FREE USE in Primitive World

“Just… next time you two decide to ’wash up’ before a war meeting, try not to leave obvious evidence all over your neck. Some of the elders are old-fashioned. They’ll throw a fit if they think the outsider is already claiming tribe girls left and right.”

Sol gave a casual shrug.

“Let them throw a fit. I’ve got bigger things to worry about than gossip.”

Kira looked at him for another beat, then sighed again… this time softer.

“Yeah… you do.” Saying this she just silently look obsessively at his face.

Sol also stared down at her, the cold, calculating mindset completely melting away for a moment. He was genuinely touched by her raw thoughtfulness, by the sheer, unselfish depth of her care for him in the face of absolute destruction.

Without a word, Sol reached out with his massive arms, wrapping them firmly around her waist and pulling her small frame tightly against his heavy chest armor. He held her close, burying his face into her soft hair, letting her feel the immovable, solid mass of his strength.

Kira let out a shaky breath, her arms locking around his neck as she buried her face into the crook of his shoulder, holding onto him like he was the only stable thing left in a world that was falling apart.

“You’re too smart for your own good, Huntress,” Sol whispered softly against her ear, his hand gently stroking her back. “But don’t start counting the bodies before the spears are even thrown.

I promised Zeyra I’d come back, and I’m promising you right now… I’m not dying in that ravine. I’m going to break that Coalition, and then I’m coming back to deal with you properly.”

Kira let out a watery, rough chuckle, her fingers digging deep into his back armor for one final, desperate second before she reluctantly pulled away. She wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her sleeve, her fierce, prideful vanguard expression snapping right back into place.

“You better keep that promise,” she snapped, her voice regaining its sharp edge. “Now get out of here. Your little sheep are waiting for their shepherd.”

Sol offered her a wide, confident smirk, gave her a final nod, and strode out into the thoroughfare, his heart completely light and ready for the slaughter.

Sol continued down the main thoroughfare alone, his eyes taking in the massive transformation of the tribe. The usual domestic noise of the settlement was entirely dead. The entire settlement looked like a kicked anthill, but the panic had completely turned into raw, disciplined military movement.

The civilian sectors were locked down tight, every single door barred from the inside, while the main dirt roads were entirely choked with a river of black and gray bone-shields.

The central square near the western training area was completely cleared, save for a large, disorganized cluster of about three hundred young boys and older reserve men.

These were his pieces for the center bait.

It was a chaotic, disorganized mass of about three hundred boys and older reserves. These were the fresh recruits… the ones who had barely finished their basic training.

Their bone-shields were clean, free of the deep battle scars that marked the veterans’ gear, and their faces were completely pale, their hands shaking as they clutched their standard wooden-shaft spears.

They looked like sheep being led to a slaughterhouse.

The moment Sol walked toward them, his pitch-black Rockhorn armor caked in the dried green muck of his midnight hunt, the trembling recruits fell into a dead silence. They stared at his silver-crimson eyes and the heavy hilt of the sapphire blade at his hip.

“Listen up,” Sol said, his voice not a loud shout, but a flat, cold rasp that carried easily over the noise of the thoroughfare. “You’ve all heard the rumors. You know the Coalition outnumbers us four to one. You know the Zharun bastards abandoned the pact and left us to rot.”

A few of the younger boys swallowed hard, their knuckles turning white around their spears.

“The captains wanted to leave you behind the walls to starve,” Sol continued, walking down the center of their messy line, his boots thudding against the dirt. “But I told them I needed a center line that knew how to run away. You aren’t out there to be heroes today. You’re out there to look like easy meat.”

“The Warchief has just finalized the deployment, you all are under my command from here on.” Sol said, leaning his hands on the pommel of the Dreadwing Blade at his hip.

“We are marching into the lowest ground of the central basin by noon. But I’m not taking a single one of you out through those timber gates if you’re just going to trip over your own feet and clog the ravine with your corpses.”

He walked down the front row, his silver-crimson eyes scanning their faces. “This isn’t a standard tribal hunt where the weak stay in the rear to carry the meat. The strategy we’re using requires a center line that can take a direct hit from a charging horde, hold its ground for exactly five minutes, and then execute a clean, disciplined retreat without turning into a chaotic herd of stampeding draft beasts.

If you break formation before the signal, you ruin the flankers’ timing. If you run too slow, you get eaten. If you run too fast, you trample the man in front of you.”

The recruits blinked, completely stunned. They had expected some grand tribal speech about dying for the spire, not instructions on how to retreat.

Sol stopped, turning back to face the entire crowd. “So before we talk about strategy, we clear some stuff. Every single man in this unit must have an active spiritual foundation. If your core hasn’t broken through to Layer 1, step out of the line and go back to the inner ring defenses.

I don’t care how brave you think you are, and I don’t care if your father was a commander. If you don’t have Layer 1 energy running through your veins, your bones will turn to powder the second a Gray Marauder hits your shield with an iron club.”