Rushing through the skeletal remains of the burnt houses and veering away from the blood-soaked center of the village, Azad led the small group of teenagers toward the jagged heights of Salran Hill. But as they moved deeper into the outskirts, the frantic pace of their escape began to falter.
Azad's boots, once swift and sure, slowed as he realized they were no longer stepping on ash, but on the dead.
The Razaasia soldiers had been thorough in their cruelty. They had not left a single soul behind. Here, far from the "piles" in the square, the bodies of humans and livestock lay tangled together—children clutching family pets, old men slumped over their slaughtered cattle. The Razaasias had treated the people of Pojin like the animals they farmed, culling them without distinction.
The air was no longer thin and mountain-crisp; it was thick, heavy, and cloying with the sweet, humid odor of rotting flesh. Everywhere Azad turned, the silence was replaced by a low, rhythmic vibration—the hissing drone of thousands of black flies that had descended upon the village to feast on what the fire hadn't claimed.
The teenagers behind him began to gag, some clutching the hems of their tunics over their faces. Azad gripped his blade tighter, his eyes scouring the "Valley of Flies" for any sign of a Razaasia scout. He wondered if the stench was this putrid throughout the rest of Pojin. Was the rot this thick everywhere, or had the others near Sarlin Hill managed to escape into hiding before the slaughter?
"Don't look," Azad hissed to the youth behind him, though he knew it was a useless command. "Keep your eyes on the ridge. If we stop here, the flies will be the least of our worries."
As they crested the first rise leading out of the slaughter, Azad looked back one last time. From this distance, the village looked like a blackened wound on the face of the mountain, and the only thing moving within its walls were the swarms of insects and the men in Razaasia silk who had invited them there.
Just as they began to believe they had put enough distance between themselves and the carnage, a cluster of Razaasia scouts appeared on the horizon, cutting through the haze and heading directly their way. Azad knew that if they continued toward the gates of Salran Hill, they would be spotted in the open.
With no other choice, he signaled for the young soldiers to pivot, leading them toward the cover of the apple ranch. He knew that beyond the twisted trees, on the far side of Whitefang Peak, lay the columbarium. He wondered, with a growing dread, if the Razaasias had scouted that far—and if the sanctuary of the dead was still standing, or if it, too, had fallen to the silk-clad invaders.
Meanwhile, stuck in the suffocating center of the village with Razaasia soldiers swarming every alleyway, Sarnai and Pema were ghosts in their own home. They moved like shadows, flitting from one scorched house to the next, but the circle was tightening.
Pema could feel the heat radiating from Sarnai's body—a fever born of the dagger wound and the exhaustion of the flight. She knew that if they continued to move in circles, Sarnai would not last the hour.
"Captain," Pema whispered, her eyes darting to a patrol of Razaasias passing just meters away. "You will not last if we keep moving like this. You must find a place to hide."
"But there is no place to hide," Sarnai replied. Her vision was fracturing, the world turning into a blurred collage of orange fire and grey ash. "You go on... I know I am not going to survive. Dragging me with you... we will both die here. Go ahead. At least one of us must live to tell Chinua what happened."
Pema scanned the skeletal remains of a half-burnt house and spotted a heavy wooden hatch. She lunged for it, wrenching it open to reveal a root cellar. Remarkably, this deep pocket of the earth had been spared; the short ladder was intact, and the scent of preserved winter vegetables cut through the stench of the smoke.
She helped Sarnai descend. As the Captain reached the bottom, Pema looked down at her with a heavy heart, wondering how long a woman with a pierced chest could last in the damp dark. She feared this was the last time she would ever look upon her comrade's face.
But instead of the terror Pema expected, Sarnai looked up and offered a weak, trembling smile.
"Go on, captain," Sarnai whispered, her voice a ghost of its former strength. "I will be fine. The earth will keep me."
"Take care, Captain," Pema said, her voice thick with unshed tears.
She slammed the cellar door shut and, with a burst of desperate strength, hauled a heavy, charred dining table over the hatch. To any passing Razaasia, it looked like just another piece of domestic wreckage. Without looking back, Pema turned and sprinted toward the treeline, moving with the singular purpose of a woman carrying a dying wish.
The sun began its slow, inevitable creep over the jagged horizon of the East. Deep within the shadow of the treeline, where the mountain air remained cold and sharp, Hibo and her units of three hundred soldiers remained as still as the stone around her. The morning sun bled a bruised purple and orange across the sky, and the first birds began their cautious chirping, unaware of the slaughter in the valley below.
Hours had passed since Drystan, Khawn, and Azad had vanished into the mist. Hibo, a veteran who had tasted Razaasia steel in decades of border skirmishes, knew the cost of impatience. To send more scouts now would be a death sentence; the daylight was the enemy's greatest ally. So, she waited with the Musian soldiers, her eyes fixed on the shifting shadows of the forest, waiting for her "tigers" to return from their hunt.
The silence of the woods was suddenly broken by a heavy, rhythmic sound—the dragging of something through the thick undergrowth.
Hibo's lead tiger emerged from the brush, its powerful shoulders bunching as it pulled a weight toward the camp. The great beast stopped at Hibo's feet and, with a low huff, dropped a woman face-down into the dirt.
Hibo stepped forward, her hand resting on the tiger's head as she looked down at the stranger. She didn't recognize the face, but the leather armor was a silent storyteller. It was scorched by ash and sliced by blades, the uniform of a Pojin defender who had crawled through hell to reach the trees.
The woman was unconscious, her breathing shallow and ragged. Hibo knelt, checking the wounds; they were deep and messy, but the blood had begun to clot. She had passed out from a lethal combination of exhaustion and blood loss, her body finally giving up once she reached the safety of the mountain's breath.
"Captain," a soldier whispered, his hand on his sword. "What are we going to do with her? She could be a plant... a lure."
"She is no enemy," Hibo said, her voice gravelly and certain. She reached out and turned the woman slightly, pointing to the distinctive mark on the back of the leather plates. "Look at the crest. This armor belongs to Chinua's army. She is one of the Chinua's own."
Hibo looked back toward the smoke of the village. If one of Chinua's soldiers was here, and the rest was not, the news she carried would likely be the spark that sets the entire mountain on fire.
The morning light was no longer a comfort; it was a spotlight on a tragedy. Khawn emerged from the dense brush, his face grim. "I found some villagers who were able to hide before the attack on Pojin. They are safe for now and won't break cover until the enemy is pushed out."
He stopped, his eyes falling on the woman lying face-down at Hibo's feet. "Who is she?"
"I don't know," Hibo replied, her voice neutral but her eyes sharp. "Maybe you could tell me. She is wearing your armor."
A Musian soldier stepped forward, flipping the woman over with practiced care. The moment Khawn saw her face, his composure shattered. He rushed to her side, kneeling in the dirt.
"Sister Maral!" he gasped, supporting her neck.
Hibo looked down, her brow furrowing. "Is she related to you?"
"Sister Maral is Naksh's wife," Khawn said frantically. He poured water onto his palm and patted her face, trying to draw her back from the darkness. "Sister Maral! Wake up!"
Maral's eyelids fluttered, opening to reveal eyes clouded with pain and exhaustion. She focused on Khawn's face for a fleeting second. "Khawn... Sarnai and the others... captured. They are being held—"
Before she could finish the sentence, her head lolled back. She had slipped back into unconsciousness.
"Help her!" Khawn pleaded, looking up at Hibo.
"Step aside, kid," Hibo commanded, waving her medic forward. "Come, help me treat Captain Naksh's wife."
As the medic began to work, Khawn stood up, his gaze scanning the empty treeline. "Where are Drystan and Azad? We left around the same time; they should have been back by now."
"They are not back," Hibo said flatly. She looked toward the village, her mind returning to the haunting screams that had echoed through the valley the night before. She remembered the attack of Hosha City; she knew the sound of Razaasia cruelty. "That scream from last night... we all know what it was. If my guess is correct, the soldiers walking in Pojin right now are none other than the Razaasias."
"How do you know?" Khawn asked.
"Because only they use the screams of captured soldiers to break the enemy's morale," Hibo explained, her voice cold. "I bet that is the trap. They are luring Chief Behrouz off the heights and into a slaughter. If he falls for it, the Razaasias will take the Salran Pass before the sun sets."
"Are we just going to leave them to die?" Khawn asked, his voice thick with grief. "They are our brothers and sisters. The young soldiers of Pojin..."
"I have to let Chinua know she is walking into a trap," Khawn resolved. He looked back at Maral. He knew that if she were to die, her last sight should be her husband's face, not the rustling leaves of a strange forest.
"You ride out," Hibo agreed. "Have Chinua come prepared before she reaches us tonight."
Khawn didn't wait. He mounted his horse, the animal sensing his desperation. He thundered out of the treeline and onto the open road, heading back toward Ntsua-Ntu. His heart hammered a single prayer: that he would meet Chinua halfway before the trap could be sprung.