Yechvan stifled a yawn and readjusted in his saddle. They had set out only a few hours before, but the familiar ache had already burrowed into his tailbone. Through the morning fog, he could just make out Zu in the lead, guiding his horse down the mountain’s steep path.

  “Why so glum, Little Grask?” asked Zu. “Were you displeased with your prophecy?”

  “It’s not that. I think I expected something different, maybe more specific. I mean, she told me—wait, I can’t tell you anything?”

  “No, Little Grask. To share your stars with us would be tantamount to spitting in Yun’s face.”

  “You shared your prophecies with each other?”

  “We did,” Yechvan said. It was only a small lie.

  He remembered their first trip to the temple. Since their birthdays were a mere turn apart, Yechvan and Zu had gone together to have their stars read, just before the onset of the Great Northern War. They had been escorted by Zu’s older sister. In the wake of Sekku’s death, Grusk had been too busy to take time away from his battle preparations, and he wouldn’t spare Roog either, claiming that he needed his closest advisor by his side.

  Though it had been a somber affair, Yechvan was excited to share his prophecy. He rushed into the baths to tell Zu about the unrest, the shadows, the voices like thunder, the branches and the yellow eyes. But Zu replied only that his stars had been shrouded and he had nothing to reciprocate. Yechvan didn’t believe him at first, thinking he was holding out for a better friend, perhaps his future wife. But in the time since, Yechvan had come to understand that Zu never lied, that he truly was one of the rare souls chosen by the gods.

  Grask sighed. He opened his mouth to speak again, searching for words that never came.

  Yechvan felt for the boy. As the next qish, much of his life had been preordained. And as a blooded child raised in a human world, he’d grown up lonely. His mother and uncle had kept their friends and family at a distance, afraid that a prolonged stay in Banton Castle might taint them by association. After his uncle’s hasty departure, Grask had no remaining tether to his childhood. Now he was a man, and no bond forged in adulthood would ever compare to the innocent love that a child holds for a best friend.

  “You will make friends,” Zu said. “Everyone will want to be your friend when you are qish.”

  They had descended beyond the most treacherous paths, but the loose gravel and steep slopes were still dangerous.

  The boy laughed uncomfortably. “But will I ever have a friendship like yours?”

  The patter of sliding rocks and dirt from above interrupted Yechvan’s answer.

  “Back!” Zu yelled.

  Less than a heartbeat later, a javelin materialized in the mist, followed by a second and third, one aimed at each rider. Zu knocked his aside with his leather bracer in the nick of time. Deftly, he dropped from his mount and drew his yari from the horse’s saddle. Yechvan wasn’t as adroit. The javelin grazed his thigh as it sailed past, and he roared in pain. Grask, in an attempt to dodge, fell from his horse onto the sharp rocks along the path.

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  Yechvan hopped down to grab the boy before he tumbled down the mountainside. Zu roared a battle cry and charged into the mist, and the frigid clang of metal on metal rang in the cool mountain air.

  “Thanks,” Grask said.

  “No time for thanks,” Yechvan replied, reaching up to the saddle to pull his blade from its sheath. He used his mount as a shield as he fumbled with his own, craning to glimpse the attackers. Zu was already out of sight, fighting around the bend ahead. Another javelin skipped off the stones nearby. “There,” Yechvan said, pointing up the steep rise. “That is our objective.”

  But Grask was rooted in place. Yechvan dragged the youngling to his side and shook him back to reality, pressing a sword hilt into the boy’s clumsy fingers. “Arm yourself, my qince. For today, we taste blood. Let us hope it is our enemy’s and not our own.”

  Yechvan crouched behind his mare as he maneuvered up the path, keeping himself between the attackers and the boy. If only it weren’t so damned foggy. Another missile* struck him in the same thigh. He fell to one knee, ducking behind his shield as he ripped the crossbow bolt from his leg. Agony. Seizing on his distraction, three assailants dropped on Yechvan from above. The first impact almost knocked him off the mountain, and surely would have had he not been kneeling.

  And then the melee began—the scrape of sword on shield, the grunts of exertion, the coppery tang of blood in the misty morning dew. Yechvan rose, positioning himself between the boy and a sure death at the hands of these honorless assassins. His vision tinged red at the corners, and before long, there was no more thought involved. Only act. React. Trading blow after blow with the skilled soldiers.

  Behind him, Grask yelled, both in fear and pain, but the boy’s shuffling feet and clanging blade hardly registered. In the thick of the shit, hot orcish blood pumping through his veins, Yechvan had eyes only for the fight. Strike, parry, block. Press. Step back.

  As the dance of steel played on, Yechvan felt the familiar rage building in his throat and his vision. His parents. His baby brother. Sekku. The shaman girl from the nameless village. Soni. Dorin Sen. He'd watched them all die.

  Yechvan could hear Grask grunting from behind, his assailant’s frantic screams. The boy’s steps edged ever closer along the stones they shared until they were nearly fighting back-to-back.

  Yechvan's skin vibrated, neck pulsed, heart pounded, veins bulged red. Blood red. But he reached down and tamped it flat with a solid fist. Not today. Today he needed to keep his head. He may not have been able to save them, but he could save Grask. He must.

  “Keep your feet!” Yechvan yelled. He maneuvered against the trio, searching for an opening. And when he tasted that merest hint of an opening, he whirled around and struck over Grask’s head, taking his attacker by surprise and causing the man to stumble. Just a hair, but with Zu’s training the boy pounced, his sword sinking into the flesh beneath the man’s leather jerkin and sliding from his groin into his belly.

  Yechvan whirled back around in time to block one blade, but another took him in the shoulder, clanging off his pauldron. He groaned against the shooting pain twinging down his arm.

  To his surprise, the three assailants faltered. They looked at each other in confusion, then backed away. And then they fled altogether, leaving the rest of their party to fall at Zu’s hands.

  Yechvan turned to the dying man and saw a familiar face etched in a contemptuous snarl. The man coughed, bloody mucus smearing his cheek.

  “Uncle!” Grask cried, kneeling, pressing his hands to the man’s wound in a futile effort to stem the steady flow of crimson. “Uncle, why are you…?”

  “Mongrel bastard,” Serik said, his helm half knocked from his head, revealing blood-streaked stubble and stained dark hair. A red trickle streamed from his nose and mouth as he squirmed on the grey stones, lying in a puddle of his own fleeting life. “Your mother hated you. We both did. We all do. Disgusting whelp.” He reached for his sword, one final vain attempt to kill the boy, who looked on in shock and horror.

  And then, fingers outstretched, Serik was no more, save a haunting reminder of his vile words and viler deeds.