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J ai sat upon the mesa’s edge, staring out at the many tribes, moving away into the depths of the grasslands once more. He could make out the humped backs of the mammoths far beneath him, the strange, trumpeting calls of his new allies’ mounts small relief to the growing worries that pervaded his thoughts.

Just once, he wished time would stop, and he might catch his breath. But the world slowed for no man, and he knew that no sooner did his head hit his pillow then the morning sun would come, and with it the troubles of the morrow.

So he sat, letting mana stave off his exhaustion, watching the sun set. His freshly healed hands were still pink with scars. In time, they too would fade.

‘You should be celebrating,’ Erica said.

Jai turned to see her dismounting from Regin. He’d been so deep in thought, he’d not heard her arrive. No sooner did she leap down, Regin was off once more, making a beeline to where Winter glided on the wind above, still sulking after Jai’s near brush with death.

‘Celebrate what?’ Jai said, forcing a smile.

‘You got your tribe back,’ she said, sitting close, and laying her head on his shoulder. ‘All of them.’

Jai sighed, turning and kissing her forehead.

‘Only to throw them into battle once more,’ Jai said. ‘With only the Mahmut tribe to help, so far. We’ll know who else tomorrow.’

She shrugged.

‘You’ll win,’ she said. ‘You always find a way.’

Erica shifted closer, and Jai wrapped his arm around her, letting the softness of her body soothe his weary soul.

‘I’m worried,’ Jai said. ‘My new bodyguard of soulbound won’t be much use against the Gryphon Guard if the bastards keep to the skies... and I cannot cede them that space, lest they rain fire upon my soldiers. But Winter cannot take on three alone.’

She looked at him, understanding, but also with refusal. ‘I can’t stay,’ she said. ‘My people need me. I’ve already tarried far too long. If the Caelite would accompany me sooner... I’d already be gone.’

‘I would not ask you,’ he said. ‘I could keep my distance,’ he then mused. ‘Stick to the clouds. But then I won’t be able to command the battle.’

She chewed her soft lip before her eyes widened.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Better they were not there at all,’ she breathed. Erica turned to him, seizing his shoulders. ‘How long until you battle with them?’

Jai furrowed his brow. ‘Ten days, maybe more,’ he said, confused. ‘Why?’

‘Then nine days from now, I will send a raiding party to lay siege to Porticus,’ Erica said. ‘Free whatever fettered remain there. With any luck, the men there will send word for the Gryphon Guard to help – they’re closest after all. My dragons will hide in the mountains, ambush them when they arrive.’

Jai stared before breaking into a grin.

‘You would do that?’

She grinned back. ‘It’s a sound strategy – don’t think yourself special.’

He leaned forward and kissed her. She kissed him back, softer than before, then pulled away.

‘We... this is why we can’t do this again,’ she breathed, pressing her hand against his chest. ‘For all that I want to.’

Jai let out a breath he had not realised he’d been holding and pulled her close into a hug.

‘Okay,’ Jai said. ‘We will stop... just not tonight.’

She grasped his face, and kissed him, her tongue flicking between his lips. Jai stood and pulled her to her feet, back to where his tent lay, at the centre of the mesa.

‘Come on,’ Jai said. ‘It’s early yet. Let’s make the most of the time we have left.’

ERICA WAS GONE WHEN Jai awoke. All that remained was the indent of her head upon a pillow, and at its centre, a lock of hair, bound like a bundle of thread. He gathered it close and breathed in her scent, wishing he could turn back time, and relive the night all over again.

Instead, he rose, glad the black that had enveloped his core was gone. He used some mana to shake off the aches of the morning, and walked through the partition to the outer chamber. There, tired servants waited for him, apparently having stood all morning to attend to him.

He apologised and let them ready him for the day, wishing for a long, hot bath but making do with the warm, damp flannels they rubbed him up and down with.

Winter was flying alongside Regin, accompanying Erica and the Caelite as they flew north-west, where they would hug the edge of the Yaltai Mountains until it met the Petrus. Jai did not deny her this simple pleasure. For Winter too was bidding farewell to a lover.

Soon enough, he was ready enough to leave the tent, and it was just as well – the servants were dismantling it even as his hair was being oiled, perfumed and combed.

His Small Council were waiting for him, hovering like cats at a fisherman’s doorstep. He called for silence and walked on, down the steps. It was time to be away from this place.

As he stomped down the steps, his nobles hot on his heels, Feng hovered at his elbow, muttering what he thought Jai needed to know.

‘—stripped the Mesa of all the bamboo it has, and more besides. Our army won’t want for—’

Harleen’s voice cut him off.

‘—blacksmiths have been set to work, we’ll have a falx apiece by the week’s end. What—’

‘Who commands the Tainted? We need—’ Sindri said.

Jai stopped, and turned.

‘Can I have one minute of quiet, please!’ he demanded.

They fell silent.

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry – it’s just... I trust you to do your jobs. Now let me do mine.’

They nodded and they walked the rest of the way in relative silence. At the bottom, in the dappled shadows of the trees, Jai turned back to them, regretting his outburst.

‘I know there are a hundred decisions to make, and not much time to make them in,’ Jai said. ‘As I said, I trust your judgement. You know that we march for war. Know this too – we leave our people here, where the Caelite can watch over them when they return from escorting Erica. But I want every man and woman who wishes to fight and is worthy of holding a blade to come with us, whether they have khiroi to ride or not. We are not fighting another tribe now, we are fighting infantry. That means we may need foot soldiers of our own. We can ride two men to a knight, or sledges if we have to. If it takes us a few more days to catch up to the legion, no matter.’

‘It will be done, my khan,’ Feng said.

‘I want you to write me a report, Feng, of all I need to know,’ Jai said. ‘Right now, I need to see what our new allies bring to the table. Make your preparations, and be ready to ride before the sun begins its descent.’

There was a chorus of assent, and then they were hurrying away, leaving Jai alone in the jungle, the air stirring with the birdsong that accompanied the morning.

He oriented himself to where he had seen the mammoths the night before. Tenzin had played him like a fiddle that night. Beneath the gruff, bluff exterior, the man was a shrewd tactician. Yet he’d still thrown in his lot with Jai, even sworn everlasting alliance.

The man was an enigma, and Jai intended to solve it.

‘OUR WARRIOR RETURNS,’ TENZIN bellowed, as Jai trudged into their camp.

The Mahmut cheered at the big man’s words as the Mahmut khan stomped past the enormous tents scattered at the edge of the oasis, seizing Jai’s hand in his enormous mitt and shaking it.

‘Is that not how they do it in Latium?’ he chuckled.

Jai withdrew his hand, and shook his head.

‘I am no Sabine,’ he said.

Tenzin’s grin softened a little, and he pulled Jai aside.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘There is much to discuss.’

It had taken a while for Jai to make his way around the enormous mesa, and already the Mahmut were preparing for their march. Tenzin guided Jai into the tall grass, pushing ahead to where the Mahmut’s mammoths were gathered.

Jai had only seen a mammoth once in his life, and it had been a thin, sickly thing, goaded to death with spears by Constantine’s prized gladiators in the capital city’s Colosseum. More often, their elephantine cousins were seen in Latium, from the Shambalai region in the empire’s southern reaches.

These were different beasts entirely. They towered at ten feet at least, with long yellow tusks stretching out ahead of them, like the great ribs of a whale. Instead of saddles upon their backs, there were baskets, upon which several men and women sat.

Stranger still were their weapons. For enormous pikes were strapped to their sides, so long as to be impractical in any other circumstance. But Jai could imagine the men and women leaning out and stabbing them down like bargepoles.

Others had bows in their hands, the first Jai had seen in the Great Steppe. It seemed that it was more the mammoths themselves that did the fighting, and as they approached the largest of them, one that stood twelve feet in height, its great trunk reached out, running its soft grasping tip over his face like a blind man might.

‘My girl,’ Tenzin said. ‘Munnar. She begot half the mammoths we have here.’

He smiled and rubbed her trunk, stroking the orange-red fur that coated it.

‘She’s a good judge of character,’ Tenzin said. ‘The best. Except for me of course.’

He brought his face closer to Jai’s, and smiled at him through his beard.

‘I rode with your father,’ he said. ‘I broke the walls of Leonid’s camp, and helped drive him back to his homeland. I was there in the final battle, when Rohan fell from his Alkhara. And I was there when Teji negotiated our surrender, and condemned my brothers, my cousins, to a life in fetters.’ He sighed, and laid a hand on Jai’s shoulder. ‘What I did last night, I did in your father’s memory.’

Jai shook his head. ‘You have a strange way of showing it.’

‘Don’t you see, Jai? The ones who want to fight have stayed. Smaller tribes, true, but this is all you were ever going to get. More, even.’

Tenzin pulled Jai aside.

‘See, they wait there.’ He pointed at a group of men and women, many of them far older than he’d expected. But none looked like a khan, for most were dressed no better than the Valor once had.

‘Old allies of your father,’ Tenzin said, beckoning them closer. ‘Some of them once led Great Tribes of their own. Now...’

He trailed off as the khans approached.

‘Jasdeep, my khan,’ one of them said, bowing arm in arm with a man who looked his twin. ‘I rule with my brother, Rajdeep. Our sister was queen of the Cimmer tribe.’

‘Welcome,’ Jai whispered, returning their bow.

‘Simran,’ said another, a woman with grey streaks in her beard, and old armour covered in a patchwork of where it had been repaired. ‘I served with your father.’

Jai greeted each in turn, as more still introduced themselves, each more ragged than the next. Some even were Tainted tribes, eager to join the Kidara under his banner. None had more than a score of khiroi under their command, but together they bolstered his cavalry by almost two hundred. He tried to remember each name.

‘You will be well rewarded for your show of loyalty,’ Jai said, grasping their hands, and meeting their eyes. ‘But please, do not wait here on my account. There is much to do, and little time to do it in. In time, we will talk – you ride with me at the head of our army.’

They thanked him and dispersed, their haste telling Jai he had been right to dismiss them. Soon, Jai and Tenzin were alone once more.

‘How did you know?’ Jai demanded. ‘That these were the only ones that would have joined me.’

Tenzin looked him in the eyes, his jaw set.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Those khans are cowards all. This was going one way – a vote. One you were going to lose. But now, they’ve sworn an oath to raise you to High Khan. Then they’ll have no choice but to follow.’

‘Just need to defeat a legion to do it,’ Jai said. ‘Outnumbered three to one.’

‘Depends how you look at it,’ Tenzin said. ‘I’ve got thirty battle mammoths that’ll make those Sabine farmers’ sons shit their skirts.’

He grinned, and Jai could not help but meet it with a weak smile.

‘How many legionaries did you say a Kidaran knight was worth again?’ Tenzin winked.

He clapped Jai’s shoulder, and stepped up into a trail of rope loops that encircled the mammoth’s body.

‘Come, ride with me,’ he said. ‘You’ll find it more comfortable than that dragon’s back, I’ll wager.’

Jai followed, clambering up the hairy side, the ribs expanding and contracting with each breath of the strange beast.

‘Are you soulbound?’ Jai asked, as he half-fell into the basket, finding the inside lined with a pelt of the same orange fur, a surprisingly comfortable seat.

‘Me and all the rest, one for every mammoth,’ Tenzin replied, clucking his tongue to set Munnar on her way. ‘Mammoths are not like your khiroi. They are wild beasts, impossible to tame without the meld to keep them on side.’

Jai shook his head, incredulous. That was thirty soulbound warriors.

‘Don’t get too excited,’ Tenzin chuckled. ‘Most of them can hardly spark enough of a flame to set a fire. Only I and my two sons are ascended.’

Jai tried not to let his disappointment show, instead letting his eyes stray across the grasslands, to where his own tribe prepared for the fight ahead.

‘I’ve said my goodbyes,’ Tenzin said. ‘My men are ready. Look, your warriors gather for the march as well. Let us join them.’