The victory feast stretched into the second night.
Cattle bones lay piled high, horns clattered empty on the ground, and the central fire roared so fiercely it lit the faces of every warrior within fifty paces. The tribe sang of the night the forest itself had risen against Rome — of thunder in clay pots, bolts from unseen branches, and a boy who had returned from the dead with eyes like winter steel.
Yet not every voice joined the song.
In the shadowed edges of the camp, where the light did not quite reach, small knots of men gathered. Older warriors mostly — men who had fought under Reik Hans for twenty winters, whose scars told stories of cattle raids and Frankish axes long before any Roman horse had kicked a boy in the head.
They spoke in low voices, passing a single horn of mead between them.
"He was a child," muttered old Gundahar, once a shield-brother to Hans himself. His beard was more gray than black now, and his left hand missing two fingers from a long-ago skirmish. "Ran with the goats, laughed at nothing, hid behind his mother's skirts when the elders spoke of war. Now he walks like a Roman legate, gives orders like he was born wearing a crown."
Beside him, Wulfric — younger but already a sub-chief with his own following — spat into the dirt.
"And the Reik lets him. Lets him keep that Roman dog in a tent like a prized hound. Lets him take fifty of our best and vanish into the night while the rest of us sharpen blades for a fight that never came."
A third man, scarred across the cheek from a Frankish raid years before, leaned in.
"I saw him at the fire when Hans praised him. Not a smile. Not even pride. Just… calculation. Like a merchant counting coins after a trade. That is not the way of our people."
The words spread quietly, carried on the wind between tents.
Seigmer felt the change before he heard it.
He had stepped away from the main fire to check on the Forge's sentries — a habit now, even on a night of celebration. As he passed a cluster of warriors near the horse lines, their conversation stopped abruptly. Eyes flicked toward him, then away. Hands tightened on spear shafts.
He kept walking, expression unchanged.
Inside, the colonel cataloged it like any other intelligence report.
Opposition forming. Base: nostalgia for the old ways + fear of rapid change. Leaders: likely Gundahar and Wulfric. Motivation: loss of status, envy of the fifty's success, unease at my… demeanor.
He had known this would come.
A boy who once chased goats and played at mock battles was now commanding men, interrogating Roman officers, and reshaping the tribe's future with knowledge no one else possessed. To some, it was divine favor. To others, it was unnatural. Threatening.
By the time he returned to the central fire, Reik Hans had noticed the undercurrent.
The big man sat on a log throne of sorts — two shields laid across stones — with Griselda at his side and a fresh horn in his fist. He beckoned Seigmer over with a jerk of his head.
The singing quieted as the boy approached.
Hans studied him for a long moment, firelight dancing in his eyes.
"They whisper," he said bluntly. "Some say you are no longer my son. That Wodan — or something darker — rides in your skin."
Seigmer met his gaze without blinking.
"Whispers are wind. They pass."
Hans grunted. "Wind can fan a fire or blow it out. Which will it be?"
Seigmer glanced around the circle — at the faces watching him. Some grinned in open admiration. Others looked wary. A few looked hostile.
"I did not ask to be changed," he said, loud enough for the nearest men to hear. "The hoof that cracked my skull gave me eyes to see what we have always done wrong. We raid. We burn. We die gloriously. And Rome marches on. I offer a different path. One where we do not die for glory — we make Rome die for it."
A murmur rippled outward.
Hans leaned forward, voice dropping.
"And if that path leads away from our ways? From the thing, from the oath-sworn brotherhood, from the songs our fathers sang?"
Seigmer's answer was calm, measured.
"Then those who cling to the old songs will sing them alone. The rest will sing new ones. Louder."
A long silence.
Then Hans laughed — deep, rolling, genuine.
"My son speaks like a king already."
He stood, towering over the fire.
"Let the whisperers whisper!" he roared to the camp. "Let them remember the boy who chased goats. And let them remember the man who made Rome kneel without a single Suebi grave dug this dawn!"
The camp erupted again — louder this time, drowning the doubters.
But Seigmer saw the truth in the faces that did not cheer quite as hard.
Gundahar and Wulfric stood near the edge of the light, arms folded, eyes narrow.
They had not been silenced.
They had been challenged.
Seigmer met Gundahar's stare across the flames.
He did not smile.
He simply nodded — once, small, deliberate.
Acknowledge received.
Game on.
Later, when the fire burned low and most warriors had staggered to their tents, Seigmer slipped away to the small tent where the tribune was kept.
Marcus Flavius Severus sat chained to a stake, head bowed, still weak from the night before.
Seigmer crouched in front of him.
"You heard the celebration."
The Roman lifted his head slowly.
"I heard men drunk on victory they did not earn."
Seigmer's expression did not change.
"You will help me earn the next one."
He pulled a fresh clay tablet from his belt and began scratching notes — troop movements, supply caches, signal codes — all the details the tribune had spilled under water and pain.
When he finished, he stood.
"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow we plan."
As he stepped outside, the night wind carried faint voices from the shadows.
"…the boy thinks he is above us…"
"…Hans indulges him…"
"…we should speak to the elders…"
Seigmer paused, listening.
Then he kept walking.
Internal politics were inevitable.
Every army, every tribe, every empire had them.
He had faced them before — in briefing rooms, in command tents, in deserts half a world away.
They were just another battlefield.
And on this one, too, he intended to win.