Interstitium

by AssaultSloth

Flashbacks, interstitial scenes, and backdoor dealings. A companion to ME2 focusing on characters and worlds, big and small.

18. Chapter 18, Warlord, Urdnot Wrex

Warlord – Urdnot Wrex

---

–

A lone tomkah thundered across the badlands in the purple black of Tuchanka's night. One-hundred thirty-five tons of steel left a contrail of dust that stretched for miles. The machine rumbled, every bullet-riddled armor plate clattering of a life of vicious use, and the symbols on its nose boasted just what that meant to the krogan – the tank was over two thousand years old and still strong. It scrambled over dunes and wreckage with barely a shudder, the roar of its engines echoing across the continent.

Only a few hundred tomkahs still existed – most krogan clans couldn't fuel them – and it had been a long, long time since a warlord had ridden one.

–

The interior was dark except for the dim landscape sliding past the vehicle's slit windows.

"Warlord."

A crimson eye split the darkness, rolling to meet the larger krogan's gaze.

"Warlord, we're here," the driver said, crest bowed. "The Tukta scout's signal fire is just ahead."

Wrex made no sound except for the deep thrum of his lungs.

The tomkah skidded to a stop under an unremarkable patch of sky and the krogan stepped out into the night. Wrex flexed his mighty muscles and breathed deeply again, drinking the air in bellows, tasting it on his tongue. The night was a mélange of scents that tickled at the roof of his mouth. Hundreds of scents, old and new, distant and near, jostled for his attention, but Wrex picked the important threads from the tapestry with rote perfection. Smoke, varren and blood. And females. The scents were powerful and he felt a stirring in his chest. "This is the place," he agreed, hearts beating faster against his armored chest as he stared up at the great column of smoke winding into the sky.

"'course it is," insisted the tomkah's pilot, who was still carefully pivoting to fit his broad shoulders out the hatch. Urdnot Turu was a behemoth, even by krogan standards, who'd gained the favor of previous Urdnot clan leader – Urdnot Radt, Wrex's uncle – after surviving a direct hit from a turian artillery cannon. The blast had nearly shattered his body, leaving his plates split and skin permanently blackened, but eight hundred years later and he was still a stalwart servant of clan Urdnot. He'd been the first to swear loyalty to Wrex as clan leader when Radt had gone missing, and he was the first to swear loyalty to Wrex as warlord, hobbling down onto his great knees before him.

Now he stumbled down into the dust like a boulder. Wrex could hear the old krogan's body creak as misshapen bones ground against one another and he rose to his feet, none the worse for wear.

Wrex eyed the winking orange of the scout's signal fire built high on the crest of a nearby hill. Even from this distance he could see the Tukta scout's form silhouetted against it, and even make out the Tukta clan's traditional arm-weights hanging from each elbow. Wrex felt a warning growl tickle at the back of his throat.

"Be ready," he warned. "It might be a trap." Wrex had welcomed the Tukta into his protection like so many other clans, but that didn't mean he trusted them. They were responsible for protecting the hens – that someone had managed to steal two of them was a great stain on Tukta honor as it was.

Turu drew a shotgun older than Wrex was from a leather scabbard on his back, but all the same looked dubious. "Don't think he'll lie to us," he rumbled. "He knows how this looks already. He knows what would happen to Tukta clan if we thought he stole the hens. He wouldn't want to cross the warlord."

Laughter broke the darkness as the last of their party climbed out of the tomkah, their vast collection of spare ammo and supplies slung over his back. Wreav's laugh was as humorless as Wreav himself as he turned his beady black eyes on them. "My brother is no warlord, Splitplate," he growled. "Not to Urdnot and not to Tukta. Not to anyone."

Turu's eyes flashed in anger and he rounded on Wreav. "He is your warlord and I am no splitplate!" he roared, looming over Wreav's head. "I faced the rites when you still ate from your mother's crop! I was leading armies while you still hid in Jarrod's shadow!" Turu pressed forward, puffing out his armored chest and drawing himself up as large as possible. Wreav just stared up at him, frown deepening at the mention of his long-dead father. The air seemed to bristle around him.

The two krogan stood eye to eye for a pregnant pause before Turu gave in, spitting at the ground in disgust and saving as much face as possible. Vast as he was, Turu was old and slow and he knew it – Wreav was three times the warrior he was. Wreav was sharp-eyed, ambitious and a devastating combatant.

And he still hadn't sworn his loyalty to Wrex.

Wrex didn't care. He didn't give his brother's presence any pause and plodded off towards the fire where the scout awaited them. Luckily, for all of Wreav's words he knew enough to shut up and follow behind, and the three krogan lapsed into silence. There were few insects on Tuchanka and so the night was so silent the crackle of the scout's fire ahead echoed in their ears with perfect clarity.

"Sota, Warlord!" the scout called as Wrex neared. "I am Tukta Ato." He was not of clan Urdnot – his clan's characteristic blue/black crest and the white warpaint on his fingers made that clear enough – and yet he bowed to Wrex until his elbow-weights touched the sand. Wrex ignored it – and the satisfied hmmph from Turu behind him.

"Varren?" He asked.

By way of answer Ato pointed across the terrain, into the dank shadow beneath them.

There at the base of the hill was a great smear of orange and black, littered with bloodied krogan bones and chunks of armor. The sharp smell of varren urine and the thousands of bloodied footprints in the sand made it clear enough what had happened.

"Found them a few hours ago," Ato said.

Wrex sniffed as he lumbered down to the carnage, the other krogan following behind. The blood was heavy but fresh and filled his nostrils. "All three of them?" he asked.

The scout's voice was grim. "Parts of all three, Warlord. They didn't get far." Wrex sniffed again and knew the scout was right. Varren didn't leave much behind but the smell of hen blood was obvious enough. He frowned deeply. It was bad enough that he'd been called to the outskirts of his territory with a report that two Urdnot females had been abducted by an unknown raider, but to find them both dead?

It was awful news and they all knew it. Even Wreav looked upset.

Two less females. Two less mothers.

Wrex stooped, examining the bits of crushed bone and flesh littering the ground. Varren had powerful jaws, more than strong enough to split a krogan femur, and indeed flecks of bloody marrow festered in all directions. Still, the krogan skull was often too much for even the strongest alphas. It didn't take Wrex long to find one of the stolen hens' skulls, then the other's, both chewed and faceless but otherwise intact. He left them where they lay.

"Rest, young mothers," he rumbled, gently tracing a finger over one shattered eye socket. "Rest where you fell."

He spat into the sand. "Where is the raider's skull?" he asked.

Ato hesitated. "The varren dragged it off when I arrived. I did not think to kill them."

"Hours ago?"

"Yes, Warlord."

Wrex rumbled in frustration and spat again. He would have that skull. He stood and regarded the others with a fearsome look. "Find it," he growled. "All of you. I want his head or what's left of it. Cut it out of the alpha's belly if you have to."

Turu and the scout turned immediately. Varren were fast but they weren't hard to track, especially when they were dragging a few hundred pounds of armored krogan meat. The krogan wouldn't need torches or transport to catch them, even in the roughest weather. It was just a matter of getting to the skull before the varren destroyed it.

Wrex watched them go, keenly aware of his brother's shadow still behind him. Wreav stood his ground, dusky eyes narrowed in undisguised contempt. Wrex ignored it, but in the back of his mind steeled himself for the worst. He did not look at Wreav.

"Why?" Wreav finally asked.

Wrex growled. "Now, Wreav." He turned to regard his larger brother. "Whether you think me warlord or not, I am leader of clan Urdnot, and you will obey me."

Wreav snorted. "Two clans you've taken from me, Wrex," he said.

"Two clans you've lost. If you were my match they'd be yours still."

Wreav bristled visibly at that – Wrex's uncanny ability to keep coming back to life when all the galaxy thought him dead had become a very tender subject between them. "If I had been Radt's pet like you had they'd be mine either way," Wreav spat, scarred fingers balling into fists. Wrex could see the willpower his brother needed not to attack then and there, and it was considerable. Siblicide was not uncommon among the children of leaders, but Wreav's hatred of Wrex went to the next level. "Someday you'll go offworld on one of your little soul-searching trips and you won't come back, Wrex," he promised, "and I'll be back where I was."

Wrex shrugged. "Maybe. But unless you mean to kill me now, do what I say." He pointed down the trail where the other krogan had gone. "Obey your clan leader or kill me and take leadership for yourself." He stared at Wreav, flat teeth gritted and muscles tense, ready to fight. He was ready.

Wreav didn't take the bait. His posture relaxed and he turned away, feigning disinterest. "Want to know who did it?" he asked, gesturing down at the remains of the two females. "Probably your Tukta friends. Trusting them to guard the females." He grimaced. "No wonder the hens are dying."

Wrex's eyes flashed and he whirled, slamming a gloved fist down into Wreav's nose. His brother outweighed him by two hundred pounds or so but the hit was true and Wreav stumbled back with an audible crack. He staggered a few steps back, black eyes filled with rage.

"NOW!" Wrex bellowed. "Bring me the skull or bring me yours!"

Orange blood seeped from Wreav's cracked crest, casting a liquid curtain over the withering look he shot Wrex's way, but for once he had nothing to say.

He turned and stalked off into the darkness.

–

Wrex watched his soldiers disappear into the night.

It was only when all three were gone that Wrex let the quiet seep in around him, still breathing deeply. His nose was his way through the world, as sharp and vigilant as a turian's eyes, and in the centuries he'd lived he had trained it into a veritable weapon. A few stray particles of dust blowing in from a distant wind could tell him more about his enemies than any map.

And it told him that he was still not alone. He smirked to himself. Hen never knew when to keep herself safe.

"Come out now, Uta." he rumbled into the night, once he was sure Wreav was out of earshot. "I know you are here."

For many seconds there was no sound except hollow silence, but then a rustling and the tread of careful feet. Wrex turned.

"Varren piss, huh?" he rumbled, grinning at the wizened female that emerged from the darkness. Her crest was drab, only a hint of the recognizable Urdnot red, but what she lacked in family resemblance she made up for in shrewdness. Clan leader Uta was almost as old as Wrex, and female or not had survived many, many battles.

Uta's dark eyes narrowed as she stalked out to meet him. She sniffed loudly, lip curling in distaste. "Smells better than you," she rumbled. "Don't know why you don't mask yourself. Your enemies can smell an Urdnot from ten klicks away."

"Usually because I don't like rubbing varren piss all over myself."

Uta rolled her eyes. "Another fragility bought from the aliens," she sniped. "It fooled your krannt, didn't it?"

Wrex snorted, staring out after where his minions had gone. "Fools." He expected better from Wreav, at least – his brother had been Uta's mate before he'd returned and should have recognized her scent, buried behind urine perfume or not.

Uta dropped to a crouch next to one of the slain hen's skulls. "Your brother is a danger," she grunted, fingers caressing the toothmarks with a distant look on her face. The safety of the hens was her charge as much as Wrex's, and Wrex knew she took every loss hard.

"I know."

"You should kill him."

"I know."

"But you won't?"

Wrex paused, thinking. Many of his loyal krogan had urged him to do away with Wreav's threat to his leadership once and for all. Wreav had helmed the clan in the hundreds of years Wrex had been hunting bounties, and only starvation and obscurity had come of it – none of them wanted to see him back on the throne. It wouldn't be hard… and yet Wrex hesitated.

"Alien advice," Wrex grunted. "You don't have to kill somebody to use them. Fools like Wreav have their uses if they can be controlled."

"Like the salarians did to us?"

Wrex eyed her. "Yes."

"Not the krogan way," she pointed out.

"No," Wrex agreed. "It's not."

Uta grimaced but said nothing.

"We need Wreav for now," Wrex found himself explaining. "His krannt still hold the southwest territories. If I let him die who knows where his forces go? We can't risk having another flank exposed, or more of this will happen." He flicked his head towards the carnage at their feet. "As long as the female clan is still in danger I need his support, begrudging or otherwise."

Uta was rigid. "He'll betray you," she said. "He thinks the Tukta killed these hens. Tells you as much to plant that seed in your head. Really his is the flank I worry about."

"If Wreav or his krannt did this, I will see them torn to pieces," Wrex growled. "But they're not that stupid."

"Nor are the Tukta," Uta insisted.

Wrex snorted. "We'll see." He had his suspicions but he dared not voice them yet. The Tukta were savages but they were a small tribe and had everything to lose by angering Urdnot. Uta had taken a liking to their special brand of vigilance and made the whole tribe into the females' personal guards – they were certainly in position to make off with hens but they had the best access to mates already. It would have had to be a desperate male indeed, someone who couldn't secure a mate any other way.

He almost hoped it was the Tukta, but some part of him knew it wasn't. This was something more sinister than a luckless male stealing a mate. This was much worse. This was the opening move of a much larger game.

Wrex had seen this before. Long, long ago, before the krogan fully understood what the genophage had done to them. When his people – violent as they were already – began to turn on one another. Killed themselves faster than the turians ever could.

Wrex looked to Uta's brooding form. She was solid, unmoving as she stared off into the blackness. She had missed the worst of the post-genophage massacres but still she had survived as a krogan female for centuries. She was strong. Wrex said nothing as he came to her side. She was still as he set his chin atop her head. "Uta," he rumbled, feeling her breath rise under his dewlap. "Has there been…?" he trailed off. The silence between them grew louder as he pressed in closer, rubbing his neck against hers, marking her with his scent.

"No," Uta said, voice quiet. She did not respond to his advances, still staring away. "Not yet. My clutch is silent."

Wrex rumbled, containing his disappointment. "It will happen," he insisted. "We will try again." It was funny – before he'd left Tuchanka he had spent all his time thinking of children – had put his quad to every willing Urdnot hen he could find – and he didn't even know if any of them had ever taken. It had never mattered who the father was, as long as splitplates were being born. But now he needed to know. As long as he did not have a son to pass mantle of leadership onto, his plans were in danger. Urdnot was in danger.

And yet even he and Uta – the greatest male and the greatest female of the greatest clan – could not beat the genophage.

Sometimes Wrex wondered if the offworlders were right. Krogan really were primitives.

–

The three varren that Turu unloaded off of his mighty shoulders were big and healthy, stuffed full of krogan flesh, and would feed a krogan for months, but Wrex only had eyes for the skull. Wreav himself came dragging the top half of a krogan male, his chewed flesh falling out behind him, and tossed the mess in a heap at Uta and Wrex's feet.

"Sota, Warlord. Warlady," Ato the scout said, bowing to each of them. His arms were smeared with varren blood and a fearsome dagger dripped in his hands. "We had to kill the alpha male, but the female lives."

"Good," Wrex grunted. He toed the krogan carcass. "Cut his head off."

Ato did not blanche at the request. Krogan Tuchanka-wide considered interfering with a corpse to be a grave dishonor – bodies were left to rot where they fell as monuments to who they had been in life – and yet Ato dropped to a crouch, pried off the krogan's dented helmet, and rammed his knife behind the skull as if he were butchering any other animal. A few strong sawing strokes and the head came loose. Ato lifted it – it was barely recognizable under the blood – and held it for the others to see.

Wrex narrowed his eyes.

"Well?" Turu asked. Wrex ignored him as he took the skull from Ato. Most of the raider's face had been bitten off, but Wrex didn't need his face. He ran his fingers along the sides of the crest, feeling the shape. Most krogan clans had a distinctive crest of one kind or another – and this one was easy. A series of notches had been carved into the back ridge.

"It's not a shape I recognize," Uta admitted. "The helmet looks krogan-made, though."

"My brothers told tales of krogan who clad this way," Ato offered, tapping the helmet on the ground. "Fast warriors. Blood drinkers. From the… west."

"East," Wrex corrected. He dropped the head to the sand with a thud. The others stared at him. "This is Kuddru tribe," he explained. "From the flatlands. They notch their skull once for every life they take." He wiped his bloody hands on the ground, thinking.

"What are they doing here? Flatlanders haven't come here in a thousand years."

"At least," Wrex agreed, grimacing. Inside, his mind calculated. The Kuddru skull had dozens of notches – he had been a powerful warrior. The Kuddru were good runners and scouts, but if information was all they wanted they would have sent someone more disposable, not a seasoned champion. This was no advance scout – this was a test. A test to see how well Urdnot protected its females. Which meant the Kuddru were here. They were here in force. Somewhere…

Wrex sniffed the air again, searching. There was no clue, no hint to where the Kuddru might have come from, but somehow Wrex felt he could smell the enemy all the same.

"What do we do?"

Wrex rumbled. "Uta, you will tighten guard around the female camps. They'll try this again," he said, gesturing to the varren kill site. "Tukta Ato, I expect you not to leave her side unless she kills you." Ato nodded fiercely as Wrex turned to Urdnot Turu. "Turu, you will head east and find me Gatatog Uvenk. His people have dealt with the Kuddru before. Bring him to me."

"Yes, warlord."

Wrex paused, mind at work. The Gatatogs were no friends of Urdnot's, but they were a small tribe, always teetering on the edge of extinction. He knew he could buy them with the offer of hens or food. The young Gatatog clan leader could hardly turn down a chance to save his clan. Wrex almost chuckled at that. He wondered what Uta would say if she knew he was plotting how to buy another clan, like he was a volus or a salarian. She would never let him hear the end of it.

"And what should I do, oh great clan leader?" Wreav interrupted, arms crossed across his armored chest.

There was a reason Wrex kept his brother around, and this was it. He actually favored his brutish sibling with a grin as he stomped on the fallen skull with all his might. Flecks of flesh and bone chips scattered across the ground at Wreav's feet.

"The usual, Brother."

---

Eight days later…

–

Gatatog Uvenk was young but worn. His skin was sun-blackened and frosted with the salt of the deserts. His crest had not yet lost the vibrant green of his people but his eyes spoke of the difficulties of being head of his clan. Clan Gatatog had once ruled the world – back before Wrex's time, before the salarians had upset the balance – and its sons and its sons' sons had never forgotten. Now they were a fraction of their former glory, desperately holding onto their last few settlements in the ruins of the once great cities. Their homes put them right between the quarrels of the flatland and desert tribes, and right in the middle of some of the most lifeless zones on Tuchanka, but they would rather starve and bleed than give up their histories.

Wrex respected that. He truly did.

But not so early in the morning.

"Warlord!" Uvenk thundered, words cracking the pre-dawn chill. Wrex's eyes creaked open. His guards loomed in the younger battlemaster's path – ready to gut him on a moment's notice – but Wrex gave them a reluctant nod to let him pass. He had been right – ideological differences aside, Uvenk had jumped at the chance to ingratiate himself at the warlord's right hand. "Gatatog Gragas has pulled his krannt to the Westrun pass, Warlord," Uvenk announced, grinning widely. "They come bearing news of more Notchneck movements."

Wrex groaned, rubbing sleep from his eyelids. "More wanderers?"

Uvenk nodded, looking very much proud of himself. He had enjoyed his position at Wrex's side since the Kuddru had started trickling in, and every new flatlander that his troops caught was another reason for him to stay important. "Yes. Many trails. At least a dozen lone warriors. The Kuddru call them Kasgar."

Wreav snorted from where he was seated on a nearby pile of rocks, absently cutting strips of meat from the crest of his most recent Kuddru victim. "And the Urdnot call them 'vagrants'," he grunted, meat curling beneath his blade. "Not soldiers. Wandering alone, looking for prey."

Uvenk stared at him with a frown. "They are Kasgar. Wayfinders. The Kuddru's deadliest warriors."

Wreav just snorted again.

"No formations?" Wrex asked before Uvenk could say more. His brother did have a tendency to downplay his enemy's skills but the Kuddru weren't about to pose a threat with a dozen wanderers. They needed to know where the Kuddru army was, and all Uvenk and his warriors had been able to turn up were scouts and sabotuers.

Uvenk frowned, catching Wrex's implication. "The flatlanders do not move in formations, Warlord. If you remembered the old times you would know this."

Wrex considered killing him for that comment, then quickly decided it wasn't worth getting out of his chair for. "You channel your father's memories," he grunted. "But you are a child. Do not talk to me of history."

"At least my clan respects the krogan way."

Wrex grunted. "Yet how quick you were to join me," he said, sweeping an armored arm across his ramshackle camp. "To speak my language. To share my females." The Gatatogs were stubborn and had made it clear how little they thought of Wrex's new world order, but all the same they were on their last legs. They needed clan Urdnot and the protection Wrex's new allies afforded or they were at risk of drying out like their homeland.

Gatatog fumed, but bowed his head. "Sukkga'shuk'uaelpha," he grunted, dropping into the older tongue favored by his clan as if to remind Wrex that he still knew it. "The Gatatogs do not ignore the calls of a warlord, no matter how dense he may be. We followed Kredak, we followed Shiagur, we followed Moro."

"You followed Okeer," Wreav reminded him.

"And we will follow Wrex," Uvenk snapped. "Time will tell if he belongs on my list or yours."

"Then you'll do what I say while you're here. If not, you can take your hens and crawl back to your saltlands." Wrex stared Uvenk down. They both knew it was a lie. Wrex couldn't let Uvenk leave – at least not with his hens, anyway. For better or worse the Gatatogs had thrown their lot in with Wrex.

"What do you want, then?"

"I want you to stop telling me about vagrant trails and bring me something I can use. I want to know how many Kuddru are here and where they make camp."

"The Notchnecks are stealthy, Warlord," Uvenk said. "They are quiet and soft-footed. It is not a simple matter, counting them."

"Not that soft-footed," Wreav grunted. His knife made scraping noises against his trophy. "Three dozen now. Maybe ten dozen total. Raiders. That's all."

Wrex knew it was bigger than that. He could smell it. "I want to know why they are here. I need them alive," Wrex said.

"They're here to kill you and take your hens." Uvenk insisted, "Capturing a hostage will do no good. The Kuddru can barely talk."

"They may be starving. Maybe their own hens have died. Maybe they were pushed out of their homeland. We can't kill them unless we know why." Tuchanka was – ever so slowly – falling apart and clan after clan had been driven to extinction. The flatlanders had never attempted to interfere with the bigger western tribes like Urdnot before – that they were here now spoke of some desperation. "If they will come in peace I will welcome them."

"They're flatlanders," Uvenk spat. "Filthy, inbred notchneck blood-drinkers!"

"They're krogan," Wrex corrected. "And I'm warlord. I choose who joins my ranks, not you."

"Oorloc against them!" Uvenk roared, his composure slipping under his anger. "For thousands of years my people have fought them! We will not stand as their allies now! Never!"

Wrex's crimson eyes narrowed. "You have only my Oorloc now. You left your holy war behind when you joined me."

"No warlord has ever-"

"Until now," Wrex interrupted, his voice leaving no room for argument. Uvenk lapsed into silence, glaring daggers at Wrex, but the old warchief was unmoving. Okeer, Kredak, Shiagur, Moro. All had risen up to unite the krogan under their own banners, had called for total war – for Oorloc – against one group of foes or another, but no krogan warlord in memory had called for peace.

Wrex would. He was different. Smarter. He would see the Gatatog clan licking Kuddru toe-claws before he'd let traditionalists like Uvenk tell him how to run his grand army.

"Warlord."

Wrex's eyes flitted to one of his enormous guards. "What?" he snapped.

"Clan Apo is here with their offerings." The guard angled his head towards the small procession of painted krogan at the foot of the dais with an expression that said he was equally willing to let them pass and slaughter them where they stood.

Wrex rumbled in frustration. Speaking of toe-licking… "Let them pass."

"Apo is a strong clan," Uvenk muttered as the Apo delegation approached, dragging the hindquarters of a freshly-slaughtered bull ramus and tossing it in a heap in front of Wrex's throne.

Wrex just snorted.

"Victory to the Warlord Wrex!" the Apo crier shouted, his voice echoing across the Urdnot camp. Wrex stayed silent as the Apos presented a half-dozen elite warriors to join his krannt, each one's crest painted with bold scenes of their past conquests. Wrex made a show of looking them over as they knelt before the throne. Krogan lived with little luxury and less trade – there was nothing the Apos possessed that the Urdnots cared to have, and even if there was, to admit as much would be a gross admission of weakness. The concepts of money and all the trickery that went with it were alien notions that had damaged the krogan more than any other, giving young warriors the opportunity to fight for something other than clan and kin. On Tuchanka, though, there was only one real currency – violence. Wrex's rise from clan leader to warlord had been slow at first, but soon the other clans had started pouring in, drawn like varren to the scent of warfare.

The clans wanted Oorloc. They wanted Wrex to declare total war on… somebody. And they all wanted their warriors there when he did it. They all wanted some glory for themselves.

Wrex accepted the Apo battalion with a silent nod, and the bruisers obediently filed behind him to stand by until he gave them their first order. Each of them would command his own krannt of thirty or forty warriors, and Wrex tallied them up in his head. A few hundred more crests. Apo clan warriors would get along best with the far westerners patrolling the canyons – he would assign most of them there, and have Uta move one of the smaller female camps a little closer so they didn't feel they were being abused.

Wrex was quiet as the next procession arrived – this time tawny, sunburnt Qossa tribesplates from the southern Wall. They arrived with barrels of wine fermented from the bodies of millions of smashed wasps as well as seventy of their own elite troops. Wrex assigned them to Urdnot Wror's units.

It went on. The Shogo tribe brought Wrex an ancient sword and twelve of their famous Warmogs, clad hump to hock in heavy steel plates that made them look more machine than krogan. They went to the north battalion with the Statkas under Urdnot Kog the Pitfighter. The Ruta tribe offered him no riches but ten-thousand untrained crests. The Srug brought scouts. The Gottts brought pikeplates. Each tribe had their own forces to offer under Wrex's banner.

The krogan were a culture of war, and every clan had taken it, perfected it, and made it their own. Being an Urdnot warrior was not the same as being a Gottt warrior or a Shogo warrior. There were different rules to follow – rules about respect, about about where your krannt fought, where their krannts fought, whose units took which part of the formation, what formation shape you took. Some krogan wanted to stay near the ammo, others would shoot you in the face for suggesting they needed weapons at all. It was a dense tangle of politics and history and Wrex had to find a way to keep it from exploding.

Every warlord had had to overcome the tribes' squabbles and hold them together, but none had ever changed so much as Wrex. Urdnot Wrex, Urdnot clan leader, son of Chatha Jarroth, one of the Old Ones, The Red Crest, The Maw-killer, The Har-rag of the Battle of Kaxoun, a great and deadly being in the eyes of thousands of krogan, had returned to Tuchanka after hundreds of years among the offworld filth, and he had come with ideas. New ideas, strange ones. Ideas about small armies, about conserving resources, about forging lasting alliances. Ideas about trade and subterfuge and cleverness and complexity that the average krogan saw only as gibberish. He'd killed the leader of Clan Akda in a duel over whether the Akda warriors should be forced to wear shields. He'd cancelled ceremonial hunts in lieu of buying foodstuffs from offworld. He'd ordered some of the old ruins cleaned out and repurposed. He'd outlawed the hunting of athaks.

But for all the uproar he'd caused, Wrex was also winning. Not for hundreds of years had the krogan flourished so quickly and so surely. Hen casualties were down, warrior casualties were down, food was plentiful. Splitplates were being born.

There was fury and resentment on every side, and yet the offerings continued to come. Clans Statka and Hailot, Orott and Drau, Fovo and Forsan, Raik and Ravanor. A hundred soldiers here, a hundred more there. More and more flocked to join him.

Each tribe had already heard of his Kuddru problem. Each tribe thought Wrex would have them war against the flatland tribes. Destroy their ancient rivals. Crush Weyrloc and Stryloc, Quash and Kuddru, Jurdon and Sevug.

Wrex said nothing to correct them, masking his plots behind a bored face. Counting his enemies and counting his allies and deciding which were which. There were many of each and everyone wanted something.

Wrex sat in his chair and watched.

It was not until late afternoon, when the sun had already angled away from their subterranean camp, that Wrex took special notice. He smelled the visitor before he saw him, the scent of foreign incense and oil tickling at his nose. It did not take long to find the Kuddru, what with the way the crowd seemed to ripple with anger around him. Even from a distance, Wrex could see the glint of obsidian on the flatlander's hauberk, smell the hatred of every other krogan in view. They would not pounce on an unarmed envoy lest they face Wrex's wrath, but Wrex could smell how much they wanted to.

Ignoring the loyalty chant of the Gottt crier, Wrex summoned his brother to his side. Wreav did not need to be told why.

"I see him," Wreav hissed. "Notchneck. Alone. Want him dead, or do you want to throw him a feast instead?"

Wrex ignored his brother's sass. "I will hear him, but he wouldn't have come alone," he pointed out.

"No," Wreav agreed. "Probably has reinforcements nearby. A dozen or so, at least. Enough so we didn't just assume he was a clanless."

"Go find them and kill them. Then you follow their trail back to their leader and set up outside his camp. Don't let him leave, but don't attack. Make a signal."

Wreav's frown was deep. "Shall I just hand them my weapons when I get there, warlord?"

Wrex's frown was deeper. "You shall walk away from this throne with your head down like a whipped varrenpup, and you shall do exactly what I have said."

"Or what?"

"Or I see what these new troops are good for," Wrex said, gesturing over his shoulder to the small army that was today's haul.

Wreav stared hatefully at him. "Fine," he grunted, and plodded away (head held high).

–

A warning growl alighted in Uvenk's throat and Wrex felt the biotics surge around the young battlemaster as the Kuddru envoy approached the throne, but Wrex was still as a statue.

The Kuddru stepped forward, his satisfied grin stretching from earhole to earhole, even under the hateful stares of two hundred of Wrex's warriors. He was young – only two notches had been cut into the upper ridge of his smooth crest – but still he stood as if he owned the world.

"Suta'tahagga, shu Wrex. Staninsha vhag?" he asked, causing the obsidian rings pierced through his chin to tinkle. He spoke an old dialect, one Wrex had not used in centuries.

"Uvenk. Translate," Wrex grunted.

Uvenk's growl had not entirely left him. "He thinks you have too many crests, Warlord. He asks if you are expecting an attack."

Wrex stared at the krogan boy, face dour. "I am ready for one," he said.

"Strela Wrex shut sekh-"

"He understands," Wrex grunted, cutting off Uvenk's attempted translation.

The Kuddru laughed. "I do, Wrex-Who-Would-Be-Warlord. Shusha would like this answer."

Wrex's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"

"Nothing, Wrex-Who-Would-Be-Warlord," he said. "Only what is right."

"And what is that?"

"Shusha bids me warn you," the Kuddru said, ignoring him. "You do not belong on that chair."

Wrex growled and sat forward. "Answer my question."

The Kuddru laughed. "Sateesh, shu Wrex!"

Wrex felt a bubble of rage swell inside of him. He'd known few flatlanders in his life and all of them were annoying. "And utter that language in my presence again and I will tear your head from your hump," he warned. "You are in my camp, you will speak my tongue."

The Kuddru grinned. "My apologies, Wrex-Who-Would-Be-Warlord."

"He is warlord, Notchneck" Uvenk snapped.

"He is not. He promises the clans glory but then sits on his chair and does nothing. An Urdnot is not fit to be warlord, only to cower behind and make plans like an alien. An offworld whore." He turned to address the soldiers behind Wrex. "All these crests! Thousands you have collected." He stared at Wrex. "All here. All waiting. For what?"

Wrex said nothing.

"Waiting for someone to call out your sacrilege, perhaps." the Kuddru guessed. "Here is my message for you, Son of the Offworlder. You surrender your throne and disband the clans. To me. Now. Let me return to Shusha with a token of your obedience… say… the Gatatog's head," he grinned at Uvenk with a gleeful glint in his eyes, "and your hens will live."

Wrex grimaced. "And if Uvenk keeps his head?"

The Kuddru looked smugger yet. "Then Alshik Shusha will kill you all and scatter Urdnot's ashes across the badlands to forever end this insult. Shusha will suffer no false warlord." He stared at Wrex, utterly unafraid. "What is your answer, Wrex-Who-Would-Be-Dead-Warlord?" he demanded. "Shatsa odter shetsta?"

Wrex sighed. Kids these days.

His response was swift and final. Before anyone could blink, Wrex had produced a two-foot dagger from one gauntlet and buried it to the hilt in the young Kuddru's chest. The Kuddru blinked in shock, staring down just in time to see Wrex give a quick biotic thrust, sinking the blade through armor and scaly hide alike to pierce the hearts.

The Kuddru hit the dust in a fountain of orange blood.

Wrex slumped back into his throne and propped his feet up on the fallen krogan's back.

He looked to the next procession of warriors waiting for an audience. "Next."

---

Four days later…

–

Somehow watching the black speck that was the Normandy descend through Tuchanka's blue-white sky made Wrex feel every one of his many, many years. There was nothing like the new to remind you how old you were.

And Wrex was one of the old ones.

To a krogan, that meant something. No one knew how long it took a krogan to die of old age because no krogan had ever shown the patience for it to catch up. It was in swiftness and violence that a true krogan died. Not in his bed, with a withered hump. But for every thousand young splitplates killed in their first battle, there was a great warrior whose death could take millennia to find him. Before Wrex was Urdnot he was just Wrex, and he'd known krogan who made asari matriarchs look like hatchlings, warriors so great they'd kept their clans for thousands of years on end. Every year they survived they grew more famous, more respected. More feared. It did not matter your clan – the old ones were known planet-wide.

But his planet had been lifted up and the old ones had started dying. It was no long, slow death either – they died like krogan. Moro had met the wrong end of a turian trireme tank on his base on Veles. Kredak had a spaceship dropped on him. Jadra had soaked up an armory's worth of ammo before finally stilling.

Jarrod's hearts had been speared by his own son.

None had let go of their clans easily, but one by one Wrex had watched the old ones, the krogan whose memories stretched back not just one war but ten, those who remembered a time before the genophage, meet their ends. Now he was one of the last still standing and the old memories were in danger.

Wrex couldn't remember when that had first stopped bothering him.

But he remembered when it had started bothering him again.

---

Two years previously…

–

One of the old ones had fallen into the void (a krogan death) at the ripe old age of twenty-nine.

Twenty-nine. Not twenty-nine hundred. Just twenty-nine.

And Wrex cared.

Wrex snorted that thought away like a biting fly as he stepped down into the water. Virmire's idyllic waters had already risen to steep the site of the blast in fresh beauty – the jungle was well into reclaiming the great empty silhouette that was once Saren's lab and the ash had been all but swept away by crystal clear water.

None of the beauty reached Wrex behind the storm of his thoughts. He cared. He cared. It felt almost foreign. Why did he care now? Shepard was not one of the old ones. Wrex had scabs older than him. He was a tiny, mewling offworlder and Wrex could have pulped his skull in one great fist. He'd wanted to a dozen times when the man had come pestering him about war stories. Almost done it when they got to talking about the genophage.

And yet Shepard was a warlord. The first person to inspire anything in Wrex in a long, long time. He'd brought Wrex great foes to fight, not merchants or mercs but rachni and Spectres and a thresher maw! He'd fought by Wrex's side, killed with him, and for him.

Wrex had had a krannt once, in his brothers. Shepard had been his second. Young and fragile or not, Shepard had mattered. Had changed him. Had brought him here.

And now Shepard might be dead. And it ate at Wrex's innards.

He plodded on towards the looming remains of the lab.

---

Presently…

–

Aliens would never be welcome on Tuchanka. The krogan saw no use in the asari's much-vaunted galactic melting pot. No need to see what a volus who'd never known hunger thought was art. No wish for turian guns when krogan guns lasted ten times longer. The only thing outsiders had ever brought to Tuchanka was the genophage, and it was killing them. Wrex's people wanted nothing to do with the rest of the galaxy, unless it involved a great deal of bloodshed.

So their offense at having a human among them – bedding in their own camp, nonetheless – made the night stink with anger. A thousand bull krogan could produce quite a musk when they felt threatened, and there was nothing like being told they couldn't butcher Wrex's new guest to get them there.

Wrex was still in the darkness, but he did not sleep. His chin still rested on the cool stone armrest of his throne. Behind him, a few dozen of his guard slumbered quietly from their posts, their backs straight and their weapons clenched in their hands. Uvenk had returned to the Gatatog camp to fume about Wrex's newest offense and Wreav had yet to send word from the field. Wrex was alone.

He sniffed a deep lungful of air, tasting the complicated mélange until he found the thread he wanted. Behind the territorial stench of angry krogan and the smell of musty rot and waste that clung to their camps like a plague, Wrex could pick out the undeniable twinge of mammal.

He snorted and rose from his throne.

–

He found Shepard atop one of the resting tomkahs, the human hard at work plotting the next day's scouting route on a mobile haptic console. The orange light of a holographic map of the canyon-scarred surface of Tuchanka cast long shadows on the man's face, glistening against the thin layer of alien sweat that had drawn Wrex here so surely.

Wrex made water over the edge of the tomkah before plodding up to sit next to Shepard.

"Shepard."

Shepard gave him a quick nod. "Wrex."

They were quiet after that, Shepard still tapping while Wrex stared out over the vast expanse of the Urdnot camp. Thousands of cookfires twinkled in the darkness, dwarfed next to the enormous alchite signal fire that dominated the center of the assembled army and filled the air with a sharp odor. The smoke column could be seen from twenty kilometers and smelled from a hundred.

It made a boastful statement to those neighbor tribes that Wrex had yet to absorb. Here we are, it said. Defeat us or be pushed aside.

Of course, Shepard's incursions into enemy territory had spoken even louder – Wrex had painted a stripe of his tribe's alchite on Shepard's pauldron, marking his scent as Urdnot for all to smell. The warchieftains Weyrloc Guld and Stryloc Ulam could hardly ignore a human intruder flying the Urdnot scent in their lands for long.

"You haven't found your salarian," Wrex accused, breaking the silence.

Shepard's little mouth downturned. "Not yet," he admitted. "It's been slow. I don't think your neighbors like me much." Wrex's scouts had told him about how they'd spent half their time holed up and driving off the newest ambush or maneuvering the tomkahs around the Stryloc barriers. Shepard sighed. "Or your scouts, to be honest."

"They don't," Wrex agreed. "They want you gone. Kog Pitfighter told me he will tear your tongue out if you ask him any more questions." Wrex counted out on his fingers, watching Shepard bristle. "Urdnot Salat tried to lose you in the canyons today. Urdnot Dragu and Tarbat are planning to push you off a cliff tomorrow. Sada swore vengeance f-"

"Urdnot Sada needs to calm down," Shepard interrupted, looking indignant. "I saved his life."

Wrex chuckled. "He didn't see it that way. You should have let the Weyrlocs finish him."

"Not how I do things," Shepard insisted. "I'm not going to let him throw his life away if I don't have to."

"Sada is a foolhardy splitplate. The krogan would say his death strengthens the tribe."

"Well I don't say that," Shepard said. He looked up at Wrex. "And neither do you."

Wrex laughed at the human's gall, to tell a warlord what he believed. It was a refreshing change of pace from all the asskissing he'd endured of late. "It's good to see you again, Shepard."

Shepard grinned up at the krogan. "Glad somebody missed me while I was gone."

Wrex creaked an eyebrow.

Shepard sighed dramatically. "Dead for two years, remember?"

Wrex chuckled, making his dewlap waggle. "Heh. Two years," he snorted. "I've eaten meals that took longer than that to digest." He looked away, suddenly sobered. "I've been alive a long, long time, Shepard," he said. It seemed so long, now, sitting here next to a fellow warrior just three decades old.

"How long?"

Wrex paused. "I don't remember anymore," he admitted after a moment. "You lose track of time when you live in space as long as I did." He paused again, calculating. "More than a thousand years. Less than two thousand." He looked down at Shepard and tried to see him as the infant he was. "I was a splitplate when the genophage was unleashed. I was old enough to be a warrior when I left my father's clan. I wasn't old enough to be a clan leader when my uncle died and I became one."

Shepard nodded his understanding. "So you left Tuchanka for a few centuries to be a merc, and now you're a clan leader again."

Wrex snorted. "Never stopped being one, Shepard," he said. "Besides, clan leaders lead one clan. I know you're just a human, but I know you can count better than that." He gestured with his chin out at the vast assemblage of warriors spread out before them, at the constellations of campfires speckling the terrain. It was too dark for Shepard to see, but Wrex's keen vision could make out the craggy forms of fifty thousand sleeping krogan. "Those krogan don't follow a clan leader, Shepard. They follow a warlord."

Shepard nodded, staring out at the krogan. His face was grim. Perhaps he feared what fifty thousand krogan could do. "Of course, the last time this many krogan gathered," he said eventually, "the turians came in and killed them all."

Wrex nodded. He remembered that day. "Warlord Moro. Battle of the Veles."

"And the time before that," Shepard said.

"Shiagur, killed on Canrum. Before that was Kodus, dead on Tatria. Before that was Okeer."

"Dead on Korlus," Shepard added, voice quiet. "It's a dangerous cycle, Wrex. But I guess the krogan aren't used to having a warlord more interested in survival than war."

Wrex was quiet for a long time. Shepard was, of course, right. Every warlord before him had led his or her followers to a grisly demise in the name of oorloc. Had instigated yet another war the krogan could no longer afford. Had pushed their species that much closer to extinction. Had chosen to take honor of battle – the krogan way – over the krogan as a species. They were monsters, however much he respected them.

But was he any different?

Wrex grunted. "I'm not doing this for survival."

Shepard looked at him. "Why n-"

"They were clones, weren't they?" Wrex interrupted. "On Virmire." He turned his crimson eyes to Shepard, who seemed to wilt a little at the mention of the planet's name. "Saren didn't have a cure, he was just growing krogan in vials."

"I don't know for sure," Shepard said eventually, "but yes. That's what the STG teams concluded in the Council report."

Wrex nodded, remembering the weeks he'd spent picking through Saren's ruined labs, looking for something – anything – that could help him before giving it up for a lost cause. He had long ago given up that hope, but to hear it confirmed was something else. "And yet it was the closest thing to a cure I've ever seen," he said, voice haunted. He paused and the darkness filled between them. "And I let you destroy it. I helped." The heinousness of his actions felt heavy on his hearts. He could have torn Shepard's team to pieces – even Williams, who'd thought herself so clever sneaking up behind him, as if he could be felled so easily. He could have broken into Saren's base by himself. Kidnapped the krogan doctor and his work and been back on Tuchanka before anyone was any the wiser. He was a battlemaster. He was ten times the warrior anyone on that planet would ever be.

"It was the onl-"

"And I'd do it again," Wrex interrupted, almost roaring. "Because the krogan are not clones. And we are not slaves. And we are not aliens. We are krogan." He sighed, listening to his bellows echo back at him. "There is no cure, and there never will be. We'll survive the genophage either way. I'm trying to make sure we're still krogan when we get there."

Shepard was quiet for a moment. "And what does that mean?"

Wrex did not answer.

Thankfully, Shepard did not press the point. "I need another favor, Wrex," he admitted after enough time had passed. Wrex said nothing, and Shepard called his computer display up again. The little holographic map of the continent was covered in notes of camps Shepard and the scouts had already checked. "I need more time."

"I can give you more scouts," Wrex said. "But I need you off my planet before you start a new war with Guld."

"No. I need time, and I need Mordin," Shepard insisted, and Wrex fell silent. "My salarian. This was his mission, and he will know how to read the clues."

Wrex stared darkly at Shepard. "Salarians should not be on Tuchanka," he said.

"I know. That's why I came alone at first. I was trying to do it with as little trouble as I could. But I can't find him, Wrex. Not fast enough. He'll be dead."

"He's dead already."

"Then I want his corpse. Please, Wrex."

Wrex fell silent again, brooding. Part of him wanted to say no. To shout no, to kick Shepard off the tomkah for even suggesting such a thing. Tuchanka was his planet. Not the salarians'. Never again.

He stared at Shepard. "You are my krannt," he said. "I would do this for you." He looked away. "But I must not. You have already stirred up the Weyrlocs and given those who call me an alien sympathizer more reason to hate me." Wrex was silent for a moment. "Humans are not loved, but sparing a salarian would be seen as weakness. My rivals would try to topple me all at once. I have enough problems with flatlanders on my borders, I don't need a civil war too." He grimaced just imagining the fit Uvenk would have – and he wouldn't be alone. Wreav might hunt down Shepard just to spite his brother. He wouldn't be alone either.

Shepard deflated a bit. "We'll be discrete. We'll stay away from your camps as much as possible."

"It won't help," Wrex said. "We can smell aliens for many leagues. Someone will find him and kill you both. Or force me to." He looked down at Shepard. "I like you, Shepard. I'd hate to have to tear your arms off." But I will if I have to.

Shepard said nothing. Wrex might have guessed he would bring up the Reapers (like he was so fond of doing), or maybe trying to guilt him with reminders of how they'd found his grandfather's armor, but he stayed silent. He would not press further, he would let Wrex think of these arguments himself. The manipulative bastard.

Wrex sighed. Shepard had given him his grandfather's armor. He winced as a way popped into his head. He didn't like it… but he owed it to Shepard.

"Krogan diplomacy is simpler than alien diplomacy," Wrex said eventually. "No Udinas here. But we do treat with one another. For a price."

Shepard looked at him hopefully. "What price?"

"Hens. Hostages."

"What?"

"That's the deal. I take my enemy's mate hostage, he will not dare betray me. If he does, she is mine."

"Commander Shepard's not hostage enough?"

Wrex frowned and shook his head. "Most of these krogan have never been offworld. Your big name means nothing here. But they know how valuable a female can be. The salarian's mate," he repeated. "Bring her to me. You get your salarian on and off my planet without causing trouble, you get her back. If not, my warriors kill her and you and your crew and eat the bodies."

Shepard paused, thinking. "Mordin's mate, huh? Mordin doesn't have a mate."

Wrex shrugged. "Most of these krogan have never been offworld," he repeated. "Make something up."

Shepard grinned.

–

Wrex had been offworld a long, long time, to the point where he could usually tell the difference between a turian and a human at a glance. Smelling the difference, though, was easy – turians smelled like copper and steel, humans smelled like sweaty, matted fur. Batarians like rotting fruit, drell like salt, asari like watery ryncol, vorcha like rot and death. Every race had their own stench. So to him, that Ms. Miranda Lawson was not, in fact, a salarian dalatrass was as plain as day.

But his fellow krogan were not so informed.

"Alas!" the salarian doctor laid it on thick, ignoring the malicious stares of a dozen krogan itching to kill him. "That my sweet, sweet love must remain here with these beasts!" His arms wheeled and gesticulated as he buried his amphibian face in the cleft of Miranda's neck. "The vitreous humors of her eyes are like two spheres of optically-transmissive proteinaceous structural fluid! Her skin, a flawless layer of stacked epithelial cells imbedded with neuroreceptors!"

Miranda turned a hue of red that had nothing to do with the sunlight and stared daggers at a nonchalant Shepard.

"Your mate is forfeit, salarian," Wrex rumbled in a warlord's voice.

"Won't hurt her?" Mordin pleaded, eyes wide and desperate. "Will treat her like royalty, yes? She is my dalatrass. Inspires much poetic imagery. Sun. Stars. Post-collapse neutron stars. Other celestial bodies. Perhaps comets... Indeed, care for her beyond use as receptacle for genetic propagation. Soul-mates! Inherently flawed notion of fate demands we be together!"

The krogan chuckled at Mordin's performance. The doctor was going above and beyond – most krogan didn't know one offworlder for another, and hardly benefited from Mordin's thespian background, though Wrex supposed Mordin might be exaggerating his body language for clarity's sake. He didn't have the benefit of expressing himself with scent glands.

"I think they get it, Mordin," Shepard said, stepping in and resting a hand on the alien's shoulder. "That's the trade. You give up your mate, they don't touch you."

"And gravid! Very gravid!" Mordin continued, wailing as he was led away. "Oviducts are healthy, eggs full to bursting with nutritious yolk! Would have borne me a vast brood of strong salarwigs!"

That did it, and the remaining krogan were so distracted with thoughts of all the delicious salarian eggs Miranda would lay for them that they hardly noticed Mordin's façade toggle off in an instant as he and Shepard loaded into a waiting tomkah with Wrex's chief scout. Pausing in the vehicle's hatch, Shepard sent a last significant glance Wrex's way, catching the warlord's eye.

Wrex rolled his eyes. Yeah, yeah, he'd keep her safe.

The hatch closed and the tomkah roared to life.

"I'm going to kill them," Miranda said, glowering as the tomkah trundled off into the Weyrloc territories.

Wrex just snorted. "Doubt it." He turned to meet her glare. She was a little thing. Tall for a human hen, surely, but still dwarfed by the krogan that surrounded her with their hungry eyes. Still, she stood ramrod straight, ignoring her audience and staring unblinking back at Wrex. For all her sweat and pinkening skin and tiny, unarmored body, she was unafraid.

"Are you going to tell this monster to stop breathing on me or not?" she demanded, the part of her mane not tied up behind her head still flitting in the rhythmic inhalations of the Statka battlemaster looming behind her.

Wrex angled his gaze to look at her and grinned. "You stink, human," he said, quietly enjoying the way her hackles rose. "Statka Redig is worried you'll give away our position." All the same, he flicked his chin at Redig and the immense krogan lumbered off, still pumping his lungs in preparation for the battle ahead.

Miranda's face twisted in anger. "I do not st-"

"Sweat," Wrex interrupted, snorting. "You stink of mammal." He shook his head. "Waste of water and a powerful scent. " His nose wrinkled in distaste – far as he was concerned, the stench was the most memorable thing humans brought to the galaxy.

Miranda was quiet as Wrex stooped to grab a fistful of fine dust, but shouted in surprise when he tossed it at her to a chorus of laughter from the other krogan. The dirt clung to her sweaty skin, soiling her previously-pristine white bodysuit.

"The dirt will mask the scent. Roll around in it," Wrex commanded, ignoring her protests.

Miranda glowered at him, but obligingly stooped to her knees and scooped up a handful of orange dust.

"Dirt is better than the alternatives," Grunt supplied, lumbering up to join them.

Miranda looked up. "Thanks for nothing back there, by the way."

Grunt just shrugged. "You're Shepard's enemy. If you were mine you would be dead but he is merciful. And dirt is better than varren piss. Or krogan. Okeer once had his troops scrub with bull athak manure to surprise the Kor tribe's warriors."

Miranda scowled, rubbing the dirt down the length of her arm, leaving muddy streaks. "Not so dismissive of Okeer's imprints now that you need them, are you?" Miranda asked, working a little faster as she brushed soil across her legs. She was right – in just a few short days, Grunt had set himself up as an expert on krogan culture. The encyclopedia Okeer had written into his head covered the rituals and tactics of dozens of tribes – far and away more than most krogan these days remembered. The tankborn had wasted no time in abusing that fact either, and had already managed to correct Uvenk's pronunciation of an old battle prayer the previous night. That Uvenk had not immediately attacked Grunt continued to amaze Wrex.

"Not so perfect when you're covered in dirt and everyone thinks you smell, are you?" Grunt fired back.

"Perfect?" Wrex rumbled, staring dubiously at Miranda's squishy chest humps. A strange way to store fat, as far as he was concerned. It was poorly armored, no muscle or skin to protect it. He shrugged. Perhaps humans liked squish.

"She is perfection for her species, Warlord," Grunt said, grinning plate to plate. He waved a stumpy hand towards her. "Genetically engineered. That is as good as they get, she claims."

A snort from behind Wrex announced Uvenk's arrival. "Strong words, Tankborn," he spat, crossing his arms as his krannt filed up behind him. They stared at Grunt, Wrex, and Miranda with equal stares of contempt, as if they could not decide which of the three to hate most. "I do not know what is worse, that Warlord Wrex sullies his war with a clanless kretak like you or an offworlder like him."

"Her," Grunt corrected. "This is a female hu-err… salarian."

Miranda had the good sense not to disagree. She stood with surprising grace and poise, considering she was covered in dirt, and met Uvenk's eyes. "I am the Warlord's hostage," she said, staring without flinching at a beast six times her size. "The property of a kranntmate of one among Wrex's krannt. You will treat me with the respect you would give the Warlord or I will see your skull on my wall, understood?" Wrex had been around humans enough to know how hard it was for her to pretend Shepard or Mordin owned her – humans did hold their independence mightily dear to them – but Miranda gave no indication of unease. She might as well have been krogan.

Uvenk did not allow himself to shrink under Miranda's withering glare, but Wrex could smell the tell-tale musk of anger roiling off of him. The humaness's threat had hit home. Uvenk turned to regard Wrex instead, Miranda's eyes following him without mercy. "She's not even krogan," Uvenk complained. "Even if the aliens betray you, she could not bear sons for us. She is worthless."

"Eggs…" one of the nearby krogan rumbled, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

"Not to them," Wrex said, turning. He cast one final look at Miranda. "And if it comes to that, we'll just eat her."

A flicker of alarm crossed Miranda's face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared and she fell into step behind Wrex as he plodded away through his troops, leaving Grunt and Uvenk to catch up behind them.

–

Wrex did not give a call to battle. There was no resounding blast of drums or bellow of rage – he had no interest in riling the entire army up if he could help it. Instead, he just walked, picking his way east out of the massive warrior camp that had assembled around him since news had spread he would move against the Kuddru.

Wrex led and the krogan followed. A few at first, then more and more as each group of warriors rallied. Ripples carried through the sea of warriors as Wrex led the tide. There were blue-painted Akras, the fingers on their right hands ritually shortened, ancient Holtat warriors that glittered with so many piercings they looked to be made of gold. The Tuktas clapped their elbow-weights as they fanned out ahead of the war party, the Statkas grunted in rhythm, the Olmets had lit their soul-torches.

All of the troops Wrex had been promised joined him, until the valley seemed to shake with their footsteps. Others joined without invitation, clinging to the rear of the column like flotsam, hoping for some chance at glory beside the great horde. It was a vast mass of krogan – a thousand strong at least – and stank with violent anticipation. Trailing behind came great packs of wild varren, eager for the bloodshed that krogan armies usually left in their wake.

Bloodlust was in the air. The krogan were on the move.

–

It was nightfall, and the krogan were still on the move. The horde had spread out under the hot Tuchanka sun, a thousand pairs of eyes seeking any sign of the Kuddru, a thousand noses smelling for Wreav's signal fire.

The terrain was harsh, even by krogan standards. If there was one thing the Kuddru had going for them, it was a fondness for the extremes. Wreav had tracked their envoys' guards back to the Bantu Valleys, a rugged range of rocky canyons and nuclear glass left behind from the civil wars thousands of years before. Obsidian-black rock cut fingers and split boots under every other step, while hungry alracchs circled overhead, patient for a warrior to miss a handhold and fall to his death. That on top of the way Aralakh baked the ground until the heatwaves were almost opaque and how even the glare alone was painful, and it was a wonder any krogan had volunteered to come with Wrex at all – indeed, most of the stragglers (and some of the invited warriors as well) had already turned back rather than risk a fatal journey.

And this, more than anything else, was what impressed Wrex with his charges. Grunt – soon, no doubt, to be Urdnot Grunt – bore the difficulty with loud fury but even louder determination. He was an offworlder, a krogan who'd spent his short life fighting on ships or hangars (or Kredak forbid apartment buildings) with air conditioning and smooth metal floors, and his virgin hide spoke to his inexperience. With every new cut the desert opened in him, however, every drop of orange blood he left on the trail, Wrex saw the true krogan within emerging. The shaman would want to test Grunt's strength at the keystone, no doubt, but Wrex would have him tested and tried before he even got the chance. He would fight krogan tomorrow, not mere mercenaries or robot soldiers, and he would learn or he would die.

Grunt looked about ready to do the latter by the time Wrex finally gave his krannt the call to halt and pitch their camp in the darkness. The daytime's fierce warmth still clung over their backs like halos as the krogan ground to a stop, and none looked happier to rest than the young tankborn, whose breath reeked of blood. Still, Wrex noted with some pride that Grunt did not fall but stayed on his feet. Okeer had taught him well.

"Grunt," Wrex grunted.

"Warlord."

Wrex stared down off the cliffside into the darkness. Somewhere in the tangle of canyons below them the Kuddru made their camp, and somewhere beyond that his brother would be arranging his own troops. It was just a matter of catching the Kuddru between them – providing they could be found. "You will accompany Turu's krannt and the Statkas north along our left flanks," he rumbled. "Patrol wide. Look for the canyon mouths, see if you can find the trails they've been taking. I want forces ready to tighten around the Kuddru tomorrow."

"Warlord," Grunt repeated, bottling his exhaustion under Wrex's challenging glare. He would not dare complain, even if it killed him, and was silent as he joined Turu and continued down the trail. The sound of splitting stone followed them until the night swallowed all trace of their presence.

"Uvenk's forces will take the right flanks," Wrex finished. "The rest of you ready yourselves for battle."

"Warlord," Uvenk said, grunting as he gestured his krannt down the path they'd come. The Gatatogs were used to the worst kinds of terrain – they shared that strength with their Kuddru rivals – and none looked at all worse for wear for the day's journey.

Wrex settled, feeling his bones settle in their sockets, and stared out at the night. The moons were gone tonight, and even his keen vision could see little. Still, he could feel the rumble of his troops' might through the stone, feel the great movement of meat and armor all around him, and he could not help but think of the ancient times, when there were dozens of warlords at any one time, and each had tens of thousands of soldiers at his command. Now the krogan were a mere shadow of their former selves, but to feel so much strength – it almost gave him hope.

"I thought… the point of this…" Miranda's voice came panting from behind him, "was not to kill me unless Shepard betrayed you." She flopped to the rocky ground, uncaring, for once, about proper posture or grace. Her thick hair was plastered to her muddy back and her previously-snowy skin pink and cracked. Her hands were wrapped tightly in borrowed linen that still reeked of the iron in her bloodied palms.

Wrex chuffed. "Krogan life is hard," he said, flexing his toes within his armored boots. "You did well for a human." Miranda seemed to straighten up a bit at his compliment. Her fingers went to work combing the dirt out of her hair. "You have some strength in you," Wrex continued, "even if you smell like a medlab."

Miranda scoffed in disbelief. "I smell like sweat, I smell like a mammal, I smell like a medlab. Is there anything I don't smell like to you krogan?"

"You smell like an offworlder," Wrex clarified, ignoring her jibe. "I don't know a perfect human from any other but you smell like a tankborn. Like you were built."

"I was built. And good thing I was or I'd probably have died of heatstroke by now." She rubbed at her face, leaving grimy streaks behind. "I did not sign up to get tangled in a krogan Oorloc."

Wrex sighed. "No Oorloc," he said. He returned his gaze back over the cliff side. "This isn't war. This is just defending our borders. Protecting our hens. " He paused. "Tomorrow we will push the Kuddru on all sides. They will be many but they will be hungry and exhausted and they will not stop us."

"And then what? Kill the chieftain and his brood, steal the females and scatter the males to spread the tale back to their homeland?" Miranda asked, voice mocking.

Wrex ignored her.

"If this is how krogan war I'm amazed you've lasted as long as you have," she added.

Wrex's eyes swiveled down to Miranda's face. "No human has seen real war. This is how it is done. Humans and turians play soldier. Krogan war."

"Without strategizing or scouting or targeting supply lines or developing technologies? Without saving your strength for real fights?" Miranda fingered a rifle one of the krogan had leaned against a nearby rock, an ancient slugthrower that used real bullets and real ammo. "Just marching into the meat grinder with these? No wonder you're dying out."

Wrex didn't answer for some time. His mind turned over Miranda's accusation in the slow crushing pace that was its way. She was a human, an arrogant, angry little blip in the universe. She did not understand the krogan. "I saw you at Shepard's funeral," he accused eventually. Miranda did not look at him, but he didn't need confirmation – he remembered that day like it had been yesterday. The crunch of Shepard's steel coffin under his foot, the aghast faces among the crowd, and one woman in the back row with a spine of iron and dry eyes. "In disguise with a sand mane on," he said, "As one of the Alliance officers. Corporal Walker, they said."

"I was there."

"For Cerberus," Wrex said, nodding his understanding. "Making your schemes. " Wrex glared at her. "There are no krogan in Cerberus," he said. "We don't think that way." Miranda said nothing, and he continued. "No krogan would stand and pretend Shepard was dead when he wasn't. Deceit and trickery are the worst ways for a warrior to live and they are the worst ways for a warrior to die. True life and death comes on the strength of your back and nothing else."

"The genophage had nothing to do with the strength of your back," Miranda pointed out. "It had everything to do with how your species chose to conduct itself. If you push on the galaxy again, it will push back again, and if you don't start scheming it will end the same way."

Wrex quieted, thinking. "It didn't end, human," he said finally. "We are still here."

"A few percent of you are, with only one warlord who is too cautious to declare war."

"We are still here," Wrex repeated. "I know my enemies. And when they show, my army will march over them like a tide of blood or die trying." He looked at her. "And tomorrow will be the same. No tricks. We will march upon the Kuddru and we will destroy or be destroyed."

She hesitated, looking up at him as he walked to the nearest rocky outcropping that he could lean against to sleep without falling in the night. "I have a use for your army," she said.

Wrex chuckled. "Of course you do, human," he said, engaging the locks on his armor and closing his eyes. "Now sleep."

–

The morning breeze had hung with the sharp scent of burning alchite oil – Wreav's signal fire – and the krogan converged. Normally krogan at war would burn decoy alchite fires to confuse their enemies' senses, but the Kuddru had taken no such precaution and the scent drew Wrex's forces like blood in the water. Even then, it might not have been necessary – the weather was in Wrex's favor, the skies clear and still, and the billowing smoke from Wreav's fire could be seen from many kilometers away, even over the glare of the sun on the desert's glassy surface. The Kuddru had set themselves up in one of the wider, deeper valleys, open and obvious but deathly hot and bright. From a distance the mirages made the whole valley look drowned in mercury. Wrex's armies closed the noose nonetheless, stepping into the haze without fear.

It was noon when the first shots rang out.

Wrex kept walking, ignoring the sound of Miranda's shield flickering to life over the distant echo of shotgun blasts. "I wouldn't waste it," he rumbled. "No waste in the desert."

Miranda tried to blow an escaped lock of hair off her face, but the sweat had plastered it to her skin. She frowned. "Hardly a waste if I'm being shot at."

Wrex shrugged. "Not yet," he said, watching the way the heat waves rippled around them. The air twisted for miles in every direction around them, until even the horizon was hard to place. "They can't see us any better than we can see them. They're stotting. Shooting the air, the ground. Maybe each other. Letting us know they're ready for us."

"No waste in the desert," Miranda echoed.

Wrex shook his head. "Tuchanka has one natural resource left, human, and that's ammo." He fired his own shotgun into the ground with an ear-splitting boom that rang across the deserts for many seconds. "Keep your shield off," he said. "I'll tell you when you need it."

Miranda left it on and fell in behind him as he followed the sounds of the gunfire into the murk.

–

It took them two hours before they saw the first of the Kuddru, although it might have been an eternity for all they could tell – each scrap of desert looked the same as the last through the shimmering air and the glow of the ground. To make matters worse a sharp wind had picked up, shrouding the desert in an opaque cloud of orange dust. Wrex's krannt had long since disappeared, and the only sign that there were krogan at all – aside from the continued thunder of the guns – were dark shapes hiding in the mirages in all directions.

But one of those dark shapes had a foreign smell to it and Wrex stopped so suddenly that Miranda nearly stumbled into him. She had her pistol drawn and was instantly on alert, staring into the glowing desert. Wrex frowned at the silence.

There was the sound of metal scraping on gravel.

"Shields," Wrex said, flicking his generator on with a deep throp, "now."

The shape came surging out of the haze as a howling krogan, a wall of meat and armor falling towards them like a rockslide. The Kuddru berserker was eight feet tall and covered in scavenged metal plates decorated with bold tales of his exploits. Dozens and dozens of slashes in his crest announced his prowess in battle.

Wrex gave a bellow and charged to meet him, and the two krogan collided with a terrific crack. Rock and sand scattered in all directions as the two reptiles scrambled for purchase. Wrex latched onto his opponent's arms and twisted with all the strength he could muster, planting his feet in the ground and ignoring the furious kicks the Kuddru rained down on his knees and ankles. The Kuddru was trying to break his legs and each blow sent bolts of pain lancing up Wrex's side, but he held strong, shifting his stance only when he had to and continuing to press with all his strength.

The Kuddru's agonized roars echoed in Wrex's ears as he finally heard a snap and felt his opponent's steel gauntlet split like firewood, the forearm twisting with it. The Kuddru stumbled and fell to the ground and Wrex loosed his grip. The Kuddru's shotgun sent burning hot pellets pinging through Wrex's shields, but even the feeling of flecks of shrapnel smoldering constellations into his skin ebbed away in a rush.

Bloodsong thundered into Wrex's head as he dove atop the fallen krogan headfirst, his surroundings melting away to be replaced with red hot rage. Blood fountained from a dozen holes in his chest but he felt nothing anymore, and shattered the Kuddru's gun with a blow. He produced a hidden knife and slammed it into his opponent's neck so deep it held fast. Still the Kuddru fought, planting his own knife in the roof of Wrex's mouth.

Wrex bit down, hard. Teeth broke and the knifeblade sank, filling his mouth with the taste of blood and polished steel, but the satisfying crunch of bone and armor proved he'd broken the Kuddru's other arm.

"Kovas!" the Kuddru challenged, hand still digging the blade as deeply into Wrex's throat as he could.

Wrex slammed a free hand down on the Kuddru's neck and yanked his mouth free, snarling as he spat the knife and a mouthful of blood onto the hot sand. "A good death," he agreed, swinging another blow down on the Kuddru's thrashing forearm. The desert warrior gave him a nod.

Wrex stared his foe in the eye as he jammed his own shotgun into the back of his throat and pulled the trigger. There was a spurt of thick blood and bone chips and the Kuddru fell slack.

The world seeped back into reality, the sounds of gunfire and bellowing krogan swimming in Wrex's ears, as he kneeled in the carnage, lungs heaving like bellows and blood oozing from a dozen wounds. His head pounded with the fury of battle but his limbs felt like stone. He did not even react when Miranda stepped into his field of view, face grim as she fired at the nearest Kuddru. Her aim was surgically perfect, each stanza of shots grouping square on her enemies' eyes, virtually the only soft part of the krogan body. The occasional biotic wave would knock a krogan off balance just long enough to be finished off with a careful burst.

"Warlord," she said. "More incoming."

Wrex was on his feet, and charged again.

–

The krogan had thirteen hundred words for attack but none for retreat. Even after thousands of years with the galactic community, they refused to choose one. If they had to use it, they used a salarian word.

There was no need for it today.

The Kuddru chieftain ended the battle as all krogan battles ended, still fighting and scrambling as Wrex drove a dagger into his chest.

–

The battle ended with a single stroke of a knife, while a thousand eyes watched.

Shasha Alshik gave a shuddering gasp as Wrex's dagger plunged deep in his chest. The blade bit through skin and bone and the world seemed to fade to silence as Wrex gave it a last thrust. The great chieftain of the eastern tribes held on for a second, milky eyes still challenging Wrex's crimson even as blood poured from his body.

Then he fell to his knees with a great thud.

The assembled krogan seemed to let out a collective breath, but none so deep as Wrex, whose breath came in great, desperate gulps. He knew the hundreds of krogan still standing – on both sides – were watching him, waiting for him to act. He knew Alshik would have parting words before demanding kovas. He knew he should probably check to see if Miranda had survived. He knew he should probably let go of the blade still clenched in his hands.

He settled for just that last one and took a ponderous step backwards, his leaden fingers releasing the knife where it set. The rush of battle ebbed away in a great wash, and Wrex felt the steady, massive pressure in his shoulders – a souvenir of centuries of fighting and breaking and regenerating and fighting again – resurface. He was an old, heavy thing. He was as strong as he'd ever been but so very tired.

"You lose," Wrex finally panted, looking down at the fallen chieftain and trying not to shake.

Alshik gave a wet cough that caused the obsidian scales on his hauberk to jingle. "Maybe, Wrex-Who-Would-Be-Warlord."

"I am Warlord," Wrex corrected, gesturing to the hilt of his blade still poking out of Alshik's chest.

Alshik nodded. "So you are, Warlord. Apologies."

Wrex took another step back, wiping the blood from his eyes as his senses returned and he had his first chance to look at the casualties. Thousands of krogan stared back at him – Kuddru and Urdnot forces alike. Most of the skirmishes had died down once he'd met Alshik in battle, and most of his forces were still standing. His eyes scanned the crowds. Grunt. Uvenk. Miranda. The Kuddru hens (it had taken dozens of executions, but Wrex had finally made it clear just how little he would tolerate his warriors killing females of any tribes). A few wounded Kuddru warriors struggling to rise to their feet. But no Wreav… His eyes narrowed. "Where is my brother?" he rumbled. "Dead?"

Chief Alshik licked his bloodied teeth. "Not dead, Warlord," he said. "We made a d-deal. An alliance."

Wrex sniffed, unconcerned. "One he betrayed."

"No, brother."

"Look out!" Miranda's warning came too late. It turned out the battle was not over.

Wrex looked up in time to feel his brother's blade lance across his face. Even over the sudden chorus of roars – some approving and others aghast – he could hear the sizzle of his blood spattering on the sand. He hit the ground next to it, pain and fury pounding in his skull. A shotgun roared and Wrex felt a bloom of agony in his stomach, then another.

Wreav was on him and Wrex heard the crack of bone and armor. He rolled, vision bouncing in a wave of flying sand and glass, his brother's roar thundering above him. "Do you think I'm so empty?" Wreav demanded, and crashed upon his downed brother with an angry howl. Wreav's blows came fast and hard – he had clearly spent the battle resting and waiting for his opportunity – and Wrex felt his ankle snap under his brother's weight. Fighting the Kuddru had been different – the flatlanders were quick and vicious but lanky, relying on swift, aimed strikes instead of brute force. Fighting a fellow Urdnot was like two rockslides meeting in a canyon, all pressing weight and shattering bones.

"DO YOU THINK I'M SO EMPTY!" Wreav roared again, hammering down on Wrex on all sides.

There was a blue flash and a roar and Wreav was tumbling backwards, bellowing in surprise as he rolled through a Kuddru hut, chased by a wave of shimmering, warped gravity that kicked dust and blood in all directions.

Wrex panted deeply as he lurched to his feet, ignoring the stab of pain it earned him. "Only empty headed, Chatha," he grunted. Strips of flesh hung from his slashed face as he watched Wreav struggle to untangle himself from the tent poles. The biotic attack had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit, and the pounding in his head threatened to overpower even the quiet fury he felt bubbling up at his brother's newest treachery.

Krogan on both sides watched as the Urdnot siblings righted themselves. None stepped in to help – out the corner of his eye, Wrex saw Grunt catch Miranda's arm, pulling her back without a word. Wrex could smell their anticipation, their hunger for a fight. They had watched their warlord fight the Kuddru, and now they would watch him fight his brother. There were many who would see him die at Wreav's hands, who would see clan Urdnot back to its roots. And even those who loved him only did so because he was strong enough to keep his position.

And so they watched as their warlord gushed blood onto the sand and tried to hide his shattered ankle.

Wrex grimaced. He'd known Wreav would pull something like this eventually, but he'd hoped it could wait until a calmer day. As if Tuchanka had calm days. His limbs ached, his armor was sundered, his shotgun destroyed, his shields drained to next to nothing, but it did not matter. He had to fight.

If he could not defeat Wreav on his bad days he could not defeat him at all.

"You've learned more than a little from father, Chatha Wreav," he rumbled once Wreav had risen. His brother pawed the ground and stared at him with hate in his eyes, and Wrex stared back. "Turning on your own brood."

"Do not call me that!" Wreav spat. "I would be Chatha Wreav if you had not run off to join Urdnot. If you had not killed him!" He charged, his footsteps seeming to shake the ground.

This time Wrex was ready for him, and buried his hump in Wreav's gut. His brother's weight – more than a ton – crashed down on his shoulders until Wrex gave a great, upwards shove, pulling Wreav off his feet and slamming him down into the ground. The impacts of metal on bone on stone squealed across the valleys.

Wrex's head came crashing down onto Wreav's face so hard he tasted blood. "You know Jarroth would never hand over his tribe to you," he goaded, tossing his brother aside with another biotic field.

Wreav rolled to his feet, blinking the dirt out of his eyes. His knife – still dripping with Wrex's blood – turned in his grip as he circled around for a new angle. Wrex stayed in place, slowly following his brother's movements and trying not to reveal his broken foot.

"I chose to follow you," Wreav reminded him, almost slavering with battlesong as he circled for a new attack. "You said mother's tribe would welcome us."

"And they did. Urdnot Radt took us as his sons."

"They welcomed you!" Wreav charged again.

Wrex was too slow this time, and he felt his brother crash into him like a charging athak. A strange weightlessness took hold of him as he tumbled, hurtling to the ground. Stars filled his vision. He rolled, just avoiding his brother's second charge, and gave another biotic push. A pained grunt proved the warp had hit home but it was not enough and he felt a fresh blow to his face. Wreav pressed down on him, slamming an armored elbow into Wrex's open mouth and leaning in until Wrex felt his jaw would break.

"You… took… me… from… Clan… Chatha," Wreav accused teeth gritting audibly as he pushed all the harder, ignoring Wrex's fists desperately slamming against his head. "And then you KILLED father!"

It was only when Wrex's fingers found the back of Wreav's crest and yanked that Wreav gave a snarl of alarm jerked away, pushing Wrex backwards with one knee so fast that the warlord rolled through a stony cairn firepit.

The blows stopped and Wrex obligingly tried to stumble back to his feet, spitting ash from his mouth. Had to keep going. His massive strength, however, seemed to seep out from the half dozen holes in his body. Still he managed to lurch up, leaning on his good foot as he met his brother's hateful gaze again.

"You thought he would never die," Wrex panted. "That you would only get your glory in Urdnot. You should have known." Wrex gave a shuddering wheeze, listening to his brother's angry roar. Through the haze of blood he could see Wreav preparing to charge again.

And behind him… Miranda, whose finger danced on her gun handle. Her eyes bored into his and he found himself wondering at the expression he saw there. Worry or excitement? Did his being warlord factor into her beloved plans or did she want to see Wreav split his skull on the rocks?

"I was wrong to follow you," Wreav was saying, feet scraping the ground. "But I won't do it again."

Wrex took a deep breath that tasted of blood and soil, feeling the sunlight sizzle on his bleeding face. The scars there – remnants of thresher acid, one of the few things capable of leaving such a lasting mark on a krogan – felt very alive today. Wrex tried to focus on that feeling, drawing what strength he had left for one final biotic push. He had one chance.

Wreav charged.

There was a flash of blue at Wreav's feet and he crashed to the ground with a pained snarl, coming to a stop at Wrex's feet. The Warlord stood above him with no pity in his eyes, biotic energy licking around him. "No, you won't," he said.

Wrex's warp hit Wreav square on the face. There was a shattering sound and a great spurt of blood and Wreav was still.

Wrex stood strong amongst the cheering.

–

He almost needed help to hobble back to where Alshik still lay but he would be damned if he let his troops see him smash his brother down and then lean on another krogan's hump like an invalid. He limped as proudly as he could and tried not to sway as he looked down at the fallen chieftain.

Alshik had a smile on his face. "Well fought, Warlord," he said.

Wrex grunted.

"He had to ambush you to face you, and even then he was not strong enough. I would call him salarian but for his shared blood with you, Warlord." Wrex grimaced. The memory of his father's forces leaping from graves, butchering his krannt on sacred ground, brimmed forth in his mind. "You will proceed now to my homeland? Kill my heirs?" Alshik asked, echoing Miranda's mockery from the night before.

Wrex stared down at him. Alshik was a beaten creature, his chest still pierced with Wrex's dagger. He had admitted conspiring. He did not expect mercy, nor did he want it. Not even for his sons, his clan. He knew Wrex had the power to destroy them.

But he didn't know Wrex.

Wrex shook his head, ignoring the patter of blood still dripping from his wrenched jaw. "No," he said, loud enough for his troops to hear. "No Oorloc."

Alshik's expression turned to confusion. "What!" he demanded, struggling and failing to sit up. "Kovas! Kill me!"

"No."

"Am I so low to be left to heal and hobble the desert!"

Wrex gave a rumble. "He is," he said, pointing to where Wreav's body baked in the sun. "He will return to me crawling on his belly or not at all." He grinned at that thought. "But you? No," Wrex repeated, and stomped on the hilt of his knife with all his strength. The knife sank and Alshik gave a roar of agony as blood fountained from the wound. Wrex stared at him as he dropped to a kneel next to Alshik's panting form. "Why did you attack?" he asked, voice quiet.

Alshik's breaths were short and wet. Still, he seemed almost glad to be in such pain. "B-because I… remember Okeer. I knew him, once." His gray eyes held a fury. "The time of warlords is over. We cannot survive another like him. Another offworlder."

Wrex twisted the knife's handle and listened to the squelch of flesh. Alshik's back arched in pain. "Am I like him?" Wrex asked. He had thought many nights on this question.

"You are an offworlder," Alshik spat through gritted teeth. "A traitor, as he was."

"No," Wrex said. "I am not."

"You will have us leave Tuchanka. You will lead us to death that we cannot afford."

Wrex twisted a little more. "No I won't. I have learned from the offworlders, but I am a krogan. One of the old ones."

"If I lie, Warlord, kill me!" Alshik pleaded. "Kovas! You have won."

"No," Wrex repeated again. "You will join my krannt." Wrex felt a warmth that was more from the thought of Uvenk's face at his rivals being pulled into the fold than because he was fist deep in his enemy's hot flesh.

Alshik's eyes widened and his breath stilled. "You dare?"

"I dare," Wrex said. "I spare you and your survivors and your clan. You will join my krannt as my loyal brother and should I betray you as Okeer did, you will kill me and take my place."

Alshik blinked in confusion. "The females?"

"Keep them." He fixed the chieftain with a fierce eye. "Alive."Alshik was silent but Wrex forged on. "Your first act of loyalty will be to gather your survivors and return home. You will tell your clan and your allies to prepare for the day I will call on them to fight."

"And if they refuse?"

"You will convince them," Wrex said, giving a final twist to the knife before yanking it out. Orange blood dripped from its blade as he carefully wiped it and tucked it into one of the scabbards on Alshik's shoulder. "I have beaten you," he said. "I AM the Warlord and I DEMAND your loyalty."

He stood on solid feet and addressed the crowd. "AND I WILL HAVE IT!"

–

No krogan was fool enough to offer help to the warlord, even when his leg hung stiff beneath him and his flesh dangled in strips. They would not leave him behind to be picked off by scavengers or clanless with delusions of grandeur, but to be seen slowing to his proud limp would be a grave insult. They would not coddle the warlord.

So instead they fanned out under pretext of hunting, their ranks spread far and wide with Wrex and his two charges at the epicenter for the long journey home.

–

The air was cooler tonight, the sunlight not so harsh once they reached the safety of the deeper canyons. Wrex's uneven footfalls were slow. Only a few hours after Wreav had broken it, the throbbing pain had left his foot, ushered out of the way by a burning sensation. His leg had gone stiff as rock as the bones knit themselves back together, and Wrex couldn't have sped to a run if he'd wanted to. So he dragged his foot along with all the dignity he could muster. Step by step. Back home.

He felt no shame, even when his body screamed out for rest with every jolt on the road. Even when his blood still left a trail behind him. Even when the varren packs started to whicker and get brave, all but sure he would die in the desert.

But his mind thundered with activity. The Gatatogs would be gone by the time he returned home. Or otherwise waiting to ambush and kill him. They would never set aside their oorloc with the flatlanders. Wreav's krannt in the south would be on him soon as well. The Kuddru would spread their tales home and no doubt their neighbors would soon be on the east horizon, but to join him or fight him was hard to guess. And with Shepard stirring the Weyrlocs into a rage in the west , Wrex would be fighting enemies on every side.

There were preparations to be made. New alliances to be forged. Foes to be slain.

And that made Wrex rue every slow step he made. He urged himself faster, as fast as his foot could take, but the pain made it impossible to keep up for long and again and again he was forced to slow to a crawl.

Eventually he gave up. There was nothing for it. Just keep walking. Just keep walking.

For all Wrex's frustration, Grunt and Miranda did not mind the slower return trip.

"There was a breach in his armor. I saw it," Grunt was saying, gesticulating wildly as he had been for the past several hours. "A hole. Not big enough to fit my gun in, barely a finger's width apart. So do you know what I did, human?"

Miranda sighed, stepping down from one boulder onto the gravelly canyon bed. "Did you… slam your gun into it anyway?"

"Yes!" Grunt exclaimed, missing the woman's tone. "I pulled the trigger and the flatlander's body pulped! It was glorious!" The soon-to-be Urdnot Grunt was beaten and scarred, his previously pristine armor scored and abraded in a thousand places, like he'd worn it since the genophage. A Kuddru dagger had torn a great gash down the young krogan's exposed bicep but he gave it no notice. It was amazing what a few days on Tuchanka had done for him. He held himself like a krogan, he talked like a krogan. He even smelled more krogan. Wrex had planned to give him his rite for Shepard's sake alone, but it was clear the boy would earn his place if he had to. The keystone would be the final test, but he had fought and survived and that was what being a krogan was.

Grunt was still coming off the high of battle and talked non-stop, but Miranda and Wrex were quiet as the terrain slipped by. The trio made their ponderous way out of one of the canyon passes, returning to the plateaued surface where the sinking sun sent long shadows angling across the desert. His army was a great black streak spread across the horizon, wreathed in the setting sun.

Wrex stopped them at the mouth of a new, shallower canyon, interrupting Grunt's monolog with a wave. "Grunt." He pointed out to the southwest. "Do you see that smoke?" A thin column of smoke a few dozen kilometers away marked the top of a small stone tower.

Grunt stared. "Yes."

"Most of Wreav's krannt camps there. You will go to them and tell them what happened to him. If any of them has a problem with it… kill them."

Grunt grinned. "Yes, Warlord."

"And then return to camp. The shaman will want to begin your rite."

Grunt's excitement was palpable as he lumbered pointedly off towards the smoke, a new vigor in his step. Wrex had no doubt some of his brother's lieutenants would not take kindly to Grunt's news. There would be fighting. Death, even. But they had to be dealt with. And Grunt would do it.

Shepard wanted Grunt cured but there was nothing to cure. Grunt needed to learn how to be a krogan and that meant fighting and dying. That was the price. If he did not survive… well… Shepard would understand. Or he would not.

Wrex turned the other way and headed home, Miranda in tow.

–

The two of them walked for hours after the sun set and spoke not a word. The scuffing of Wrex's feet and the pained wince he gave at every step seemed thunderous enough in the darkness. It was the deepest night when Wrex finally could take no more and stopped to rest, thudding to the rocky ground against the canyon wall. His body let out an exhausted shudder.

Miranda sat across from him, watching as he massaged at his broken limb, twisting and testing the flexibility back into it.

"Are you recovering?" she asked after a long moment. "Should I call for help?"

Wrex just snorted. "I don't need help."

"Can I help?" she tried again. "I do know a great deal about xenophysiology. I smell like a med lab, remember?"

"You should help my brother, then."

Miranda frowned. "If he's alive."

"Oh, he's alive," Wrex sighed, closing his eyes. "For now. It'll be a few days of fending off varren but he'll survive. Wreav is a monster."

Tuchanka's silence billowed until Miranda broke it again.

"I'm more worried about fending off those varren when they come after you," she said, and Wrex creaked open an eye. A dozen shiny gazes peered at them from the far end of the canyon, reflective eyes peering through the night. Wrex could not see more from where he sat, but the sounds and smells of a varren pack were a constant companion on Tuchanka. They whickered and whined in anticipation of a meal.

He chuckled. "If they were going to attack they would have done it by now," he said. Varren were smart enough to know that krogan didn't stay injured for very long. It was hard to guess whether they were even after him anyway – a krogan, even injured, was a danger. But a squishy human…

"Stay near me and you'll be fine," Wrex grunted, and laid his head back, ignoring the indignant look Miranda gave him.

Silence lapsed between them as Wrex stared up at the stars. His other eye watched the woman. She was silent. Still. Not sleeping or preening or fidgeting with her hand wrappings. Just still. Just scheming.

"We weren't always like this," he muttered eventually, staring past his injured foot. "I remember a time when blood hardly mattered. When Wreav and I would have been krannt. Inseparable. Not killing each other over an empty throne."

Miranda looked at him. "I wonder if you aren't inseparable anyway. You did spare him." He imagined he could smell her hidden judgments. She'd all but told him she thought the krogan were backwards primitives the last time they'd talked. Now she made even sparing his brother sound like a sin.

Wrex snorted, gritting his teeth as he pulled each of his toes back until he couldn't take it. "Maybe."

He gave another grunt and, with some effort, managed to heave himself back to his feet. He set a tentative weight on his hurt foot, testing the give with a few bounces before nodding and continuing down the canyon without a word. Miranda followed behind.

"What you did back there," he started, remembering the way Wreav had tripped on a biotic barrier before he'd dealt the final blow.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Miranda insisted.

Wrex stopped to stared down at her, but her face was unreadable. He had a feeling even a human wouldn't know what to make of her. "Fine... But I know you didn't do it without reason. You want something from me." It was not a question. "Keep the krogan out of your plans," he said, his voice a quiet growl.

"You are in Shepard's plans, so you are in my plans," Miranda said.

For an eighteen hundred pound animal with a broken foot, Wrex could move very, very fast. In an instant he had whirled around and caught Miranda about the throat with one hand. He held her effortlessly aloft, slamming her back into the canyon wall high enough that her legs flailed for purchase without finding it.

She kicked but her foot only found Wrex's palm. He caught her ankle in a crushing grip.

"You look down on us," he rumbled. "But one squeeze and we could find out how well you can fend off varren with a broken foot." He flicked his head at the watching varren still shadowing their path.

Miranda said nothing, only stared daggers back at him.

"Varren go for the skull when they can," Wrex said. "They're bone crushers." He tightened his grip a little more for emphasis. "It's a quick death." He stared at her for a long moment.

He released her, and she fell choking to the ground, clutching her throat.

"Shepard is your warlord," he breathed. "Keep him out of your plans. If I find out you've betrayed him…" He turned. "You will wish the varren caught you."

---

One day later...

–

Shepard never did anything quietly. Never managed to leave an area without touching it. Wrex wondered if it was something he did on purpose or if he was just terminally unlucky, but either way, the death of Weyrloc Guld was news to rival even Wrex's unprecedented alliance with the eastern Kuddru, or the Gatatog clan's furious exit from Wrex's company.

Wrex had largely tolerated Guld. The once-powerful Weyrlocs were fond of proselytizing about the 'weak' tribes, and Urdnot most of all, but aside from defending the borders they shared with the Strylocs they had made no move against him. They were holed up well and Wrex knew dealing with them would come only at the cost of many lives, so he had let them live.

But he wasn't going to lose any sleep hearing Shepard had killed them on his own time.

Shepard and Mordin returned in the height of the day and marched to Wrex's throne, looking bloodied and tired. They stepped past the krogan guards, and didn't even spare a second glance for the body of the Kuddru messenger Wrex was still using as a footstool. Wrex expected Shepard to inquire about Grunt – to be itching to micromanage his rite of passage as soon as possible, but to his surprise it was the salarian who spoke first.

"Mission accomplished," Mordin said, back in the clipped tones more usual for his species. Wrex was almost sad to see the acting stop. "Will take mate back now." He gestured to Miranda, who was tapping away at her omnitool under a makeshift shelter. Her nails were cracked, her skin burnt, her garments torn, her mane a tangled snarl, but she had long since stopped trying to fix it.

"She has not lain a single egg," Wrex said, staring at her.

"Humans viviparous," Mordin said, unruffled. "Will take her now. Prolonged exposure to UV radiation unhealthy for her." The salarian waited for no response, defiantly stooping to drag Miranda to her feet. He linked her arm with his and marched away, his nose in the air.

Shepard and Wrex stared after them. "So…," Wrex began, "the new Normandy is as strange as the last one." It wasn't a question.

Shepard sighed. "Stranger."

"Find your salarian?"

"Dead."

Wrex grunted. "Can't expect better on Tuchanka."

"Mordin killed him. Just made the decision and shot him in a half second. He was dead before I could blink."

Wrex grunted again and stared out at the desert. He wasn't surprised. "Can't expect better on Tuchanka," he repeated.

---

One day later…

–

Wrex sat on his throne and thought.

The Normandy was gone and he wasn't on it.

And he wanted to be.

"The thresher's blood is used in eleven rituals," the shaman was explaining, holding up a varren bladder of freshly-collected thresher maw blood. The shaman was covered head to toe in dried gore and smelled like a chemical plant. In places the maw's acid still sizzled on his skin. With the possible exception of the newly-crowned Urdnot Grunt (who had instantly been rendered a celebrity in his new tribe, their past prejudice erased in a second by the look at a grooved, glassy tooth the size of a machete in Grunt's hand), no one was more excited by the thresher's death than the shaman, who had wasted no time in collecting a pharmacy's worth of bodily fluids from its massive corpse. He had already applied acid to his face and fingers and a half dozen other places for this ritual or that, and had been maintaining a constant commentary since returning from the keystone.

"It is a key component in Clan Urdnot's alchite oil – it gives it its unique odor," the shaman continued. "The preparation takes many weeks – I will begin it at once, Warlord."

"Good," Wrex grunted, sensing his input was needed.

The shaman's eyes narrowed in anger. "Not merely good, Warlord. You yourself know what this occasion means. You would not be clan leader, you would not be warlord, if your uncle had not seen you kill the maw." Indeed, it was a matter of spectacular rarity for an adult thresher to respond to the keystone at all – the poundings of the ancient reactor were said to have once called a maw with every pulse, but now the great worms had all but lost interest in it. For such a large maw to respond so aggressively – and then be killed – would be remembered by krogan worldwide for thousands of years. "It is an omen. The Maw-killer has returned to take his rightful place. He has found an heir. He has assembled an army." The shaman's excitement was palpable. "The krogan are returning."

"What for, Shaman?"

The shaman stared at Wrex. "I have no name and no power. That is not my place to decide. You have both, but you have not said and so we will wait."

Wrex snorted. He had not said for a reason, and yet all his subjects who claimed such loyalty doubted him. Called him 'human-lover' in the cover of darkness and anonymity. Called him weak. Unable to use the army he'd assembled. Called him traitor.

The shaman seemed to read his thoughts. "You will say when you are ready to say. You are warlord. You are Maw-killer. You will decide, not me."

Wrex snorted again.

There was a long silence as Wrex watched the sun move across the sky and the shaman busied himself bottling his newest acquisitions with reverent care. Wrex spent it deep in thought. About Shepard, about the mounting opposition to his rule. About the fallout from the deaths of Uvenk and Guld. About what it meant to be a krogan.

There was a shudder under his feet and he stopped, sitting up to watch the Kuddru messenger sputter and cough. Behind him, the shaman approached, watching with wide eyes. Wrex's guards gripped their weapons tighter.

Wrex smiled as the young easterner awoke from his regenerative coma. "I was wondering when you would rise," he rumbled.

The Kuddru coughed and heaved. "W-wh-"

Wrex didn't give him a moment to get his bearings. In a second he had grabbed the smaller krogan's collar and hauled him up to eye level, a knife – the same knife he'd used to down the boy in the first place – pressed up against the Kuddru's dewlap. "Ready to speak my language?"

The Kuddru gaped uselessly, eyes wide. He nodded.

"Your clan is mine now," Wrex said. "You are mine. I am your warlord. Understand?"

The Kuddru's previous arrogance was gone and he nodded again.

"You will go with the shaman and you will see what my clan is capable of. What the hands of Urdnot have done. You will see something that has not been seen in a thousand years and you will know what strength is." The shaman nodded proudly. "When the shaman sees fit to release you, you will go home, but you will carry a message to every krogan you meet."

The Kuddru swallowed. "W-what message, Warlord?"

Wrex smiled. "You will tell them that the Reapers are coming. You will tell them to prepare for my Oorloc."

The Kuddru nodded without comprehension.

"Go," Wrex grunted, and dropped the Kuddru in a great thud of armor and bone. The flatlander scrambled to his feet as if on fire and practically sprinted to join the shaman. Wrex whumped back into his throne and watched them depart, grinning.

He felt good. Suddenly better than before. Grunt and his krannt had killed a thresher maw. There were still krogan – young krogan – with the strength of the old ones. Grunt shared Wrex's great strength, and that filled Wrex with a hope he hadn't felt in years.

His strength was all they needed.

He was the lizard king. He was warlord.

And when the Reapers came, they would learn what that meant.

–

---

Codex Entry: Warlord Ganar Okeer, the Offworlder

Ever since the nuclear war that devastated their homeplanet, krogan have lived in a violent clan society. Resources are scarce and enemies abundant on Tuchanka, and each clan must fight to scrape out its place in the order. Sometimes, however, a great warlord will rise up, a krogan so powerful, so persuasive, that rival clans forget their grudges and flock to his ranks. Krogan tale-tellers speak of dozens of great warlords and their exploits with reverence in their voices.

And hatred in their voices for one.

The Ganar clan – now essentially extinct – was one of the oldest and most powerful on Tuchanka. After the nuclear wars, a loose coalition of clans – later called the Salt Clans – rose to power. The Salt Clans – led by the Gatatog and Ganar – made their home in a vast stretch of saltpan desert that separated the lowland krogan to the west and the flatlanders to the east. Though harsh and almost foodless, the saltflats were dotted by the ruins of dozens of ancient krogan cities and temples, including the Keystone (the semi-functional remains of a nuclear power plant) and the great crypt of Tosaqq-asot, where the dead heroes of dozens of clans were interred. Enemy clans were reluctant to attack those who held their own sacred sites, and more reluctant still to face the Gatatog's Warrior Triplets – the last three nuclear warheads on Tuchanka. The Gatatog and Ganar used their holdings as badges of power, demanding obedience and tribute from the smaller clans to their east and west, and while they never approached the size of the pre-war krogan empires, came to be the largest clans on Tuchanka.

Salarians made first contact with the Gatatogs, believing them the most technological and 'civilized' of the krogan clans, and offered them technology in exchange for soldiers. The Gatatogs' answer was swift and final – they detonated one of their own nukes upon the salarian landing party, killing the envoys in nuclear fire.

The salarians changed tactics, approaching instead the smaller, more progressive clans in the east and west. Many of the clans had rankled under centuries of Salt Clan rule, and were anxious for any advantage the aliens could give them. Soon, the Salt Clans were under attack from a dozen sides by clans bristling with salarian weapons and fed by salarian crops. The Salt Clans crushed the first clans to stand against them, but bit by bit the uplifted clans chipped away at the Salt Clans' power. The sacred sites that had given them so much influence were captured – Urdnot in the west took the Keystone. Northern Statka battlemasters stormed Tosaqq-asot in a day. Kuddru kasgars infiltrated the Gatatog cities and stole the remaining two Triplets, detonating one atop a Gatatog temple in retribution for thousands of years of slavery and oppression (and starting a feud that persists to this day).

The Salt Clans were tossed low, and the lowlanders to the west emerged as the new ruling power on Tuchanka. Ganar and Gatatog and their allies reluctantly accepted their fate and the salarian aid, and a new age in krogan history began.

While the Gatatogs trickled to obscurity, however, the Ganar quickly found themselves rising to power again. The great Ganar warrior Ganar Sottut was one of the first eight warlords to arise from Tuchanka as its population exploded, and the first eight the salarians took offworld to fight the rachni. Sottut commanded a force of tens of thousands of krogan and gained a reputation for brutality and strength. While the eight warlords ultimately became absorbed under Kredak, the Great Lowlander, Sottut remained one of Kredak's top lieutenants, and was responsible for storming the Rachni worlds Fosuuuj and Amtaaat.

Centuries later, when Kredak declared war on the Citadel races, Sottut rallied to his side again, and assisted in attacks on a dozen planets and moons. Sottut was ultimately killed by asari peacekeeping forces on Arya, control of his forces fell to the then-already-wizened Ganar Okeer. When Kredak was killed in the Battle of Eophili by the newly-appeared turian Hierarchy, the Ganar returned to Tuchanka with most of the other defeated krogan in Kredak's army. Their chieftain Okeer, however, disappeared, believed dead by his forces.

Okeer ultimately resurfaced on a post-genophage Tuchanka after more than four centuries away. He returned a changed krogan. Where before he had been obedient and conservative, now he bellowed and pontificated about a new dawn for the krogan. About reclaiming their lost roots. And, most importantly, about curing the genophage, which had started to crumble the krogan forces from within. Tens of thousands of krogan flocked to Okeer's forces, eager for deliverance from the rest of the galaxy. Okeer reinstituted practices that had died with the Salt Clans, including widespread slavery of the smaller, more progressive tribes like Urdnot who could not be convinced to join him. His army numbered almost a million when he left Tuchanka, but still he recruited. Okeer brought his message to all three of the last remaining warlords – Modo, Shiagur, and Kodus – begging them for their aid. Thousands more joined him.

And then Okeer disappeared into space. Modo, Shiagur, and Kodus, already struggling to keep up their numbers, had lost too many troops and were slain by the turians within a few years of one another.

Most of Okeer's followers were never seen again. His Ganar tribe – which he'd removed from Tuchanka down to the last individual – was shattered, and, no longer with a home to return to, its remnants formed the beginnings of the Blood Pack on Omega. Thousands of others found their way across Citadel Space and the Terminus Systems, where they found work as mercenaries and enforcers. Many others made their way back to Tuchanka.

None knew what had happened to Okeer, or to the tens of thousands still missing.

Okeer's legacy among the krogan is one of betrayal and failure. His nickname – the Offworlder – inspires anger across Tuchanka, and more than twelve hundred years later, there have been no new warlords.

–

---

A/N: And after much delay, here it is!

I don't figure I need to tell you how cool Wrex is. I only hope I've done him justice.

So… on krogan ages (because I know this'll be brought up if I don't say something): While we're never given a solid number in the games, there's good reason to think they live a very, very long time. Comments Wrex makes in ME1 suggest he's at least 1300 years old, while Okeer's dossier in ME2 confirms he is a veteran of the rebellions, with 'millenia of combat experience'. This means krogan – not asari – are the longest lived species in the ME universe (as far as we know). I like to think nobody even knows how long they live, for they live so long and so violently (rather like, say, some reptiles that we still can't properly age).

In other news, this chapter (the longest one yet, once again – this is 50 pages in Word, for Warlord's sake) pushes this story past 200000 words! Huzzah, another landmark! I must again thank you all for your support. Call me conceited but I just love reading your comments and reviews. It helps fuel my writing engines, and I feel like I need a lot of damn fuel.

Next chapter splits perspective five ways (two we've seen before). Chapter after THAT? Twelve ways (seriously).