Night's breath was cool against Vaelira's cheek, but every inhale still rasped hot, tasting of iron and wood-smoke. She pushed a shaky sigh through chapped lips and shifted her weight, letting the point of her leaf-steel sword bite a deeper notch into the mossy loam. The blade was steady; her knees were not.
A dull, arrhythmic chorus seeped through the fog—groans, coughs, the scrape of half-broken armor dragged over stone. Those sounds should have meant relief: proof that some of her warriors still lived. Instead they braided with the soft gurgle of dying throats, a counter-harmony that threatened to pull her under. She forced the noise to the fringe of her thoughts and focused on the shape of her own heartbeat. In-two-three, out-two-three—keep the rhythm, keep the command.
