They shift forward — the survivors. Bones and flesh, stitched-together armor, clenched fists. The quiet stirs to motion.
“Gather what’s left,” I go on. “Weapons. Spec gear. Save what we can from fire and ruin. There are traitor camps not far off — supply caches, armor lockers, old raid ships. We hit them. Hard. No warning. No mercy. We burn it down before they smell smoke.”
A woman warrior — small, but raw-wired hard — unclenches her jaw and nods. Others mimic. A silent swell of movement. Their eyes burn. Not with pain or grief — with hunger. Hunger for blood paid, vengeance earned, justice carved.
Yorta steps beside me, shoulder scarred, armor bent. He spits to the dust. “I’m with you, Warlord.”
A simple promise. Solid. Old-blood. Loyalty.
Their faces turn toward me. Not as battered survivors, but as soldiers reformed. I taste the shift on the air — hope turning hot, fear melting into resolve.
I swallow — acid in my throat, but steady. “Then prepare. We move at moonrise. No guards. No prayers. Just steel.”
I scan around — the compound half-ruined, but not dead. Fires smolder in stone bowls, torches sputter on broken walls. Somewhere a furnace still burns, logging hiss, collapsing wood. Metal armor plates lie pitted, warped. Weapons half-drawn, bent, abandoned.
I run a hand over my ribs, wincing. The cuts sting. The broken spurs ache. But pain is part of bone. Bone remembers. Bone rebuilds.
I turn to Yorta. “You know the clans, the old routes. Take the loyal — give them orders.”
Yorta nods. Clear. Storm-scarred. “They follow.”
I look at the survivors — men and women, young and old, scarred and unscarred. They wait. The echo of betrayal lines their posture. I smell fear again — but not cowardice. The wild leftover hunger of beasts wronged.
I breathe. Become calm. Solid. Centered.
Because I’m more than rage now. I’m purpose.
I step forward. Bare chest bare to wind, scars cut under starlight, bones map-lined like war-roads. I raise my voice, not a roar, but deep — low and steady.
“We reclaim what they stole. We burn their pylons. We raze the traitor’s camps. We don’t take prisoners — we take reckoning. We lay waste until their bones break under our shadow. Then we’ll walk back — wide, free, unbroken.”
Silence after. But not stillness. Movement. Grit. Determination.
A woman — blurred by torch-glow — steps forward, voice cracked but strong. “Warlord… what about her?”
My heart stutters — as always. Her name, unspoken, but heavier than lead.
I lock eyes with her. “She’s coming.”
No hesitation. No doubt.
The word trembles through every bone-spur in my spine. But it lands like thunder. On the broken ground. On the bleeding walls. On the traitor’s fear.
The survivors nod — again. Hard-blood loyalty settling in their bones.
I sense the shift all around me. The compound exhaling death, inhaling wrath. Flames cold-light in shadows. Steel scraping stone. A chorus rising in flesh and bone.
I taste the wind — cold, pine-tinged, sharp as a blade. I smell burning wood and ash and ruin. I feel blood-slick scars againstleather straps. I hear the distant groan of collapsing metal, the distant cries of the fallen — ghosts or warnings, I don’t care.
Because this night — I’m not a warlord seeking a throne. I’m vengeance, clothed in flesh and bone. A storm given shape.
I lift my claws, flex them. They gleam silver in torch-light.
I sniff the air. I smell fear. I taste sweat. I feel hunger.
A grin — low, cruel, beautiful — cuts across my scarred face.
“Burn it all,” I snarl. “Leave nothing standing.”
