The Three Forks was a place where the earth seemed undecided. It was a wide, muddy convergence where three major logging trails met, surrounded by a dense wall of Ironwood trees and tangled vines. The air here was perpetually damp, smelling of rotting leaves and the metallic tang of a nearby stream. It was a precarious spot—a natural bottleneck that King Zin Baraji used to move his "Labor Tithe" toward the Yilmaz border.
"The L-Shaped Ambush," Juhada whispered, her finger tracing a line in the soft mud beneath a fern canopy. "It is a classic for a reason, Basyar. It creates a kill zone that is nearly impossible to escape if executed with perfect timing."
Basyar knelt beside her, his hands resting on his knees to hide their trembling. Beside them, Hujeena was checking the straps on her massive shield, while Marissa sat perched on a low-hanging branch, her eyes fixed on the southern trail.
"Explain it again," Basyar said, his voice low.
"We divide our forces," Juhada said, pointing to the 'L' she had drawn. "The 'Long Leg' of the L will be Marissa and twenty archers. They will hide in the ridgeline parallel to the trail. When the patrol enters, they fire into the enemy's flank. The 'Short Leg' will be you, Hujeena, and the infantry. You will block the trail ahead of them. When they turn to run from the arrows, they hit your wall of shields."
"And the rear?" Basyar asked.
"The rear is for the ghosts," a raspy voice purred. Faradee dropped from the shadows, her yellow eyes gleaming. "Idayu has set 'snapper-wires' behind them. If they try to retreat, they lose their feet. If they stay, they lose their heads. It's a very tidy arrangement."
"Here they come," Marissa signaled, her voice barely a breath.
Basyar crawled to the edge of the ridge. In the distance, he heard the rhythmic thump-thump of boots and the jingle of iron chains. A Shadowhold patrol was approaching—thirty soldiers in Grey-Bark armor, escorting a line of ten prisoners. The prisoners were ragged, their hands bound with thick hemp rope.
Basyar felt a surge of cold fury. These were his people. Not by blood, but by the promise his father had made.
"Positions," Basyar commanded.
The Kill Zone
The Shadowhold soldiers were confident. They walked with their spears sloped over their shoulders, laughing and shouting insults at the stumbling prisoners. In the lead was a captain with a plumed helmet, his armor polished to a dull shine.
They entered the Three Forks. The silence of the forest seemed to deepen, the birds suddenly going quiet. The captain stopped, his nose wrinkling.
"Wait," he barked. "The air... it smells like wood-smoke."
It was the signal.
TWANG.
A single Sentinel Arrow, tipped with silver, hissed through the air. It didn't just hit the captain; it punched through his breastplate and pinned him to the Ironwood tree behind him. He didn't even have time to scream.
"Now!" Juhada's voice echoed through the trees.
The ridgeline erupted. Twenty archers rose from the ferns, unleashing a coordinated volley. These weren't the weak cedar arrows from before. These were the Sentinel Bolts Basyar had risked his life for. They tore through the Grey-Bark armor like it was wet parchment.
"Ambush! To the ridge!" a Shadowhold sergeant yelled, drawing his sword.
The patrol tried to turn, but they were met by a wall of iron. Hujeena stepped out from the trees at the front of the trail, her shield planted deep in the mud. Ten infantrymen stood beside her, spears leveled.
"You shall not pass," Hujeena roared.
Basyar stood behind her, his shard-blade drawn. He felt the adrenaline surging through his veins, a frantic, electric heat. The Shadowhold soldiers were trapped. To their left was a steep cliff; to their right, a rain of arrows; behind them, Idayu's lethal traps; and in front of them, the Shield Wall.
"Charge!" Basyar shouted.
The collision was brutal. The Shadowhold soldiers, panicked and bleeding, threw themselves at Hujeena's shield. She didn't budge. She was a mountain of iron, her shield catching spears and shattering them. Basyar stepped out from the gap, his blade flashing. He wasn't a master swordsman yet, but he was fast and desperate. He parried a thrust and drove his blade into a gap in a soldier's gorget.
"For Hurbala!" the survivors shouted.
The battle was short. Without their captain and faced with weapons that ignored their armor, the Shadowhold patrol crumbled. Within minutes, the remaining fifteen soldiers dropped their weapons and fell to their knees in the mud.
The silence returned, broken only by the heavy breathing of the victors and the soft sobbing of the freed prisoners.
The Price of Peace
Hujeena stood over the prisoners, her shield covered in mud and blood. She looked at Basyar, then at the kneeling Shadowhold soldiers.
"The tactical objective is complete, My King," she said, her voice grim. "What are your orders? We cannot march with fifteen prisoners. We don't have the food, and they are a risk to our security."
Juhada walked forward, her face expressionless. "In a war of survival, there is only one solution for prisoners who cannot be fed. It is a harsh reality, Basyar, but if we let them go, they will run straight to Zin Baraji. If we keep them, we starve."
She reached for a dagger at her belt. "I will do it, if you cannot look."
Basyar looked at the kneeling men. They weren't monsters. They were young men, some no older than himself. Their faces were pale with terror, their eyes wide as they looked at the "Ghost King" in his crown of thorns. One of them, a boy with red hair, was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.
"Wait," Basyar said.
He walked past Hujeena, past Juhada, and stood directly in front of the red-haired soldier.
"Basyar, don't be a fool," Marissa warned from her perch, an arrow notched and aimed at the boy's head. "They would have sold you to the Yilmaz for a bag of silver."
Basyar ignored her. He knelt in the mud so he was eye-level with the soldier.
"What is your name?" Basyar asked.
The soldier swallowed hard. "P-Pippin, Sire. From the South-Fold."
"Pippin," Basyar repeated. "Did you enjoy burning the villages? Did you enjoy chaining these people like cattle?"
"No!" Pippin cried, tears streaking his dirty face. "We were told they were rebels! We were told the Yilmaz would kill our families if we didn't meet the tithe! Please... I have a sister in Oakhaven."
Basyar looked at the other fourteen men. He saw the same story in their eyes—fear, not malice. They weren't fighting for a cause; they were fighting because they were afraid to die.
"Zin Baraji told you that I am a ghost," Basyar said, his voice rising so all could hear. "He told you that Hurbala is dead. But look at me. I bleed the same blood you do. I eat the same dirt. The difference is, I don't sell my people to the Sunspire."
He stood up and turned to Juhada. "We aren't going to kill them."
"Basyar—" Juhada started, her voice sharp.
"A King who only knows how to kill is just a butcher with a better chair," Basyar interrupted. He looked back at Pippin. "I'm giving you a choice. You can go back to Zin Baraji. You can tell him that the King of the Exile Roads is coming for his throne. He will likely execute you for failing your mission."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"Or," Basyar continued, "you can pick up your spears. You can join us. You can fight for a world where your sisters don't have to hide in root-cellars. You can be part of the army that takes back the Sunspire."
The silence that followed was heavy. Hujeena looked skeptical. Marissa looked annoyed. But Langa, leaning against a tree, began to whistle a soft, hopeful tune.
Pippin looked at his comrades. Then, he crawled forward and touched his forehead to Basyar's muddy boot.
"I have no king but you," Pippin whispered.
One by one, the other fourteen soldiers followed suit. "Hail, Basyar! King of the People!"
Political Legitimacy
As the sun began to set, the camp was a hive of activity. The fifty survivors had become sixty-five. Idayu was already teaching the new recruits how to set perimeter traps, while Hujeena was barking orders at them to fix their armor.
"You took a massive risk," Juhada said, standing beside Basyar as they watched the new men work. "If even one of them betrays us, we are finished."
"If I killed them, I would be exactly what Zin Baraji wants me to be," Basyar said, his eyes on the fire. "I need an army, Juhada. I can't build one out of corpses. I have to build it out of the people the other kings threw away."
"That is called Political Legitimacy," Juhada noted, a small, rare spark of approval in her eyes. "You didn't win their fear; you won their debt. In the long run, a debt of life is stronger than any oath of gold."
Langa wandered over, carrying two bowls of pottage. He handed one to Basyar with a flourishing bow.
"A very dramatic move, Your Majesty! 'The Mercy of the Three Forks.' I can already see the epic poem taking shape. 'The King knelt in the mire, to save a soul from the fire...' It needs a bit of work on the rhyming, but the sentiment is top-tier."
Basyar took the bowl, the warmth of the food seeping into his cold fingers. He looked at the red-haired Pippin, who was currently sharing a piece of bread with one of the freed prisoners. The cycle of hatred had been broken, if only for a moment.
"We have a long way to go, Langa," Basyar said.
"True," Langa grinned, his eyes darting toward Faradee, who was currently perched on the roof of a small hut, cleaning her claws. "But at least the food is getting better. And the company is getting much, much more interesting."
As the stars began to appear through the gaps in the Ironwood canopy, Basyar felt the weight of his crown of thorns. It didn't hurt as much as it used to. It felt like it belonged.