Page 32 of Orc’s Hex

Everything else requires a version of performance—the assembly, the petitions, managing Brakka’s opinions, the daily work of running a holding older than most of the laws it operates under. The courtyard strips all of that. Bodies and discipline and the physics of how much punishment a person can absorb before they cannot continue. No patience for performance. Only results.

He runs the drills himself when the curse allows it. When the curse is elevated—as it has been for six days—he observes from the second-tier walkway and lets Garrok run the floor. Garrok doesn’t need supervision. He’s been running this floor since before some of these warriors were born.

Today he observes.

He stands on the second-tier walkway and he watches Garrok.

The drill pattern is the standard mid-week rotation: paired combat in the two weapon circles, three-man coordination in the center ring, individual form work on the far wall. Twenty-eight warriors on the floor at once, iron on iron and Garrok’s voice moving between them—exactly as much correction as needed, no more.

Three warriors fail their drills.

Not at the same time. Not obviously. Drazhul sees the first deviation—a half-beat behind pattern in the third-ring coordination—and files it. The second warrior drops his guard with no one close enough to hit him. Holds the open position two seconds past any trained correction.

The third turns his head toward the first warrior in unison with nothing.

Garrok sees all three in the same breath Drazhul does.

He stops the session—one raised fist, the drill pattern dies in three seconds—and crosses to the first warrior with the specific efficiency of a man who has seen possession before and knows exactly which eyes to check. He looks at the warrior’s face. His hand comes down on the man’s arm. He turns back toward the walkway where Drazhul is already standing.

One look between them. Thirty years of shorthand.

“Clear the yard,” Drazhul says.

Garrok turns back to the floor. “Clear!”

Drazhul is already at the stairs.

The three possessed warriors attack in the next breath.

Not side by side—in coordination, which is worse. They don’t communicate. They move as a single organism distributed across three bodies, and what they move with is every piece of training Garrok and Drazhul have built into them across years of drills. The first goes for the warriors nearest him before they’ve cleared the ring. The second drives toward the main exit, cutting off the route. The third heads directly for the walkway stairs.

Heading for him.

He meets it at the bottom.

The fight is fast and ugly in the way that comes from fighting someone you trained. This warrior—Keth, seven years in the garrison, fastest footwork in Garrok’s roster—knows every opening Drazhul has. Knows them because Drazhul built them into the training. Knows the angle he favors moving downstairs, the half-beat between the second and third movement where the follow-through creates a low exposure on the right.

The thing in Keth knows all of it.

Drazhul takes a hit to the shoulder he could have avoided.

He takes it because avoiding it would have broken Keth’s collarbone, and Keth is in there somewhere behind the shadow. He absorbs the hit and uses the momentum and drives Keth’s body into the courtyard wall and pins it.

Across the courtyard, tracking the other two in his peripheral: Garrok has cleared the unaffected warriors out through the secondary gate. Fast. Garrok has seen possession before.

The two remaining possessed warriors pivot toward Drazhul.

All three, coordinated, the thing driving them decided on a single priority.

Keth twists against the wall-pin, uses a leverage point Drazhul created when he absorbed the shoulder hit, and gets partially free. The second warrior closes from the right. The third is circling to cut his retreat toward the walkway.

He’s outnumbered by his own people, using his own techniques, and he cannot afford to hurt any of them.

He takes another hit.

Ribs. Not broken—he’d know—but close. He uses the pain to redirect, spins the second warrior past him, puts Keth between himself and the third.

Ziva appears on the upper walkway.