Boom . The timbers of the third gate shook, tiny motes of wood flying off, but it held. It would hold until nightfall. Lex hoped it would, at least.

They had begun the morning with tea; Lex was trying to get Rund used to the flavor of traditional Sutherland tea, but the dwarf had insisted on adding honey to sweeten it, which was common in the Midden, but with the spiced, dark tea of the South, Lex found it ruined the flavor. He found it funny that a dwarf like Rund, who he had seen down a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of liquor at once (Rund called them “mouth-cocktails”) was unable to finish a cup of Sutherland tea without needing a sweetener. They both wished for milk, but the last tersadox had been slaughtered for meat two days ago.

Boom. Seven years into the war, and two of them had spent under siege in Indülon. The repository of all dwarven ken, home of the great archives, a warehouse the size of a small town underneath the city, filled with all knowledge and artifacts the dwarves had collected over the years. The Northmen at the gates wanted the archives, and were willing to raze the city to the ground to get it. The children and wounded, and anyone unable to fight, huddled in the atrium of the archives. They would be next, should the Northmen be victorious. Both of Rund’s children, and his husband Tnek, who had lost an arm during the first wave and could no longer fight. Lex looked down at his friend. The junior archivist, such a mild-mannered bookworm when he had first come to the city; the man who had joined the army just so he wouldn’t be separated from Tnek during the evacuations—looked like a man ready to march out and face whatever hell came through that gate and rip it apart with his bare hands. The tiny gold-rimmed glasses perched atop his nose were cracked in one lens, and the dwarf looked as though he could cause them to shatter just from the pure murderous fury pouring from his eyes. Boom.

Rund had been trying to teach Lex the game of chess in the last few weeks, a game so ancient that it supposedly predated even the Old Folk. Lex was wary of anything related to those that had come before, but soon boredom had overtaken him, and he was willing to give it a try. He was shit at it. He looked down at their unfinished game from that morning. He had finally made some headway against Rund’s impeccable defense, and the “castle” maneuver that Lex was pretty sure his dwarf companion had just made up. Their cold cups of tea lay next to the board on the short table that Lex had to squat and bend to reach. The city had not been built with a Sutherland in mind, and after two years Lex feared he was developing a stoop. He looked again towards the gate. They had been playing at their usual station: the courtyard of the rotunda that held the archives. Down two steps and twenty arms from the third gate. A great view of the city, when the gates had been open.

Boom . Lex heard something crack. It would be soon. The dwarven archers were ready. Two ballistae, one on each side of the gate, and about a dozen archers with crossbows, all aiming at the shaking wood, ready to cut down the first wave of shock troops. It wasn’t enough. Furthermore, scouts had reported a vanguard of commandoes, and their commander accompanying them to the field, to be the tail end of the first wave out of the gate. It was a gutsy move, the officer accompanying their troops into the early stage of the battle. It probably meant they were either very good, or victory was confirmed for the Northmen already. Probably both. Lex wanted to punish that kind of confidence, but didn't find it unfounded. The defenders of Indülon stood no chance. He wondered how his daughters were. He hadn’t gotten word from them in three years. Toti had fallen into a patch of the cursed green glass near a Leftbehind that had been unearthed after a landslide, and was too sick to scout anymore, last he’d heard. Atkaz was taking care of her, and little Koxha…he had never even seen her grow up, let alone become one of the tribe’s apprentice weavers. She would be nine soon…Lex felt something break inside of himself. He wouldn’t let these invaders kill him, he had to get back home. Somehow, he would get back to the Towers and never leave his tribe again, for as long as he lived. Boom.

Lex had spent the entire night before devising a new stratagem to use on Rund. It was simple, but based on his own field experience. It didn’t translate to chess as well as he’d hoped, but it was the best he had done in a long time against his friend. The second gate was still holding firm at the time; it would be months until the Northmen managed to breach it. The dwarven archers on the inner wall shot those who dared try to ram it down by the dozen. But something had gone terribly wrong. Somehow, in the storerooms that the dwarves had painstakingly emptied and then burned in the wake of the Northmen’s capture of the outer city, a cask of blasting powder had survived. The secret to the alchemical formula for blasting powder was likely one of the treasures the Northmen wanted to take the archives for. To turn the dwarven tool into another weapon of war. And their first use of it as such was on the second gate—the lone, errant cask of powder used to blow a hole in the gate that had been considered nigh-unbreakable in an instant. The sound of the blast was both scream and thunder; it rent timber, metal, stonework and dwarf apart in a moment that fell against the bottom of Lex’s heart like lead. One second he had been chuckling as Rund stirred more honey into his tea, the next he had fallen from his stool as the pair laid in shock, saw the smoke and debris from the gate a half-league away. The second after, he was dashing through the third gate, sword in hand, his dwarf friend running after him as quickly as his legs could carry him. Too soon thereafter, Lex had to drag his friend back through the third gate as they retreated back to their station with all of the civilians and wounded they could gather.

Boom. Another crack. The third gate was not as strong as the first or the second by far. Lex’s sword was in his hand again. Its notched clay-iron blade had tasted Northman blood that day already. He and Rund had slain three dozen of the invaders before retreating back to the third gate. Their myriad opponents had seized the inner city in hours. The evening sun hadn’t even set, and they were already breaching the third gate. Boom.

“Dammit, aren’t these things supposed to happen at night?” Rund muttered, looking at the sun hanging low in the sky. “In all the books I’ve read, the last stand is made at night, in the light of the full moon. These Northman bastards haven’t even the courtesy to wait for a proper dramatic setting.”

“It’s a new moon tonight. Supposed to be good luck.” Lex looked down at his friend with a wavering smile.

“I don’t feel very lucky. And in the books, they don’t take the city in a few hours. Our archers are supposed to cut them down by scores before their desperate last offensive, and we’re on equal footing by the end. That way you don’t know who is going to win. But obviously, it’s our heroes in the end.”

“I don’t think we’re in a book, my friend.” Lex said, patting the dwarf on the shoulder. “And if we are, it has a most cruel author, to deny you your dramatic setting. The sun should be setting soon, though. That may help.”

“A sunset is romantic , not dramatic.”

Boom. Lex squatted down next to Rund. “I used to tell a story to my daughters, about Axayoh, the Mother of the Sutherlands. All day she was a wolf, and all night she was a raven, but during the sunset, she would become a beautiful woman, who would challenge men to duels. If they survived her sword until nightfall, she would turn into a raven and fly away and lead them to the forest, where they would follow. When morning came, she would be a wolf, and devoured the men who entered her forest. Except for one hunter, named Tozoni, was able to battle her until the sun set, tracked her in that moonless night, and outran her during the day, until she was so weary that when she became a woman again at the sunset of the next day, she admitted defeat. Tozoni told her he could pluck her as a raven and wear her feathers in his hair to keep the sun off him, or skin her as a wolf and wear her pelt to strike fear into others who may challenge him. Wise, desperate, and a little astonished, she gave him both, in exchange for her life. She blessed Tozoni with raven black hair, and tattoos over his body, marking him as the first Sutherland. She challenged him every day, hunting him as raven and wolf and becoming his lover in the sunsets. It is said that the first Sutherland tribe was born from Tozoni and Axayoh.” Lex stood back up. “So maybe battle and romance are both appropriate for the sunset. Two branches on the same tree. Or maybe I just miss home.” Boom.

“You miss home.” Came the terse response from Rund. “Something tells me a beautiful tatted-up wolf woman isn’t about to come through that gate. And it sounds like Tozoni was in an abusive relationship, if she was still hunting him every day. What even happened to them?”

“Oh, Tozoni grew old and slow, and one day Axayoh, as the wolf aspect, ate him. When the sun began to set and she once again became a woman, she was distraught at killing her lover, and wept for so long that her tears became the rivers that carved the Towers—where my tribe is from—themselves. She then scattered her children to become the founders of the Sutherland tribes 0f the Towers and the Wastes, and flew beyond the eastern horizon when the night came, knowing that when the sun rose, she would become a wolf and fall into the sun.”

“Dark. And that’s not how the sun works.” Rund said, jumping at the Boom that punctuated his words.

“It’s a children’s tale. A dark one sure, but a romantic story that tells the origins of the Sutherlands.”

“But that isn’t even the origins of your people! I’m sure the archives even have proof of where you come from.”

Lex raised an eyebrow. “But Rund, that’s hardly as fun as a wolf woman.”

“Aye, you’ve got me there.” The dwarf sighed.

Boom. The timbers heaved outwards, spraying splinters across the courtyard.

“It’s about fate and life, as well. We all meet our wolf woman, whether we live long enough for her to love us, or we falter and she eats us, well…” Lex tightened the straps of the buckler-gauntlet on his offhand with his teeth, and moved into a ready stance, staring at the cracked pine of the gate. “That’s for us to see. Tozoni, the first Sutherland; the fastest, smartest, and strongest of us all, had to die eventually. We’ll meet the wolf, and can only hope to love the woman after.”

“Still would be better with a full moon, though.” Rund said, picking up his glaive.

Lex opened his mouth to answer, but as he did, the gate exploded outwards, and in poured a dozen shock troopers in heavy armor, wielding axes, vanguard to a copper-headed battering ram carried by haggard-looking sappers in the light gray leathers of Lirûdan infantry.

Crack! The heavy bowstrings of the archers snapped, and the whistling volley of the crossbow bolts sent half of the invaders to the ground. The ballista to the left of the gate loosed—Lex felt the wind whip his curly black hair around his head as the fusillade buried itself into the soldiers manning the siege ram. They had been retooled to shoot salvos of darts instead of full bolts, and the lightly armored infantry screamed as they went down, gray armor bristling with the steel-tipped thorns. He felt a pang of guilt in his stomach. They were no zealots of conquest, just men born under the banner of Lirûdan, and therefore made to fight this war for their masters. They deserved a better death. Four shock troops remained, and charged the two guards of the third gate.

The first one coming at Lex swung high with his handax. Lex feinted a parry, then stepped off the soldier’s line of attack and swept his sword down low and slashed the man’s leg. The shock trooper stumbled, and Lex kicked him like a mule from behind, sending the man sprawling to the ground. Rund rushed over to stick him with his pollax. One down, three to go.

The next swung his ax low, to Lex’s belly. The Sutherland stepped back, then jumped forward, planting a knee in the Northman’s chest, sending him stumbling backwards. His comrade rushed forward before the finishing blow could be dealt, and the fourth moved around to attack Rund. The third Northman ducked under Lex's first swing, and caught his second in his ax. He pulled forward, trying to disarm the Sutherland. Lex punched forward, smashing the man in his face with his pommel while simultaneously sweeping his legs, sending the shock trooper to his back, clutching his broken nose. Lex looked back at Rund, who was clearly having trouble against his much bigger opponent.

The second Northman was back, swinging overhand and giving the Sutherland no respite. Lex blocked the strike at the last second, his sword vibrating as it absorbed the blow. The Sutherland turned, grabbing the shock trooper’s wrist, bringing him around with himself before turning back into the hold, twisting the soldier’s hand and forcing him onto the ground. He stabbed him through his chest as quickly as he could, and hopped over his body.

The fourth Northman had Rund on the ground, and was preparing a finishing strike, before Lex buried his sword into the small of the soldier's back. He ripped the blade out, and the Northman stumbled away, back towards Lex, and he swung again over his head, striking the man through the shoulder blade as he fell to the ground, bleeding. The invader whose nose Lex had smashed was up again—and went down just as quickly, gurgling around a crossbow bolt through his neck. The archer who had loosed the shot—a dwarf that Lex knew as Rhine, nodded towards him, before taking a new bolt from her quiver to reload her weapon.

There was no time to spare for thanks. The next wave moved in, hopping over the felled corpses of their fellow soldiers with the unnatural alacrity that commandoes had. Lex recognized them by their pointed swords, provided by the High Elves along with their training and the alchemy that made them so damnably annoying to kill.

Crack! Crack! Crack! The crossbows shot again, felling two of the ten commandoes. The rest of them dodged, or, even more irritatingly: cut the bolts from the air with their swords. Two more commandoes broke off from the main body of the group and rushed the archers, one moving towards each station. Lex wanted to help, but his job was to guard the opening of the rotunda at all costs with Rund.

SNAP! The second ballista loosed its payload, the darts whistling through the air. The commando charging the archer group to the right of the gate may have been able to dodge individual bolts, but when the very space he occupied became a wall of flechettes, all of his fancy footwork was for naught. He went down screaming , streams of blood squirting out from him at pressures that an unaltered human heart could not naturally produce, misting the ballista crew and archers in red.

The other archer squad was not so lucky. The commando had cut half of them down by the time it took for his counterpart on the right to die. They wouldn’t last long enough for Lex to even make it to that side of the courtyard to try and help. Still…

“Rund, take the remaining archers inside to reinforce the barricade. I’ll hold them off out here. Take everyone down into the archives, surrender if you need to. But you need to make it out alive, my friend.”

“Like hell!” The archivist-turned-soldier shouted in reply. He was cradling a badly wounded arm. His glasses lay shattered at his feet. “This is our last stand, Lex. I’m not leaving you to die like some coward. Don’t give any of that ‘to fight another day’ bullshit either. I’m staying with you…running away would be bad writing!”

“Rund. For Tnek. For Saph and Cog. To make sure you all live another day, not to fight, but to live .” Lex stepped forwards pointing his sword at the commandoes who stood before him. “I left my daughters, I killed countless men in this war. I’m not leaving more children fatherless, not if I have to.”

“They’re hardly children —“

“Rund!” Lex shouted. “Inside!”

The dwarf cursed, then bellowed to the archers. “Retreat, inside the rotunda! The Sutherland is covering us, let’s go!” The dwarves scrambled towards him. Lex walked down the steps of the courtyard, confronting the commandoes as the archers passing him gave half-worried, half-thankful looks as they rushed to join Rund.

“I will be your opponent. If you have the stones for the challenge, that is.” Lex shouted down to the alchemically enhanced warriors before him, in his most intimidating voice. He was a soft-spoken man, but he steeled his voice with all of the cold he could dredge from his years telling bedtime stories to his daughters, or his more recent years of barking orders to doomed men and women. The commando at the front had a few gilt filigrees to his black commando armor. Lex guessed that to be their captain. The commando who had slain the archers returned to the group, blade wet with blood. Whatever happened, Lex vowed to make sure that one was dead by the end.

“A noble gesture, Tower-man. You honor us by facing us alone, and sending away your subordinates.”

“Not subordinates. Just friends I don’t want to see die.” Lex ran a hand through his hair. “Or, let them see me die so embarrassingly to you gentlemen.”

This got a laugh from the commandoes. Lex was good at that; having a man laughing one second, a sword through his belly the next. He wished he were joking, though. So many at once…he was calculating his odds, and frankly, felt nostalgic for the elf hunts he had been on before being assigned to Indülon. At least then he had only had two or three opponents, as opposed to seven.

“We will give you a good death, Wasteman. But if you wished for us to go easy on you, or one at a time…well, we appreciate your people’s renown for the blade enough not to do something so stupid.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Lex said, working his shoulder and spinning his sword in his hand. “Shall we get on with this?”

“It will be my honor to fight you, Tower-man.” The leader reached over his shoulder to draw his own filigreed longsword, thinner and more refined than the Sutherland’s. “It is every Northman’s dream to kill a pygmy giant.”

Lex dashed forward, swinging to knock aside the leader’s parry and planting an elbow into his helmeted face, causing him to stumble into his crowd. It was satisfying to shatter the commando’s pride, but Lex now found himself in the middle of the gang. He swung his sword in a wide arc, catching a commando’s strike with his gauntlet, swinging back to catch the soldier under the chin of his helmet, sending it flying off his head and its erstwhile wearer stumbling back. Next to him was the commando with the bloodied sword, who swept towards Lex’s legs. Lex disrupted the strike, then swung high. The dwarf-killer parried, and moved to block the follow-up that was aimed for his left arm—Lex lowered the feint and dragged his blade across the commando’s belly, stepping past his guard. Not enough to kill the man unfortunately, but enough to make him bleed.

Another commando swung overhand at Lex, and he parried high. A second swung at his exposed side, and Lex stepped back to brace his sword-arm, and head-butted the man hard enough to dent his helmet. Unfortunately, Lex was not wearing a helmet, and they staggered away from each other in pain. The leader stepped in, and cut low, gashing the back of Lex’s thigh. The Sutherland gasped, but kept his wits about him as two more thrusted together at his back. He disrupted their blows to the side, and spun into a roundhouse kick to the neck that put the first on the ground headfirst and the second stumbling away.

Lex retreated, back to open space, and a hand darted under his raincloak. He came back with a fistful of barbed caltrops, scattering them in front of himself. The sunset was before him, and the small hooked spikes were cast into shadow. The first commando to break rank and charge found one in his foot, and cried out as he hopped, holding his leg. That brought a crazed smile to Lex’s face—he indulged in the simple pleasure of sadism against a greater foe.

The leader stayed back, carefully watching the ground. Two of them hopped lightly through the space between them and made it through without a caltrop in the foot. Lex disrupted the first’s thrust, and parried the second’s strike to his side. The first swung overhand, and Lex punished the sloppy strike with a jab to the man’s windpipe and a tripping kick that sent him to his hand and knees. The second advanced, thrusting towards the Sutherland’s face. Lex caught his blade and they locked, black clay-iron scraping against elvish steel. Lex had the advantage in height, and he braced the bicep of his attacker, leaning into the lock before pulling the man down hard onto his blade, dragging him down to the ground, the commando impaled through the length of his sword. Lex pushed the man off of his sword, and rolled away from a strike coming from the first commando. He rose with a strike—the Northman parried it aside—and followed it with a spike kick. The commando sidestepped the kick, and Lex hopped aside to avoid the soldier’s panicked swing, striking it down with his sword before stepping in and slicing down through the soldier’s clavicle. The Northman dropped his sword and stumbled away.

Their leader had picked through the field of caltrops with his men, and laughed at Lex’s display. “Very good, Tower-man! You see why we’re so honored to fight you?” He knelt next to the attacker Lex had impaled, and felt around his neck for pulse. He looked back up to his men, and said nothing as he stood. After a moment, he looked at the man Lex had so badly wounded. “Retreat, Ashka. Inform the commander of the situation.”

The soldier with the cleaved clavicle, apparently hight Ashka, was leaning against a fountain, before bending down to pick up his sword from the ground. “I can still fight, sir. Just give me a moment.”

“Go, Ashka. The Southman is beyond you.”

“But father—“

“That’s an order, soldier.” The commandoes’ captain barked. Ashka loped away, head down in shame. The leader looked at Lex. “I appreciate your moment’s grace.”

Lex had taken the opportunity to gulp down air, panting in exhaustion. The sunset looked beautiful from his position, and he was wondering if it was a nice enough place to die; if his ancestors would appreciate the tableau of a man felled so far from home. Not that he believed they still watched him. Not anymore. “No worries.” He said, standing back up to his full height, “Glad to catch my breath. So…”

“Yes,” The captain said, pulling off his helmet, “You’re not the only father on this battlefield. I was moved by the speech you gave your dwarf friend. It’s why I did not pursue him. This war does leave too many children orphans. And by the end of our battle, either my son or your daughters will be bereft of a father. That is the price we must pay, so that our masters may redraw the borders of their empires, and so that we can steer history together.” The man’s face was at once a flashflood of wrinkles and a dry riverbed of scars. War was as etched into the commando captain’s visage as it was into the very fabric of Northman culture. It all made Lex so very depressed, for some reason. The man seemed proud to live for his empire; Lex saw it as a noble fool’s life, spent like money, on something so strange and alien to a nomadic Sutherland as territory . As if the land itself could be owned, as if the earth were beholden to men and not the other way around. This otherwise great man had resigned himself to death for such a perverse and twisted paradigm.

“Such a waste…” Lex shook his head. “In another life, I think we would have been comrades. Would that you were born under a more forgiving flag than that of Lirûdan, and maybe such a good man would not have been burned at the pyre of conquest.”

The captain’s expression hardened. He put his helmet back on. “Perhaps. But then, why are you here, so far away from home, barbarian? Would you not be back in the jungles of the towers, and deserts of the wastes? If not for the war eternal for which all men live for, would you not still be stalking your plateaus and scraping out a meager life for you and your clan? The conquest, the battle has brought you here—the savage from his hard land—where he is a king on the battlefield, a hero to the dwarves. Would you not stay here, and be the big fish in the little pond, rather than your home, where you are a guppy in the sea?”

Lex shook his head. “I dunno man, I just want to see my kids grow up. It’s not that deep; I came here because it was the right thing to do—if only to stop men like you who see the world as a map to draw on. My people use maps to navigate, not to conquer. Not to possess, or dominate, or control. I hope you can understand—you obviously care for your son. I care about the people in the Midden.”

“More than you care for your daughters, it seems. Where are your priorities, Southman?” The captain hissed.

Lex hadn’t a response to this, so he took it as a cue to attack. He launched himself forward with the Rushing Step, springing forward and charging the captain. The commando with the dented helmet intercepted his strike, and the helmetless one swung high. Lex parried, grabbing the man’s wrist and pulling him around, sending the man stumbling forward. The dented one struck, and Lex knocked the attack aside with his gauntlet, hopping back as the commando with the bloodied blade thrusted in, hand pressed against his bleeding belly. The thrust pierced the back of Lex’s raincloak and grazed his hip; the Sutherland pulled away, turning and using his full momentum to step into the dwarf-killer’s guard and swinging his black blade around, striking through his back and cleaving him in two at the waist.

The man screamed as he was severed from his legs, which twitched in a pool of blood behind him, as he very quickly died. The helmetless man backed away, and the dented one rushed forward. Lex was barely able to parry his swing, and it took off a chunk of his ear. His offhand dipped under his cloak again, and he locked the blade of his attacker, pulling it high before planting a front kick into the man’s sternum, pushing him back. As the helmetless one advanced, Lex’s hand flicked out from under the cloak, throwing a dagger towards the commando’s face. The man dodged, and it planted itself into his shoulder. He staggered away, gripping the dagger, his face a tableau of shock, pain and anger. The man who had stepped onto a caltrop limped forward—Lex threw more caltrops into his path, mostly because he thought it would be funny. He was right, and cracked another frantic smile at the man tripping and falling into the thorny patch before him, screaming. The dented one and unmasked one stepped forward, but the captain took their place before the Sutherland.

“He’s mine. I drew blood on him; this is an honor duel. Father before father.” He said. The two commandoes stopped, and the captain looked up to Lex and nodded. Lex nodded back, and they stood at the ready before each other.

The captain made his move first, thrusting towards the Sutherland’s chest. Lex moved to parry, but the Northman turned it into a feint, dropping the point of his blade. Lex intercepted it with his gauntlet, but the leather and ironwood were not enough to stop elvish steel, and it pierced the main-gauche. The Northman pressed, and Lex stood firm. He felt the blade stop at his bone, and watched as drops of his blood ran down the edge of the commando’s blade, before swinging to retaliate. The captain wisely disengaged, stepping back as Lex ripped the glove off his hand with his teeth, examining the wound in his forearm. Not as bad as it felt, but it felt like shit. He pressed the arm to his side and held his blade out.

The captain advanced again, not letting Lex rest, swinging at his wounded arm. Lex blocked with his sword, turning and kicking low to the Northman’s knee. He felt something in the older man’s leg break, and the soldier spun to face the Sutherland again, staggering away. Lex pressed his advantage, swinging overhand in a wide arc. The captain raised his sword to block the strike, and Lex raised the point and punched past the man’s guard with his pommel, striking his chest. He wheezed and swung low towards Lex’s sword hand, but the Sutherland turned away, stepping behind the captain’s stance and punching him in the face with his wounded arm. It hurt like hell, and he was pretty sure he broke a knuckle bashing the helmet of the Northman, but it was satisfying to see the soldier stagger away, ripping off his helmet, exposing the bloody nose and split lip he had.

He threw the helmet at Lex, who batted it away with his sword—only for the captain to bury his sword in a twisting strike into Lex’s shoulder. Lex bit his lip; he wanted to scream, but instead set his jaw and grabbed the man’s blade with his left hand and ripped it from his shoulder, pushing it and its wielder away as he staggered back. He was pretty sure all of his fingers were lacerated from the maneuver, but just pressed the arm into his stomach under his cloak to try and staunch the bleeding. He didn’t have time to worry about the wounds. He felt his tunic get wet underneath his cloak. The cut in his shoulder wasn’t deep, but it hurt like hell to move his left arm. It hurt like hell in general, actually. The commandoes behind him cheered for their captain. Lex didn’t blame them. He didn’t feel like he was winning this fight. Somehow he preferred fighting the lower-ranked commandoes en masse than their captain alone. At least then he had an excuse for getting his ass kicked around the courtyard. He looked back, into the sunset. The sun was climbing down the horizon. He knew that Middenfolk didn’t see as well in the dark as Sutherlands, but it wasn’t what he hoped for nightfall for. He wanted Rund to believe in the legend; to get his properly dramatic hero moment in the night.

“Don’t let your guard down!” The older man shouted, and Lex turned back to see the man swing again for his bad arm. Lex twisted to parry, and tried to kick the man in the leg he had hobbled. The captain was wise to his trick, and stepped back. All that Lex needed. The Sutherland took the moment’s opening to slash the captain at the hip. The old soldier shouted, swinging his sword around in a beheading blow towards Lex’s neck.

Lex turned his blade and swung upwards into the blow, lopping the commando’s arm clean off, before twisting and thrusting down to slice the other arm off at the elbow. The captain was too well-worn, too noble and too proud to scream; he just stumbled away and fell against one of the courtyard's fountains. Lex followed, pressing the tip of his blade into the breastplate of the captain's armor; the steel shell cracked against the black Sutherland sword and pierced his chest, and Lex’s wounded hand came out from under his cloak onto his pommel as he slammed the sword home, impaling the man through the chest. The fine stonework of the dwarf fountain crumbled against the blade, and water sprayed into the air along with the blood spraying against Lex. The Sutherland stared into the commando’s eyes as he took him from the world; soldier, servant, captain, father. There was finally peace in the eyes of that warrior as he died, and Lex swore he heard the man chuckle and smile. Or maybe it was a death rattle. Lex would have question that to his grave.

“Father!” Ashka screamed. Lex staggered away from the body, leaving his sword impaled in both the stonework and captain, cradling his badly wounded arm. The young soldier, who had been hastily patched up by a medic, fell to his knees beside the captain, sobbing. Lex realized how similar they looked, and his stomach turned. It may have been the blood loss, but the seasoned Sutherland warrior suddenly felt very dizzy and numb.

“Southlander!” An ice-cold voice called from the gate. Lex turned.

The voice belonged to a woman, clad in fine officer’s armor. She wore no helmet, and her flaxen hair was pulled back in a tight braid. Her polished-steel greaves clicked against the courtyard, as she drew from her hip a standard-issue Northman sword; a flatchet of steel with a squared tip and linear blade, like a great big cleaver. In her offhand, she held a javelin, also standard-issue, but worse for wear, with a blue ribbon tied to it that looked like it was a shred of a Lirûdan flag. The woman had eyes like a red-sanded shore during a storm: cloudy gray, an even cloudier almond tone beneath. Her outline shone in the red of the setting sun, turning her gray uniform a bloody red in the light.

“I am Eceba Lârs, Commander of the Twelfth Battalion of the Lirûdan Army, and I invoke your honor as a Follower of the Sun, as a descendant of storied heroes, to duel me, alone. Retrieve your sword, Southlander, that I may claim it in battle.”

Lex smiled. “Well I’ll be. I got to meet a wolf-woman after all.” He could taste the irony. Or maybe that was just the iron taste of the blood in his mouth. “Rather presumptuous to expect an honor duel from me.”

She looked at him sternly. “I invoke your honor, Southlander.” She repeated, like it was a compulsive dweomer.

“Of course, of course. However, I name as a term that you are to accept the dwarves’ surrender.” He said. “We both owe them at least that much.”

“If I win or if I lose?”

“Either.”

“That’s hardly a fair term. What’s in it for me?” She narrowed her eyes.

“You get to fight the legendary Sutherland! The savage barbarian from the mysterious plateaus that even you mighty conquerors fear and respect so much! If you don’t accept, I’ll just sit down right there on those steps, and let you kill me without a fight. And I know you would hate that.”

The commander clicked her tongue. “I accept your terms. The dwarves shall not be harmed. Now…the sword.”

Lex stepped towards the body of the captain. Ashka still wept into the dead man’s chest. The sun dipped below the horizon as he knelt, and the young soldier was cast into shadow.

“I’m so sorry, kid.” Lex whispered, gripping the sword. He began to pull it, and the young commando wailed into his father’s chest. Lex held the blade delicately. There was blood on Ashka’s face. Lex wiped it off with the back of his hand, only managing to spread it more. He stepped away from the weeping man, and flicked the blood from his sword. The broken fountain was bubbling behind him, and along with the blood, the ground was slick and wet. More commandoes poured through the gate, encircling him and the commander as they approached each other.

He faced her, stepping into his ready stance. He wondered if his daughters would mourn his death, like Ashka. He wondered if this soldier would honor his request to spare Rund and the rest of the dwarves. He wondered if he would die on his feet, if it would be a death his ancestors would be proud of. He suddenly wished for their guidance, for their help. He realized, as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, that he was terrified to die.

Lex smiled to his opponent, who met his gaze unflinchingly, in a stare cold as the winters of her homeland, as cold as the night that had claimed the sky. He grinned a blood-stained grin to her, and said:

“Well, wolf woman. Shall we begin the night’s hunt?”