"Sixteen years old… a war-chief?" Titt son of Titt's voice drifted, unsteady, like his mind couldn't grip the words. "Three hundred n who kneel to plows."
"Yes—yes!" another bound lowlander sobbed through the flas. "It was him! Him and those farrs!"
The fire climbed higher. The sll of burning at rolled through the trees, and hungry throats in the Burned n swallowed on instinct.
Titt's skull rang, as if struck by a hamr. All the running, all the frantic retreat, all the fear of a phantom host—was it all a lie?
"No!" he roared, forcing rage to drown doubt. "You are lying to Titt son of Titt!"
"Five hundred of my warriors went after them! Five hundred!" His single eye blazed. "And you tell they were killed by farrs? I'll eat you where you hang!"
The older captive fought to keep his voice from breaking. "We don't dare lie! Send scouts—look with your own eye! See how many truly follow you!"
Titt's jaw clenched. "There were more than a hundred shadows behind us."
A third captive—already past fear, already in the grip of hatred—spat into the heat and scread back at him.
"Coward. Stupid savage. Send your n to count the trackers! Your chiefs were drowned—drowned by Solomon's water!"
He cursed Titt with every breath the fire hadn't stolen yet, and the words cut deeper than the flas. Titt hated that word most of all—coward—because so secret place inside him whispered it might be true.
His eye flickered.
He wanted it to be true.
If it was true, then the world hadn't crushed him with an army. It had crushed him with a trick. And tricks could be answered.
"Put the fire out," Titt snapped, pointing at three of the captives—then at the one who'd insulted him. "Not him. Let him burn."
Knives cut ropes. Three n collapsed and crawled away, sobbing and choking. The fourth remained, screaming as the fire consud the last of his defiance.
Titt jerked his chin toward the trees. "Go. Scatter. Count what follows us."
n vanished into the brush.
The waiting felt longer than the whole march. Titt's heart beat like a drum in his throat.
Then the scouts returned—faces pale, eyes wide.
"Red Hand… it's true," one gasped. "The tracks behind us—only a few dozen. Twenty-so n."
Sothing inside Titt cracked.
Rage, humiliation, grief, and the taste of failure surged up together until he could barely see.
He had thrown away warriors, pride, and half a people… to flee dust and noise.
A raw sound tore from him. He drew his sword and ended the burning man with one brutal stroke—not rcy, not justice, just the need to silence the last witness to his sha.
"So-lo-mon," he said, each syllable carved out with hate. "I will take you apart. I will mount your head where I can see it every day."
The three surviving knights crawled toward him, trembling. "Let us go… Red Hand. Our ssage… our lord must hear it."
Titt stared at them with murder in his eye—then waved them away as if they were smoke.
"Go," he growled. "Tell your lord the Burned n need winter food. Or we co for it."
They ran.
Far off, where the trees still allowed a clean view, Bronn lounged against a trunk like a man watching a play.
Around him sat twenty-so of Solomon's soldiers—faces and arms cut by branches, mail torn, clothes shredded into rags by the forest. They breathed hard, still paying the price of trying to keep up with a sellsword who moved through mountain timber like it was flat road.
Tomn edged closer, voice low. "Bronn… why didn't we warn those Vale knights?"
"And why did we start leaving tracks that show we're few? Won't the wildlings realize?"
Bronn glanced at him, amused. "Realize? That's the point. I want Titt to realize."
Tomn frowned. "But our job was to scare them off. Isn't it done? Why not go back?"
Bronn didn't bother explaining the whole knife-edge of it—the way panic could turn back into fury if you let it.
Instead, he gave orders.
"Send two n—fast as they can—to Deepden," he said. "Tell Solomon: the wildlings are down to about three hundred."
Tomn blinked. "Three hundred…"
Bronn's mouth curled. "If your lord hears that number, he'll gamble again. He can't help it."
He pointed off through the trees. In the distance, three Vale knights burst from the wildling column and fled at a gallop—alive, terrified, and carrying exactly the ssage Bronn wanted carried.
Bronn watched them go with a look that said he'd seen this kind of noble rot before.
"Lords stabbing each other in the back," he muttered. "Looks like whores fighting over custors. Stupid, and ugly."
Then he pushed off the tree, flipped his dagger once in his palm, and looked at the battered soldiers.
"Co," he said. "We're not done yet."
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