Flurries of snow drifted through the camp, invisible as they melted on Zu’s skin, but when he looked up to the heavens, they were as numerous as the stars. Much like the mutinous mutterings among the soldiers. The cold had settled into everyone’s bones and made them brittle.

  Cillion had faded into the frigid seasons of Galgonon and Solynon. And now the cursed Alternon winds summoned frost and ice in their wake. Thankfully, the snows were intermittent, but the slight reprieve hadn’t prevented the ground from transforming from black mud into a brown-grey carpet of slush.

  The icy winds had also frozen the war effort. Many of the Perysh had been forced to retreat to the nearest southern town for supplies and shelter. With nothing to occupy Banx’s eastern front, save an abundance of time, doubt crept into the soldier’s minds, wrapped its tendrils around their hearts. They wondered if Yechvan had finally met his match in Telu Myrrh, if Grusk had bitten off more than he could chew, if Zu and Ulula would be enough to overcome the massive disadvantage on the field.

  The minds of the faithless.

  Zu tsked. He put little stock in faith in the traditional sense, but his faith in Yechvan and Ulula never wavered.

  Even during the Great Northern War, when Yechvan had been a rash, untested youngling, Zu had known in his bones that his best friend was destined to become an exceptional leader. Hilgan had refused to listen to Yechvan’s council, and the foolhardy general had led his people, cold and hungry and tired, into the maw of the Five Nations. Had it not been for the soldiers’ discipline and Yechvan’s quick thinking to sound the retreat when the tide of the battle turned, they might have all died in a massacre. But rather than admit his mistake, Hilgan had run like the coward he was, taking good men and women with him, most of whom had perished on the frozen tundra or at the hands of the Five. Luckily, the leader of the bantax had better sense. Sevora trusted in Yechvan’s ingenious plans, and he’d led their remaining ragtag force to victory after victory.

  Zu smiled to himself. Gods, what a glorious time that was to be alive, he thought. What a glorious time this is to be alive.

  Aside from a handful of his comrades, Geila chief among them, Zu had been glad to see the back of Hilgan and his lackeys. He lamented their deaths, but an untrustworthy brother or sister on the battlefield was worse than none at all. Expecting support and protection and receiving none was more detrimental than knowing it would never come.

  For that reason, Zu felt the need to root out this most recent malicious scaremonger. A few ideas swirled through his head as to who might be responsible for planting the seeds of doubt, nurturing them, undermining Yechvan’s authority and by extension Ulula’s and his own. The orc Sinza was the first to come to mind.

  An ambitious and consummate egocentric, Sinza had also made a name for himself in the Great Northern War through prowess in battle, but whispers told of a man who would just as soon betray his followers if it benefited him. He was almost as tall as Zu and nearly as strong, bullying anyone who had the courage to stand up to him, so the tales of his misdeeds died upon the lips of the spurned.

  Zu held no love for those who peddled in the currency of fear. In his experience, it was easy to spend that coinage when it was minted in each action, each step he took. He considered it his solemn duty to spend it wisely. Sinza gambled it frivolously, whenever and wherever he chose. A dangerous game he played.

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  Zu blew warmth into stiff fingers as he surveyed the camp, setting his sights on a flickering campfire near the shaman’s tent. A pair of wounded young soldiers, one who’d lost his arm and another her eye, sat huddled by the flames. Zu waved a greeting and joined them on the felled log, stoking the fire. He spoke with them. More importantly, he listened. Sharing his private skin of mead, he took in their stories, commiserated and raised their spirits before moving on to the next group.

  When he’d first arrived on the front three seasons earlier, the atmosphere had been much like that of Hilgan’s camp: divided. At the beginning of the Great Northern War, the veterans looked upon the greenhorns as fodder, smug in the belief that they themselves had paid their dues and would make it out unscathed, whereas the younglings would die in droves. But the simple truth laid bare was that Trilan was indiscriminate in his company. He welcomed to his realm young and old, veteran and greenhorn, just the same. Before any of them realized it, an equal number of veterans and recruits remained, all forced to say goodbye to precious friends, bellicose brothers and fierce sisters. After a time, the recruits filled the holes left by the dead and became veterans themselves, as accepted and loved as the recently fallen had ever been.

  In this conflict, at least, there had been far fewer casualties through the first several skirmishes because Yechvan had been in charge from the outset.

  Zu came upon Sevi’s camp. In the final battle before the cold set in, the young human recruit had held a breaking line, rallying her neighbors in the shield wall and taking a beating when she refused to leave them behind. She had personally saved half a dozen lives in the thick of the fight, but more than that, she’d held the wall long enough for help to arrive, saving countless more. Ulula saw the wall crumbling and swept through with her bantax, allowing Sevi and her unit to disengage. Sevi had shown her mettle in the face of certain death and the depth of her spirit with an impassioned eulogy for her fellow brothers and sisters in arms who had died during the battle or succumbed to grievous wounds afterward. Her campfire, previously surrounded by a few fellow recruits, had since become a popular gathering place, tripling in size. A place where stories—and secrets—were shared.

  Zu kept to the shadows several strides away, not wanting to interrupt Oosen. The grizzled veteran was regaling the younglings with anecdotes from the eastern front during the Great Northern War, comparing the bravery of his new compatriots to those of old. No one noticed Zu’s arrival, which was exactly what he’d hoped for, though he regretted the loss of the fire’s warmth. He pulled his cloak tighter about his neck and willed his orc blood to burn some heat into his human flesh as he listened to Oosen exaggerate the accolades of his fallen comrades. But that was always the way.

  Zu took in the scene: the skins of mead passed around, the laughter, the companionship. He kept a keen eye out for the men and women whispering into their neighbor’s ear, the ones who were not there for the tales but for a more nefarious purpose. As far as he could tell, those sowing the seeds of doubt and sedition had not yet grown brazen enough to join this crowd. They were smart, patient.

  After thirty minutes of Oosen’s pontificating, Zu was spotted and celebrated and brought into the fold. Though the skins ran dry long before the stories, the gathering got drunk on friendship, on hope, on memories, both good and bad.

  For the rest of the evening, Zu set aside his worries about what might come to pass and reveled in the moment, a pastime for which he was far better suited. He shared his own stories of the Great Northern War, stories of how he and Yechvan and Ulula overcame insurmountable odds to achieve victory, stories of the fallen and survivors alike, stories that this growing group would welcome as heartening.

  The men and women working to sow discord and dissent would have to wait until the morrow.