Book of The Dead

Perhaps there was no individual in the Empire more acutely informed of the devastation of the Western Province than Merigold. She had poured over the records for thousands of hours, working long into the night, huddled over her desk, tabulating, summarising, categorising everything that had come to the bureaucracy. Alongside other members of her team, she had been responsible for collating the data, ruling up the tables, running the numbers and presenting them to the court, laying the incalculable cost before the Emperor and the high nobles.

Just numbers.

That’s all they had been to her, to any of them. She’d personally written the summary of the fall of Northwatch. General Civsonn had been responsible for the assault, and the resulting documentation, and his cold, clipped sentences had read like the fall of the executioner’s axe.

Six thousand, three hundred and forty-four attempted to resist. Executed.

Seventy-three thousand, nine hundred found within the city. Executed.

Remains burned and buried at site two kilometres west-northwest of the city wall.

Line by line, the tale of destruction and unimaginable horror boiled down to clean statistics. In many ways, her role had been easy. Page after page, line by line, tabulating and compiling, putting the puzzle together piece by piece until she was able to properly comprehend the whole.

Despite the queasy feeling in her stomach, she remembered how the process had excited and challenged her, how much she had enjoyed assembling a clear picture despite the noise and clutter. Merigold had been very good at her job, had been praised and rewarded for it.

Now, she simply felt sick.

“Are you alright?”Honoured Stennis leaned closer, iron grey eyes as hard as steel and cold as winter, as they always were. Perhaps he didn’t know what he was looking at.

She knew he did. He just didn’t care.

“I’m fine,” Merigold said, feeling numb. “Just… tired.”

Northwatch had been a bustling hub before the purge had begun. With two Slayer Keeps to the north, it sat astride the major road connecting them to the capital, reaping enormous benefits in trade. With abundant farmland and dozens of smaller towns and villages dotted around it, Northwatch had been home to well over a hundred thousand citizens of the Empire.

Now, it was a ruin.

From the hill on which she stood, Merigold could look down on what remained of the city. When the Golden Legion had swept through, they had been… thorough, to say the least. Rubble, smashed walls, impact craters from powerful spells, scorch marks, all signs that told the tale of the utter devastation that had been visited on the people who lived here.

Seeing it for herself, Merigold couldn’t imagine that it had been worthwhile, that it had been necessary. Corruption and impurity had stained the Western Province, it was true, but did everyone have to pay the price?

Even from the Empire’s perspective, the cost of the purge was devastating. Almost incalculable. Yet they had done it anyway.

Why?

A strong city wall had encircled Northwatch, protection from a potential break as there were not one but two rifts within striking distance. Not much remained of it now. Some sections still stood, though they were blackened by smoke and flame, while the majority had been knocked down, some powerful force smashing them apart. She knew what had happened, all of it written down neatly for her by the general. Long-range bombardment first, possibly directed from the hill on which she currently stood. A rain of fire and stone had descended on the city, spreading chaos, burning people alive in their homes. Of course, it was necessary for the soldiers to conduct a building-by-building sweep, so they knocked down the walls and slaughtered everyone who fled through the openings.

When the fires died down, the soldiers had entered the city proper, covering every street, every road and alley, hunting for the survivors. When they could no longer hear a single heartbeat, their work had been done, and they’d begun their brief, crude cleanup.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” she said, turning around.

It had been a mistake to come here. She shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have listened to the voice that told her she had to see it for herself.

Cold and miserable, Merigold trudged back towards the camp, Honoured Stennis close behind, her ever-present shadow. With her shawl pulled tight against the wind, she kept her wits about her, despite the distracting thoughts that plagued her mind.

Six times.

They’d tried to kill her six times. She’d been shocked when the first attempt had struck while they were still in the central province. In the early morning, before the sun rose for the day, someone had tried to sneak into her tent, only to lose their head to Stennis’ blade.

Perhaps wary of the platinum rank representative of the Emperor, they’d tried poison next. Even the thought of it was enough to twist her guts. If not for the warnings and preparations of her allies in the capital, she wouldn’t have realised what was happening in time, nor had the emetic she’d needed on hand.

A poison sniffing ring, studded with a finely crafted emerald, glittered on the middle finger of her left hand. It had cost her department a staggering sum, yet it had been worth it. Stennis assured her a lesser quality ring would have failed to react at all to the concoction the assassins had used.

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Like everything else in the Emperor’s army, their camp needed to be perfect. Rigid lines of tents, flags planted precisely straight, trenches dug to the exact centimetre and earthen walls raised to match. After travelling with them, Merigold still hadn’t gotten used to the exacting standards expected. Although the officers tried to make allowances where they could, her rank was not so high that they gave her much deference.

In position, two soldiers, with their perfectly burnished, spotless golden armour, saluted sharply as she approached. As a member of the Imperial Court, she nodded in response, even though she knew the focus of the soldiers was not on her, but on the man behind her.

It didn’t make sense to them that the Emperor’s favoured would follow around a minor official like her. Having Honoured Stennis nearby had ensured that she was at least treated respectfully within the camp. There was a level of awe the Gold ranked soldiers held towards him, someone who had been given the vanishingly rare privilege of ascension.

More salutes met Merigold everywhere she turned until she made her way back to her own tent, close to the centre of the camp alongside the officers. Looking forward to sitting down and sorting out her thoughts, she was disappointed to find a red-caped soldier with especially ornate armour and a glowing insignia on his right pouldron.

A Captain? Waiting for her? This never ended well. He saw her coming, of course. In truth, the man had probably heard her coming the moment she entered the camp. At Gold Rank, some of these soldiers had senses so sharp they appeared almost supernatural. It was a wonder they even bothered to speak at a regular volume, since they could whisper and still carry out a conversation a room apart.

“Can I help you, Captain?” she asked, trying not to sound tired.

“The General wishes to see you in his tent, Lady Herimar.”

A crisp salute accompanied the sentence, delivered without a hint of disrespect, but she still had to resist the urge to flinch. Of the blood she might be, but the house of Herimar was so far down the pecking order it may as well not have counted. These Soldiers were used to being commanded by the High Nobility, not the eldest daughter of a minor house with barely a drop of divinity in her veins.

Protocol dictated they refer to her by title and house, but she really wished they wouldn’t.

“Very well,” she sighed. “I will join him immediately.”

“Excellent.”

Another salute, a crisp, perfect turn, and the Captain was off, marching with inhuman grace to report to the General. Not that he needed to, the blasted man had probably heard her loud and clear.

“I will accompany you inside,” Honoured Stennis said from beside her.

Merigold turned, a little surprised, and found she was, as usual, completely unable to read his expression.

Chain of command between someone of Stennis’ position and a General in the Golden Legion was… unclear. As a result, there was often friction between the two, though neither was openly disrespectful. For his part, Stennis had tended to avoid being in places where he might feel the need to contradict the General, yet now he was intending to head straight into the belly of the beast?

She felt a nervous chill tighten in her chest, and it wasn’t Stennis she was worried about.

It didn’t take long to reach the General’s tent, it was less than a hundred metres away, right in the centre of the camp.

Also the centre of pomp and ceremony, it took a further ten minutes before she was finally admitted to the man’s presence. Although she had initially expected the inside of the General’s tent to be unnecessarily ornate and lavish, it was anything but. Simple and utilitarian, the contents resembled the man seated behind the foldable desk planted in the centre of the space. Despite his uniform being ornate and polished to a mirror shine, the man within was plain-featured, with a shaved head and jawline so stubborn mules stared at him with envy.

He was also much easier to read than Stennis. For whatever reason, the General was irked. Merigold had never seen him irritated or mad, and certainly never furious. At worst, General Orryn would be irked, and somehow that was worse than if he were bellowing and smashing things.

“Lady Merigold,” he said, rising from his seat to greet her. “Thank you for joining me.”

“It’s my pleasure, General Crow,” she replied with a dip of the head.

As someone with divine blood, she wasn’t allowed to show any further deference than this to a person without it, despite his rank. With a gesture, he invited her to sit and she gladly did so.

Simple stools which, like his desk, could be folded for easy transport were all that could be found in the General’s tent, but they were comfortable enough. As she adjusted her position on the stool, she tried to think what might have upset the man in front of her.

It didn’t take long to find an answer: politics.

It was always politics.

General Crow hated political interference, a sentiment that Merigold could only vehemently agree with.

“I won’t waste your time,” the General stated evenly.

He never wasted time, for which she was grateful.

“I have received orders to split my force into two groups. Four thousand soldiers to sweep the north, and one thousand to sweep the south. Apparently, we are to ‘sweep the kin from the land and make it ready for resettlement’.”

There was no doubt he saw through that flimsy excuse.

“I’m guessing I’m supposed to travel with the southern group?” Merigold said bleakly.

The General nodded and she felt like throwing up her hands. Another attempt to waste time, delay, and get her killed. Separated from the General and the bulk of the officers, she would be isolated from senior command and no doubt placed in the power of some captain more amenable to outside influence. This was only the latest in a litany of attempts to meddle in the mission.

Her patience and tolerance for those who insisted on this dangerous manoeuvring was reaching perilously low levels. If this went on any longer, Merigold was liable to say something about her betters that her mother would find deeply scandalous.

“Do you intend to ignore that order?” she asked the General, and he, in a decidedly irked manner, shook his head.

“I cannot. The orders are legal.”

Of course they were. Merigold sighed.

“Honoured Stennis,” she said, “would you mind?”

“Not at all.”

She didn’t know exactly what he did, but she knew he did something. When he gave her the nod, she was certain nobody was listening in. Reaching within the innermost fold of her robe, she poked around, scratching at the fabric until she found the loose stitch she was looking for, and pulled. As she loosened the thread, the inner lining of the garment opened to reveal a cunningly concealed pocket, from which she removed a folded piece of silver paper no larger than her hand.

The pocket was a novel invention, with the only drawback being she’d have to resew it after each time it was opened. Still, some things were worth the secrecy.

With care not to damage it with her trembling hands, Merigold unfolded the paper and laid it flat on the table, revealing the emblem emblazoned upon it, radiating authority and power.

“You will ignore that order,” she said, in what she hoped was a firm tone of voice.

Expecting this, General Crow merely nodded, though his eyes remained fixed on the emblem.

“By the Emperor’s Will, I serve The Divines,” he said.