Swirling her drink, Snorri stood at the doorway wearing her new gambeson armor. She didn’t look directly at Urist, but instead at the twisting motion of the water.

“Ya know you played it the best possible way in your condition, right? The king is supposed to let the ministers and generals fight for them. As is their job.”

Clenching his fist, Urist’s eyes carried a steel-like determination, “I will not play the figurehead again. I will not stand by when I CAN do something. I will live life, this time with meaning.”

Snorri stopped playing with her drink and held it up to her mouth, hiding her smile.

“Memories from your past life?”

“I… I think so. I don’t know, just some feeling of mine that something major was my fault.”

“Wanna talk about it? The dreams that is.”

“No… Not all of it. I’ll just say I have something telling me to grow stronger. To not let it happen again. The dreams they… I don’t know which it is, just a dream or a memory.”

“As I was once the leader of my clan, even though it was only for a brief time, I’ll give you some advice.”

Taking a drink from her cup, Snorri turned to look directly into Urist’s eyes.

“You're going to make mistakes. You will need to know when to trust and when to kill. That you aren’t alone, and to not take everything into your own hands. But don’t get too complacent, or you’ll find yourself impaled by a sky of spears.”

“Is that how you died?”

Snorri shook her head, “No, that was the leader before me that I had to kill. It’s a whole revenge thing, not that interesting. I died because I hit my head on a rock. Mind you a rock made out of devil steel, but a rock nonetheless. An embarrassing death, but at least no one saw how I died. The dragon I was trying to tame to be a mount was pretty prideful and decided to kill itself while I was on it by diving into a valley of devil steel. If the bitch also comes here, I'll make sure my preparations are better next time.”

Well, Urist didn’t know what to say to that, so instead laughed his ass off.

Cheeks flushing red, Snorri threw her cup at him, “What the fuck are you laughing about! Do you seek death!”

***

Meanwhile, the two new arrivals were currently sitting under the shade of the wall together. Currently, no one dared entered their area for fear of being killed. Still, just as a precaution, Bishop laid down a soundproof formation, allowing for no words to escape outside.

Agate took a sniff of his tea before taking a sip, savoring the flavor and smiling at his good brother.

“So… can you tell me why we didn’t just kill them and take power into our own hands? We’ve done it many times before, when we were bandit lords. What’s so different now?”

The cynical man scoffed, “We’re not in bandit territory anymore, meathead. Sure we have the power to kill them all. But, what that asshole in the military said was mostly true. The only thing he fibbed about was if we killed their leader they would lose access to the crystal.”

With a strange smile that grew by the second, Agate looked more like a fiend with each passing moment, “He lied to the bandit lords of Red mountain? He must not want to live anymore. Come on brother, let’s go dye this hold in a coat of blood. It’ll freshen up the place. All this green is getting on my nerves.”

“I don’t see a reason to stir the pot, you battle junkie. No one knows us here. We can start over and not have a kingdom breathing down our necks for the first time in ten years. In fact, we could even make a good name for ourselves here. Own some land, raise some disciples. My father would be happy about that.”

As he stared at the bright blue sky, a hint of a smile appeared on the cynical Bishop. Perhaps for the first time in a very long while. He was so caught up in the moment that it took him a while to notice how silent Agate was, staring at him with wide eyes. Then, all of a sudden, he began to laugh hysterically for a minute before he suddenly stopped. His warm expression dropped and was replaced by a cold, uncaring expression.

“Brother, drop the shit. It was a good joke, but even I know we can’t walk away from the path of blood so easily. We’ve been killing since we were eight. We killed that whore of a mother by stabbing her, together with that fatass merchant who killed your father by sending him on that suicide mission.

“We killed the merchant's guard who came to check the noise by strangling him with the whore’s intestines. We lit fire to the house after looting the valuables. Then we worked up the bandit ranks using the spoils to raise our power.

“We killed and killed to the point we were called little devils. I might not remember how we died, but both you and I know our sins are too great to repent. So yeah, really funny joke. Now tell me your REAL plan. Who needs to die for you to become king, like we always talked about around the fire.”

Bishop gave his brother a good long look, then turned away in silence.

Not understanding the silent message, Agate stared at his brother for a bit before hitting his knee and smiling.

“Oh! I understand, you need to plan out the attack like you always do. No problem, I know it will only take a day at best.”

“No.”

“What was that brother?”

Staring out into space, the cynical man muttered “No, I want to turn over a new leaf. I’m tired of running away in fear. I’m tired of the cold nights. I’m tired of having to always look over my shoulder.”

“But I always had your back and you had mine. What’s wrong with the way things were before?”

“That’s not it… I just… when I saw that man, Urist’s clear expression of wanting to help us no matter what. Never asking for our history and taking the whole almost killing him thing well. I want to, for the first time, believe in someone other than just you.”

Agate’s smile froze and he gave a nervous chuckle, “You’re kidding right? You're just pulling my leg? Trust someone else? Over an expression? Did you lose a few brain cells when you died?”

Bishop shook his head, “No, I have my wits. With such a golden opportunity, I just wish to become what my father always wanted me to be, a nobleman who could hold his head up high and support the kingdom, the people, and maybe one day, a family.”

Out of nowhere, a cup smashed directly into Bishop's head. Bewildered, he turned to see Agate scowling at him.

“I am not your family then?”

“No, I didn’t say…”

“Enough! Shut the fuck up!”

His body trembled, full of fury, before he stilled eerily, his voice cold and emotionless.

“If that is what you think then we are no longer bothers. The man I knew before has become weak to poison. From henceforth, our pathway is… together no more.”

“Brother, you know I didn’t mean it that way. You will always be my brother!”

But Agate seemed to zone him out as he got up and started walking away.

“Where are you going?”

Still no response. Bishop’s confused eyes refocused and gained a glint of steel, “Wait. What are you going to do?”

At that and only that did Agate stop and slightly turn his head.

“Thinking about killing me, Bishop? Heh. Maybe you do have some of your spine left, you gutless coward. Me? I won’t do anything, no I won’t have to. I’m just going to watch you fail at trying to play the hero you think you can be. And when you crawl right back to me, I’ll be waiting. Then and only then, I’ll kill you in the memory of the brother I lost.”

***

Looking over the field as the timer counted down, Urist turned to Ubel, “Everyone prepared?”

“Yes, even the two from before are integrating well. But it seems some distance has formed between them.”

Seeing one lost in thought and the other staring daggers at the former, Urist didn’t feel like getting involved.

So he just watched the numbers count down from five minutes.

And seeing how restless everyone was getting, he decided to give a short speech.

Clearing his throat, he began to talk.

“I know that for part of you, you remember the horrors of the first event, where we fought tooth and nail to stay alive. I also know that of those, some of you distrust our new allies the Rat-kin. But I assure you that they are loyal citizens and won’t betray you on the battlefield. As long as you treat them well they will treat you with the same respect.

As Urist took a breath one of the Rat-kin, Ein, roared, full of passion, “For the glory of the Creators!”

The Rat-kin in the crowd responded in kind, chanting Ein’s words three times over before stopping.

Urist smiled when he saw their excited eyes and thought to himself. If I was a dictator, right now I’d be over the rainbow with how they fall in line. Hopefully, we can steer them into the mindset of equals instead of slaves. For I fear one day something horrible could happen, such as a slave rebellion, a civil war over rights, or racial discrimination. No one should be born into such a life.

“Thank you for your kind words warriors, although I wish for us all to come back alive and earn glory yourselves and for our civilization. We might be of a different race, but we are of one heart and one soul.

“Unified to live and struggle against this unknown world full of dangers. But we need not face it alone as long as we have the brothers and sisters next to us. We’ll live to see another day. So I say this proudly as we march towards war.”

“FOR THE GLORY OF DWARVENKIND!”

Most of the crowd joined Urist in the chant, “FOR THE GLORY OF DWARVENKIND!”

Then Urist roared once more, filled with conviction and heart, “FOR THE GLORY OF RATKIND!”

Although less than before, still three fourth of the crowd responded in kind. Urist noticed that those that didn’t chant were people from the rat wars. Despite knowing what they were thinking, Urist inwardly shook his head in disappointment.

At least I decided to nip this in the bud before we meet other races. Still…

He looked back at the clock as it began to count down to ten.

I hope the fires of war help unite them together instead of tearing them apart.