Chapter 687: Yipping
The command tent was ablaze with joy.
Six hours had passed since the shattered remnants of the Herculeian army had limped away, their backs open to the blades and spears of the Yarzat host. And for six hours now, the tent had echoed with the sounds of celebration , laughter, toasts, and the warm clinking of cups filled and refilled with heady red wine.
It was the sort of victory that commanders dream of, clean, decisive, and, most of all, easy.
Lords clasped each other’s shoulders and shouted praise loud enough to shake the canvas walls. Servants weaved through them with platters of roasted meat and spiced fruits, their hands barely keeping up with the demands. Men who had never spoken before the campaign now shared flasks like old friends, bonded by the sweet intoxication of triumph.
To them, the war was already won. The Herculeian host had not merely been defeated—it had been broken. Routed. Humiliated. The Yarzat army now had the freedom to move as it pleased, to tear apart the Herculeian heartlands like wolves among blind cattle. They had tasted blood, and it had whetted the appetite for more.
But Alpheo did not drink. He did not laugh.
He leaned silently against one of the polished wooden support poles of the tent, a bit anxious about the increasing cold.
There was a reason after all why army did not make war during winter.
He decided to distract himself looking at the others.
Jarza was in the center of the tent , recounting the oblique maneuver with theatrical flair to an unusually relaxed Shahab. The latter was grinning from ear to ear, uncharacteristically animated, nodding along like a young officer hearing his first tale of glory. He had shed the frost of his usual stern demeanor, perhaps because he had led the Voghondai on the left flank, men whose battle songs were written not with words, but with screams and torn flesh.
Reports had since filtered back describing the Voghondai charge as something pulled from a fever dream. Not a battle, but a ritual.
They cleaved their enemies like butchers dressing livestock, never hesitating, never slowing, painting the field with blood and bone.