The smell of blood stayed with us as we processed the aftermath in the small, smoky camp. Men moved in murmured cadence — cleaning blades, collecting furs, and boiling leaves. Alex and I worked side by side, taking inventory mentally: two advanced-tier cores, ten intermediate cores, dozens of basic cores from the pride's younger stragglers; dozens of teeth and claws scraped and oiled; a haul of lion furs, thick and warm with residual mana.
We had to move quickly. The city would pay handsomely for Nerissa's eyes alone, and the cores would feed months of iron and leather work. But there was a surgeon to visit first.
We laid the heavy-wounded out in the shade. Jiao, one of our newer sergeants, had a rib that pierced lung tissue; his breathing was laced with wet, angry sounds. Liang Hao, despite his stubborn silence, had broken vertebrae and a hand crushed under Nerissa's paw. Jin Yi's leg hung at an odd angle; blood soaked the boot like a badge. The ten mild injuries — deep cuts, sprains, burns — were treated quickly with salves and Alex's controlled healing to knit tissue and stop fever.
Alex moved like a machine built of mercy: palming ribs, compressing wounds, lowering fevers with cool mana threads. His palms left a faint green afterglow on skin. He worked until sunset, then sat back like a man who'd reached his limit. I watched him with an odd mixture of pride and fear. The spatial mana had remade his body for power, but this kind of slow, merciless hospital work was draining him more than battle had in months.
As day fell, the squad gathered. The heavily wounded were carried on stretchers — their faces pale but lucid. Ten men limped behind them, bandaged. Still others — ten brave souls — hustled with the spoils: teeth and claws bound into packs, furs rolled tight, the advanced cores protected inside soft mana-lined pouches. We cataloged everything: two advanced cores, ten intermediate, thirty-plus basic remnants scavenged from the pride's cubs and stragglers.
"Today we paid for victory," I said to the men, throat tight. "Not with money — with flesh. Remember the ways you fought and where you failed. Remember the traps that work. Remember those who stood beside you. We will get them home, alive." My voice cracked but held. The men looked up, tired and stubborn, eyes bright with the kind of steel that refuses to break.
One of the wounded — a young corporal named Dong Fei — managed a grin as he looked at the furs. "Sell half," he rasped, hand on a warm bundle. "Buy meat for the boys. We need to eat before we train again." He laughed, a small sound, and several men answered with a ragged chuckle. War had a way of turning the grim into small mercies.
After the wounds were dressed and the cores wrapped, Alex and I sat in the dying light, shoulders aching. He placed a cool hand on my arm. "They did well," he said. "They found something today inside themselves." His voice was hoarse, but there was pride like a blade there. "We taught them to be soldiers. Today they were warriors."
I looked at the stretchers, the bandages, the men who would sleep with nightmares and the ones who would awaken tomorrow determined to be stronger. "They were brave," I said. "And they will be better. But we have to do more — tougher training, better trap-work, more field medicine. And we have to find a way to keep the casualties small."
We worked through the night, wrapping cores and mending armor, the camp lit by dull braziers and the steady green glow of Alex's gentle healing seams. The men spoke in low voices about home and family; the wounded murmured instructions to those not hurt. The bond between us — the Vardar brothers and our squad — had been tested and tempered like steel.
When dawn came, the wounded were strapped onto litters and prepared for the slow walk back to the city. The rest of the squad marched in solemn formation, the furs and trophies secured. We had earned plenty of coin in spoils, but the real ledger of that battle would be written in the bones of our men.
I sheathed my sword and looked across the ridge where the pride had fallen. The basin was silent now, save for the scavenging calls of birds. The empty pits and the scattered nets told a story: a lesson learned at cost. I laid a hand on the hilt of my blade and promised myself and the men: the next time the forest rises, we would be ready in ways that would not cost so dearly. We would make tactics tighter, medicine smarter, and traps deadlier. We would take fewer men to the brink and bring them all home.
We carried the spoils and the price out of the wild that day. The memory of claws and blood would be with us always — a raw ledger of growth. And as we descended toward the city, the squad walked a little straighter, bearing the scars that proved not only what they'd survived, but what they would become.