Tybalt thrust his spear forward and down in a brutal, decisive stab.

  The ibex beastfolk that had been trying to tackle him managed to raise an arm in self-defense. But Tybalt’s mana-infused speartip—enhanced a few seconds before he needed it, in a practiced but rarely applied move—skewered the wrist. It passed through, glanced off one of the beastfolk’s long, curved horns, and buried itself three inches deep in the male’s scalp.

  The beastfolk blinked once. Twice. His mouth shuddered in spasms of stunned silence. Then he crumpled away from his killer, a nameless corpse.

  The dead man’s bowels released as he tumbled to the ground.

  Tybalt wrinkled his nose at the smell of excrement. Then he jerked his spear free from the body, darting his head from side to side as he did so. No warriors presented themselves to receive his wrath, though there were still beastfolk to be slaughtered.

  By looking around, he was able to turn a blind eye to the all too human expression of horror frozen on the dead beastfolk’s face as he moved on to the next execution. Even after two and a half years of this sort of work, he still preferred to look away most of the time.

  As far as Tybalt understood, beastfolk were just humans with some degree of animal features. Usually, they were a little stronger than the average human—bestial muscles or some such gift—and had the horns or ears and tail of their animal kin. They could even breed with humans, just like dwarves or elves. The ibex beastman Tybalt had just killed had been completely humanoid, except that he bore the horns and tail of a desert ibex.

  It was a fitting sort of beastfolk to inhabit this place. The Salt Waste was the most inhospitable desert on this half of the continent—dunes and sand as far as the eye could see in the direction Tybalt and his squad had come from—and there was a mountain range nearby where he imagined actual desert ibexes might live.

  The soldier shook his head.

  Stupid… and wasteful! Gods damn these people. How many times do we have to come out and teach them this fucking lesson before the rest of them pack up and leave? Ugh!

  He didn’t hate beastfolk at all. Not like some of his fellow soldiers. Private Indus would sometimes say things like, “The only good beastman is a dead beastman,” while grinning over a dead body. Others liked to collect horns, tails, or ears from the dead—the body parts that marked them as nonhuman. As if they were proud of the kills.

  Tybalt did not share these strangely intense feelings. He was a proud “man of the world” in that way. Perhaps if he had been from an isolated frontier town, where the wandering beastfolk exiles might seem like more of a threat, he would have felt differently.

  For Tybalt, killing was just a job. An ugly job, but the only one he could imagine as an angry young man with intense ambitions and even fiercer hatreds.

  The Army was the best place to earn levels and renown. Killing people was a far more effective way to get experience than simply taking on a job for which one did not have a related class. Most people couldn’t legally kill other humans and would never run into a member of another enlightened race in their life, so unless they took up monster hunting, they passed their whole lives without getting much past level ten. That was a ticket to remaining in the same social stratum where you were born.

  Since Tybalt was class-less, like ninety-five percent of the population, the military had seemed the best place—the only option, really—if he wanted to climb socially.

  He knew he had chosen the only path out of his crappy provincial life that was genuinely open to him. He didn’t bask in self-pity.

  But it annoyed him that he had to be out here in the desert heat, killing, when he could be sipping a cool fruit cordial in a quiet tavern somewhere. And, quietly, he preferred fighting people who were capable of fighting back.

  They were here because some salt miners had reported the presence of an unsanctioned village, and per the squad’s orders, the village must be destroyed. Tybalt had participated in similar punitive expeditions before, though only once in this region.

  The pattern was always the same.

  A group of humans or demihumans who fancied themselves independent of the Kingdom of Niet would set up some podunk village. They would fail to register with the Kingdom or pay taxes to its government, even though it was widely known that the Kingdom harshly punished unregistered settlements and municipalities that failed to pay their taxes.

  The results were predictable: whether they lasted in secrecy for one year or forty, they always got exterminated eventually.

  Tybalt sighed. Someone always reported these places, yet they kept cropping up. Enough to keep the squad well practiced in such slaughter. If killing defenseless people was as valuable for leveling as fighting real soldiers, Tybalt would be one of the most elite warriors in the Kingdom by now.

  In fairness to the beastfolk, unlike human settlers, they would have been subject to slaughter even if they had tried to register. The Kingdom of Niet was officially a human-exclusive nation, and they enforced that racial divide.

  Tybalt had no idea where beastfolk kept coming from—there were regular reports of their presence in this region, yet no countries beyond the Salt Waste that these beastfolk might claim allegiance to, just mountains and the Salt Sea. The Elven Lands lay on the other side of the Salt Sea, and they were officially an elf-exclusive nation.

  The beastfolk were unauthorized in either place.

  All he knew was that, for whatever reason, someone had found them enough of a nuisance here that they had reported the beastfolk village. They had probably stolen from the mining camp, or a beastman had slept with the foreman’s wife, or some similar drama.

  The information had made its way up the hierarchy, and someone in the government had apparently taken enough exception to dispatch an expendable squad of soldiers. Perhaps a few gold coins had changed hands. That was often how things worked.

  This fucking Kingdom, he thought. But his mood was exhaustion rather than anger.

  Since he had been a member of this squad, he had been dispatched on such extermination missions more times than he could count. It wasn’t what he had thought he was signing up for, but he had always done his job as ordered.

  Tybalt quickly checked his status and confirmed that he had not leveled from today’s kills. Not even close. He had dared to hope he could have missed it in the midst of fighting, but no. The few beastfolk he had slain had been weak, of course. After years of soldier work, he had long ago hit a point of diminishing returns on experience from killing untrained civilians.

  Next village for sure, he thought with a cold humor.

  Tybalt saw movement out of the corner of his eye and twisted his head quickly—perhaps there were real enemies here to be fought—only to spot two of his fellow soldiers carrying one of the ibex beastfolk girls between them. The girl was half-conscious, and blood trickled from beneath the front of her hairline in a thin line that she slowly blinked out of her eyes.

  Oh. Of course…

  Tybalt could not suppress a reflexive frown of disgust.

  The two privates saw Tybalt’s wrinkled nose and frown. But both men knew that he would do nothing. They gave him sneering looks in turn and continued on their way, moving toward the edge of the village, that beastgirl’s body dangling between them like a bloodied piece of meat.

  Tybalt clenched his fists, swallowed, and made himself look away. He took several deep breaths and shook his head.

  Nothing I can do…

  He was well aware of what they were going to do with the girl—aware that there would be complaints and punishment if he got in the other soldiers’ way, and aware also that no one would lift a finger to stop him if he were to find some other ibex girl and do likewise.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He smelled the dirty odor of burning straw and fur and turned his head. He saw a thin column of smoke beginning to rise from the opposite end of the village.

  Well, she might.

  One of the squad’s newest additions, Lieutenant Sperry, was slowly burning the village from the other side, while the enlisted soldiers like Tybalt ‘scared’ the inhabitants off from this end—the euphemism the Commander had taken to using for killing them.

  The fire mage’s powers were undoubtedly very useful for tasks like destroying small buildings, although Tybalt guessed that she had mostly volunteered for the job so that she could pretend she didn’t know what was going on at the other end of the settlement. In the brief time she had been with the squad, she always seemed to be far away when ugly business was being done.

  Officially, the Kingdom merely evicted unauthorized settlers, burning their homes so they had nothing to go back to. In practice, most such missions were simply massacres with a significant dose of rape, torture, and occasionally trophy-taking—some squad members brought home horns, tails, and other relics of their kills as souvenirs, while others got lucky and found actual valuables. Tybalt understood that other squads did things the same way. When you un-personed someone, there was no reason to stop at murder. Not when you could take everything they’d ever had.

  I should probably think about doing some looting myself, he thought. Fuck it. These people aren’t going to be using any of whatever they have…

  He swallowed and looked to one side, only half conscious of what he was doing. Completely unnecessarily, he was checking to see if anyone was watching—as if looting was a crime rather than a commonly understood perk of his job.

  But it was lucky that he was feeling a little iffy about it today.

  A figure appeared in his peripheral vision, springing up out of the corner of Tybalt’s eyes. He instinctively reacted with a burst of energy, twisting around to avoid being surprise attacked. The figure he had glimpsed was moving too quickly for Tybalt to assume it was a noncombatant.

  As Tybalt spun to face the enemy, he sensed a blow coming from his left.

  What?!

  This was the opposite side from where the first person he’d taken note of had appeared. Somehow, two people had apparently snuck up on him—or simply hidden themselves well and chosen to ambush him together.

  Tybalt managed to duck under the blow and take a series of frantic, clumsy steps back and to the left. The second assailant’s forceful blow—Tybalt saw a war club in the man’s hands—carried him past Tybalt.

  For a couple of seconds, Tybalt was safe. The second attacker was between him and the first man, preventing the initial attacker from pressing his advantage while Tybalt was off-balance. Tybalt found his footing again before the second attacker managed to stabilize himself.

  As the war club wielder recovered his stance, Tybalt got his first good look at the pair, and he didn’t like what he saw.

  It was two ibex beastfolk men, one older—late forties or early fifties—and one younger—around eighteen—but they looked very much alike.

  A father and son, he recognized.

  “Stay close to me,” the father urged, speaking in heavily accented Nietian. “Be careful.”

  “I can do this, dad,” said the son in a much lighter, less noticeable accent, not looking back at his father. The son’s eyes narrowed and appraised Tybalt coldly as he spoke. “Just stay back for a bit. I can get rid of this guy.”

  Tybalt raised the wooden shield on his left arm and the spear in his right hand. Despite being outnumbered, he felt that he had the advantage. The son wielded a war club with a stone head, but the handle of the weapon was short; the reach would be about half of Tybalt’s with his spear. The father held a staff with a longer range, but it looked less like a weapon and more like a ceremonial object—there was some ornamentation on it, including feathers and other objects Tybalt couldn’t really make out because the son was standing in the way.

  Importantly, the older man appeared to already be wounded. His brow was covered in sweat, his skin was a sickly color, and his posture looked weak. Tybalt guessed he had a deep wound somewhere, and one foot was already in the grave.

  “You know how this ends,” Tybalt said, beginning to circle.

  The son followed Tybalt’s movements with his body, keeping himself between Tybalt and the older man.

  “I do,” the son said. “I’m going to kill you for everything that you and your people have done in this village today. Just come and get me, you cowardly piece of shit!”

  Tybalt continued circling but shifted his shield, still holding it with his left hand, but lowering it slightly as his shield hand loosened his secondary weapon in its sheath. This could have been a vulnerable moment, if the son chose to try and attack him while Tybalt’s left hand was occupied with more than just holding the shield.

  But that would require the son to willingly step away from his father and rush within range of Tybalt’s raised spear. Tybalt had already taken some measure of the young man. The son wasn’t mentally prepared for this. He was righteously angry, yes, but that was not enough.

  The son could have followed up on that clumsy first attack, thrown himself after Tybalt rather than just trying to regain his footing. Tybalt and the son both being off-balance would have made up for some of their difference in training and experience. But the son was not raised or trained to be a fighter, Tybalt sensed. His father had wanted something else for him.

  “You should run,” Tybalt said. “You and your old man. You might make it if you manage to rush that way.” He pointed at the village perimeter, in a direction at an angle to both the mountain range and the way the army had come. “That would make you less likely to be spotted. I won’t go after you.”

  The father looked as if he wanted to say something, but the son didn’t even look in the direction Tybalt was pointing in.

  “Fuck you,” the son spat. “You humans killed my mom!”

  He charged into slightly closer range, face red, nostrils flaring, teeth clenched. He raised his club high over his head, like he thought he was going to swat a fly rather than fight an armed man with a spear and shield. Tybalt automatically jabbed at his opponent with the tip of his spear. In Tybalt’s own mind, this hardly registered as an aggressive movement; it was pure reflex and training.

  If he had been thinking more consciously, he would have lunged in and taken advantage of the son’s openings—his entire torso was open if Tybalt was willing to take a bit more of a risk.

  But Tybalt was not thinking of killing.

  The young man reacted to Tybalt’s movement by jerking back, but too slowly. Tybalt’s reflexes were sharper, and the tip of his spear ripped open the son’s left shoulder before the young man managed to step out of the way.

  A torrent of blood began flowing out from the deep cut on the son’s left side, and his eyes widened as he seemed to recognize that this fight could really end in his death.

  Fuck! Fuck! You aren’t going to win. If you could conceal yourselves this well, you should have run away. Gods damn it! It’s not as if I have a choice here…

  Tybalt had broken protocol by trying to tell the two men to run away at all, rather than simply killing them as quickly as he could. He wasn’t quite certain if he’d meant what he said, or if he simply didn’t want to be in this fight when he himself was tired and sick of the mission already.

  “You suggested that you would let us leave,” the older man began, trying to interrupt the fight.

  The son automatically snapped his head back to give the older man an annoyed look, and Tybalt moved almost by instinct again. This time, he was more conscious of it as he closed the distance between himself and the son and jabbed his spear at the son’s center of mass.

  The younger man’s eyes widened as his face turned forward, his body automatically retreating as the spear shot forward. But it was as if he was trying to run away through quicksand. His movements were far too slow, and the spearpoint closed in.

  “No!” the old man cried. He rushed forward and managed to make contact with his son. An outstretched hand pulled the son back and to the side.

  The spear was too close by then, though. Instead of ripping through the space next to his heart, the spear tip stabbed deep into the lower abdomen.

  Tybalt guessed that he had ruptured the son’s stomach. The son’s expression was one of excruciating pain. His mouth opened in a silent cry, then in an audible, plaintive wail.

  As the son screamed, Tybalt kept his presence of mind and quickly pulled back on the spear, jerking it free from the wound in case he needed it to deal with the older man.

  “Argh!” the son cried out in more intense pain.

  And Tybalt saw he needn’t have worried about the father. The old man knelt by his son, clutching the young man’s hands, his staff lying forgotten at his side. Tybalt stilled and allowed the two men these last few seconds together.

  It did not seem likely to cost him anything. This father-son moment felt like something that he shouldn’t interrupt.

  The son sucked in deep breaths, tears rolling down his cheeks as he locked eyes with the father.

  “F-father,” he said. “Forgive me. I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

  “Don’t be silly,” the father said, his voice gentle. “Revenge for our family was never your responsibility. You were far too young. It was mine.”

  Tybalt noticed now where the wound on the old man was; he saw a large red stain on the ragged shirt the father wore, around hip level. There had been enough bleeding that Tybalt guessed he could just leave the man to die by exsanguination. He did not need to stay here.

  But he found that he was rooted to the spot. He needed to hear the final words between this father and son.

  “Thank you for un-understanding,” the son said. His forehead was breaking out into beads of sweat, his eyes fluttering. Tybalt could sense he might lose consciousness at any moment. Perhaps the pain from his wound was helping to keep him awake, or the smoke from the burning village, stinging his eyes. The flames had gotten much closer during Tybalt’s brief fight with the son.

  “I will—will help you along in your journey, son,” the father said, his voice shaking. “If you ask me.”

  “Yes, please.” The young man’s voice was almost a whisper.

  Before Tybalt could understand what the two men were talking about, the old man had drawn a small knife from some hidden place. As Tybalt gaped, the old man plunged the blade into his son’s heart.