Kuirroda Dheniku Anvika Hjupeli Ghrolda: - Supreme Commander of the military forces of the Aasiti Province, on the southeastern coast. A flamboyant and jovial individual, she is nevertheless an excellent military commander and formidable individual fighter. A priestess of Ishareth, like many high ranking officials in Surabhumi, she has foregone the plain robes and traditional clerical sword for brilliantly polished steel armor and a two handed falx.
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“To the barbaric scum who has dared set foot on the soil of our nation; I am Kuirroda Dheniku Anvika Hjupeli Ghrolda. I demand that, effective immediately, you lay down your arms, surrender all plunder, release all prisoners of war, and allow your soldiers to leave our lands alive. You will all be spared and permitted to return home upon repaying the debt you have incurred with Surabhumi. Resist, and I will destroy you and repay tenfold the harm you have wrought on our land.”
Kuirroda’s face was taciturn and severe as she dictated the message to be sent, bereft of its usual humor and good nature. Her eyes were narrowed into slits as she surveyed the terrain before her, the rustle and clatter of armor and weapons filling her ears. She had received little information on the disaster that had unfolded while she was away, save that Asmaki had fallen and her ragtag assemblage had been shattered with little difficulty. Now, as she scanned the gently rolling plains before her, the full magnitude of the situation became evident. Patnai, the town Asmaki had tried to save, lay in the grip of a full siege, smoke rose from both sides of its walls and even from afar she could see the ruinous piles of rubble where once had stood buildings.
As she sent off the messenger bearing her letter, she called to her army and aides. “Units, assume bull’s horns! Skirmishers screen, keep the cavalry in reserve! Pikes to the center front!”
Like a well oiled machine, the army broke from its marching column, ninety thousand strong, and began to follow her orders. Ten thousand Surabhi bearing three meter pikes marched in perfect lockstep, forming dense squares in the center of the formation. Each of them carried a small shield in complement alongside the axes and swords they carried as sidearms. Each pike bearer was bedecked in thick chain armor, with dully gleaming burnished steel discs and plates secured in place on their torsos. Their faces hidden by sheets of more chain, horns coated in spiked stripes of steel. Behind them and on the wings marched the regular infantry, each woman bearing a large wood and steel shield, a spear, a two handed falx, and a short sword or axe. Each of these, numbering some forty eight thousand in total, was armored in a similar manner to the pike bearers. Taking up their positions in the core of the army were the archers, thirty thousand in number. Not as heavily armored as their compatriots equipped for melee, the archers sported sturdy woven vambraces in addition to their helmets and chainmail shirts, each archer carrying sixty arrows on their person in addition to the great war bows they held at their sides, many of them taller when unstrung than the Surabhi who wielded them. Behind them walked the cavalry, roughly six thousand in number, lightly armored and armed, they were used for harassment, screening, and pursuit. Each rider carried a sack of javelins with her, in addition to a light lance, wicker shield, and a light axe or sword. Their armor consisted solely of a padded shirt and sturdy steel helmet, and their ranks often consisted of the Surabhi smaller in stature than their brethren, easier able to ride on the backs of horses without tiring their mounts. Upon the wings of the formation were the skirmishers, numbering six thousand. Armed and armored in a similar manner to the cavalry, they carried additional javelins and a sturdy thrusting spear, many sported slings and additional armor. They would harass the flanks of the enemy and screen the deployments of the infantry in the field. Behind the archers rolled hundreds of various pieces of artillery, ballistas, scorpions, and more.
Kuirroda smiled, kicking her own mount into motion. Her personal retinue, sitting astride massive bulls armored so heavily there was nary an inch of hide exposed, numbered only a few hundred. They were to guard and escort her during battle, and to defend their commander with their lives. However, unlike Asmaki, Kuirroda had no intentions of allowing the battle to come to that.
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“Army on the horizon, Praetor,” said a grim faced legate. Masinissa followed his pointing finger to the flashes of light in the distance. There were enough of them to illuminate the entire surrounding fields in blinding light, especially in the scorching midday sun. He could guess as to the relative strength of this particular army, compared to the previous.
“Turn the catapults around,” Masinissa ordered. “The settlement can wait.” Immediately, his words were quickly relayed through the ranks. “Call up every soldier I took off duty as well. I want every hand. Now!” How many Surabhi were there? Fifty thousand, like his own? No, even more. A hundred thousand, perhaps. He was outnumbered nearly two to one, bad enough against a human army. Knowing that the enemy was so often taller, stronger, and more possessed of the zeal of fighting on home ground, who knows?
The rumble of wheels on hardened earth thundered through the army camp, pushed along by desperate hands and low voices. A military magus followed, inscribing prayers on various sections of the catapult, written in magic dust. The text glowed, then disappeared, and from the well of the catapult grew a mighty ball of fire.
“Wait, hold,” said the commanding centurion. He drew from his robes a letter, stained brown, along with a near-dried pair of gloved hands. “Strict orders from the praetor.” He placed both objects in the well, and the crew watched as the objects burned to a black crisp together. “Alright, let loose.” With a whoosh and a blast of hot air, the catapult released its deadly ammunition. Other catapult units quickly followed suit, and the air itself was alight with fireballs. Imasician magic was formidable, rivaled only by a select few in the entire known world, and will decide the fate of this battle.
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Kuirroda’s mood was further worsened when her messenger returned, bloodied stumps where had been the strong hands of a loyal soldier and messenger. She had come to the battle expecting an enemy with little respect for the laws of war - she had no delusions about notions such as ‘honor’, but the mutilation of her messenger filled her with disgust. She had hurriedly sent the distraught woman away with the best healers to be had, alongside a heavy sack of silver to buy the services of the best flesh shapers available. The soldier would have her hands back, and the scum who had maimed her would pay dearly. The carrion birds would feast well today.
The skirmishers moved forward from the flanks, fanning out in dispersed units that ranged ahead of the main column, the cavalry moving up on the flanks to take their places.
From her hilltop position, Kuirroda was the first to see the orange streaks of fire streak out as her skirmishers closed the distance. She gestured to an aide, who raised a spyglass and a curious apparatus, her mouth murmuring slightly as she fed observations to yet another aide. Kuirroda smiled as the spotter returned to her side after a minute, “Observations indicate they loosed at four hundred meters, commander. Based on what we can discern of the angle of their apparatuses, this is close to their maximum range.”
Kuirroda smiled, the familiar sense of battle falling over her as she observed the field before them. “Very good, move two medium ballista contingents to the 450 meter mark. Heavy ballista and the rest, I want them at five hundred. Alert me if they make any efforts to move their own artillery closer. Signal the infantry to form up between those points, standard formation. Keep the cavalry on the wings, out of their range. Let them fire at empty ground and slingers and javelineers.”
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The catapult’s volleys were imperfect, but their purpose was done. The enemy has halted, past four hundred meters, maybe more. The reach of the volleys cannot match further. “What now . . .” Masinissa wondered aloud. He could see them lining up, forming into maneuvers that looked straight from the texts in the imperial military records. On the field, the enemy skirmishers’ approach was rather clear. That was a bad sign.
“We know this,” said Centoria Andrea. “The enemy, they are defensible. Very formidable in defense. When they attack, who can say?” She studied the lines, observing closely as the formation continued to develop. “I don’t like it. These fields, they give us no hiding. If we could-”
Giant bolts rained from the sky, smashing into the ground around them and kicking up clumps of earth and grass. Andrea ducked, barely avoiding one aimed for her head. A few struck the catapults, rattling the levers and breaking some. At this moment, the skirmishers approached, letting loose their own volleys of stones, lead pellets, and spears. The skirmishers, striking exactly at the moment when the testudos were reforming, cut swaths through the open ranks. “Bring me my horse, Andrea,” Masinissa said. “I want the legii organized into a series of columns. Minimize the surface by which any of their accursed arrows may strike. We can overpower key points in their line, drive through and circle around. Just like Meldimica Augusta, just like Meldimica Augusta . . .” He could goad them into breaking rank and retreating if he pushed the catapults up, then charge while they’re retreating. If his gamble didn’t pay off . . .
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Kuirroda smiled, gently elbowing one of her aides. “Told you they’d try to move up on us like that. Signal a fallback, tell the spotters to maintain the same distance. If my guess is right, Asmaki tried to sit still and let herself be toyed with. We will not give him that same luxury. Draw the ballistae to the flanks, let them come in.”
She surveyed the ranks of her own forces, “I want the cavalry to fan out on my signal, keep them from moving any forces to the wings, send three companies of infantry with each wing - I do not wish to risk losing the cavalry. But for now, wait for my signal, let them think we will allow them to draw close like before.”
With a snappy salute, her aides relayed the orders, and the army held firm as the Imasician forces drew closer. Minutes passed, and as Kuirroda scanned the field, she blew into a whistle. At once, the force sprang into action, colored flags flapping across the army’s ranks, orders being shouted as the vast assembly of soldiers moved themselves back, keeping themselves out of range of Imasician artillery until they were assured the enemy had exhausted the bulk of their ammunition. Each soldier marched in perfect high step, spears held in position as the formations wheeled around, marching at double time away from the Imasician advance.
Kuirroda smiled, unable to suppress her pride in the military excellence of Surabhumi - and as her forces drew near the designated stopping point, the formations wheeled in place once more, a great clatter and cacophony of steel armor audible even at distance. Once more, her forces were well out of range of the Imasician artillery.
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“These accursed Surabhi, they see right through us . . . “ muttered Legatus Badis. His nephew, Masinissa, had spirit, it was true. Too much spirit. It was a blessing and a curse, embedded within the blood of they, the last two sons of the gens Fesus. Yet, Masinissa is still young, and his spirit has not been tempered with the forces of reason and full education. He continues his charge, which any more experienced general could say with certainty is doomed to failure. Yet, the boy is headstrong. He burns with the fire of the sun itself. Perhaps, Badis himself could believe for a moment, as he led the men to declare his nephew Triumphator, that gens Fesus could live on in glory. That time has passed.
Indeed, their family was one of dwindling glory, once one of the most prominent in the entire kingdom, replaced in recent memory by the gens Inumedigus, Tingitus, and Arbatus. Masinissa’s father was a harsh man, that Badis knew. He instilled within his son a sense of the greatness, by whatever force he could muster with his fists. Masinissa, he had to have been strong. Stronger than either Fesus brother his senior generation, growing and maturing despite his father’s best attempts. If only the spirits had accepted Badis’ sacrifice, and given him the son instead, perhaps such a gift would not have been so suppressed. Never mind that. Let his gens not fall so soon, with such a young host to bear the weight of this failure. He edged his horse towards his nephew and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Let me lead this advance, Praetor,” he said. Masinissa turned with an indignant look, madness coming through in his eyes. They were red as the sky in the eve. They could see the battle was lost, while even his mind could not.
“Nonsense. It is my victory. Let me win it.” With that, he turned forward, and tried to ride to the front of the rank, but his arm was locked into his uncle’s iron grip.
“It shall be your victory, Praetor. A victory for gens Fesus, for your warriors. But I shall lead them. You . . . take your horse to the shores. Have the Drakonians take you back to the capital. Request more legions. We’ll . . . defeat these barbarian garrisons, and camp here in await of our triumphator’s return.” Masinissa blinked, and rubbed his eye to banish the water. Wordlessly, he wheeled his horse about and trotted back the way they came. Maybe, in his heart of hearts, he did know.
“Now, bring me Canina,” he ordered. A small retinue quickly left his side, and returned to the prisoner. “Have a sword to her neck at any moment I need her throat cut. Now, men, let us remember triumph! With me, as one! The King! The Senate! The Legacy! CHAAAARGE!”
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Kuirroda’s easy smile faltered for a moment at the sight now unfolding before her. “Aide,” she murmured, “Do my eyes deceive me, or… have they gone mad?”
The entire assembled mass of the enemy had broken from their orderly, calm repositioning, falling into a direct advance across the grassy plain. Even across the great distance she could hear the manic war cries that echoed across the earth, deranged howling of berserking warriors, the clatter of swords on the shields of their legionaries, the firepults abandoned as their crews took up sword and shield.
“Something is off…” She murmured, scanning the enemy force. “Why would they change so drastically? Why abandon their artillery? What has happened?” She turned to her aides once more, taking hold of a spyglass and putting it to her eye. Slowly, but surely, the cohesion of the enemy force was crumbling as they continued their advance. And yet… there! A rider, surrounded by only a small guard, riding heavy back towards the coast. The ornate plumed helmet, visible even through the mediocre magnification of the spyglass, distinctive armor - she was sure of it. The enemy commander had taken flight, his army… inexplicably, not following him.
She frowned, signalling to the army. “Ballistae, archers, all make ready. Loose when the enemy draws within range. Standard protocol. When they draw within fifty meters, tell them to stay, and let these invaders know the full might of our steel.” She smiled, “And let the falx bearers take their flanks.”
The bugles sounded as her orders were relayed. A great din rose from her army, archers nocking arrows to their bows, the ballistae loaded with their great stones and bolts, the infantry readying their weapons in anticipation. The soldiers bearing the great falxes moved further to the flanks, ready to charge home into the sides and rear of their enemy.
An eerie pseudo-silence fell as the army waited, until finally the bugles sounded once more, and the ballistae and archers unleashed hell.
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The din of battle was said to be deafening, by scholars and senators of high standing and education. Badis, as a man who has seen war, knows better. Battlefields are silent, silent as the grave of the warriors who die upon it. Everything falls into a hush. Men scream in battle. They scream because they cannot hear themselves anymore. The only speech that fills their ears is the sound of their own guilt. Perhaps he was falling into the orkh’s famed battle-trance, as some men have claimed to experience. He had brushed those anecdotes off as they were; anecdotes. Yet, he can feel the weight of his actions bubble up within him, pushing out of him rather than in, through the armor about his shoulders.
The cursed rains came down again, silver points flashing before streaks of white. Again, the men fall, arrows passing through steel, cloth, and the flesh and bone beneath, as easily as it would pass through oil. Men do not weep, except for when meeting their deaths, his father would say. Men before their deaths weep rivers. This field shall become a sea, from mountain to mountain it shall lie, as a monument to the failure of the Legii XLVIII through LVIII. He ate with them, drank with them, laughed with them, and now he shall lie with them, far below in this bastard soil.
“Help me, ere I sink,” Badis said, feeling his mouth move rather than hearing the words. “I am but a man. Help me, ere I sink.” The shields of the legions crashed into that of the Surabhi, the impact shaking the earth. Swords met, and parted, leaving a trail of red in the air. Bodies begin to pile up, until the front lines must step over the corpses of their brothers only to become them. Was it love or hate that continued to drive them forward, through the blooded muck, into the waiting tips of their spears? Through the dark earth he could just make out the faces of some of the centurions. In their faces was love and hate, but most of all fear.
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Otracita felt the hard ground beneath her feet as she surged forward with her unit, falxes held at the ready, the voices of thousands of throats letting loose a tremendous battle cry. They had been at forced march for days, making heavy time across the province to intercept the invaders who had dared massacre their kin. They had stood for hours in the sun, awaiting the response of these invaders who would plunder their cities and homes. They had met with shock and revulsion the mutilation of the general’s messenger, had watched with hearts of cold, hardened steel as the foe arrayed themselves. They had champed at the bit to avenge their fallen, slaughtered in a one-sided battle by a foe who sought only to wreak havoc on their land. They had listened as the enemy artillery had hurled great flames upon the plains, to the screams and cries of the wounded and dying. And now, as they charged into the flank of the Imasician force, they had come to visit vengeance upon these barbarians from the east.
She raised her blade over her head, the black striations streaming throughout its length, the burnished metal gleaming in the overhead sun - soon it would paint the ground in Imasician blood. She scarcely felt the impact as she drove the tip into the armor covering the neck of the first man, the cruel point punching through the chain with a power and efficacy that many Sangharan armies had come to know. Indeed, she felt only rage, the red mist of battle, the need to avenge her fellows who had gone to the stars in defense of their lands.
Another soldier thrust a spear at her and she ducked, the point gliding past her horns as she lunged forward, forcing the spiked guard into the woman’s cheek. The blood flowed, and she pressed further into the attack, plunging the tip of her blade into the belly, the padded armor of an artillery crew of little use in this instance - her adversary sank to the ground, mortally wounded.
The battle raged around her, a maelstrom of death and suffering, hopes and dreams clashed with each other and were snuffed from the world. Another Imasician, his shield raised high, his blade at the ready. Otracita smiled, leaping forward as she brought the falx down upon his shield, driving the blade deep into the wood. The legionary slashed hastily at her and she grinned, his blade thumping against her armor as she seized a dagger from her hip. Again, he slashed wildly and she swerved to avoid his blow, bringing the dagger around in a furious counterattack. Again, she found her weapon meeting his heavy shield, and, enraged, she rushed forward, knocking the shield away as she grappled him to the floor. She could see the terror in his eyes, he went for his own knife, driving the tip into her armor - and she felt pain. A bright white, searing heat that momentarily pushed through the haze of battle as she stared almost confused at the blade now embedded in her forearm. Her own dagger fell to the ground, and the Imasician drove his helmet into hers, knocking her back as he groped for his sword, discarded with his shield.
She beat him to it, though, screaming obscenities as the blood flowed from her wounded arm, she pried her falx from his shield and drove its point into his exposed back. Pain arced through her body like a storm of lightning and she howled aloud in rage as the weapon failed to kill him. It had penetrated his armor - but not much, the sturdy iron bands keeping away the worst of the damage. With another primal scream of fury she fell upon him, driving her elbow into the base of his spine as he clawed for his sword, just out of his reach. Seizing in her hands the falx once more, she drove the pointed pommel into the wound on his back time and time again, dead to the sound of his shrieks of pain and pleas for mercy, dead to the world entirely, dead even to the pain that burned in her mind.
Another soldier took her from her trance, one of the infantry, her eyes wide in shock and horror as she paused in the midst of the whirling nightmare of battle. “Jemadar, what in Ishareth’s name are you doing? What has become of you! Please, leave him, he is dead! I beg of you, we must finish them now!”
Otracita looked towards the voice, blinking away tears she did not know she had shed. Around her lay a thick carpet of bodies, but even still the fighting continued. Life and death played out their dance as she saw a Surabhi thrust her spear into the gut of an Imasician cavalryman, pulling him from his horse. Another fell to the ground, clutching weakly at a javelin protruding from her side. Two more dueled with an Imasician Centurion, dancing back and forth as each waited for the other to give an opening.
She blinked again, rising slowly as if from a deep sleep. Her falx was still in her hands, red with the blood of countless beings who had loved and hoped and dreamed. She looked around for the Imasician legionnaire - his face burned into her mind, fixed like a mental branding - but she could not see him. Only a ring of dead that surrounded her, a young Imasician man’s disemboweled body sprawled at her feet, the tip of her falx still embedded.
“What nightmare is this?” She murmured, swaying slightly. “What have I done? What have we done? Is this… is this what they deserved? Is this what they inflicted on our own?” The woman stared at her, bewildered.
“Jemadar, we must return to the battle, please. There are yet more Imasicians to defeat, they fight on. Please, you can wonder later. But we must go, now!” The woman’s voice was pleading, desperate - they were from different units entirely, and yet Otracita could tell she was alarmed, terrified even, of the beast that stood before her wearing the insignia of a Jemadar.
Otracita felt as though she might weep, but she steadied herself. “Yes... “ she murmured, nodding slowly, “Yes, you are right. We must.”
Gingerly, she pulled her blade from the belly of the Imasician, standing mutely for a moment before she nodded once more, readying her blade. “As you were, soldier. Charge!”
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It was done. The Surabhi charge was a great harbor wave, washing human and Varacci alike away in a rush of steel. Bodies lay together in ironically gentle repose, human upon orkh. Once, perhaps, they had detested each other on such grounds as heritage, now aside they lay like brothers.
The first to break were the greens. At least, what was left of them. Any who weren’t fool enough to charge into the front lines, seeking their own glorious end, could see their comrades do the same. They threw down their swords and made for the hills. Swiftly following them were the legii, following in the example of their less experienced counterparts. The Varacci . . . bless their hearts, bless them to the spiritual kingdoms. They held on, tooth and nail, fighting to the very last drop of their warrior’s gift. However, the gift is not unlimited, and they too realized where they were, scattering like rabbits.
“We fought, and for the spirits of war, that is enough,” Badis said. “They have drank their fill of the blood. Go on then, raise the white banner.” The centurion by his side nodded, and complied without a word. He tore off the red banner of Legio XVIII, emblazoned with a yellow snake, and tied his own toga about it, before making the solemn march towards their victorious foes, stepping over the corpse of Centoria Andrea as he did so. Andrea’s hide was pierced clean through, the spear broken off midway down. The hair on her body did much to soak up the blood.
“Peace! Peace!” shouted the centurion, letting the toga sway back and forth in the still air. “We are done! Peace!”
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Kuirroda perked up in her saddle, the torn, flapping cloth of the Legion’s banner catching her eye through the lense of the spyglass. She lowered it, raising a hand hurriedly as she called to her aides. “At ease, soldiers! Cease! They have surrendered!”
She kicked her mount into motion, the heavy beast lumbering forward, the great sheets of maille armoring its hide and those of its kin making a terrific clamor as her entourage followed behind her. Bugles sounded once more across the field, and slowly her army fell back into marching order, the formations reforming on the move as she lead her force to meet with the surrendering enemy commander.
Before her marched the foot contingent of her honor guard, Surabhi of even greater stature than the norm, bearing great falxes and armored head to toe in the finest maille. As they neared the Legion’s remnants, she dismounted, moving forward on foot with her guard surrounding her.
“To the barbaric scum who has dared set foot on the soil of our nation; I am Kuirroda Dheniku Anvika Hjupeli Ghrolda. I demand that, effective immediately, you lay down your arms, surrender all plunder, release all prisoners of war, and allow your soldiers to leave our lands alive. You will all be spared and permitted to return home upon repaying the debt you have incurred with Surabhumi. Resist, and I will destroy you and repay tenfold the harm you have wrought on our land.” She stated to the man holding the flag, “Those were the words I sent on a missive before this battle, do you remember? Borne by a messenger who returned to me mutilated and shamed. I offered you - or, rather, your commander, for I do not see him here - the opportunity to leave our lands with your lives intact. Instead, you sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands to stroke the vanity of one whom I can only assume to be but a boy, not suited to direct the farmhands of the lowliest village - let alone what was once a formidable army.” She stepped forward, her arms folded and an expression of the purest contempt evident on her features. “And yet, here you stand before me, utterly defeated, the man for whomst you marched nowhere to be seen, and I am left with his… what are you, his uncle? His second in command? The one who could not sway him from his folly?”
The enemy commander was talking. Some long and pompous speech he was of no interest in listening to. She spoke in Imperial, slowly with many stutters. It was obvious Imperial was at least a third language to her, maybe even more. The grammar was all backwards, and many of the more complicated words were substituted for simpler synonyms that didn’t quite capture the same connotation. When she finished, Badis closed his eyes and nodded, breathing out through his nose. She had done well. A soldier soldiers on, even when they cannot.
“I am myself,” he said, solemnly. “I am myself, and no other can I be.” He says it first in Old Imasician, letting the traditional words soak into the air, then repeated it again in Imperial. It was a mantra, taken from whatever remains of the spiritual texts from the First Age. Repeating it back in Imperial . . . it loses something. Something of the wisdom in which it was first written. It felt awkward, the words not flowing together in the way they should, when grandfathers tell it to their grandsons. He couldn’t help but laugh at himself, a short bark that startled both his horse and the horse of his aid. Were he not a general, he perhaps would have been a poet. “We are at the table, a most sacred place. Man and spirit convene before meals of fruit and air. Let us speak matters of enlightenment and worth, dispensing of base insult.” Could she understand his lofty metaphors? Perhaps not. He certainly could not were they speaking in her tongue.
Kuirroda scoffed at her adversary’s response, “You speak of enlightenment, Imasician, of worth and sacred places - and yet here you are, having invaded our lands without so much as a formal declaration of war. A rogue army bent on conquest and pillage. I have heard the reports of the things your soldiers did after defeating the governor of this province - tell me, does she yet draw breath? Or has she likewise been murdered by your rampaging horde?” She took a step forward, her hands on her hips. “My messenger returned to me with her hands missing, her body violated and mutilated by your commander - yet I do not see him here to face the consequences of his actions. Has he fled to Imasicia to cower behind yet more of your legions?”
“Glory is a young man’s game,” Badis replied. “I am too old to go seeking it anymore.” What he said was true. He had seen too much battle to be excited by it, too much death to relish in giving it, he was set in his views, and for lack of a better word . . . old. Time, that old rascal, breaths down his armor as the wind changes. He had hoped to die before the chill had settled into his bones, but it was not to be. Especially now, he must survive, knowing the family he keeps at home. They had already lost one, but another? What hope could they keep, with nobody to lean upon in the harsh storms? “You can say better than I, youthful as you are, of my nephew’s state of mind. He is a stranger to myself, who has children of his own. Have you children? Perhaps you might understand.”
Kuirroda nodded, “I do, as did many of my people whom your own army slaughtered a fortnight ago. I speak as a mother wishing to protect her children from the ravages of a foreign army, I speak as one charged with the defense of our lands and people against the ravages of a foreign army, and I speak as one who knows too well the horrors of the battlefield - for whom I assume many of your fellows who now lie in the grass had little knowledge of. In truth, Imasician, I am only fifty years of age, but I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is naught but the fever dreams of the addict. It is only those who have never struck with a blade nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell… and yet, Imasician, it is a hell I will endure for the defense of my people. The same people you and yours would brutalize.”
“We are fortunate, you and I, to have brought life into this world,” he said. It was tactical, and most importantly, courteous, to not goad her as she does to him. He blinked slowly, at this sacrilege. How could she speak of the dead, while they still hear? Their young souls linger yet about the field in which they lie, listening for mention of their own name, their own titles, an identity they may cling to, which anchors them to this world. Any improper choice of words and they will not pass on to the spirit world, to live among the rivers and trees, but rather shall haunt their own remains as an evil spirit, a vengeful ghost. Perhaps he should warn this enemy commander. He ought change the subject.
Kuirroda interjected before he could continue, “Yes, yes.” She spoke, waving her hand dismissively. “And yet you sought to take life from it. To wrong tens of thousands who had borne you no ill will nor done you harm.” She took another step forward, drawing her sword, a finely worked blade of the highest skill. “Kneel, Imasician.” She commanded, her words haughty and imperious. “Tell me, how did your commander maim my messenger? Did he force her to her knees, lay her hands across the ground and have one of his brutes cleave them? I must know.”
“He . . .” Badis began, drawing a shuddering breath. Remain honorable, even at the coming of death. The spirits will not deal with a liar’s tongue. He took one last look at his own hands, as if to say goodbye, before shutting his eyelids tight, blocking out the whole world. “He, with ropes, entangled her manacles upon his saddle. Then, the barding as an anvil, he drew his spatha and cut, twice.” They mustn’t see him cry.
Kuirroda nodded grimly, stepping forward. “I could have your entire force executed, you know.” She said simply. “By maiming my messenger, who came to deliver a message extending the most generous peace terms, he committed a great sacrilege. Even with our differences, surely you must know how far he trespassed?” She took another step forward, laying her blade on his wrists. The edge cut slightly into his skin, a thin red line.
Silence reigned for a moment, and Kuirroda swung her blade, the meaty sound of the blade burying itself into its target rang through the air.
Kuirroda stepped back, her sword embedded in the ground mere inches from his wrists. “Unlike your commander, though.” She said softly, “I will not punish his subordinates for his actions. Your soldiers will remain here, Imasician.” She continued, her eyes hard, “They will work long and hard to pay off the harm they have wrought upon our people. They will work the land and serve my people until their debt is paid off. It may be many years, but they will live to see their homes again should they wish it.” She knelt down, eye level with him, “You, however, will return to Imasicia. You will inform your ruler that I demand your commander’s presence here on our soil once more, to answer for his crimes - or we will come take him. You and your people have two paths to take. I pray that, for the good of countless lives, you will make the right choice. Now go.”
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