"We cannot wait for them to finish their morning prayers and surround us," Aristha said, leaning heavily against a stout pine as a spasm of pain shot through his taped ribs. "Vane, if we stay in this valley another twenty-four hours, the Kalinga vanguard will have our throats slit before we even finish our morning porridge."Captain Vane slammed his heavy iron fist onto the rough-hewn wooden table, rattling the tin cups that sat upon it. "And your brilliant alternative, Aristha? March right into their main camp with a polite request that they pack up their siege engines and go home?""My alternative," Aristha shot back, his eyes narrowing with cold determination, "is a night sabotage. A coordinated strike against their supply wagons. Burn their tents, scatter their mounts, and leave them blind and scrambling in the dark.""It's suicide," Vane growled, though the hesitation in his gravelly voice betrayed his desperation. "They outnumber us three to one, and their perimeter guards are s

"Move, Aristha! The entire western battalion just sounded the horn!" Gayatri’s voice cut through the damp pre-dawn air like a razor, her hand firmly gripping his sleeve as she hauled him out from beneath the burning Kalinga supply wagon.Aristha stumbled, his hand shooting instantly to his side as a white-hot spasm of agony ripped across his fractured ribs. "I'm moving, I'm moving—damn it, don't yank the arm with the flask!""If you don't move faster, you won't need to worry about your ribs because a Kalinga lance will be serving as your new spine," Gayatri retorted, not breaking her stride as she dragged him toward the ragged, mist-shrouded perimeter of the camp. Behind them, the night erupted into a symphony of shouting officers, clanking armor, and the unmistakable roar of raging flames consuming oil-soaked canvas."They spotted the secondary oil cache," Aristha grunted through clenched teeth, his face pale under the gray light of dawn. "Vane is going to owe me a bottle of the good

"If you lean on that pillar one more time, Aristha, it is going to collapse and bury us both before we even see the rebel camp," Gayatri said, her voice sharp as she hoisted her heavy pack higher onto her shoulder. She stepped over a rotting section of floorboards, eyeing him with a mixture of exasperation and lingering concern. "Stop favoring your right side. You look like a half-plucked crane trying to navigate a gale.""My right side happens to contain several ribs that are currently trying to introduce themselves to my lungs," Aristha panted, pushing off the damp stone with a grimace. He adjusted the strap of his scavenged satchel, his face pale beneath a fresh layer of trail dust and soot. "And for the record, this crane carried us both out of a Kalinga death trap less than an hour ago. A little gratitude would not shatter your aristocratic dignity, Gayatri.""My dignity was left behind in the mud three valleys ago, right next to your common sense," Gayatri retorted, though a fai

"If you miss this time, Aristha, I am feeding you to the Kalinga vanguard," Gayatri hissed, her voice cutting cleanly through the rising roar of enemy war horns echoing from the mist-choked valley below. She snapped her composite bow upward, drawing the heavy sinew string to her cheek with practiced, violent efficiency."I am aiming a massive iron bolt at a charging wall of armored infantry, not threading a needle," Aristha wheezed, his face twisted in a mask of agonizing concentration as he cranked the heavy winch of the static siege crossbow mounted atop the timber platform. Every click of the metal ratchet sent a fresh, white-hot spike of pain radiating outward from his fractured ribs. "If I hit anything smaller than a barn door, it will be a tactical miracle.""Miracles are currently out of stock," Gayatri snapped, releasing her arrow.The missile hissed through the damp mountain air, finding its mark with a sickening crunch as a Kalinga standard-bearer spun around and crashed fac

The heavy copper war horns of the Kalinga army blared a jagged, discordant retreat down the valley, signaling the abrupt end of the first brutal assault.Thick, sulfurous black smoke rolled lazily across the blood-soaked ridge, stinging Gayatri’s eyes as she yanked her hunting knife free from the mud with a wet, squelching pull. The ridge slope below their battered barricade was an absolute nightmare of churned earth, shattered timber, and groaning, armored bodies."They’re pulling back," Gayatri gasped, leaning heavily against a splintered post while wiping a smear of dark gore from her cheek with the back of her forearm. "For now. But they'll regroup before the sun clears that upper ridge."Aristha stumbled out from behind the supply stack, his face deathly pale, one hand clamped tightly over his ribs as if he were trying to physically hold his torso together. "They aren't just pulling back," he wheezed, his voice tight with pain as he dropped to his knees beside a wounded rebel rec