Chapter 30 — Segment 1

  Minra stood at the high desk overlooking the lower pens, fingers resting lightly on a slate board etched with dates, tallies, and coded marks only she fully understood. The coming fortnight unfolded before her like a battlefield map—tight, efficient, brutal in its elegance.

  Three games.

  Two smaller circuits spaced cleanly across the first week, designed to warm the city’s appetite and drain loose coin from common pockets. And then the third—the anchor. The kind of spectacle that shifted conversation, that bent schedules and emptied caravans of their guards and masters alike.

  The Breyhorn Tyrants.

  She exhaled slowly and let her mind move through it all, piece by piece.

  The first games were almost mundane now, which pleased her more than the blood ever had. That was the mark of success—when violence became predictable, profitable, repeatable. Skippers ran in rotating heats through obstacle lanes reconfigured between rounds, pulleys raised and lowered mid-sprint to punish overconfident betting. Hornscratchers clashed behind reinforced half-walls, their bouts capped not by death but by exhaustion, handlers trained to read the moment just before bone gave way. The crowd believed it was mercy. Minra knew it was asset preservation.

  The puzzle-makers had become a favorite among merchants’ children and idle nobles slumming it for novelty. Locks were changed daily. Coins varied in weight. Some puzzles paid out nothing at all, just humiliation. People laughed harder when no one won. Betting pools thrived on disappointment.

  The birds—gods, the birds. She had underestimated them once. Never again. The tricksters now flew in choreographed chaos, trained to steal colored tokens from masked runners darting across the sand. The crowd bet not only on which bird would succeed, but which runner would panic first. Panic was always the most consistent variable.

  Every element fed the next. Every pause had a purpose. Noise was engineered. Silence weaponized.

  The second smaller game leaned harder into controlled brutality. Goats leaping and colliding on angled platforms. Oxen pushing against weighted walls, handlers goading them with rhythm rather than pain. She had learned early that pain dulled performance; confusion sharpened it.

  And then there was the big one.

  She did not linger on it yet. Timing mattered.

  Minra moved from the desk and crossed the narrow platform above the pens, the iron beneath her boots humming faintly with distant roars and clashing horns. Below, workers swarmed like ants—efficient, unremarkable, terrified of her in the right way. She had cultivated that fear carefully. Not the loud kind. The quiet, respectful kind that made people double-check their work without being told.

  Korr’s money had built this place. Her mind had turned it into something else entirely.

  By the third day of the week, the first game cycle concluded without incident. Profits exceeded expectation by a clean margin. No riots. No deaths beyond projected tolerances. Korr was pleased in the way men like him showed pleasure—by not interfering.

  That night, Halric’s runner found her just before dawn.

  The message was brief, scrawled on rough bark-paper in Halric’s crooked hand.

  Fed the scourges. All four ate. No signs yet. Strong as ever.

  Minra read it twice, then once more for satisfaction. The tension she hadn’t realized she was carrying eased its grip on her spine. She had not doubted the poison’s subtlety, but patience was always a risk when dealing with living things. The swamp scourges were resilient by design—ancient bodies, slow metabolisms, stubborn instincts.

  Good, she thought. Let it take time.

  She folded the note and burned it in the small brazier by her desk, watching the ink curl and vanish. The crocodile-like beasts remaining strong meant the poison had not failed. It meant it was working exactly as intended—quiet, patient, invisible. Whatever followed those creatures would feed. And whatever fed would carry it deeper.

  For the first time since the night in the pens, she slept without dreaming of blue-edged scales.

  The next morning brought another message—this one better still.

  The hunters she had quietly contracted, masked through intermediaries and half-truths, had reached Bael’ithan. The White Scythes were secured and on their way. A month, perhaps less, before the beasts themselves would reach her pens.

  A month was nothing.

  She allowed herself a rare smile then, thin and sharp as a blade edge. The Breyhorn Tyrants had drawn awe. The White Scythes would draw fear. And fear was a currency that never devalued.

  The second game unfolded in a roar of sound and motion. Korr attended in person this time, flanked by his men, a hulking presence in black leathers and scar-told muscle. He basked in the crowd’s energy, drank deeply, laughed loudly. He liked to be seen. Liked to feel the pulse of power beneath his feet.

  Minra stood at his side, close enough to speak without shouting, distant enough to remain unclaimed.

  She fed him numbers when it suited her. Let him think the margins were his triumph. He had given her authority over his finances months ago, the way strong men handed sharp tools to clever hands and never looked closely again. She did not steal from him. That would be crude. Instead, she redirected. Invested. Paid debts before they were known to exist.

  Korr trusted her because she made him richer every time he stopped asking questions.

  As the night wore on, his attention lingered on her longer than usual. His compliments grew clumsier, his proximity less incidental. Once, when the crowd surged and the stands shook, his hand brushed her lower back and did not immediately withdraw.

  She turned, met his eyes, and smiled just enough.

  It was not warmth she offered. It was possibility.

  Later, when his men boasted among themselves, she drifted between them like smoke, offering idle thoughts disguised as curiosity.

  “Imagine,” she murmured once, “if the east stands were raised another tier. You’d fit twice the banners.”

  Another time, softer: “Hard to manage nobles when they’re drunk. Must be nice to have… specialists for that sort of thing.”

  They nodded. They repeated her words to Korr days later as if they were their own.

  By the end of the week, the first of the Korr’Vahlem women arrived.

  They were exquisite in the way weapons were exquisite—beautiful, honed, dangerous. Trained not just in pleasure but in listening, in calming tempers, in turning fury into indulgence. Korr believed he had hired them on a whim, a luxury to keep his richest patrons pliable.

  He did not know they had already knelt before Minra.

  Fear bound some of them. Greed bound the rest. All of them understood that their lives in Nareth Kai flowed through her fingers.

  They moved through the games like silk shadows, smoothing conflicts before they erupted, whispering reassurances, extracting secrets paid for in sighs and sweat. Minra listened afterward, assembled patterns, learned who hated whom, who feared exposure, who wanted more than they admitted.

  Her web thickened.

  Contacts multiplied. Merchants arrived with private guards. Nobles sent envoys before daring to appear themselves. Powerful men who had never attended public games now requested secluded balconies and private odds.

  The games were no longer entertainment.

  They were leverage.

  By the seventh day, anticipation for the final spectacle crackled through Nareth Kai like static before a storm. Word spread faster than Minra had allowed, but not faster than she could manage. Rumors layered over truth until no one knew exactly what was coming—only that it would be larger, louder, and more violent than before.

  She stood beside Korr on the high platform as the crowd filled every tier, the air thick with sweat, incense, and expectation. Drums thundered. Horns blared. The ground itself seemed to vibrate beneath the weight of bodies.

  The Breyhorn Tyrants had been in captivity long enough to learn patterns.

  Four months behind stone and iron. Four months of controlled feed, measured light, deliberate hunger and release. Long enough for instinct to bruise, not break. Long enough for association to root—sound to action, motion to consequence.

  Three months since their last appearance in the games.

  This time, they did not enter as unknowns.

  A burly bearded man leaned toward the speaking horn.

  With a deep voice he announced: “Tonight,” his voice carried, calm and precise, “the Tyrants do not face each other.”

  A beat.

  “Tonight, they face riders.”

  The arena gates thundered open and the Tyrants surged forward not in confusion, but in formation. The crowd erupted.

  Five massive bodies spreading instinctively into a shallow arc. Their trainers stood far back, barely visible to the crowd: two Seathralan men, thick-limbed and scarred, skin weathered like old bark. Crude by city standards. Effective by any other.

  Each carried a whistle device at the throat, bone and bronze fused into something that produced tones too sharp to be music. Whips hung slack at their sides. Metal rings glinted in their hands, raised, lowered, turned—signals layered atop sound.

  A shrill note cut through the roar.

  The Tyrants halted.

  Stone shuddered as six pillar-legs locked in place. Heads lowered. Crests angled. Breath hissed hot and visible, flames guttering low along the sand like restless serpents.

  The crowd roared approval.

  Minra did not join them.

  Another signal—short, sharp, downward.

  The Tyrants shifted, compressing inward, flanks overlapping just enough to shield their softer joints. Formation. Defensive. Controlled.

  Then the opposite gates opened.

  Armed men surged forward atop massive Chalicoths—thick-skinned, tusked, hooved nightmares bred for trampling and endurance. Steel glinted. Lances lowered.

  The Chalicoths charged in disciplined lines, riders armored and confident, lances leveled. The beasts thundered across the arena, hooves striking sparks from stone. The riders knew their work. They had trained for this. They believed steel and speed would prevail.

  A rising whistle.

  The Tyrants charged.

  The collision was catastrophic.

  Mass met momentum. One Chalicoth screamed as a Tyrant’s skull smashed into its chest, folding bone inward like wet timber. Another rider drove his spear deep into scaled flesh, drawing a bellow of pain—and for the first time, panic rippled through the Tyrants’ formation.

  Steel cut deeper than flame ever had.

  Blood darkened the sand.

  The trainers signaled again. Rings flashed. Whips cracked—not to strike, but to sound.

  Hold.

  The Tyrants faltered.

  They had learned the signal. They understood it.

  But pain does not negotiate.

  A spear tore through the thick plating near one Tyrant’s shoulder joint. Another pierced the softer seam beneath the crest. Fire erupted uncontrolled, a wide burst that engulfed a charging Chalicoth, igniting hair and hide alike. The animal screamed and bolted, rider tumbling, flames chasing it across the arena.

  The crowd lost cohesion. Shouts turned sharp. Excited. Afraid.

  Training unraveled in stages.

  One Tyrant broke formation, spinning wildly, trampling a fallen rider into pulp. Another reared, crest blazing as it expelled a sustained jet of fire that rolled across the sand and up the arena wall. The heat was suffocating. Torches guttered. Smoke swallowed the lower tiers.

  Chalicoths ran blind, aflame, crashing into barriers and each other. Riders fell screaming, armor useless against crushing weight and firestorm heat.

  The trainers whistled again.

  Harder. Faster. Desperate.

  Nothing held.

  Except—

  A sound.

  Thin. Metallic. Almost lost beneath the chaos.

  A constant, high-pitched cling.

  Minra’s eyes snapped to the far edge of the arena.

  The Seathralans had changed rhythm—not the whistles meant for charge or halt, but a sustained resonance produced by striking the metal rings together in a slow, deliberate cadence. Not a command.

  A call.

  The largest Tyrants started to run to the center, almost chaotic, but somewhat structured.

  But one did not.

  Smaller than the others. Lighter build. Its hide was marked with pale freckling along the neck and flank—subtle, easily missed beneath soot and blood. It moved differently. Not panicked. Not frantic.

  Focused.

  As the last mounted rider tried to flee, the freckled Tyrant angled its body—not charging head-on, but cutting the escape. One precise burst of flame drove the Chalicoth sideways. The rider fell.

  The Tyrant stepped forward and ended it with a single downward crush.

  Cheera followed—loud and uncontrollable.

  Minra exhaled.

  It had listened.

  Not perfectly. Not obediently.

  But enough.

  She felt the shift immediately—not in the crowd, not in Korr’s thunderous delight—but somewhere deeper, quieter. Somewhere ownership changed shape.

  The secret patron of that Tyrant would be ecstatic.

  Minra allowed herself a small, private smile as fire still burned in the arena and the screams faded into smoke.

  The games had succeeded.

  And something far more dangerous had just proven it could learn.

  **

  The final games had served Minra beyond even her sharpest projections—wealth now poured in like molten ore, coins clinking against the ledgers in a rhythm that mirrored the heartbeat of her ambition, and the store of royal red ore under her careful guard had grown so vast it seemed to pulse with potential, each ingot a tangible promise of influence yet to be claimed; new contacts had been made across the city, from merchants who now whispered secrets into her ears to minor nobles who sought her favor and guidance, and, most crucially, the masters of the arena itself—keepers of the largest amphitheater in Nareth Kai, the very capital of the Korrathi—had acknowledged her acumen, respecting her for the sharp, calculated order she brought to chaos, the way her spectacles bent crowds and coin alike to her design; she had begun to rival Korr in both finances and reach, seeing the machinery of power turn subtly under her touch, feeling the faint thrill of parity, though he remained ahead—dominant yet vulnerable, his supremacy unassailable only until Minra’s patient strategy, her accumulation of wealth, influence, and fear, fully converged, a slow, inexorable shadow that promised to overtake him not in a moment, but in a carefully measured series of moves that would leave him astonished, outmatched, and finally compelled to recognize that she held more power than he ever did..

  The morning after the final games, Minra sat at her desk high above the arena, the first weak sunlight slanting across maps, ledgers, and scribbled notes. Dust motes drifted lazily in the shafts of light, golden and unhurried. Below, the city stirred, merchants arranging goods, runners delivering letters, children dodging between carts and dogs. Nareth Kai had never seemed smaller, quieter, more malleable.

  Minra’s eyes, sharp and deliberate, scanned the reports from the Tyrant exhibition. She replayed every moment in her mind—the charge, the fire, the collapse of formations, the freckled Tyrant at the end, precise and deadly. Every step, every decision had been cataloged, analyzed. She marked areas for improvement: the angle of approach for mounted riders, the precise cadence of whistle and ring, the timing of the flame bursts. The largest beasts had performed magnificently, but perfection was a distant horizon, and she was nothing if not patient.

  Her hand moved over the slate as though the creatures themselves could be shaped through ink and chalk. A tilt here, a pause there, and perhaps next time the spectacle would not merely awe—it would command obedience from both men and beast alike.

  Then came the letter.

  It arrived with the unmistakable hand of the Saethralans, curled around the rough fibers of bark-paper, the ink dark and deliberate. Minra slit the seal with a knife and unfurled it carefully. The words were precise, efficient, and troubling in their own way.

  No breaches. No abnormal sightings near the Tyrant camp. All feeding schedules followed, all routines adhered to. The Tyrants themselves were stable, predictable enough that the handlers could maintain order without constant intervention.

  But then, halfway down the page, another observation: massive footprints. On a hill far from the camp, large and deep, impressions in the earth that suggested a weight no ordinary creature could bear. The Saethralans had tracked them cautiously, and their report noted that whatever had made the prints had deliberately kept its distance from the Tyrants. Perhaps it feared them. Perhaps it merely ignored them.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Minra read the note twice, then once more for emphasis, leaning back in her chair as her mind began to twist and turn around the implications.

  “Curious,” she murmured to herself.

  A tension she hadn’t realized she carried tugged at her shoulders. The message did not scream danger, yet it bore the quiet weight of unease. The prints were a reminder that the world outside her careful control was still wild, still unknowable.

  The second note arrived soon after, bringing news that gnawed at the edges of her composure: caravans carrying materials for the White Scythe camps were missing. Others carrying supplies for the tunnels she had begun constructing under Nareth Kai had vanished, leaving only overturned wagons and scattered iron bars as evidence. Travelers along the outskirts whispered of disappearances on the roads, of shadows that moved faster than men could follow. Fear was beginning to spread, slow and insidious, seeping into the veins of the city and beyond.

  Minra allowed herself a thin smile. Fear, if wielded carefully, could be currency as potent as ore—but uncontrolled, it could undo everything she had built.

  Gratitude, by contrast, was predictable. She noted mentally her reliance on Captain Arvesso, whose ships had delivered crucial feed and supplies across the sea. Without him, her beasts would have starved, her investments would have collapsed, and the delicate balance she maintained between spectacle, wealth, and influence would have fractured. The captain’s loyalty, while transactional, was dependable. That had its value.

  By mid-morning, Minra’s decision was clear. She would go out herself.

  It was a risk, but a controlled one. Sensitive information—plans, strategies, and her observations—could not be entrusted to messengers. Not when so much hung in the balance. She would travel, observe firsthand, and decide where to intervene. If threats lay hidden, she would uncover them.

  Her preparations were precise. A small, stout wagon was loaded with raw iron bars, fragments of rejected building materials, and half-broken implements meant for her underground construction. Three men, the brutes she had freed from debt and servitude, flanked the wagon, crossbows loaded and bolts dipped in potent poison, the kind strong enough to pierce even the hides of large predators. Their faces were grim, trained to follow without hesitation. Minra trusted them because fear had taught obedience, and debts had forged loyalty.

  The journey began under a sky mottled with thin clouds, the air crisp with the tang of salt and iron. The roads beyond Nareth Kai were empty, save for the occasional bird startled into flight or the scuttle of vermin along the edges. Every sound, every shadow, carried weight. Minra’s fingers brushed over the reins of the wagon, eyes constantly scanning, calculating, measuring.

  By the end of the day, the walls of the Tyrant camp rose on the horizon—thick, high timber reinforced with iron bands, a fortress for creatures of immense size and strength. The ground around the pens was churned mud and trampled vegetation, marked with the deep impressions of massive feet. Chains and blocks, levers and pulleys, all spoke of calculated control, of efficient cruelty. These were beasts trained, guided, and constrained with merciless precision.

  Minra dismounted, letting the cold slap of wind against her face remind her that this place had not been built for comfort. The creatures themselves were visible through the high rails—five enormous bodies moving with careful deliberation, heads low, crests angled, scales flickering in muted sunlight. Their breaths hissed in visible clouds, flames guttering along the sand in short, cautious bursts. Efficiency, not indulgence, marked every movement.

  She did not care much for how well the beasts were treated, to her they were just numbers, large numbers that filled her pockets.

  From the shadows of a reinforced doorway, the head trainer appeared. Nam-Ho, a Saethralan man, thin-limbed but wiry, with eyes constantly darting as though expecting a trap. His smile was careful, practiced, a mask that did not reach the tense lines around his eyes. His accent was thick, every word deliberate, measured.

  Minra approached, offering the small booklet she had prepared: sketches, notes, and plans for the next stages of Tyrant utilization. Nam-Ho took it, frowning initially, scratching at his close-shaved head. Slowly, a nod, reluctant but firm, acknowledged the possibility. “Can… be done,” he said, voice rough, low, the syllables clumsy in the city’s tongue. Minra nodded in approvement.

  Then she pressed him about the strange footprints they discovered. He gestured vaguely, his hands moving as though shaping a beast out of thin air. His explanation was halting, fragmented. Minra listened without expression, absorbing only the location: a hill far to the north, where the earth bore the marks of weight and intention beyond anything ordinary. Nam-Ho’s gaze followed her as she considered the distant ridge, eyes narrowing with a mix of caution and frustration.

  “I will have to take a look myself” she said finally, letting the booklet return to the folds of her coat.

  Nam-Ho’s smile faltered, the mask cracking. He leaned closer, voice dropping to a warning, urgent and low. “Careful… what left those prints—creatures. Most people… hear the stories, see shadows. They keep… distance. But they are not friendly.”

  Minra swallowed. Her face remained composed, but the weight in her chest reminded her that even she, master of numbers and strategy, was not immune to the raw terror of the unknown.

  Before she headed out, she pointed towards the wagon she brought with her. She gave a note pertaining instructions concerning the raw materials. Once they offloaded the wagon, she requested that they fill the now-empty-wagon with Tyrant manure. She had a hunch for what she might need it for.

  Then she left the camp, this time toward the distant hills. The brutes flanked her, silent, alert, weapons ready. Every step was deliberate. Every creak of timber, every distant howl of wind through trees or over stone, reminded her that the world beyond the city’s walls was neither orderly nor predictable.

  As the sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the road, the Tyrant camp fell behind. Minra’s thoughts were half on strategy, half on the distant prints, half on the consequences of what she might find. There was no fear in her expression, only calculation. But beneath that, a flicker of something older, sharper—a recognition that the world could, at any moment, push back harder than any ledger or army could predict.

  Still, she moved forward.

  The hills loomed before her, darkening with the twilight. Somewhere there, the prints waited. Somewhere there, whatever had left them watched. And somewhere there, Minra knew, a reckoning was taking shape.

  She exhaled, letting the cold air fill her lungs, and tightened her grip on the reins.

  The hills rose like a dark promise an hour beyond the Tyrant camp, jagged, scrubbed with tufts of grass and clumps of small trees that rattled in the wind. Minra guided the wagon to the very top. She then stood at the rim of the wagon, boots scraping against the manure that lined its base, surveying the valley below with sharp, alert eyes. The three brutes she had hired, were sent out to scour the slopes and undergrowth for any sign of movement. They were not particularly good at tracking beasts, they scurried around cluelessly. This was the first time that she started thinking she should have planned this better.

  She stayed, body tense, senses keyed to the rhythm of the hills.

  Hours passed. The men moved blindly through the uneven terrain, kicking up stones and snapping twigs, grunting complaints when a fallen branch slowed them. Finally, a shout carried up from the treeline where grass and small trees bent unnaturally. The other two men began moving toward the man who shouted, Minra trailing behind, eyes scanning, muscles coiled. Then, the horse behind her stamped and whinnied, restless and uneasy. She froze, sensing something she could not see, and whispered for the men to stop. They obeyed, turning to look where she gestured, confusion mixing with apprehension.

  Raising her voice slightly, she called to the man at the edge, instructing him to return slowly to the wagon. Fear washed across his face, sharpening his alertness as he obeyed with painstaking care, eyes flicking constantly toward the trees. Minra’s pulse throbbed as she stared into the grass and shadows, waiting, listening, feeling the horse shift nervously behind her.

  When all three were back at the wagon, one whispered, trembling: “We should leave now.”

  Minra nodded. She climbed onto the wagon, grasped the reins, and began guiding the horse down the hill toward Halric’s camp. As soon as the slope leveled, she urged the horse into a jog, stomach tight with dread. Three crossbows, three men, and a single horse—she questioned her recklessness. Yes, she thought bitterly, she should have planned a safer approach. But now the only calculation that mattered was distance, speed, and survival.

  Then it came. The sound that had haunted her dreams—the low, relentless clack and click that heralded her nightmare come to life. Dreadmaw Striders. Three of them, charging from the crest of the hill with impossible speed, limbs hammering the earth. Memories of the giant Mireback Collosar, stripped and torn to the bone, flashed through her mind. She lashed the horse into a full sprint, yet the beasts were closing.

  Eyes darting, she guided the wagon toward the treeline.

  They came to an abrupt and clumsy stop, almost toppeling the wagon. “Now!” she shouted. The men unbuckled the harness and released the horse into the forest. They hoped the horse will attract the Striders and lead them away. The three men ran into the forest, finding hiding spots and vantage positions from hence to shoot the predator should they leave the horse. Minra herself began climbing the nearest tree, positioning herself above the wagon, heart hammering as the striders thundered past the wagon and into the forest. The twang of poisoned bolts echoed almost immediately, and then the screams—brief, sharp, then cut off abruptly.

  As the last scream echoed, Minra jumped from her branch into the middle of the large pile of Tyrant manure. Hopefully her scent will be covered by it.

  A suffocating silence followed. Minra pressed herself down into the manure in the wagon, hiding, every muscle rigid. The stench gagged her, but she did not flinch, did not make a sound. She breathed shallowly, feeling the wagon rattle slightly under her as the striders swept past, searching.

  A branch cracked nearby. A heavy breath, close, wet, and searching.

  For a moment she heard nothing. The breath she heard a moment ago was suddenly right above her.. If she reached out she could probably touch it's giant nostrils.

  Then the creature pressed its snout into the manure, probing, then downward—the massive jaw grazed her head, it's weight pressing slowly, agonizingly against her neck. Pain lanced through her, sharp and raw, but she remained motionless, silent, heart hammering against ribs that threatened to crack. The felt something warm and wet drip down her head and neck. She don't know how much longer she can keep quiet if the beast continues to crush her beneath its jaw. The beast started sniffing. Hot air came in gushes over her. "Oh Fuck.. It smells me.." she thought to herself.

  Then, as abruptly as it came, the weight lifted. She heard it sneeze once then twice.

  Silence returned. The other two joined the first, three sets of retreating footsteps receding into the distance. They were gone. They didn't find her. She let out a slow breath of relief. But remained still, unmoving in the manure. For now, she was safe.

  Minra stayed buried long after the last sound faded.

  Time stretched, thick and uncertain. Her muscles cramped beneath the weight of the manure, her skin burning where it pressed against cuts and bruises. Only when the flies began to settle again—bold, careless—did she dare to move.

  Slowly, carefully, she clawed her way out of the stinking heap.

  She stood frozen atop the wagon, filth dripping from her hair, her clothes soaked through with it, boots heavy and slick. She scanned the hills, the treeline, the sky—waiting for movement, for sound, for death to announce itself again.

  Nothing.

  Her hands twitched with the desperate urge to wipe herself clean, to scrape the foulness from her skin. But she stopped herself. The stink clung to her like armor now. Protection. As long as it remained, she lived.

  And then the thought came—quiet, terrible.

  The Striders hadn’t avoided the Tyrant camp because they feared the beasts.

  If they feared them, they would have fled the moment they smelled the manure. No—this was different. Calculated. Deliberate.

  They knew better.

  That realization hollowed her chest.

  She needed to leave. Now.

  The sun was sinking, the light stretching thin and amber across the land. She would never reach Halric before full dark—not like this—but staying was worse. The Striders were gone, hopefully far enough. Hopefully distracted.

  She kept to the treeline, moving parallel to the forest, each step slow and laborious. The manure dragged at her clothes, crept into her boots, stiffened as it cooled. Flies swarmed her relentlessly. She ignored them.

  She listened.

  Birdsong. Insects. The rustle of small creatures.

  As long as the forest spoke, she had warning. When it went silent—then she would know.

  She walked on, miserable, aching, scared.

  A stupid, insignificant thought crossed her mind, sharp and bitter: she would need to hire new guards. New escorts. Again.

  These damned Striders were becoming more than a threat.

  They were becoming an annoyance.

  At last, through the deepening twilight, she saw it—the uneven silhouette of bush and fence that marked the Tyrant camp under Halric’s care. Relief stirred, faint but real. Her pace quickened, hope pulling her forward.

  She searched for the path. Missed it once. Then again.

  Finally, she found it.

  The sense of safety swelled—too quickly.

  She saw the gate.

  A sudden flutter overhead made her flinch. A trickster bird burst from the branches, wings snapping loudly as it vanished into the dark.

  Strange.

  She reached the gate and pushed it open. As she stepped through, a puzzle-maker monkey scrambled across the branches above her head, chittering once before disappearing.

  Her relief faltered.

  Something was wrong.

  She moved deeper into the camp, slow now, confusion tightening her spine.

  Then she saw.

  Carnage.

  Dead and broken animals lay everywhere. Aurochs collapsed in pools of darkening blood, their bellies split, their guts spilling—but barely touched. Monkeys crushed into the dirt. Smaller beasts scattered like refuse between shattered cages and torn fences. Pens lay flattened, iron bent and twisted as if struck by something impossibly strong.

  It wasn’t a raid.

  It was destruction.

  A weak skipper staggered toward a water pit, ribs visibly broken beneath its hide, one front leg crushed uselessly against its chest. Blood dripped steadily from its hindquarters. It reached the edge, trembled, then collapsed.

  Minra approached slowly.

  She knelt and placed a hand on its massive head. Its eyes were wide, empty, staring past her at nothing. Its breathing was shallow, wet, failing.

  She stood again and took in the ruins one last time.

  Fear did not come.

  Despair did not follow.

  Something else rose instead—hot, slow, undeniable.

  Anger.

  Not irritation. Not frustration.

  Rage.

  Her cheeks burned. Her chest tightened until breathing hurt. These creatures had torn through her territory, slaughtered her animals, destroyed her profits—her holdings.

  They had taken what was hers.

  And she would not accept it.

  Her breath grew uneven, a low sound building in her throat as fury boiled over. She was about to scream—

  A shape slammed into her from the side.

  A hand seized her arm—not claw, not tooth, not hoof.

  Human.

  Halric.

  He yanked her hard, dragging her behind him and shoving her down into the shadow of an overturned cage. He forced her flat to the ground and pressed a finger sharply to his lips.

  She was too stunned to resist. Too shaken to think.

  She had forgotten.

  The Striders were still here.

  A massive shape moved silently through the camp.

  One of them.

  It emerged between the ruins, impossibly quiet for its size, its limbs folding and unfolding with eerie precision. It approached the dying skipper and lowered its head, sniffing the blood-soaked ground.

  It lifted its head and searched.

  Minra felt it then—not fear, but certainty.

  It was hunting her.

  Still, fear did not return.

  Anger surged hotter.

  How dare they hunt her.

  They were animals. Beasts. Man ruled animals—all animals. Not the other way around.

  The Strider found nothing.

  It leaned down, crushed the skipper’s neck between its jaws with a single, effortless bite, then turned and walked away as if nothing had happened.

  Minra shook with fury.

  Then, out of nowhere, Halric leaned close and whispered, barely audible—

  “Ya stink ov sumtin awfull.”