Asag’s horse whinnied with an impatient toss of its head, as eager as its rider to be clear of such foul company. Normally, the Legate would have been of the same mind, ready to leave the stench of perfume behind.

But how could he leave now? Not when he had stumbled onto something so deliciously interesting.

They said curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

"Your Grace," Asag mused, tilting his head and slowly turning his stallion. He moved with a wince, careful not to strain his neck, he was already half-maimed, and his wrist throbbed with a rhythmic, sickening heat that made him wish indeed for a quick end. But the pain was a small price for the revelation dawning on him. "For what reason, pray, do I hear so much anxiety in that royal breath of yours?"

Nibadur’s face was a mask of strained composure, his earlier poise forced back into its sheath like a chipped blade. "You overreach. How do you presume to hear anything in my voice but a man trying to spare the lives of the wretches behind your walls?"

"Nah... prolly not," Asag rasped, his eyes narrowing as he watched the Prince’s hands tighten on the reins. "That was anxiety I felt. Pure and ugly. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

No way a man of your blood would resort to begging unless the floor was falling out from under him. Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Trouble with the troops? Mutiny in the ranks? Or perhaps..." He paused, a nasty grin spreading across his face. "Perhaps it’s about their meals? Is the larder looking a bit thin, Your Grace?"

Asag gave a low, rough chuckle as he saw the flicker of discomfort cross Nibadur’s features. He had hit the nail, and the sound it made was the music of a collapsing siege.

"You should know when to close your mouth, foul peasant," Sorza snapped, his voice high and defensive. "His Grace is trying to save your miserable hide.No aid will come from your prince, you were deserted to death!"

At that, the Legate’s chuckle erupted into a boisterous, hacking laugh that echoed off the grey stone of the Bastion.

"By the face of Xanthios! Something good has come of this day after all!On that old bastard’s face! " Asag turned his gaze toward the entire glittering congregation, his smile as nasty as it was presumptuous. "My liege has made his move, hasn’t he? That’s why you’re all so twitchy. That’s why you’re so desperate to claim a victory you haven’t earned. It’s early October, you’ve still got two months before the mud set in and the road turn into mire. Why the hurry, unless you’ve got nothing left to put in your bellies?"

"We have more than enough time to see you dead!" Sorza shouted, but the hint of a tremor in his voice betrayed him.

"You can’t win the siege anymore,na na na...." Asag sang out, his voice a mocking lilt of triumph. "So you rode out here with ’merciful terms.’ Ballsy of you, truly. And stupid of me not to realize it sooner. I thank you for the reassurance, my lords! I know now that I’ll be reunited with my Prince soon enough. I eagerly await the day you’re forced to foot the bill for every scrap you’ve eaten on our land. You can always trust that the Fox pays his debts in full."

He finally turned his horse around for good, the stallion’s hooves kicking up clumps of mud at the silent princes. But then, as if remembering a final stroke of the brush, he twisted in his saddle one last time.

"Prince of Habadia!" he called out, the smile never leaving his scarred face. "Take one step onto my stones, and you’re fodder for the worms. Beneath our iron, there is only hard blood. Try us if you dare."

With a final, mocking laugh, he spurred his horse into a gallop, disappearing into the safety of the rising portcullis. He left behind a party of lords and princes who had come for a surrender and departed with nothing but the taste of their own failure.

Somehow the situation turned worse with them, if that had been even possible.

As the heavy gates groaned shut behind him, the mask of the defiant commander finally slipped. Asag’s face transformed into an expression of pure, radiant bliss. The pain in his arm and the throb in his skull faded into the background. He had done it. He had stayed the hand of the South for two months, battered and bloodied, and now he had the proof.

His efforts had not been for naught. He had bought the fox the one thing gold couldn’t buy: time.

And now he eagerly awaited the day in which they’ll all die.

--------------------

All the cups and plates on the table cluttered away down onto the dirt floor, as a heavy gold-ringed hand closed in on with a fist.

"FUCK!"

Nibadur lunged forward, his chair catching his heel and tumbling backward. He didn’t bother to pick it up; he kicked it, sending it skittering across the pavilion floor.

"FUCK THAT PEASANT DOG!" he roared, his face twisted in a way that would have horrified the ladies of Habadia. Another kick followed, splintering the fine wood of the chair. "FUCK THAT KAKUNIAN MADMAN!"

For years, Nibadur had played the long game, waiting for the singular moment he had felt within his grasp only weeks ago. He had been close enough to smell the incense in the Fox’s throne room.

But it seemed dreams were not destined to be.

Now, it had all gone up in smoke, dismantled by a man whose face he had never even seen clearly.How could it be possible for a man not to show his face for two moons and yet call so fervous a loyalty?What sort of men after so much blood, would be able to so vehemently believe his liege was achieving success instead of having left him to die?

Outplayed at every turn, lured into a stalemate, and left with no path forward but a direct assault, that felt more like a suicide pact with every passing hour.

He was the loser...no doubt about that.

"Your Grace..." a voice ventured, thin and reluctant.

Nibadur ran his hands through his short, golden hair, yanking it forward in a fit of agitation. He took a long, shuddering breath, trying to force the High Prince back into his skin.

"Your Grace of Oizen," he said, turning his cold gaze toward Sorza. "Tell me plainly. How much longer can we sustain this host on your stores alone?"

Sorza had seen the question coming, and for once, he didn’t stutter. He simply looked at the empty table. "Three weeks. At the very best."

The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of thousands of starving men that they would soon have. Three weeks. They had to accomplish in twenty-one days what they had failed to do in sixty.

"It has been a week since the Kakunians departed," Sorza attempted, his voice reaching for a shred of optimism that wasn’t there. "Surely they will bring the rebellion to its knees quickly. He’ll secure the southern roads and send grain back our way. We just have to hold out until then."

Nibadur looked at him as if he were a mummer who had just swallowed a sword. He was genuinely stunned that the man could still harbor hope after the tongue-lashing they had just suffered.

He felt the urge to roar again, to reach out and shake the crownless prince until his teeth rattled.

He remembered the last time he’d lost his temper with his brother-in-law, he’d grabbed him by the shoulders when he had asked ’’ what the fuck Ricorum was’’ in his own mushy voice. He called him a fool for that, and of course he had taken offense to that.

The bloody fool.

It was ill done, of that, Nibadur was sure. Hence the reason why the roaster was not present at the parlay.

He forced his hands to his sides. "We would be wise to expect nothing, not a single grain of wheat, from our friends in the East," Nibadur said, his voice dropping into a chillingly calm register. "This rebellion has the Fox’s stench all over it. What do you think they will do when Latio’s army finally appears on their doorstep?"

Sorza blinked. "Hide behind the walls of the city? Call for a lengthy siege?"

Nibadur stared at him. Truly, what business did this man have wearing a crown?

"No," Nibadur whispered tired at being surrounded by fools. "They will burn the granaries to the ground, slaughter the livestock, and vanish back into safe haven. They will leave Latio an empty shell of a province. We are alone, Sorza. We will make do with what we have in those wagons, or we will die in this mud."

He turned back to the map pinned to the tilted table. "That fucking legate knows it. The Fox knows it. And now, unfortunately, I know it too." He gave a tired sigh ’’We will commence assaults as soon as they are possible.Towers, rams ,ladders, we shall take no heed in casualties. If they do not die in the mud now, they’ll desert or starve later....may the gods watch over us...’’