The thunder of hooves hammered against the stone streets, a frantic rhythm racing toward the East Gate of Ntsua-Ntu. Standing ready in the deep shadow of the great archway was a formidable sight: a large contingent of elite palace guards and three hundred veteran soldiers. At their head stood Altan, his cousin. To Dzhambul, the sight of his own kin leading the rescue was a sign from the heavens.
As Dzhambul's group tore down the final stretch of the road, Altan raised his hand. With a disciplined roar, the soldiers and guards shifted into a tight, impenetrable shield formation. They opened their ranks just enough to swallow Dzhambul, Lixin, and Erhi, sealing the royal mother and her sons within a wall of steel.
Erhi gripped her reins, her eyes sharp and predatory even in retreat. She looked at Altan, perhaps searching for a sign of grief or fury over the fall of the palace, but Altan remained a mask of iron.
Dzhambul felt a surge of relief. With his mother at his side and his cousin leading the way, he felt the crown was still within his reach. He, Lixin, and Erhi merged into the larger force. Now an army of nearly four hundred men, they thundered out of the city gate, leaving the smoke of the capital behind. They rode hard toward the East, toward Pojin, where Dzhambul believed the Paayasian army—the allies Lixin had likely spent years securing—was waiting to strike back.
The silence of the road was shattered by a sudden, lethal whistle of air. A volley of arrows erupted from the dense tree line, raining down on the front and rear of the formation. Horses screamed, and men fell, the once-impenetrable "shield" splintering into chaos.
From the high grass, a figure exploded forward with the speed of a pouncing leopard. It was Azad. He didn't aim for the riders; he drove his spear deep into the back leg of Dzhambul's horse. The beast buckled, throwing Dzhambul into the dirt. Before he could draw breath, four "bandits" were upon him, their blades flashing in the sunlight.
Dzhambul scrambled to his feet, his own sword ringing as he parried the savage blows. But Azad was already circling behind him, spear leveled at the Prince's spine.
Just as the metal was about to bite, two masked figures leapt from the brush. They moved with a military precision that didn't match the bandits, parrying Azad's spear and forcing the rebel leader back.
"Your Highness, let's go!" the first masked man shouted, bringing a riderless horse to a skidding halt. Dzhambul didn't hesitate; he swung up behind the stranger, and they thundered away. Altan, Erhi, and a handful of survivors spurred their mounts to follow, leaving the carnage behind.
Azad stood in the middle of the road, watching the dust of Dzhambul's escape settle. He made no move to give chase. Instead, he looked at the captured soldiers groveling in the dirt.
"Bring them back for punishment," Azad said, flicking the blood off his spear with a practiced snap. He looked at the prisoners and chuckled darkly. "If I were you, I'd surrender quietly. No sense losing your head over a game you were never meant to win."
He hopped onto his horse and began a slow, leisurely ride back toward the East Gate of Ntsua-Ntu. The "attack" was over.
Miles away, the terrain shifted into jagged mountains and narrow dirt passes. Erhi was pale, her silk handkerchief soaked with sweat. She was a woman of the court, never intended for the brutal endurance of a forced march in this weather.
"Stop the horse," Dzhambul commanded, patting the shoulder of his masked savior.
As they dismounted by a large boulder, the tension was thick. Altan stood by, his hand white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword, his eyes fixed on the two strangers. He was ready to kill them the moment they showed a hint of betrayal.
"Who sent you?" Dzhambul asked, his voice low and dangerous.
The two men exchanged a look, then dropped to their knees in the dirt, peeling back their masks.
"Your Highness, my name is Buqa," the first said.
"And I am Dolgoon," said the second. "We were guards in Anpo City. We fled after the Fourth Princess executed Mayor Orgil. We were hunted because we remained loyal to your uncle's memory."
At the mention of Orgil, a fresh wave of rage and grief hit Dzhambul. He looked at Altan and gave a sharp, subtle shake of his head. Not today. They are friends.
"Before the Mayor died," Dolgoon added, his voice thick with feigned or real emotion, "we promised him that if the Prince ever needed us, we would cross a sea of fire or a mountain of knives to reach him."
Dzhambul sighed, the weight of his losses feeling slightly lighter. "Very well. Then we head to Pojin. From there, we cross into Paayapasa."
"We will protect you with our lives," the two men vowed in unison.
As the group rested by the boulder, Dzhambul's eyes drifted to the horses Buqa and Dolgoon had brought. They weren't the lean, tired ponies of common guards; they were thick-necked, powerful war horses, still huffing from the sprint but showing no signs of slowing down.
"Fine beasts," Dzhambul noted, his voice raspy from the dust.
"We took them during the chaos in the city, Your Highness," Buqa replied quickly, patting the horse's flank. "When the gates broke, the stables were in an uproar. We knew that if we were to catch up to you, we couldn't be riding farm nags. We took what we needed to serve the true King."
Dzhambul nodded, satisfied. In his mind, it was just another sign of their loyalty—they had risked their lives to steal the best equipment specifically to find him. He looked over at Erhi. She looked fragile, her fine silks gray with road dust, but her eyes were still fixed on the horizon toward Pojin.
"We move," Dzhambul ordered, pushing himself up from the rock. "The longer we sit, the closer the 'Wolf' gets to our heels."
As the survivors began to remount their horses, Buqa suddenly stepped away from the group. He walked toward the edge of the path, turned his back to the road, and began to urinate. After a moment, he let out a frustrated hiss.
"Shoot, I wet my shoe!" Buqa complained, his voice echoing with genuine annoyance.
Behind him, several of the weary palace guards let out a rare, low chuckle. Even Altan's eyes crinkled with a brief, mocking amusement. To them, Buqa was just a clumsy, low-ranking guard—useful, but certainly not a threat.
Buqa grumbled and pulled a handkerchief from his robe. He bent down, carefully wiping his shoe with his right hand. But as he leaned over, his left hand moved with lightning speed. His fingers brushed against the base of the boulder, grabbing small, jagged stones. Within seconds, he had stacked a pile of ten rocks in a specific, vertical pattern before standing up and tucking his handkerchief away.
Buqa walked back to his horse, the perfect image of an embarrassed soldier, even offering a self-deprecating shrug to Altan. He climbed into the saddle, his movements deliberate and calm. He didn't look back at the trail or the stack of stones hidden in the shadow of the boulder.
He didn't need to.
Underneath the mask of the simple guard, a cold focus settled over him. That small pile of rocks wasn't just a signal for the trackers; it was a testament. It was the mark that he was still breathing, still moving, and still loyal to the mission that had been entrusted to him in the dark corners of Ntsua-Ntu. To the world, he was a traitor's servant. To himself, he was the invisible blade of the new kingdom.
"Let's go," Dzhambul shouted, his voice full of a desperate, newfound energy.
The group spurred their horses, heading deeper into the mountain pass. The wind began to howl through the narrow crags, biting at their faces, but Buqa and Dolgoon felt nothing. They only felt the weight of the next stone they would have to drop.
As the night wind blew past the forest and trees rustled on branches, creating a restless symphony of creaks and whispers, the world beneath the heavy roots of the mountain remained still and damp.
A lone bandit ascended the narrow stone stairwell, his breath coming in shallow, disciplined hitches as he reached the hidden platform. He pressed his ear against the cold, earthy underside of the cover, listening intently to the silence of the forest above. Satisfied that the wind was his only witness, he nudged the hatch open just enough to peer through the swaying grass.
Finding no Paayasian scouts in sight, he threw the cover back. One by one, the one hundred Elite Night Bandits emerged from the earth like ghosts. They didn't speak. They didn't rattle their blades. They simply vanished into the treeline, moving with the terrifying, fluid grace of leopards hunting in the dark. Their target: the Paayasian campsite.
High above on a jagged ridge, Behrouz stood like a sentinel. The night breeze tugged at his long beard, sending it dancing across his chest, but he remained as motionless as an owl watching a field of mice. He didn't need to move; he had already set the clock in motion.
Suddenly, the darkness of the valley was pierced. One, two, three... four distinct plumes of orange fire roared into the sky from the heart of the Paayasian camp.
A slow, predatory curve touched Behrouz's lips.
"Let's see how many days you can last without food," he whispered to the wind. With a final look at the burning horizon, he turned and descended back into the mountain, disappearing into the labyrinth of hidden traps that made Salran Hill a graveyard for the unwary.
Just as the sun peaked upon the horizon of the long night without rest, the ride had become a blur of rhythmic pounding and freezing mountain air. They had ridden through the depth of the night and into the following day, the sun now a pale, mocking eye shining behind them. Weariness had settled into their bones like lead; the horses were lathered in sweat, their heads hanging low with every grueling step.
They were at the breaking point, but the promise of Pojin kept them upright. It was only a few miles more—just over the final jagged tooth of the mountain pass.
Buqa and Dolgoon remained in their iron-clad positions, one leading and one trailing, a human cage that Dzhambul mistook for a wall of loyalty. Within that box, flanked by his cousin Altan and his mother Erhi, Dzhambul felt a fragile sense of safety. He was a King returning to his allies.
But as they crested the final ridge and the valley of Pojin unfurled below them, the triumphant image Dzhambul had carried in his mind shattered.
The valley was a graveyard of expectations. There were no golden banners of Paayapasa snapping in the wind. There were no columns of smoke from soldier's fires. The village and the outpost below were eerily devoid of human life. The only sound that rose to meet them was the mournful, hollow lowing of hungry livestock left in their pens—a sound of abandonment that echoed against the silent stone walls of the valley.
"They should have been here already," Lixin muttered, his voice echoing hollowly against the silent, timber-framed houses. He pulled his horse to a halt, his eyes darting from one dark window to another.
"So where are they?" Erhi demanded. The disappointment in her voice was sharp enough to cut. She had spent her last ounce of strength to reach this valley, only to find a village of ghosts. "Where is the army we were promised?"
"I—I don't know," Lixin stammered, his confidence crumbling. "They were supposed to—"
The air hissed.
A single black-fletched arrow streaked from the shadow of a granary, burying itself deep into Lixin's right chest with a sickening thud. The force of the impact launched him backward, his body hitting the dry earth with a heavy groan of agony.
"Lixin!" Dzhambul screamed, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden storm of wood and iron.
Arrow after arrow rained down from the rooftops and alleyways. The group scrambled, abandoning their exhausted horses and diving for whatever cover they could find—overturned carts, stone wells, or doorframes. But as they looked for safety, the houses themselves seemed to breathe.
Doors kicked open. From the shadows emerged a terrifying sight: rows of female soldiers and grim-faced teenagers, their weapons drawn and eyes burning with a cold, local fury. They didn't move like mercenaries; they moved like people defending their own soil.
Then, the heavy, metallic clack-clack of a gong rang twice through the valley.
The sound was a death knell. It signaled to everyone that the enemy had finally arrived. Pojin was no longer a sanctuary; it was a slaughterhouse. The innocent villagers, who had only wanted to stay out of the path of kings, were now caught in a nightmare—squeezed between the desperate "Wolf" in their streets and the encroaching shadows of the Paayasian army looming in front of them.