"How about we avoid conflict?" Erix spoke first, his voice ringing clear across the valley toward the gathered group.
Twenty-five faces turned fully toward him. From their center a tall man stepped forward, grey-cloaked, a heavy curved saber at his back and the mark of some rival Court glinting at his collar.
"How do you suppose we do that?" the leader called back.
"We are here for the same thing. If we compete for it, you will die." Erix smiled, easy and unhurried. "So the best way to do this is if you leave."
A beat of silence. Then the leader barked a laugh.
"Are you daydreaming?"
His people joined in behind him, voices rising one over another across the valley floor.
"Eleven of them, and he talks like that?"
"Count again, friend. Twenty-five to eleven."
"Leave the valley, he says. The nerve on this one."
