"Tauron vanguard?"

In position!

"Tigran flanks?"

In position, human. And watch who you’re barking at.

"Human Hakka-throwers?"

Ready and willing, lad. Point us at a filthy Hitogi Zhurkin, and we’ll make ‘em burn.

"Yokun Marksmen?"

We await your orders, Shai-Alud.

"Lastly… Sakri?"

Yes, Shai-Alud. The Oshu tribes stand with you.

"Have you made sure your advance units are in position?"

"They are ready, Shai-Alud. Awaiting our arrival."

"Everyone be ready," Marcus commanded. "We move out in an hour."

It had taken time to get everyone up to speed on the importance of their formations, but the army was ready to move out. Even so, as he walked the halls of their Clan Naga plantation headquarters, he couldn’t help but feel the distinct knocking against his ribs that had accompanied every battle he’d been involved in since coming to this world. What the Generals of old said was true: it never got any easier.

Though the creature behind him was possibly more anxious than he was, right now...

"Why must Hialjia do this?" The hulking Tauron groaned as she followed him into the depths of the base. "Hialjia should be out on the frontlines!"

"While we’re gone, we need someone to guard him," Marcus replied—his tone soft yet firm. He didn’t need disagreements at this crucial stage of the game. "And someone to knock the shit out of him if he tries to make a run for it. That, Princess Hialjia, is you."

The Tauron huffed at him, picking at a stray caterpillar that had just dared to wriggle into her left nostril.

"If fancy lizard tries to run, Hialjia will take his legs from him."

"He’s a better bartering chip if he’s got all his pieces still attached," Marcus mumbled, though he knew the Tauron was probably too busy fantasizing about the slaughter she’d be missing to really hear him. "Just… do this for us, Hialjia. You’re the only one I can trust to keep him locked up and secure in the event of a counterattack from the sea—which I still can’t rule out. Besides, we both know you could take him in a fight. You already beat him once. And you’re the most fearless warrior we’ve got."

Marcus opened the steel lock on the doorway to the prison chamber—the ice-cold cells filled with dried animal carcasses and fetid meat, some of which looked humanoid in shape. This had been the place where the "bad" property had gone. The place where the slaves of old were "corrected." Even now, most of the men wouldn’t dare come near this place.

It was the perfect spot for their little guest of honor, who poked his head up from the ice-cold chair he was chained to, stripped of his clothes and panting for every breath.

"Come to hear me whimper, Shai-Alud?" Prince Nagoya asked him. "Your mate comes to visit me often. I dare say she has a certain fondness for looking at the body of a naked Yokun noble."

"You dare insult Lady Maria again!?"

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Marcus’s arm stopped her before she could gore him and the chair both.

"He isn’t worth your effort, Hialjia. Not yet. He’s just trying to mess with you."

Nagoya’s twitching eyes fixed on the beast. "Ah, serving two masters now, I see. What an obedient little pet."

"I will take the head from your shoul-!"

"Hialjia!"

Marcus’s command was heard. The shrillness of his Gloomraava-enhanced voice must have been a powerful psychic shout indeed. Hialjia almost tripped as she turned, obeying him.

"Hialjia... will wait outside," she said.

"Yes, go on, little mule," Nagoya taunted. "Show your leash handler what a good girl you are."

This time, though her fists clenched and teeth seethed with rage, the Tauron departed without another word.

"I could have let her kill you, you know," Marcus said.

"Indeed. But you did not. Because you are still under the foolish notion that you can bargain with my life."

"Can’t I?" Marcus asked, taking another chair and sitting opposite the bound Yokun, looking into the creature’s unblinking amber eyes—eyes that had once appraised him and everyone in this place as nothing but prey to be exploited and used. "As I understand it, you’re a rather important man, Prince Nagoya."

Surprisingly, the Prince let out a deep sigh, releasing a cold cloud of breath that touched the tip of Marcus’s nose.

"You are like my little brother," the Prince replied. "He is fond of strategy, and the bold, sweeping moves which define the old tales of war. But he does not see the whole picture. He does not look ahead, at the long game."

"Your father would let his own son die?" Marcus asked.

"The life of a single Yokun means nothing against the well-being of the Clan, and the Empire. Even my father knows this. That is why your efforts are in vain. He will never come to the table of negotiations you have dreamed of. You may debase and torture me all you like, human. When my father comes for you, there will be nothing left of us."

"As I understand it, he’s rather preoccupied with the war he started against half the world," Marcus retorted. "I hear he’s rather advanced in age. One tends to become more sentimental with time, especially old Emperors who have already lost members of their family to bloodshed."

Prince Nagoya smiled. "You don’t know him, human. And you don’t know us. Your bitch mate never could understand our ways. And you won’t even try. A man who has trafficked with ratmen of the Underkingdom could never understand us, or our culture, never mind the people who helped build it from nothing."

"But your father is starting to understand us, I’ll bet. He understands that now he’s not just fighting against a ragtag group of resistance soldiers. Now, he’s fighting a war on two fronts. And if your father doesn’t want you back, I know his biggest opponent in this world would die to get his hands on a Yokun Prince."

Nagoya stiffened as Marcus rose, telepathing his next thoughts directly to the naked Yokun so that the Prince saw everything he spoke of:

Can you imagine it, Nagoya? Your princely form strung up for all of humanity to see. In the squares of Marxon’s cities, being paraded through the slums and the nobles equally, being spat on by children and nibbled at by dogs, while the people you once called slaves watch and laugh. They might even make a sport of it—delivering you to the nations of all the Yokun’s enemies, letting each and every one of the Keji-Sai come to visit you. ‘Here stands the living failure,’ they’ll say. ‘A prince wearing a crown of shit’—

"Enough!"

Marcus relented, sitting back and letting out his own breath of cold air. The vision-telepathy had started to take a lot out of him. He wiped his nose and concealed the specks of blood that came away in his hand.

"No, Nagoya," he said. "I don’t think your father will be able to ignore that."

"Wh-whatever evil you will visit upon me," the Prince seethed. "Know that I... I shall not... break!"

"I don’t need you to break," Marcus said. "All I need is to get in your head."

The Prince cocked his eyes at Marcus as the latter rose to leave. Unbeknownst to him, this had not been the first time Marcus had come to this chamber to visit him.

For the last few nights he’d been coming here, in fact. He’d been spending at least an hour down here at a time, when the guards had confirmed that the Prince had fallen into a stuttering slumber. And, during those early hours of the night, Marcus had tested his hunch.

And he’d seen results.

Right now, he looked towards Nagoya’s finger, and focused.

He saw it twitch.

He saw it—though the movement was almost imperceptible. Not enough to write home about. But enough to tell him that his contingency plan was in place. And if everything else went well...

Marc!

The voice was Mari’s—a scream so loud that his mindscape almost collapsed, and in the next second he heard the stuttered gasps of the rest of the units stationed outside in a garbled chorus of chaos:

ContactCONTACTcontactCONTACTcontact!

He ran for the door, ignoring the laughter emanating from the Prince’s hoarse throat.

"I may be a living failure, Shai-Alud!" he shouted as he left. "But soon you shall be nothing but food for the worms!"