"Why... how could this happen..."
Batu sat numbly amid the ruins, his eyes bloodshot and his lips cracked, unable to make a sound.
The battle was over.
The Red Rock-Shattered Axe Alliance-the force acclaimed as the Northern Frontier's finest Heavy Tribal Legion-had been reduced to scorched earth and broken bones.
The blood-soaked mud blanketing the hills had yet to dry. War banners curled in the flames, while armor and severed limbs lay tangled and half-buried on the blackened grassy slopes.
The air reeked of burned fur and flesh. The corpses of wolf riders lay in jumbled heaps, battle-axes lodged in the backs of warriors' skulls, and flies buzzed around the mountains of dead.
Last night, they had outnumbered the enemy five to one. They held the advantage of terrain, with towering camp defenses and ample equipment, their cavalry arrayed before the slope like a torrent of steel.
The Shattered Axe Tribe had even hung its ancestral war banner at the heart of the camp, swearing to "fight to the last drop of blood."
What was more, for an entire month before that, the Frostflame Legion had been beaten back again and again.
Every day, the Shattered Axe tribesmen had cheered that "the final battle is upon us." Even their elders had predicted that Frostflame could hold out for no more than another day before the northern tribes divided the spoils of victory.
Everyone had believed this would be an overwhelming victory.
Yet before dawn arrived, their inner lines had already collapsed.
There had been no warning, no sounds of fighting to alert them. The main force at the center had been split as though by an invisible blade, breaking all along its path.
The first signs had been only minor mishaps... communications suddenly ceased, and a bugler's brass horn gave