CHAPTER 432: 432: ONE SPEAR, MANY TEETH PART THREE

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"Back," she said. Not a route. A decision. "Back in the third line. Roof on. Captains count the fallen sisters."

The order moved like water. Almost a hundred of her women died before that decision — a hundred is too many for her and also fewer than male vice general could have managed in a day like this. The rest —nine hundred and something and change— stepped away from the mountain with discipline that would have made any wall-maker proud.

The male elites on both flanks did what pride does when it finds out it bleeds: some charged alone and died; many were already past caring about orders. Few captains fled with less than ten people. The drones didn’t chase them. Kai’s word was a shape in their heads: no pursuit. They let backs be backs and kept their teeth for the next mouthful.

Far out, where the wedge’s spine tried to be a spine again, a roar like torn iron rolled across the flats and a hawk’s shadow fell twice in one heartbeat. Nobody on the ground saw it. Everybody felt it. That was where Kai and Alka had gone. That was where three vice generals were learning what it meant to find a crown where you’d hoped for a weak man.

On the mountain, the price was counted without wailing and without lies.

"Five hundred thirty-seven injured," Shadeclaw said, his voice a ledger. "Sixty-two near death. No deaths." They got injured fighting the five star ranks captains. Fifty drones Vs one Five star rank. That’s why nobody died but they were injured badly.

Lirien had already turned a cooling rack into a triage table. Naaro’s nurse-drones worked with a calm you’d expect from stone, not hands — splints set, cuts bound, water sipped not gulped. Luna moved among the worst with a face like a held lamp, her hands warm and sure, her voice a low iron that told drones to live and made them listen.

Skyweaver dropped to a pause on the lip, feathers ruffled and eyes bright with rage she didn’t spend. "Wedge peeling," she reported. "Female line falling back in order. Rear banners white lacquer. Center spine—" she didn’t finish; another roar ate the end of her words. She looked to the east and then back to the ledge and held.

Vexor was the first of the field commanders up the ramp, breathing fast, legs spring-still even after a morning of bite and pull. Behind him came Flint, then Needle, then Shale, each with the same short bow of the head that meant we did as you drew and we’re ready to do it again if you ask and we’d prefer you didn’t ask yet.

That was when the pale lacquered shields reappeared on the near white flats — not in a charge, not in a line of rage, but in a roofed rectangle that moved like a cart you cannot push over. It came until the lip of Shadeclaw’s first scrape said stop. It stopped.

A spear lifted, white cloth tied in the head or weapons. Not a trick. A saying: enough. We will slender.

Vexor narrowed his eyes, then stepped forward three paces without fear and without eagerness. He knew the shape of that roof. He knew the cadence of those boots. He knew the woman whose hand held the biggest white flag.

"Vice general, Yavri," he called — not loudly, not with a sneer.

The front shield dipped just enough. Her face showed — stern, tired, alive, eyes that read far.

"Vexor," she answered, then she saw others. "Shale. Flint. Needle." She named them like someone counting stones she’d carried once. "You all are alive. What does it mean? Why did you join them?"

Vexor replied, "We are alive. We serve a new king. The one you came to defeat. Are you really giving up or it’s a trick?"

"I will not trade my soldier’s life to play a trick on your king. We lost, I already know that."

"You surrender," Vexor said. He didn’t make it a question. His face held nothing but the job.

"I do," Yavri said. "I give my blades and the life under them. I keep my dead and my shame. You keep my soldiers alive. Don’t kill anyone until your king gives a decision. Let me meet him."

"You must wait for that. We won’t kill anyone who raised the flag. Hand over your weapons."

"Let them come near the mountain bank," Needle said quietly at Vexor’s shoulder. "If we cut it, we make new enemies out of people who already know how to walk in step."

Shale shrugged one shoulder. "They fight like I like to fight against," he said. "I’d rather have them on our wall than under it."

Flint’s mouth twitched. "Lirien will scold if we give her too many shattered shields to melt today," he said. "Broken weapons don’t melt clean."

Vexor lifted his hand, palm out —peace— but he didn’t step back.

"Drop weapons," he said to Yavri. "Stack on the mats. White cloth stays up. You cross our lip with the roof whole. Any spear head shows under it, and the scrapes wake hungry. Your life depends on your discipline. As always. Make any move your sister will die."

Yavri gave one short nod — the kind you give a rule you would have written yourself if anyone had asked. "Done," she said. "Captains, hand them all the weapons."

Steel kissed reed and made that thin, defeated clatter that always finds its way into the back of a soldier’s teeth. White cloth stayed high. The roof held. They crossed the first scrape in a rectangle that could have been a prayer. Drone cohorts made a ring that did not laugh and did not jeer and did not spit.

"Shale—edge," Vexor said. "Wolf—left side, just in case. Flint, Needle—count, gave them some water, you all... Keep your hands high. No hero moves." He met Yavri’s eyes once. "You know how we ants put captives."

"I know," she said dryly, and kept her gaze forward. Her women marched past drones who tried not to call them enemies with their eyes. Most of the drones succeeded.