ALPHA KANE

Resistance begins

The first punch came at Kane's jaw before sunrise had fully broken the ridgeline, and he let it land.

Drev pulled back, fist still raised, breathing hard. "You didn't block that."

"I know." Kane rolled his jaw, spit to the side. "You want to know why."

Twenty-three people stood in a loose half circle around him on the east field, more than he'd expected. Joren was near the front, Cael beside him, Ottilie leaning against a fence post at the edge with her arms crossed, watching everything and saying nothing. Reeve's nine fighters had folded into the group overnight, though Reeve himself hadn't shown.

"Because you telegraphed it," Kane said. "Your shoulder dropped before your fist moved. Anyone who's been hit enough times learns to read that." He looked around the circle. "None of you are wolves anymore, not in a fight that matters. You don't have the reach, the speed, the healing. So we're not training like wolves. We're training like people who know they're going to lose the first exchange and need to win the second."

"That's not how pack fighting works," a woman near the back said.

"This isn't pack fighting," Kane said. "This is staying alive."

He spent the next hour breaking them into pairs, correcting stances, showing them how to close distance instead of trading blows at range, how to use a smaller frame against a bigger one. Joren picked it up fastest, throwing himself into every drill without flinching, taking falls hard and getting back up faster each time.

"You're leading with your chin," Kane told him, adjusting his guard with two fingers. "Fix that or someone will end the fight before it starts."

"Copy that."

By midmorning, sweat had soaked through half the group's shirts and nobody had quit. Kane called a break and was reaching for the water skin when he heard hooves again, and this time Reeve was already dismounted, walking straight toward him with no ceremony.

"We need to talk," Reeve said. "Alone."

Kane nodded to Ottilie, who took over running drills without being asked, and followed Reeve toward the tree line at the edge of the field.

"Nine of my people made it out," Reeve said, once they were clear of listening range. "Out of forty. Vask hit us three weeks ago, burned half the territory before we even got a warning out."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't need sympathy, I need allies." Reeve turned to face him fully. "Vask isn't stopping. He's hitting small packs one at a time before we can combine forces. My territory, two others before mine that I know of. He's building something bigger than a war for land. He's absorbing every pack he breaks."

"And you want Dustbridge in that fight."

"I want a coalition," Reeve said. "Every fighter left standing, under one command, before he picks us off individually. You've got numbers gathering here. I've got trained fighters with nothing left to lose. Combined, we're a problem for him. Separate, we're just more names on a list."

Kane looked back toward the field, where Joren was sparring with Cael, taking a hit to the ribs and staying upright.

"I need three days," Kane said.

Reeve's jaw tightened. "We don't have three days."

"I've watched people follow me into something before and lose everything for it," Kane said. "I'm not doing that again on instinct. Three days. Then you'll have an answer."

Reeve held his gaze for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose. "Three days. Vask won't wait that long to notice you exist."

"He's noticed already," Kane said. "The camp I hit had a runner. Someone reported back."

"Then you're already on borrowed time."

"I know."

Reeve mounted back up without another word, riding out toward wherever his fighters had made camp. Kane watched him go, then turned back toward the field, where the training had slowed, people watching him instead of their partners.

"Back to it," Kane called. "Nobody's earned a break yet."

The group reset into pairs, and Kane walked the line correcting form, pulling elbows in, adjusting footwork, until the sun was high enough that shadows had shrunk to nothing under their feet.

It was Ottilie who spotted it first. She straightened off the fence post, head turning toward the ridge north of town, still as stone.

"Kane."

He followed her line of sight. A single rider sat motionless on the ridgeline, too far to make out details, but close enough that the shape of it was unmistakable — Vask colors, watching the field, watching all twenty-three of them training in the open.

Nobody moved for a long moment. Then the rider turned and disappeared back over the ridge.

"That's the second patrol in two days," Ottilie said. "Closer than the last one."

Kane didn't answer right away. He watched the empty ridgeline, doing the math on how much time three days actually bought him.

"Keep training," he said finally. "We don't have the luxury of stopping."