The mock battle raged on, turning grim as the Fjeltroll in the center dug in and held their positions. Inside the square, Hyrgolf stomped, waving his arms and shouting orders, strengthening his troops. Tanaros allowed himself a brief smile. It was well that the center had held. When all was said and done, the strength of Satoris’ army was in its infantry.

“Enough, cousin.” Vorax came alongside him, laid a heavy hand upon his forearm. Emeralds and other gems winked on the cuffs of his gilded gauntlets. In the shrouded daylight, his features were blunt-carved and unsubtle, only the shrewd eyes hinting at a mind that thought. “Reward them, and keep their loyalty.”

Tanaros nodded. “Well done!” he called to them, to the tens of thousands assembled in the valley of Darkhaven, as they laid up their weapons and listened, gasping, to his approbation. “Oh, bravely done, my brothers! Your night’s rest is well earned.”

“And a measure of svartblod to anyone on his feet to claim it!” Vorax bellowed.

They gave a ragged cheer, then.

They knew, the Fjeltroll did, that it was Lord Vorax who filled their trenchers and tankards, who gave them to eat and to drink, understanding the simple hungers that drove their kind. And yet they knew, too, what General Tanaros brought to the battlefield, and what he had made of them. Neheris had Shaped them, and Neheris had given them such Gifts as were in her keeping—a love of mountains and high places, and the hidden places within them, knowledge of stone and how it was formed, how it might be shaped, how a swift river might cut through solid rock.

Tanaros made them a disciplined fighting force.

“A fine skirmish!” Vorax clapped a powerful hand on his back. Tanaros coughed at the force of it, his highstrung mount tossing its head. The Staccian only grinned, revealing strong, white teeth. Some said there was Fjeltroll blood in the oldest Staccian lines; Vorax had never denied it. “I’m off to the cellars to count kegs against unkept promises. You’ll keep them hard at it in days to come, cousin?”

General Tanaros, half-breathless, fought not to wheeze. “I will,” he said as the Staccian saluted him, wheeling his deep-barreled charger toward the cellars of Darkhaven. What they contained, only Vorax knew; as with the larders, as with the treasury. More, was the Staccian’s motto; more and more and more, a hunger as vast as all Urulat. And only his Lord Satoris had granted him indulgence for it.

As he had given Tanaros an army to command.

Thus the desires of two of the Three.