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Chapter 2

“Your orders, Phontho?”

Jagdish looked out over the mighty army Great House Vadal had entrusted him with and was pleased.

“My orders are to purge these Vokkan scum from our lands once and for all. Move to the secondary positions. Forward, Vadal!

His command was relayed. Flags dipped. Horns blew in response.

Across the field waited over fifteen thousand men of Vokkan. On this side a mere three thousand warriors of Vadal began marching toward them. The ground trembled as a line of fifty war elephants lumbered along, armor clanking, while archers and spearmen rode in howdahs upon their backs. Normally those great beasts would be in the lead, where their charge would hopefully cause the greatest amount of terror to the enemy, but for now Jagdish held them in reserve. Gotama had more experience with elephantry and had warned him they were skittish animals who were often too smart for their own good. Jagdish would not inflict on such sensitive creatures the discomfort he had planned for the Vokkan.

Jagdish’s horse cavalry moved toward the flanks, awaiting his signal. The Vokkan commanders saw this, and their cavalry moved to match.

Phontho Yaduvir Vokkan was no fool. Judging by the successful campaign he’d waged in western Vadal thus far, he was a solid commander. Even if he had been a dullard, Yaduvir still had numbers more than sufficient to counter anything Jagdish might attempt. With the mighty river Martaban at their back, Jagdish’s army had nowhere to retreat. If they failed here, Vadal City would be totally cut off from the last of its unthreatened provinces, to be inevitably starved into submission.

Jagdish had led many battles against Great House Sarnobat in the east, but few against Vokkan in the west. The house of the wolf were born raiders, boastful, always prefering to hit and run rather than stand and slug it out. Jagdish had used their pride against them many times, tempting the Sarnobat with what seemed to be easy victories, only to lure them into certain defeats. The warrior caste of Vokkan, on the other hand, tended to be patient and methodical. The house of the monkey took the long view, carefully considering the consequences of every maneuver and the cost of every decision. Dishonest themselves by nature, the Vokkan suspected everything they saw to be a ruse and were thus untemptable. Vokkan slowly took ground, held it, consolidated their gains, and then pushed for more. They never outran their supply chains. They always left themselves an escape route. Whatever territory they took, they stripped of value, leaving nothing behind that could be used against them later. What the Vokkan lacked in imagination, they made up for in thorough cruelty.

As Jagdish had achieved victory after victory in the east, Yaduvir Vokkan had defeated the armies of Vadal one after the other in the west. Treacherous fate had smiled on Jagdish on one front, but would she allow him to win a second?

The odds were not in his favor. Vadal was badly outnumbered today. His men were still weary from the journey here while the Vokkan were rested since their last battle. This was the entirety of the Vokkan warriors left in Vadal lands. Jagdish had help coming, as the armies of phonthos Girish and Kutty were marching this way, but it was doubtful they would arrive here in time. If Jagdish’s army had held back to wait for reinforcements, the Vokkan would have been able to destroy the rest of the bridges across this southern Martaban with impunity. Such cowardice would cut the city off from its southern supply routes and likely starve them into submission.

It appeared that the flat, dry ground of these farmers’ fields granted neither side an advantage. It seemed that the pleasant sunny day presented no weather to use against his enemies…but Jagdish knew better.

When the main bodies of the two armies were still several hundred yards apart, the traditional dance began in earnest. Teams of horse archers from both sides began harassing the enemy as paltans of infantry changed course to try and take advantage of the limited terrain features the farmland presented. In a battle like this, a simple livestock fence or drainage ditch could turn out to be a huge advantage. From his far-off vantage point, Jagdish was unable to discern such things, so he could do nothing but trust his junior officers to do the right thing as he’d taught them. Close eyes made better decisions than distant ones. Trying to meddle in the little things now would only confuse matters, and that was truly the most difficult thing about being a phontho. His heart yearned to be out there when the spears crossed and steel met steel. His mind told him his place was to command from a position of safety, surrounded by officers, bodyguards, and messengers, who were all willing to lay down their lives to protect him.

Except Jagdish was a warrior, born to fight. It was in his blood. He was an exemplar of his caste. When the time came, he would inevitably join in, and every man in his army knew it, and respected him all the more as a leader for it.

Through his spyglass he saw that Yaduvir’s troops were gradually moving into range of his trap. “This will do. Signal a halt. All paltans hold position.” His officers began shouting orders. Satisfied that his infantry would get the word and not blunder into the dangerous area, he commanded, “Send word to Mukunda’s wizards to begin their spell.”

Jagdish hadn’t smuggled a wagon full of demon bone across half the continent to not use it. So far during their illegal house war, all that magic had been held in reserve, just waiting for an enemy ancestor blade to take the field, but since none ever had, he might as well use that magic now. The battle wizards were eager. Fate had given them a calm day. Jagdish would make it howl.

A different, very specific tone was blown on the signal horn. A moment later, there was an answering signal, as the wizards confirmed they had gotten it.

Jagdish checked his pocket watch. As expected, it took a few minutes for the wizards to form their pattern and begin twisting the elements to their will, but gradually the crops just ahead of their front lines slowly began to bend toward the Vokkan. Then a sudden gust made the few trees shake. He put away his watch and got out his spyglass. Rather than letting up, the wind was slowly growing in intensity until leaves were being stripped from the plants. Dust devils sprang into existence between the armies, and went whirling through the enemy ranks, stinging eyes.

It was rare for the warrior caste to have wizards so blatantly manipulate the battlefield on their behalf. Such meddling wasn’t seen as honorable. But Jagdish had spent his entire life being sneered at by supposedly honorable types who seldom left the safety of the courts, who’d never had a callus on their palms or a brother die in their arms, so he didn’t particularly care to be lectured by such men about what they thought honor meant. He had a war to win.

“Have the archers begin.”

Vadal and Vokkan bows were very similar in design, so were of comparable capability…at least until one side tried to launch their arrows against a mighty wind while the other was equally strengthened by the same. Suddenly, the Vokkan range was halved, while the Vadal’s doubled. Hundreds of arrows fell among the distant Vokkan, while their return fire floundered uselessly from the sky.

The officers around Jagdish saw the tumbling arrows and cheered.

But not everyone on his staff approved. “Of course it takes cheater magic to make a Vadal bowman’s arm as strong as any wolf of Sarnobat.”

“It seems my ears are deaf to your whining today, Najmul,” Jagdish told the fanatic, who was just sore that Jagdish had so thoroughly humiliated his brothers in the east. It was a testament to Najmul’s fierce loyalty to his secret illegal gods that the Sarnobat man hadn’t murdered Jagdish in his sleep yet, but had instead proven himself to be an excellent bodyguard. “Even if I could hear you over this glorious wind I’m paying for, I’d give a fish about the moral perspective of a raider who thinks it is fine to set houses on fire with children inside.”

“Alright, alright,” Najmul muttered, for if there was anyone the fanatic disliked more than the Vadal, it was their inferior cousins, the Vokkan. “I’m happy as long as the wretched Vokkan die.”

“Oh, they will,” Jagdish assured him, before turning to one of his roiks. “Light the fires.”

During the night, his skirmishers had built piles of brush and whatever else they could find that was flammable, and then soaked those piles in oil. As long as they were burning demon to fuel this magical hurricane, they’d use that wind to blind and irritate their enemy. Vokkan would surely have wizards of their own among such a vast army, but as Mukunda had explained to Jagdish, it would take more energy for them to effectively counter the patterns the Vadal wizards were already using, than it would for the Vadal wizards to maintain their spell. In the meantime, Jagdish intended to smoke them out.

The wind whipped the many bonfires into a roaring frenzy. Black smoke quickly filled the space between the armies and engulfed the Vokkan lines.

Even from here, far upwind, the smell was intense enough to make Jagdish’s eyes water.

“Oceans, that’s truly nasty stuff!” exclaimed one of his officers.

Which was as Jagdish expected, since the primary crop grown in this area was the unforgiving Vadal viper peppers. Eating them hurt the mouth in a blissful way. Getting the oil of one on your fingers and then touching your eye was excruciating. Now bushels of those hostile peppers were burning, and he would force an entire army to stew in the caustic vapors until they were blind and coughing their lungs up, all while their arrows did nothing and Jagdish’s fell among them like rain.

“A dirty trick,” Najmul said. “I am impressed.”

“Fate presented us with an even field, so I have made it uneven. Serves the invaders right.” Keeping up this wind had to be costing a fortune in demon, but he’d rather spend bone than lives. Jagdish waited until the entire enemy side was fully shrouded in obscuring smoke before ordering, “Send Zaheer’s cavalry up the side while they’re good and blind.”

Yaduvir Vokkan was logical, but he was not creative. With his army suffering and his wizards scrambling to push back, he would have to retreat, hold, or move forward. Those were his only choices. Jagdish had a plan for each possibility. He guessed with the Vadal army pinned against the river, Yaduvir would be hesitant to retreat as that would give Jagdish room to maneuver, and he would be too suspicious to blindly rush forward. Even as Jagdish knew his enemy’s reputation, surely they knew his, and crafty Jagdish might have prepared another trap for them. Yaduvir would likely do the safest thing, which meant holding and suffering, searing their eyes, breathing poison, and occasionally being struck by arrows, because the enemy phontho would assume that Vokkan hardiness would outlast Vadal’s supply of magic.

Of course Yaduvir assumed correctly about that, and after twenty minutes had ticked by on Jagdish’s little pocket watch, gradually the howling wind calmed to a breeze as Mukunda’s wizards exhausted themselves. Jagdish had already had his infantry and archers return to their original positions and wait back where the air was clean. “Have the skirmishers quench the bonfires and fall back.”

As the smoke cleared, Jagdish saw that the entire Vokkan army had gone prone, getting as low to the ground as possible and hiding from arrows behind their shields. They’d wrapped their scarves around their faces in a vain attempt to keep the smoke from their lungs, and now they were pouring their canteens in their eyes. He imagined he could hear the coughing from here. Their cavalry was in complete disarray, as they’d lost control of many of their horses.

“Look at them—pathetic. You should charge and destroy them now.”

“Calm down, Najmul. That impatience is why I beat your house. It’s the little things that win wars.”

“Strength and courage win wars. Those are not little things.”

“Neither are elephants, and our trainers told me their beasts have an aversion to peppers. They rub viper oil on their fences to keep the elephants inside. Let all the smoky air out first. Then we can stomp on them.”

Another tense half an hour passed as the Vokkan composed themselves. It always amazed Jagdish how battle maneuvers were so slow, until the terrible moment they were fast. Even with his overwhelming numbers, Yaduvir remained cautious. As he rightly should, as this was the bulk of Vokkan’s military might assembled in one place. If he somehow lost here today, his house would be terribly damaged. If he failed to destroy the bridges now, Jagdish would be reinforced, and Vadal City would be safe. Sarnobat had failed. The Army of Many Houses had retreated for unknown reasons. Yaduvir had to trust in his superior numbers and push onward, because it was doubtful Vokkan would ever have a chance to defeat their hated rivals like this ever again. No phontho worth his stars could ever let such an opportunity pass.

The Vokkan began to march.

Then they abruptly stopped.

A sudden halt had been called. Jagdish spied a great deal of commotion around Yaduvir’s banner. Messengers were leaping from horses. Red-eyed men were yelling and waving their arms. Jagdish recognized fear when he saw it.

“They’re unnerved!” one of the officers who had his own spyglass exclaimed.

“Looks like Zaheer’s riders made it past in the smoke unseen, and from their reaction, I assume that right now our best cavalry are busy slaughtering the Vokkan baggage train.”

Jagdish always tried to learn as much as he could about his adversaries before meeting them in battle. From Vadal spies sitting and listening to warriors complain in Vokkan taverns, to interviewing prisoners and deserters, and even reading the enemy phontho’s writings when available helped paint a picture of who they really were. Yaduvir never neglected his logistics. He never outran his support. This particular war dog would only go as far as his chain allowed. The farther Yaduvir got from home, the more he jealously guarded his supplies, and the Vokkan were very far from home right now. By sending Zaheer around to harass those supplies, Jagdish had hoped to divide Yaduvir’s attention, to make him worry about the future, for in the moment of crisis a warrior who was more concerned about his journey home than his battle ahead would surely fail. Warriors had to accept death in order to overcome it. On the battlefield only those prepared to die might live. That was why Yaduvir was the one trapped here, not Jagdish.

“Forward, men of Vadal! Forward!

Jagdish’s officers repeated his commands. Banners dipped and swayed. The battle horns blew. They all knew what to do, because Jagdish had seen to it that they were exceedingly well trained. They believed in him as he believed in them. He had been born to lead men and make war against his enemies. Today Jagdish dictated his own fate.

He bellowed so as many men as possible would hear his words and take heart. “No mercy. No compassion. They tread upon our land! Do your duty for Vadal! Attack! Attack!

Roiks bellowed commands at their risalders and then every paltan was on the move back to the positions Jagdish had let them study earlier. They’d been taught what to do. Now they would perform or perish.

The massive opposing army hesitated, confused, as their commander was torn between the real threat before them and the mostly imagined one behind, but when they saw Vadal was moving forward, the Vokkan were once again given the order to proceed. Only their momentum had been lost, and it appeared Yaduvir was overestimating the size of Zaheer’s force, because far too many of his paltans split off to go and protect their support companies.

Jagdish smiled at that great fortune, yet an incredible force still remained.

Against such odds Vadal would need every sword it could get. Even if they started to lose, there would be no retreat for him to call. As always, Jagdish’s head told him to command and his heart told him to fight, but with no commands left to give, he climbed atop his horse and followed his warrior’s heart. His personal bodyguard consisted of five handpicked Vadal swordsmen and one Sarnobat fanatic. When they saw their leader mount up, they immediately did the same. Each of them had accepted this obligation knowing that that this was no typical elderly phontho, content to give orders from the safety of the rear. Today, their only safety lay through victory.

“Follow me, boys. It’s time to cause some trouble.”

“For Vadal!” they responded.

Since he’d strictly forbidden Najmul to ever mention his illegal gods in the presence of Law-abiding men, the fanatic shouted, “For glory!” instead, but Jagdish knew what that madman was actually fighting for. Gods weren’t real, but in the off chance they were, let them be praised as glorious because Jagdish would take all the help he could get.

As the two armies marched toward each other, the distance between them rapidly shrank. Skirmishers rode back and forth between the lines. Men and horses were struck with arrows. Cavalry wheeled back and forth at the flanks, though the Vokkan horses still seemed panicked from the smoke. To keep from being totally encircled, Jagdish’s infantry was spread thin. It appeared the Vokkan were about to engulf them like a mighty wave anyway.

Then his elephants struck the middle.

There was nothing in the world quite like the charge of a war elephant paltan. The world shook as they ran. Vokkan infantry readied their spears, and that sometimes worked, as elephants were intelligent animals, and intelligent things did not willingly stick their faces into hornet’s nests, but Vadal war elephants were fed a narcotic plant by their handlers immediately before battle to calm their nerves. Each of the beasts had been trained from birth by respected specialist families within the warrior caste, and every elephant was clad in armor of interlocking plates and mail backed with thick padding, crafted as finely as that of the great house’s Personal Guard. Elephants were born and died, but that precious armor was well maintained and handed down through the generations. Such was the benefit of being the wealthiest house.

Most of the Vokkan spears did nothing against the charging animals. Some pierced armor and found flesh, but even mortal wounds couldn’t stop their momentum. Dozens of warriors were trampled underfoot before the dying beasts toppled over, crushing even more men beneath. The rest of the elephants trudged onward through the Vokkan ranks while their Vadal riders continually launched arrows down from their howdahs. The disciplined lines of Vokkan shields and spears disintegrated beneath the shadows cast by the twelve-thousand-pound animals. Bodies were sent flailing in every direction.

A moment later, the Vadal infantry followed that bloody path, carving their way deep.

Jagdish’s seven rode behind Roik Joshi’s infantry, looking for their opportunity, but not too close, because even war horses tended to balk around elephants. There was a hole in the Vokkan center. If they could exploit this, they might have a chance, so Jagdish rode into the chaos.

Far ahead, an elephant reared up on its hind legs, front legs wheeling. Ropes snapped and the howdah slipped from its back, spilling men onto the ground. The mighty animal came back down on top of more Vokkan warriors. Even brave men lost their nerve and ran as they saw heads pop like grapes, or the guts being stomped out of their brothers.

As Gotama had explained to him, elephants were not horses, and could only be controlled for so long before they decided to do whatever they felt like in the pandemonium of battle, and when they did there wasn’t much their riders could do but hold on and go wherever they were taken. The timid elephants would be overcome by the noise, smell, and pain, and try to turn about and flee back the way they’d came, and Jagdish watched in horror as one did so, running straight through a paltan of Vadal infantry. But the fiercest male elephants would often descend into something only one step shy of demon frenzy, and Jagdish marveled as another one veered off to the side, chasing after a flapping Vokkan banner that had somehow drawn its wrath, swinging its brass-capped tusks to and fro, snapping the bones and cracking the skulls of a great many Vokkan warriors along the way.

The elephants had fulfilled their purpose. Orderly line against orderly line, the side with the numbers would prevail. Turn that into a bloody mess, and the day would be carried by whichever side had the most skill and will to violence. Jagdish was betting on Vadal.

He went into the fray, charging against the light infantry, laying about him with his sword. It clanged off Vokkan helms, but each man knocked over by his horse became easy pickings for the Vadal infantry to finish off.

Suddenly, his mount was killed out from under him. Unable to escape the stirrups before he went crashing down, Jagdish bellowed in pain as one leg was smashed between his horse and the ground. As he struggled to drag himself free, a Vokkan warrior rushed him, mace lifted high in one hand, ready to kill.

That warrior’s arm came off in a spray of blood.

Najmul stood protectively over Jagdish. “You cannot threaten the gods’ chosen!” The disarmed Vokkan screamed and tried to escape the fanatic, but Najmul followed, snatched up the dropped mace, and caved in the back of the warrior’s helmet with a mighty overhand blow. “He is the gods’ to kill! Not yours!”

Jagdish grunted and tried to shove the horse up enough to extricate his leg. “I told you no religious nonsense.”

“Yes, sir!” Najmul went back to him, grabbed the saddle horn, and pulled hard.

Knee throbbing, Jagdish struggled the rest of the way out and stood up. A Vokkan rushed him, but Jagdish parried the strike and then thrust the tip of his sword with perfect accuracy through the armpit gap in that warrior’s armor. He wrenched it free and a gout of blood followed.

“I’ll not have that illegal foolishness in this army!”

“Won’t happen again, sir,” Najmul replied, though that was certainly a lie. Then he stabbed a Vokkan soldier in the throat, and smashed another over the head with the mace in his other hand. The rest of Jagdish’s bodyguard went about thoroughly destroying every enemy around them, because no fury burned hotter than that of a proud people who had been invaded.

The Vokkan wore dark armor, brown to nearly black, with only the fronts of their helms painted red. The Vadal colors were blue-gray and bronze. They were two very different styles, yet within a few minutes they were all so covered in gore and dust it was difficult to tell who was who, and Jagdish had to pause between his mad slashes to make sure he wasn’t hitting his own men. Hot tears were flowing involuntarily from his eyes because of all the pepper smoke that lingered on the Vokkan uniforms. It was nasty for the Vadal, but the poor Vokkan bastards were still half blind and desperately wheezing for breath.

The fighting was intense. Jagdish had never been in a battle of this size, as such events were rare in Lok. It turned out a big battle was much like a small battle, but more. Or in this case, it was a hundred small battles rolled into one bloody catastrophe.

But by sheer weight of numbers, Vadal was losing far too many of those.

Jagdish rallied his nearby men and kept fighting. It was a blur of chaos and brutality. His muscles burned. His army fought like demons, yet with a great and growing dread, Jagdish began to realize that would still not be enough.

Black shadows flashed by overhead, and Jagdish barely had time to look up and see that they were being cast by what appeared to be two huge birds, except there was a searing unnatural light to the shapes that stung his eyes even more than the pepper dust.

He had once seen the assassin Sikasso melt his body into the form of a great bird and soar away. That had to be what these were.

Those were not Jagdish’s wizards.

“Wizards incoming!”

As the wizards circled over the battlefield, it appeared that one of them carried something in its talons. No. Not something. Someone. That bird came back around, lower now, swooping just out of range of the uplifted spears. When the talons released, the man it was carrying dropped, and the bird soared upward.

The man hit the ground a mere ten feet from Jagdish, rolling through the dust and blood, but quickly rose from among the dead bodies, seemingly unhurt by his fall.

The newcomer was tall, dark of skin and dread of countenance, dressed not in the finery of a mighty wizard, but in humble worker’s attire, stained from travel and bleached by sun.

“Ashok?” Jagdish whispered as he saw the ghost.

“Look out!” Najmul roared as he protectively stepped in front of his charge. “Wizards attack!”

“That’s no wizard!”

But it was too late, and the fanatical bodyguard hurled himself at the new threat.

Najmul was one of the fiercest combatants Jagdish had ever met, but Ashok merely sidestepped the thrust meant for his heart, and then ducked the mace meant to smash out his brains, before catching Najmul by the throat with one hand and sweeping him effortlessly to the ground. The rest of Jagdish’s men reacted a bit slower, but they too rushed forward to protect their phontho.

“Stop! Hold!” It was a testament to their training that his men could still hear and heed him in the middle of a desperate battle, and they stopped before Ashok had to put them down too.

Jagdish lifted his visor to reveal his face. “Oceans! Ashok, is that you?”

“It is I, Jagdish.” Ashok nodded in greeting as he stepped on Najmul’s sword arm to trap it until the bodyguard realized he wasn’t an enemy. “I have come to warn you that you must stop your war.”

“What?” Jagdish had to shout to be heard over the screaming and clashing of swords and shields all around them, and even more disorienting, he was still reeling at seeing his old friend here, alive, and falling out of the sky. “Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something?”

“I am too late.” Ashok looked around, scowling, and his disappointment was perhaps the most frightening thing on the battlefield. Then he focused upon Yaduvir’s command banner in the distance. “Perhaps not…If I force their phontho to call for a retreat, will you let them go?”

“What?”

“When I defeat their army, will you spare their lives, Jagdish?”

That was madness, even for a ghost. “Sure.” They were all about to die anyway. “Why not?”

Ashok turned back toward Yaduvir’s banner and drew his sword.

It was Angruvadal!

All of the Vadal men gasped. Not only did Ashok live, but so did their lost sword?

It was an inconceivable revelation, but then Ashok was away, nearly as suddenly as he had arrived. He leapt effortlessly over the Vadal lines and plummeted into the Vokkan, black blade singing. Warriors were cut down. Steel armor split as if it were paper. Stunned, Jagdish could only track Ashok’s progress by the carnage. Where Angruvadal went, spears dipped, banners fell, men died. Five. Ten. Twenty.

It really was him!

Ashok was cutting a swath through the Vokkan ranks, directly, inexorably toward where their phontho watched. Jagdish only knew a few things with absolute surety in this life: the love of his family, the love of his soldiers, what it meant to be a warrior…and that if Ashok Vadal said something was going to get done, it was going to get done.

Cursing himself for following his heart and ignoring his nagging mind, Jagdish grabbed his nearest bodyguard by the shoulder and shook him. “Gather runners. Find the bannerman and horn! When Ashok takes the enemy’s head, we must break contact and let them go.” He made sure they could all hear him, which was difficult through the padding of their helmets, even when the blood wasn’t thundering in their ears. “Get to it!”

Jagdish caught a passing horse. The animal was frightened, rider lost, but Jagdish took the reins and vaulted into the saddle. He needed the higher vantage point so he could see better, find who needed to be found, and reassert control. Jagdish picked out roiks and risalders and tried to get their attention. That was difficult since they were all up to their elbows in Vokkan blood, but he managed to catch a few.

In the time it took Jagdish to dispense a handful of commands, Ashok had dropped more bodies. An entire paltan of heavy infantry broke apart before him and he reached Yaduvir’s personal bodyguard and command staff within minutes of his strange arrival. Jagdish couldn’t see exactly what happened beneath Yaduvir’s banner, but heads and hands were severed and sent flying high into the air. A moment later, the banner fell.

A moment later, an unfamiliar, panicked sound blew from a Vokkan horn. That must have been their signal to retreat.

Only that surrender must have been insufficient for Ashok, for in the heat of battle that desperate noise might be missed by too many of the combatants, because then Jagdish saw his old friend climbing onto the back of a rampaging elephant!

The animal had lost its howdah somewhere along the way, so had no controller. The big bull was simply running along behind the Vokkan lines, crazed, and scaring their horses.

As blood-drenched Ashok effortlessly stood on the back of the bucking creature, he roared with a voice that shook the heavens. “Men of Vadal! Men of Vokkan! Heed my words! I am Ashok Vadal, bearer of Angruvadal!” As he lifted the terrifying black steel blade for all to see, the elephant reared up on his hind legs and trumpeted, surely alarmed that someone with a voice worthy of a fanatic’s god was upon its back shouting, yet Ashok was not shaken from his place. “I declare this battle is over.”

The fighting just…stopped. All eyes were upon Ashok.

“It’s really him,” whispered a nearby Vadal warrior with awe.

“Spill no more blood today. If any among you still wish to fight, then your fight will be against me.”

No one was foolish enough to accept that challenge.

The bull elephant quit rearing and went back to stomping about in an angry and confused circle.

“This war is done. Depart in peace or not at all. I have spoken.”

Ashok leapt off the animal’s back and started walking calmly back the way he’d come.

The Vokkan army fearfully parted before him.


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