“I have been playing Thrice against your spirits, Yog,” Grask said.

  Yechvan opened his eyes. In a raspy whisper he asked, “How did you fare?”

  “I won. That is why you are now awake.”

  But I had so much yet to ask, Yechvan thought. He looked around the cramped hut.

  Dried leaves and plants lay scattered on a table beneath an open window. On the opposite wall, trowels and shears and other gardening tools hung from a wooden rack. The building was stone, well worked and insulated with healthy layers of mortar. Apart from the colorless walls, nothing was reminiscent of the expanse where Yechvan had met with Dorin Sen. The feather bed was fluffy and warm, the smell of herbs fragrant but not overpowering, the air stale and damp despite a feeble breeze. Grask’s dark skin was rich, his voice and breath full of emotion. And in this room, the door stood firmly closed, only a sliver of light escaping through the crack below.

  “Where are we?” Yechvan asked.

  “The small village of Go’hai, in the foothills of the Terythalan Mountains. We are in the shaman’s home.”

  “Where is the shaman?” Yechvan groaned. His tongue was heavy and dry as cotton in his mouth. His head swam as he struggled to sit up.

  “Stay down,” Grask said, restraining him with calm but determined hands. “She has applied a paste to your cuts and wants it to set.”

  Yechvan relaxed into the bed, more out of pride than obeisance, since he couldn’t actually pull himself upright. Pain sliced through his abdomen and right arm, as raw as if he were back on the battlefield. Memories crashed against barricade in his brain, spilling over the dam and flooding his mind. Scenes from the battle at Gard Pass tumbled over images of the duel between Zu and Dorin Sen and the war against the Five Nations. A flash of being struck hard in the helm and—Yechvan rolled over and lost his stomach onto the floor.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The door opened, and an elderly orcish woman stepped through. Tall, thin as a rail, with well-defined muscles, she wore the shaman garb of old. A long, coarse grass skirt hung from her belly button to her ankles but left her diminutive breasts exposed. Cords of twine painted with the blood of her people had been woven into her hair in intricate patterns, a totem of protection for the entire village. The tips of her tusks had been filed down, a sign amongst the mountain clans that she had been disciplined as a youth for disobedience or thievery or some other transgression.

  “Koruzan’s hair, you made sick on my floor. You’re cleaning that up, d’you hear? D’you hear?” She spoke quickly and with an unfamiliar accent, possibly influenced by the Chilikan humans who lived to the west, or more likely, the goblins who lived in the mountains.

  Yechvan rolled onto his back and closed his eyes in the hope his vision would stop spinning. “How long have I been here?” he asked.

  “Four days. Or perhaps five. I can’t keep track of the days anymore.” The woman shuffled to the far wall and pulled down a worn spade. She held it out to Yechvan, and her steely gaze shot between him and the puddle. He took the tool and clutched it to his chest, still trying to regain his bearings. “If you’re strong enough to be sick, you’re strong enough to clean it up. That’s what my ma always told me. Now get to it.”

  As beads of sweat welled on his forehead and trickled along his temple, Yechvan tightened his grip on the spade. “What happened in the fight?” he asked Grask, desperate for a distraction.

  “We won,” the boy said.

  “We didn’t win anything, youngling,” the woman scolded. “He didn’t neither.” She pointed an accusatory finger at Yechvan.

  “Yes, he did,” Grask argued. “Zu said—”

  “I don’t care what the great Zu said, or any of the others for that matter. If you’re dead, you don’t win. D’you hear?”

  “But he isn’t—”

  “Half dead is just the same.”

  Yechvan’s eyes glassed over, clouds darkening his vision. The bickering voices dimmed to muffled, distant echoes in the vast chasm that widened betwixt him and the pair. It swallowed the woman whole. Grask shrank to naught but a speck of dust in the timeless hellscape. The door grew and creaked open ever so slowly. Light spilled into the hut, the brightness building until the pain of it burned through Yechvan’s eyelids.

  And then all was grey and still and quiet.