wood and iron raining down on the "Wolf" and his trapped pack.
The dream shifted, the soundscape of the memory sharpening until it was more real than the tent around him. There were no screams—not yet. The air was filled only with the mechanical, predatory sounds of a professional slaughter: the rhythmic swoosh of arrows cutting the wind, the panicked, high-pitched neighing of horses, and the heavy thud of wood burying itself into the timber walls of the village.
Then came the wetter, sickening sounds—the thwick of iron piercing silk and flesh.
"Hold the line!" a palace guard roared, but his voice was cut short by a black-fletched shaft.
Möndör reached for another arrow the heartbeat he released the first. His eyes remained locked on the alleyway as a palace guard crumpled to the dirt, but the sanctuary of his hiding spot was suddenly shattered.
The wall of the neighboring house exploded inward. A female soldier was hurled through the timber, followed by two palace guards with swords clenched in their fists, their eyes bloodshot with battle-lust.
As the guards lunged for the fallen woman, Möndör pivoted. He released his arrow at point-blank range. The shaft buried itself deep into the lead guard's neck, killing him instantly, but there was no time to celebrate. Two more guards burst through the door, their Hmagol steel whistling in a lethal arc toward his head.
Möndör raised his bow to parry—a desperate, instinctive move. But the seasoned wood stood no chance against the palace's finest steel. The bow snapped into two useless pieces with a sickening crack.
Weaponless, Möndör rolled. His back hit the stone wall of the alley as a soldier's boot aimed for his face. He launched his body upward, catching the soldier mid-air. In one fluid motion, he ripped his dagger from the scabbard on his lower back.
He didn't just stab; he became a blur of survival.
Five times the dagger plunged into the guard's face in the blink of an eye. The man's screams were muffled by blood as Möndör rolled over the writhing body, only to feel the icy bite of a blade across his own chest. The sword cut a deep, stinging line through his leather armor and into his skin. He felt the warmth of his own blood beginning its slow, steady crawl toward his abdomen.
He was cornered. One guard moved toward him from the front, blade leveled, while another to his left finished his work, driving a sword through the chest of the female soldier.
So, this is the end of me, Möndör thought. But the fire of a sixteen-year-old does not go out quietly. He tensed his muscles, planning a final, suicidal gambit: a roll to the left to hamstring the guard before making a break for the shadows.
He moved. He rolled and slashed at the guard's leg exactly as planned. But as he scrambled to his feet to strike again, the world changed.
The guard in front of him was already dead on the floor, a pool of crimson widening beneath him. The guard to his left stood paralyzed, gurgling a fountain of blood as a sword-tip protruded from the center of his chest.
"What are you waiting for, kiddo?"
Buqa appeared like a ghost from the chaos, wrenching his blade from the dying man's ribs. His face was splattered with gore, his eyes wide and frantic. "Get out of here!"
Before Möndör could even thank his savior, a new sound cut through the screams and the clashing steel. The first horn—deep, low, and echoing with the weight of an empire—blew from the valley entrance.
"Get out of here now, kid!" Buqa's voice was ragged, his eyes darting toward the rising dust on the horizon. He knew the geography of this trap better than anyone. "Pojin is no longer safe. Go! Find Chinua!"
Möndör staggered back, his breath coming in shallow hitches. "Who are you?"
"Tell Chinua that Buqa sent a message," he hissed, shoved the boy toward the shadows of the broken house. "The Paayasians and the Razaasians are here."
Möndör didn't ask another question. He scrambled through the wreckage, his boots slipping on blood and splintered wood, until he found a riderless horse tethered near the alley. He hauled himself into the saddle, his chest burning from the sword-slash, and hammered his heels into the animal's flanks.
As the horse thundered through the one-way street of chaos, Möndör risked one final look back. He saw the silhouettes of the women and the teenagers of Pojin—the only family he had ever known—hurling themselves against the wall of palace guards. He knew their spirit; he knew that if it were just the guards, Pojin would hold.
But then, the second horn blew.
It was a deeper, more mechanical sound that shook the very foundation of the valley. It was the sound of a professional empire arriving to claim its prize. In that moment of distraction, the world exploded into white-hot agony. Two sharp, sickening stings blossomed in his back.
He looked down at his chest and saw the jagged tip of an arrowhead protruding from the left side of his ribcage. His vision blurred, the edges of the world turning gray. I cannot die here, he told himself, the thought a repetitive mantra. I have a message for Chinua. With the last of his conscious strength, he whipped the horse, and the stallion galloped into the wilderness, leaving the screams of the village behind.
When the second horn echoed through the carnage, Dzhambul's head snapped toward the valley entrance. A dark, predatory smile spread across his face. His allies had finally arrived.
He sat on the blood-stained earth, cradling Lixin in his arms. Lixin was pale, his breath coming in wet, ragged pants as the arrow in his chest rattled with every heartbeat.
Dzhambul looked up at his remaining palace guards, his eyes devoid of the mercy he had once pretended to have.
"Kill everything," Dzhambul commanded, his voice as cold as the mountain wind. "And burn it all down."
He turned back to Lixin, his expression softening into a terrifying, obsessive tenderness. He leaned down and gently kissed Lixin's sweat-streaked forehead.
"You will be alright," he whispered, even as the smoke of the village began to rise behind them, blackening the sky.
The "Wolf's" guard was elite, and even in the chaos, their training took over. Those fast enough didn't wait to be picked off; they kicked in the doors of the small, timber-framed houses, seeking cover and turning the villagers' own homes into a battlefield. The quiet streets of Pojin suddenly transformed into a labyrinth of close-quarters murder.
Inside the narrow alleyways, the sound of bowstrings was replaced by the clatter of steel on steel as guards and Pojin's hidden soldiers met face-to-face. But for those caught in the open, there was no mercy. The one-way street became a corridor of the dying, littered with the bodies of men left to bleed out in the dust of a village they had come to conquer.
On the crest of the hill overlooking the eastern road, the wind whipped through the fine silks of the invading officers. Koorush stood as still as a statue, his eyes narrowed as he watched the distant, swaying silhouette of the wounded rider.
He didn't need to check his aim. He knew the weight of his own draw; he knew the bite of his steel. With his archery skill, that boy should have been dead before his horse cleared the first ridge. Yet, as he watched the stallion gallop frantically toward the horizon, a strange, dark hope flickered in his chest. He wanted that boy to survive just long enough to deliver the news of Pojin's fall—a final, bloody gift to the "Eastern General of Hmagol."
Koorush turned away from the vista, casually handing his ornate bow to the soldier standing beside him. A playful, terrifying smirk danced on his face—the look of a man who viewed war as a grand, theatrical performance.
"Payam," Koorush said, his voice dropping to a chilling, melodic whisper as he looked at the village below. "Instead of burning incense sticks for you... I will burn you Pojin."
He turned to the soldiers standing beside him, his smile widening into something truly predatory.
"Release the red smoke."
High above the valley, a hiss echoed as the signal flare was ignited. A thick, crimson cloud billowed into the sky, staining the clouds like a fresh wound. It was the signal for the total annihilation of Pojin.