"We are the greatest," the Zakari always cried. "We will not be broken," the Zakari always cried. Then they all cried together. Then they cried no longer.

- Eira, General of the Pirosian Empire, in Why the Empire Fell, page 5, line 12.

The House of Zakari towered over its surroundings, its walls snow-white. There were four spires saddled upon its halls, their bodies sickly thin and eerily tall, able to cup a handful of the clouds without strain.

The House wore a looming facade that protruded over the front yard like tusks. Colourful plants filled the garden despite the gravelly soil. These bright colours dulled towards the edges of the house, all but washed away in the countless white flowers that encamped the surrounding fields.

But these flowers had decided to rosy up as they darkened in the smoke billows. The House was now aflame, its walls a flaky charcoal-black as licks of the fire fizzled across them. The stench that besieged the building pressured those nearby to wheeze and choke to death, the smell mocking the immense fortunes exchanged for the oils.

Moreover, the plants that had blessed the House with their presence were little more than trampled trash as great swathes of soldiers stood at attention. Of course, the great Zakari lineage wouldn’t entertain such humiliation standing, and to their dubious luck, they didn’t have to as their corpses were stacked into mounds and set alight.

Today was the day when the illustrious House of Zakari would fall to nothing more than a footnote in history. And as if representing the Gods, the almost-holy daybreak welcomed it…

A soldier wore a taut rictus as he lifted bodies and piled them. Clothes stripped, amulets torn, arms down, legs straight. There was a simple, albeit dark, rhythm to his job as he entered his flow.

He knew each corpse he touched belonged to sorcerers feared and revered from east to west, people he would have been delighted merely glancing at. Now he pawed their bodies with sweaty, grimy hands.

Their mortality scared him. But more than that, it was their eyes that frightened him the most.

Black. Black. Black. Black. Black.

Not one he had handled was white; they had caught the Zakari completely unawares. He understood the parasitic gear that wrapped itself around him was responsible for that, but it still broke him. This would be a momentous point in history: one of the great Houses dropping dead in disgrace. And worse still, he was part of that reality…

Feeling sick at the high-stakes play he found himself trapped in, the soldier raised his head with vomit lurching up his throat. But as his eyes met with the horizon in between scattered trees, he saw a figure fleeing in the daylight.

The bile that had threatened his dignity free-fell back down.

“Sir!” he called out through pure reflex, uncaring about how raspy his voice sounded.

“Yeah, Rods. What’s it?” came the response.

“Sir, there’s a person there.” Rods answered.

The officer kept his composure and squinted in the direction.

“Naa, Rods. You got good eyes, I’ll say, but there’s nothing there.”

The officer’s tone pronounced the matter over, but the whole event was already too frightening for Rods to now just ignore a glaring addition.

“No, Sir. Please, there!”

The officer didn’t even turn, let alone look.

“There is nothing there!” he roared in a restrained manner, stretching each syllable to make up for the volume. His previous calmness had been lost to the storm. “Am I clear, Rods?”

Nevertheless, Rods still peered into the distance with pleading, nay, begging eyes. Suddenly, a glint winked over and past the horizon, following the figure. It only went fast enough to trail the figure, not fast enough to actually chase down the figure, and Rods knew for certain it could run at several times the speed of a man. His jaw fell slack, his expression thunderstruck.

Why hadn't it killed the fleeing figure? What the fuck was going on?

The officer didn’t wait for an answer, after all, Rods’s expression was more honest than any mustered-up bullshit. He liked the young soldier, so could only hope Rods had enough sense to keep his mouth shut. Forever.