CHAPTER 437: 437: TERMS IN THE DUST

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The wind carried his voice for him.

"Listen," Kai said from the high lip, one hand on the spear, the other open at his side. "We stood. We held. We won."

"The men who led this hurt are done. The line that wanted to take our home is dust. We will not chase dust. We will drink. We will bind. We will make use of the hands that chose sense when pride ran out of them."

He looked to the drones who had fought their first fight and came back alive.

"You did what no brood has ever done: you were born recently and you held in the same breath as experienced soldiers. You will sleep in shifts. You will learn more. You will not forget the pair to your left and right. You live because you listened and moved together. That is how we keep our home safe."

The words were plain and they were enough. Below him, three rings of drones stood in quiet blocks, fresh harness shining dull where Lirien’s crew had already rubbed oil into leather. Shadeclaw held the ramp with his shield on his fist. Vexor, Shale, Flint, Needle, Silvershadows people took their places off to the right where their army could see them and where they could see Kai’s face.

On the left, the surrendered line sat with their helms unbuckled and hands visible. Vice General Yavri stood a little ahead of her Nine hundred plus, spine straight, helm off, resin-lacquered armor ghostly pale under the mountain shade. Her captains’ shields and weapons lay stacked far away. No one can reach for a weapon.

Alka stalked to Kai’s flank and set herself, feathers sleeked. The ledge quieted.

Kai pointed once, down-slope. "Look."

Silvershadow and Vexor hauled the nets into sight and lowered them with a soldier’s courtesy. Three bundles lay clean and tight — Skall with his spade set back into his hand; Oru bound straight, eyes closed as if still counting shadows; Mardek under a wrap with the beetle-stone tied into his sash where any Scarlet captain could see it and believe.

"These were your storms," Kai said. "They will not darken another door."

No shout rose. The sound that moved through the drones was the sound of work that knew it did what it had to do. In the surrendered ranks, a few mouths thinned. Yavri did not blink.

Kai let the quiet hold for a breath longer, then left it. "Our wounded come first. Prisoners after. I will decide terms when I have seen what this day will cost us."

His eyes found Yavri’s. He didn’t raise his voice for her. "I’ll give you your answer after I check on the wounded."

Yavri inclined her head once. No more.

Kai turned half a step. "Silvershadow—keep them here. Feed them. Eyes open every minute. No hands go near their stacks. Anyone tries to test a rope or a rule, I learn it before they do."

Silvershadow’s answer was a line of shadow that felt like a nod. "They’ll eat, and they’ll be watched."

"Vexor, Shadeclaw — rotate our lines. First ring to water. Second up. Third stand. Nobody softens."

Orders ran, and the ledge moved the way a ledge should — with purpose, without friction. Kai set the spear on his shoulder, palmed Mardek’s net once as if to mark the fact of it, then stepped away from the edge.

"Inside," he told Alka and the others nearest him. "We see our own."

He walked the inner ramps with a pace that wasn’t a march and wasn’t a hurry. The mountain’s smell —sand-cooled stone, oiled leather, cooked grain— met him like a hand on the chest and made the world smaller, more honest.

The wounded lay where Shadeclaw’s runners had set triage screens: first alcove for simple cuts and bruises; second for bone and joint; third for chest and blood; fourth for those who wouldn’t see dusk no matter how you prayed. Lirien’s forge had sent heat bricks wrapped in cloth. Naaro’s nurse-drones moved quiet and sure, eyes on hands, hands on work.

Kai took it in and didn’t look away from the worst of it. He planted himself in the second alcove first. A drone’s thigh was bound in fresh fiber; blood seeped; the drone’s eyes were glassy with pain and pride. "Commander," he rasped when he saw Kai. "I stood."

"You did," Kai said. He pressed two fingers into the drone’s palm for a count of two. "Now you lie. That is standing enough for today."

He moved to the chest and blood room. Skyweaver, hoarse, leaned in a shadow with her arm in a sling, cheeks wind-burned. She nodded once. A young drone sat propped, breathing shallow around cracked ribs, counting each breath like a coin. Another stared at the ceiling and blinked slow. One had a scarf packed into his side where a spear had gone wrong; Naaro’s hands were on him and didn’t leave.

Kai stepped back, closing his eyes only long enough to ask.

[Ding! Query received.]

"System," he said in his head, voice clean even there. "Is there a way to heal them quickly?"

[Ding! Assessment: Host currently has no dedicated healing skills. Natural recovery estimate: minor injuries 2–4 weeks, bone and joint 2–3 months, chest and organ damage 6–12 months depending on care.

Accelerants: healer-class support (unavailable), restorative elixirs (none in inventory), or future skills gained on rank-up.]

"So no now," Kai thought. "With a healer—faster?"

[Ding! Yes. A competent healer can reduce timelines by 60–90% based on injury class.]

"Then after my rank-up," he answered in his head, "I go find one."

[Ding! Noted.]

He let the cold shape of that sit. When he opened his eyes, Naaro was already watching him. Not pleading—waiting for a choice.

"Naaro," he said aloud, "they’re yours. You call for anything you need. Cool rooms, heat bricks, more hands, thin porridge, thicker porridge — what you ask for, you get. I want water schedules on the wall. Nobody turns a cup without your say."

Naaro’s antennae dipped a fraction, which was a bow in her language. "They’ll mend as fast as bodies can," she said. "I’ll keep them mending and not breaking."

Kai touched the lintel once. The room felt a little steadier for it.

He took one more circuit—faces, hands, bandages, breath — and then took himself out of the way so he didn’t become an obstacle disguised as a leader. Outside the triage screens, Luna stood with Miryam’s head on her shoulder, asleep again, small hand tucked into Luna’s hair.

Luna’s mouth tightened at the corners when she saw the worst room; she let the breath out through her nose and set her jaw in the way that meant she would not fall apart where it would break someone else.

"I need a little time," Kai said to her, low. "To think about prisoners."

Luna didn’t argue. "Take it," she said. "I’ll be here."

He climbed two turns higher to the quiet gallery above the egg chamber—the one place in the mountain where voices always came back softer than they left. He set the spear against the wall, sat on the stone rail, and let the mountain hum through his back. He closed his eyes and opened the road he trusted most.

It was easier now—rank, practice, and the habit of love. The small road unrolled like clean cloth, and he set a picture on it because pictures travel better than words at the start: his hand, palm up, warm and steady, and a scrap of the mountain’s scent so the person on the other end would know where he was.

"Mia," he sent. "It’s me."

For a heartbeat he had only his own breathing. Then a spark answered, bright and immediate and a little sharper than a smile.

"You," Mia said on the road, and the warmth in her voice came braided with a sting. "Three weeks and silence. Did you forget I can hear when you forget me?"

Guilt pricked and passed. "I didn’t forget," he said. "I was busy and fought a war."

"I know you were busy," she said, but she made a small sound that meant he should still say something nice.

"I missed your voice enough to try and borrow it from the wind," he said. "It didn’t work. The wind lies."

A tiny huff — the sound of someone enjoying being pacified and pretending not to. "Hmph. Better."

He sent her the shape of his last hours without flourishes: four thousand on the desert; traps; the first line crushed; the second line broken; three vice generals dead by his hand; one vice general —Yavri— with her thousand surrendered on the mountain’s shade. "Nine hundred and something to be exact," he finished. "They raised their helms and opened their hands. I don’t like killing open hands."

"And so you should not," Mia said, then let the edge show again. "But you shouldn’t trust open hands either. Not when they hold rank under Vorak."

"You know Yavri," he asked. "Tell me what I’m holding."