“This is what you live for.”

  Taradira smiled up at Ferene, nodding. She was sitting in a chair, her feet against a low table, tilting it onto its back legs. “I like to win. I like being able to win.”

  “And you couldn't win before?”

  The Hatharen stood up, to her full height, no less imposing outside of her armor. “My people will never win. They don't even have to lie about it. Winning isn't a word that exists for them. I gave them everything, Ferene. I fought. I led people who relied on me to their death because I thought I could win, I could put an end to the fighting, even for a few years. Everyone in my squad except for me died and I came back, carrying the severed head of an enemy commander, a race none of the stronghold leaders had ever seen before, and they looked at me with pity. Like I was a stupid, confused child trying to do things that were impossible. And they were right.”

  She paced back and forth in the tent as she talked, sitting back down in her chair at the end. It creaked under her weight. She dwarfed the captured tent outside the city. It was so obvious that she didn't belong.

  “We aren't supposed to try to win because we can't win. It's a waste. It's a war that lasts forever. You fight until you die. If you surrender, you die. Those creatures don't take prisoners. Every stronghold exists to defend against an endless assault. We get a day or a week or a month of respite. We earn those by fighting. But after that, there's more fighting. Land to the north and the east stretches out infinitely. This nation, the men here, they love the land. Fields of crops as far as the eye can see. That is what humans get. Hatharen get an infinite wasteland filled with monsters that are trying to kill us, that outnumber us, that hate us. They fight to get to the humans, and we fight to hold them off. We can't stop them, we don't have the numbers. You know that's why they are fanatical about breeding, right? Why your friend Linara ran away? Why they rejected you? Half-bloods like you can't have children, so you're useless. Fighting and fucking is all they do. Imagine, living forever and that's all you can do with it. Humans fight and when they aren't fighting they make art, they make songs, they write books and build sculptures, and cities, and boats. They explore the world. They live for themselves, looking forward to what they are going to do tomorrow. The battle we fought today? The people we killed? Because we won, because we killed those people, other people get to spend their lives doing things. The Hatheren fight so they can keep fighting. They fuck to make children that they can teach to fight. They live forever so they can fight forever. The only escape is to die while you're fighting.”

  “So you ran away.”

  She was on her feet again, immediately. “I ran away! I found a place where I can fight for a purpose! Where I can win! I fight and then I get to stop fighting and do other things! They have cooks that make food that tastes good, they have dancers and jugglers! They have people that tell jokes! Hatharen have potentially unlimited life spans and not a single one of them has ever decided to devote their life to making food or learning how to be funny. Why is that? They're a broken people. A trapped people. A Hatharen will live countless days but can't see that they have no future. They are losing, Ferene, and I’m tired of losing.”

  There was a problem with all of that. Even Ferene, in her limited knowledge, could see it. Words boiled out of her. Anger. “I killed humans today that were defending a city. I don’t know if they were evil or not. I killed them for you. Was it worth it? I came here because I believed in you. You act like abandoning the Hatharen was the right thing to do. Letting them lose without you is better than fighting with them.”

  Taradira laughed at her. “Don't talk like you agree with them. You hate them, you hate your father.” Taking a deep breath, she sat down again, putting her elbows on the table and leaning forward, looking down. “But you're right. I can't stay here. Not forever. I may have run away, but I didn't give up. I was looking for an answer, another way. They didn't believe in me, but I found it. When the humans have peace, they build things. If they know the peace is going to end, they build weapons. Better weapons. What if they could fight the monsters, Ferene? You saw the fire today. Humans burned other humans alive without ever seeing their faces, death from further than the farthest arrow.” She pointed towards her bow, resting against one of the tent's supports. The contraption was even taller than its owner, something no human could properly wield. “Hatharen only know small unit tactics. We're better at them than the humans are. We know how to fight against superior numbers incredibly well, how to advance, when to retreat. We're masters of one and only one kind of combat, and we know the humans cannot fight the way we fight, so we assume they can't fight at all. But what if there was another way? What if they could fight? There aren't enough Hatharen to form a proper army, but just a front line? Could we fight a war with humans at our back, working their devices, helping us without them losing their minds at the sight of those creatures?”

  “You want to send the humans north.”

  “Yes, and I'll go back to my people when I'm ready. When I find a way that we can win. I want to free them from the trap they placed themselves in. The same way your father does. My methods are just different.”

  Ferene ground her teeth. “How do you know you aren't backing the wrong side?”

  Taradira was silent for a long time. She sat up straight, looking first at Ferene, then back down at the table. “You know,” She started, “I don't think there is a wrong side or a right side. I picked the side I liked the most. They fight over land and resources. As long as someone eventually gets it and the fighting stops, I don't think it really matters. I've made friends with these soldiers, I've come to call these lands home. Their king might not be the same to me as he is to the rest of these people, but I can call their cause my own. Maybe that's wrong, on some level, but I don't really care. I'm living a life that I can enjoy, for once. I've known years of peace, I've planned offenses and carried out those plans. I've had victory feasts. I've been called a hero. I like it.” Letting out a deep breath, she sat back in the chair, looking up at Ferene. “Why didn't you kill your father?”

  She frowned, looking away. “He...He didn't deserve to die.” The words didn't feel right to say. “I hated him. He didn’t care when my mother vanished. She ran away because she was too scared to face him. I think…I think if she went back to him, instead of running, it would have been different. He’s an idiot.”

  “Just like you, in a different way.” Taradira pushed her lips together. “I want to free my people. It will free you, if they accept it. Don’t you want that?”

  Rilya. The image of her immediately floated to the top of Ferene’s mind, and then the rest of them. Telhrian doing his best to explain everything to her. Would Filraehen have a child? She never got to know Alri, but she couldn’t think of the woman doing anything other than smiling reassuringly. Sathar would welcome her back, but Ilraghen…would he be accepting of her return? She wanted to see Tahrean again, and talk with Relgren, thank them both for all the two of them taught her.

  “How?” She asked, the word a whisper.

  “You were at Yonthal. How many empty buildings were there? The stronghold once held three, maybe even four times the number of Hatharen that live there now. What if humans lived there, farming, smithing, making things. The Hatharen can field larger numbers, move further north, knowing they aren’t leaving their homes empty. They have to accept humans, and if they are doing that, they’d accept you.”

  “What if they don’t come back?”

  “What if they do?” Taradira countered, instantly. “If the Hatharen do nothing, they die slowly. Do something, they die faster, but they might find a way to win. We drive the enemy back, find their homes or dens or whatever they have. If we can turn the tide, buy ourselves more time, we can recover. Build better defenses. The humans can help. We just need to ask.”

  Ferene noticed that Taradira’s words changed. The anger of earlier was gone. The general sounded hopeful. “I want that.”

  “Then help me end this war. Unite the humans.”

  “Will they follow you?”

  The question soured Taradira’s expression. “I don’t know. The king owes me - a debt started generations ago. They will follow his order, but is it something I can ask? If humans are forced to leave their fields for bleak mountaintops and dark caverns, to defend something far from their home, fight for someone else, will they have the same motivation they do now? I’ve spent hundreds of years with them, but they are unpredictable in that regard.”

  Ferene went silent, looking at Taradira. Studying her. She had a feel the woman was not saying something, holding something back. A shift in her posture, the massive Hatharen seemed to shrink slightly.

  “After this war, you can do it?” Her question was met with a nod. “Why not before?” Taradira’s head snapped up, her eyes meeting Ferene’s. “Hundreds of years. Why this one?”

  “Humans are different. You won’t see many women in this army. The men fight, the women stay at home, tending to the elderly and the infirm. Hatharen don’t have that, don’t need that. In a stronghold, everyone can fight. If you take the humans that fight away, the rest are left undefended. If you take the ones that don’t fight away, nobody is there to support those who are fighting, and they have nothing to fight for. If you weaken one nation, another will attack in that moment of weakness.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You needed a war.” Ferene said, feeling a tightness in her stomach. “You’re using them.”

  Taradira surged to her feet, advancing on Ferene, eyes wide. “THEY USED US!” She yelled. “My family died for them! If the Hatharen hid away in their strongholds, the monsters would just walk through the mountains and freely roam the human lands. Those creatures aren’t hunting us. A human protects his sheep and chickens from wild animals, and we protect the humans from the beasts from the northern wastes. We aren’t dying to defend ourselves, we’re dying for them! Why shouldn’t they help us? Thousands of years of death. What have humans given us? A wagon or two of supplies a month? We even have to trade for that. You want to know why Linara was in the human lands? She was fulfilling her end of the bargain, because thousands of years of death isn’t enough. I didn’t start the human’s wars, but I’ll finish them. If that’s what I have to do for them to follow me, I’ll do it. I’ll burn Celngi to the ground if it means I get what I need to change the path my people are on.”

  Standing her ground, Ferene stared up at Taradira, waiting. The larger woman finished ranting, then turned away, walking across the room and sitting down on the ground, her back against one of the tent posts. “I don’t hate them, Ferene. I want to save them, too. If the Hatharen die out, the humans will follow. I’m doing this to save everyone.”

  “If the king asked you to, would you invade Wellent?”

  “What?”

  Confusion filled Taradira’s face.

  “Wellent and Olentor. Would you invade those countries?”

  “In the current state of things? No. If that was the order I’d talk him out of it. There’s no tension, no history. No problems that would be solved by that.”

  “The-“

  “Enough.” Taradira closed her eyes, walking back to her chair and staring at it for a moment before slowly sitting down. “I have to talk with my men. You and I didn’t have a proper conversation before the battle, so I talked with you first. You know where I stand on this matter. Will you follow me, or not?”

  Ferene waited, thinking. Taradira had a plan to change things. Ferene herself never had a plan, she simply acted, doing whatever seemed right at the time. What difference did a few dead criminals make, here and there? Compared to what Taradira was planning, it was nothing. “I will.” She said.

  “Then go get some rest.”

  As Ferene left, Thoms, Frennich, and Gelvain walked into her captured command tent. Taradira stood up and nodded as they saluted her.

  “Give me a full summary of our situation after the battle.”

  Thoms spoke up first. “Of the two thousand, we’ve taken just under five hundred prisoners. An estimate of three hundred escaped, the leaders among them.”

  “Unfortunate. What of our own losses?”

  “Between the dead and the injured, we are missing a fifth of our forces.”

  Taradira growled. Thoms was loyal to her, but his loyalty sometimes got the better of him. He proved her with the needed details, not what she actually wanted to know. Protecting her from knowing how she had failed. She looked to Galvain - a younger man, with a scarred face and shaved head. “How many dead?”

  “Four and a half hundred, give or take.”

  Any number was too many, but it was inevitable. They had taken the city quickly, smashing through the fortifications, but the siege engines had proven their effectiveness. “Split the captives into groups and spread them throughout the camp. Get the wounded tended to, and anyone else that is free can start putting the funeral pyre together. Frennich, we’re going to send out cavalry squads, no more than a hundred in each. This city was a stalling action, and we’ve beaten that. Claim any towns you come across, but find where the empire is gathering their main force. There shouldn’t be any immediate large resistance after this, so we’re taking what we can. By the time our backup arrives here, we should have an area carved out to decide where to meet any attack.”

  All three men nodded, and the two captains turned to leave. Thoms remained, a very slight frown on his face. “There’s another issue.”

  “The city.” He nodded. “Lead the way. I need to talk to the person in charge.”

  The mayor of Naymoor met her at the gate, backed by two unarmed men who very clearly had formal military training. The three of them looked up at Taradira, their eyes wide.

  “Mayor Jalgam?” Taradira asked, after taking a long look at the man. He wore his reddish hair tied, out of the way of his bright blue eyes. At the name he opened his mouth, then shut it again, pressing his lips together.

  “Jalgam was my grandmother’s maiden name.” He said after a moment, looking at Taradira in confusion.

  “I met Julian Jalgam, long ago. A good man.”

  The color drained from the mayor’s face. “Th-the founder?” Taradira nodded in response.

  “I have no desire to remove your from your position, or disrupt the operations of your city any more than the last group of soldiers did. Going forward, you’ll be citizens of Ettsgras, paying taxes to the king and receiving all the benefits that entails. Will that be a problem?”

  The mayor paused, pressing his lips together. “Well, if the taxes are significantly higher than they were under the Celngi empire, it would cause problems. And of course if trade with the empire is negatively impacted in the future by this change, there-“

  “The rest of the army will be here in a few days, and someone will be able to go over your records and work out all the numbers. The immediate question is one of loyalty - of you, of the people in this city.”

  “Ah, well, no, that should not be a problem. Being so far from the imperial capital, we’ve never felt overly attached, I can assure you of that. There is little national pride to be found here, just people seeking to live.”

  “Good. My men will be staying outside, though you may get the occasional visitor. Any temporary strain on the resources of the city will be compensated for.” Taradira turned and left, walking back out of the city.

  “Did you really know the man’s ancestor?” Thoms asked as he followed her.

  “I took a guess. Humans love their ancestry.”

  “Do Hatharen not?”

  Taradira paused outside of her tent, turning to look at her aide. “At some point, if they are all alive, your parents and your grandparents become your peers. Hatharen don’t have family names to remind us of it, either. What we consider our families are those that fight and live alongside us more than who we are related to by blood, and they are almost never the same. A group of children who are close in age range will be placed together to start the core of a group, and others added until the ideal size is reached. That’s all we have.”

  “Do you have a family?”

  “They died many years ago.” She said, and walked into her tent, closing the flap behind her. She had no interest in entertaining any more of his questions today.

  Rather than finding a place to rest, Ferene wandered the captured camps, watching soldiers tend to their wounds, their weapons, and their mounts. She ignored most of them, seeking…someone who looked like they would have authority. Eventually she found someone directing others, and waited patiently nearby until he finally turned to address her.

  “You. Mercenary. What do you need?”

  “Looking for someone. Tullund.”

  The soldier rolled his eyes. “There are more than ten thousand-“

  “This tall,” She gestured with her hand. “Brown hair, good with a bow. Should have a girl with him.”

  “That’s not very-“ He started, then stopped, looking at Ferene’s ears. “The guy they put in charge of the Hatharen, he was like that. That guy’s long gone, kicked him out a month ago. Him and his whole command.”

  The first detail grabbed all of Ferene’s attention. “What other Hatharen?”

  “Group of ten weirdos showed up, made a huge fuss. General assigned them to that guy. When he was discharged they went with him.”

  Taradira didn’t mention that, in their discussion. Had Nenhal shown up? And was now just gone, along with Tullund? Gone where? What happened to the deal he made with Taradira?

  She wanted to go back to the general and ask questions, but hesitated. As much as she wanted to know about her friends, if they weren’t part of this, it might be for the best. Instead, she wandered the camp, eventually finding herself in front of the human’s throwing devices.

  They looked like giant crossbows mounted to carts, with a cupped basket at the center of the rope. Ferene examined them, finding a crank at the back.

  “These are relatively short ranged weapons.” A voice said, and Ferene turned, finding a middle-aged man sitting on top of one of the other devices. “Good for defending from a charge, or tossing light projectiles across flat ground. If we were assaulting walls, we’d make different ones, designed to throw upwards, to get over them.”

  “Flames?”

  “We make bundles that spread fire when they hit the ground. Good for causing chaos, as you saw. Better for defending than attacking, you don’t want to set fire to the city you’re trying to capture, but burning the fields the enemy is charging through can stop them in their tracks. The real artillery experts are with the main force, I don’t have the knowledge to put that kind of thing together.”

  The massive line of wagons and horses slowly moving down the road. Taradira’s advance army had pack horses carrying extra supplies. “You make these?”

  “Main force has some hired woodworkers. Chop down trees and build what’s needed on the spot. Easier than carrying it with us.”

  Ferene imagined a force moving through the wastes to the north, pushing the crossbow-carts. That was Taradira’s plan, or at least part of it, after she won this war.

  She’d have to talk to the general again, after she got some rest. There was a lot to think about. Tullund, Nenhal, the war, the plans for the future.