He didn’t even move. Didn’t flinch. He continued sitting. But at that moment, Hadjar felt as though he was at the base of an infinitely enormous mountain, and it looked down upon him as was its right — like he was merely a pathetic bug that had dared to challenge it.
“I am a warrior,” Derger continued quietly, without his previous fervor. “All I have is honor, dignity, an axe, and a mace. I followed orders, I fought in wars, I never turned my back on the enemy… and I waited. I waited whole epochs to encounter someone who, like me, was shaped by battle and forged by death. I waited for this battle. I waited for the chance, after so much time and so many souls, to know what it is to die gloriously in battle.”
He looked at Hadjar again.
“I waited for the Black General, and then you came… A
