Surrender

"Your Highness, an envoy from the Red Frog Tribe has arrived, begging for an audience with you. He is waiting in the main camp now!"

Night had fallen dim and deep, stars strewn across the sky, while firelight blazed through the main camp at the valley mouth. Balda, dressed in full eagle warrior gear, strode into the medical tent and reported to His Highness. He stole a glance around. There were only two people in the tent. His Highness stood in the center, his expression stern, anger hidden beneath it. Black Wolf Toltec lay on a grass bed, his face full of shame; clearly, he had just been scolded viciously. Seeing this, Balda quietly curled the corner of his mouth and laughed to himself.

"An envoy from the Red Frog Tribe? Coming at night?... Mm."

Xolotl considered briefly, nodded slightly, then looked again at the ashamed Black Wolf.

He had just dismissed everyone and reprimanded Toltec alone. As a legion commander, how could he personally charge and kill on the front line, tossing life and death away so lightly? As for the forced assault on the valley mouth and the eight hundred Imperial Guards lost, that was merely a matter of overly fierce troop use, requiring only a little guidance. Now that Balda was present, it would not do to keep rebuking him so harshly, lest his beloved general be laughed at by others. In truth, a great general could not be humiliated lightly before others; at best, it would estrange superior and subordinate, and at worst, it would end with the enemy at Honnō-ji.

The king put away his anger, looked at his beloved general, and gripped his hair.

"Toltec, my Black Wolf! This time you went north, brave and advancing sharply, breaking camp after camp and earning many