IV:

Contempt of Mercy

Twin guards flanked Casimir as they led him, corridors full of priceless paintings, carpets and vases lined their path. They stood, slammed their spears against the floor, beat their breastplates, and opened a door.

His smile was wide, calm, the very picture of confidence.

Beyond the door was his -theirs it seemed- new room. The door closed behind him without a second’s hesitation. Mohamdou slept on a cough, Byre lay sprawled against another, and Leonardo groaned and moaned atop a bed of pillows.

Rosaline sat against the foot of a bed, head against her knees. Victoria was playing a game with herself, a strange chess look-alike.

All of them looked as hopeless as he felt.

Casimir’s smile shattered, his knees buckled, and fell, gasping and heaving, hand on his chest and cold sweat slipping out. A hysterical chuckle left his lips.

“Gone mad, have you?” Victoria shot. “Wonder of wonders, you break like fragile glass at the first defeat.”

He looked at her, fear in his face. “You don’t understand, you don’t even know the scale of this, how insignificant we are. We’re living on burrowed time. On the whims of that thing. And I…I have to outsmart it? Without failing?”

“Aye,” Byre’s voice was a husk, bandages around his throat. “Aye, you’ll have to. It know you lead, it knows you’re the bannerlord. Only you interest it, to it, you are an equal, and we are peasants.”

Leonardo groaned from his couch, hat on his face. “Peasants? We ain’t even ants to ‘em. Bastard me eat me own bullets. That ain’t no nothin’ we can fight, an’ he it knows it.”

Rosaline bit her full, luscious lips. “What if…he can help us get home?”

“He? He,” Casimir shivered. “That is a monster in human skin, if we weren’t useful, it would have killed us without thought. We’re tools to it, and the moment it realizes we’re useless, then we’ll die.”

“And so, we must not be useless,” Victoria rolled her eyes. “Shall you not, Casimir of family Voreband, rise up to this challenge?”

Casimir laughed hysterically. “Is that even a question?” he took a shuddering breath. “There is no surrendering to this, we have to make a move or end up crushed beneath it’s boots.”

“Ain’t no gunfight we can win ‘ere, boss,” Leonardo grunted, rolling over to his side, to face them. “An’ if it ain’t no fightin’ then it’s gotta be thinkin’, out smartin’, ey?”

“What does it want? What does it need? Who is it?” Victoria leaned over him. “If it breathes it requires air, if it has family, if it requires love, if it feels pain, it can be harmed, if it has emotions, it can be manipulated, if it needs to eat it can be starved.”

“And if it can bleed,” Byre whispered, sliding his hand across his blade. “It can be killed.”

“Ain’t us doin’ said killin’ brother,” Leonardo replied, groaning. “Me an’ you an’ it had our round’n all. Ain’t done so much as annoy ‘em. Buncha’ useful fellas we are, can’t even do killin’ right.”

Casimir slapped his cheek, growling as he started pacing. “It’s a prince of the Imperium, highly placed, this city is it’s prized jewel, it has a wife it values, it sees itself as a benevolent overlord, kind, merciful, joyous and charming. It desires to be accomplished, to be a part of the greater history, of the mythos of its people.”

“Then you shall need to exploit that,” Victoria replied. “It’s desire for ever greater recognition is the thread thin bridge you need to tread. Balance his desire with promises, and temper his cruelty with actions and information.”

“And end up killed for failing?” Casimir glared at her. “I am not a prince, I am a merchant first and foremost, I did not plan murder, I planned economic enterprise, I play this game, and he wins each and every time.”

Victoria pursed her lips. “Then bring it to your game, to your area of confidence,” she waved a hand imperiously. “Despite your lesser breading, you bear a weight in your presence and speech, you merely need to shift his game.”

“Turn it into a negotiation,” Casimir eyes lit up. “It’s making an investment with little risk, we reduce our risk further, make ourselves a net profit however it turns out, and violently removing us is a net loss.”

He smiled at Victoria. “You’re a cruel, cruel, woman.”

“And any who think in terms of empathy within this realm,” Victoria muttered. “End up with a dagger in their back.”

Byre snorted. “Instead, you end up chopped to bits by your enemies. Clearly, the superior option.”

“And what do you know of being superior,” Victoria glanced over her shoulder. “You violent brute.”

“It, it, it,” Rosaline spoke up. “Why are you calling him an…it?”

“You been lookin’ at the same damned thing us folk are?” Leonardo asked. “Ain’t no way about it, second you start thinkin’ that thing ain’t no it, but a him, you start thinkin’ it give a shit, an’ as the boss, it don’t.”

Casimir smiled at Rosaline. “No, she has a point.”

“Of course, I do,” Rosaline blurted out. “I always have a point.”

“I know what I have to do,” Casimir nodded slowly, gesturing with a finger, equally slowly. “I have to make him see us not as it, but them, not as insects, but as people. Even the cruellest of princes must have hearts.”

“An’ if you start seein’ it as a him?” Leonardo ask.

Casimr took a long breath, closed his eyes. “I’ll simply have to kill my heart to those who want to kill me, easily done.”

He opened his eyes, they glinted like steel. “Whatever happens, if we’re ever separated, if we’re ever given the chance, if we ever need to run, we all know where to go.”

“The tree.” The rest said.

Casimir smiled. “We’ve not run out of luck yet.”

No, they did not. They’ve only started. This was a temporary delay, a moment of pause as the veil of ignorance was torn away. Casimir knew, the journey had not grown harder, or easier. It simply became clearer.

Clearer, as to what must be done.

Clearer, as to what he must be.

His heart trembled, he hardened it. There was no place for weakness, not when death was what would await. He had to be strong.

Stronger than those who held power over them. Hope was not yet gone, it simply had to be snatched back, ripped from the still beating hearts of their enemy.

There was no other choice.

There never was.

Off in the distance, he heard the howling of a wolf.

Fragrant air drifted amidst sunlit skies, Casimir let a brief, dying, smile slip at the moment. Enjoying being let out of his glorified imprisonment.

But the prison was not the cage, it was what threw him into the cage. Walking besides him, regal crimson red and rich gold, was the Bloody One, and his wife, their arms interlocked.

They walked across the city streets, a cadre of six guards around them, spears tasselled gold.

Dunusias met his smile with an equal one. “Does your homeland have cities as glorious as ours?”

“Bigger,” Casimir replied, noting everything. The vendors and their wares, the sewers and crystal lamps. “This city is smaller than I’m used to.”

The dazzling Fea besides him titled her head, golden hair spilling down, red eyes shining. “Is that so?” Saeraniun asked.

“In more ways than one,” Casimir mused.

“And he sounds confidant too, love,” Saeraniun laughed, her voice music.

Dunusias laughed with her. “Please my love, don’t give the prisoners undue adulation, they’re prisoners for a due cause.”

“I’d strongly disagree,” Casimir said.

“Noted,” Dunusias replied. “And duly ignored.”

Saeraniun leaned on Dunusias. “What is your profession, Returned? I see you eye the merchants with interest.”

“The single best merchant of my era there ever was,” he half-lied. “And I take issues with your economics.”

“Economics,” Dunusias tasted the word. “Six garu letters, and two zaru letters. ‘To understand the motions of persons and wealth.’ Your mastery of our tongue is unparalleled, or so it seems.”

“So it seems,” Casimir agreed. “And, as boldly as I can say it, your economy makes me want to vomit on your royal boots.”

Saeraniun gasped. “My love, you let such a creature address you with such audacity?”

“Amusing, is it not?” Dunusias chuckled, meeting Casimir’s eyes. “Even as his life hangs upon my hand, he still does tuck his tail between his legs. A true leader, I enjoy such things.”

“But love,” Saeraniun drew circles Dunusias’ chest. “Such a creature is below you.”

“With all due disrespect, the only reason I’m below you, is because I’m entirely unable to murder you, attack you, cause you harm, and I’m far, far from stupid enough to even try,” Casimir said. “But that doesn’t you’re better than me, it just means you need to watch your back.”

Saeraniun burst into laughter, lilting voice dancing tones. “Such backbone, to threaten me? Shall I tear your tongue out?”

“You can do that,” Casimir admitted. “Or, you can accept that I dislike you, and would like a promotion.”

“A promotion!” Saeraniun says. “My love! What sheer audacity this is! I love it! My oh my do I like it!”

“No hint of fear,” Dunusias said. “I can tear out your throat before you can even blink, and you don’t have a hint of fear.”

No, he did. Fear that kept his heartbeat stable. Fear that kept his face passive. Face that turned his bones to steel. Fear that said, whispering and howling and screaming.

‘You will not survive failure.’

This was not bravery. This was survival instinct.

For Casimir, in this moment, there was no different between fear and courage and despair and bravery. They were all one, and the same.

Insignificant.

Irina’s face flashed across his eyes, smiling at him.

“You can do that, or I can help you,” Casimir replied, glancing at a trinket sold by a vendor. “It’s all the same to me, if you haven’t noticed.”

Casimir saw what he’d never thought he’d ever see, something he’d never thought Dunusias was capable of. Fear. It was there, for a second, before fading away.

“You are dreadful creatures, Returned,” Dunusias said, sombre. “You stand before what can kill you, and find it insignificant. You return from death, and yet you do not build empires, nay, you build armies, armadas to make hellspawn and outsider tremble alike. Death means nothing to you, doesn’t it.”

“It means a lot, I can still feel fear.”

“Lies,” Dunusias said. “You feel no fear, I can see none.”

Casimir held up his hands. “I could, possibly, feel fear if you had a knife to my throat-“

Dunusias gestured, and the guards moved, spears inches from burying into his throat. A thin trickle of red ran down’s Casimir’s neck. He did not flinch. He did not break the act. This dance could be stopped.

“Four spears to your throat,” Dunusias said, stroking his wife’s lips. “And all the same, there is no fear.”

“Fear is pointless,” Casimir smiled, pushing down a spear. “I much prefer to talk business, in action and reaction and what you, and I, can do for one another. I don’t like being a prisoner, and I don’t like my skills being seen as useless.”

“You are not content to be an instrument to my attainment of knowledge,” Dunusias thought aloud. “Unsurprising, what is it that you want?”

“No, what is it that you,” Casimir pointed a finger. “Want.”

“What I want,” Dunusias mused.

Saeraniun pursed her lips. “My love, I do not like this, you promised you would not let these curiosities distract you.”

Dunusias looked up, at a fluttering banner of the Imperium. “I have six hundred siblings, each and every one, vying for power, and attention, and control. Each holding their provinces and courts, dreaming of the day they would be emperor.”

“Each, and every one, has been trained to be the very harbingers of the Imperium, the scions of our father’s imperial will. We are the guardians of our people, the sacred bulwark against terror. Our armies bring enlightenment and illumination to all peoples we encounter. Our people prosper, our sons take our legacies, and in death we become legends for the living.”

“What do I want?” Dunusias asked. “I want my loved one safe, sound and happy. I want my people strong and wealthy. I want my banner, my personal seal, to rise as high as it can,” he reached out to the sky with a hand. “I want to rise up, rise up to what I can be, as high as I can be. I wish to die a legend, as I was born to do so, for the Imperium of my father and my people.”

“I can help you with that,” Casimir offered. “I’ve done far, far more, with far, far less. Your dreams and mine are not mutually exclusive, and no ruler rules alone.”

“You, creature, are no Fea to be allowed within the high court.”

“I don’t need to be,” Casimir replied. “All I want is this, a promise of authority, safety, employment, and recognition.”

“And in return, you will serve me,” Dunusias said, thinking. “Why should I not take what I wish from you? What can you do to resist me?”

“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Casimir said. “Why do you think you’ll get anything from me, without killing me?”

“Are you reckless, or simply deluded?” Dunusias asked.

“Are you an idiot, or did you miss the realization that I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain?” Casimir asked back.

They locked gazes.

Saeraniun tapped Dunusias’ shoulder. “Place him under my authority, love, if he is any use as civil servant, then I will make sure of so.”

“Oh, and one last clause,” Casimir added.

“You tread thinly,” Dunusias said.

“My compatriots come with me, and are under me,” Casimir grinned, cheek to cheek.

“Then I will add my own clause,” Dunusias said, grinning with fanged teeth. “If you disappoint, I will feed you to the hound, as the very last. First, I will feed your companions to the hounds, and once you’re broken, it will be your turn.”

“I’ll make sure to kill myself before you do,” Casimir said. “Any other methods of death you’d like to inform me of? I like to be prepared for torture, makes it less torturous.”

Saeraniun shook her head, thinly smiling.

Dunusias rolled his eyes.

No fear.

No hesitation.

Forward, until the end.

They dressed him in a tailored set, designed to look like his suit, instead made out of gold, red silk, and dressed in Dunusias’ personal emblem. Then they shuffled him into a dining hall, a dining hall where Saeraniun sat waiting, alongside a pair of children.

They did the same for Rosaline, and, without asking him, brought her in.

Looking for a chink in the armor? He wasn’t going to give them any.

She looked over his shoulder. “Hell is she?” Rosaline whispered.

Casimir glanced at her. “Wife of the guy who ruined our escape, I promise you, Rosaline, that if you don’t watch your mouth, I’ll fucking kill you, before you end up getting us killed.”

She flinched. “Jesus, what crawled up your ass and died?”

“Very soon, it will be you,” Casimir replied, brushing his tie. “Take a seat.”

“Ah, there you are, creature,” Saeraniun greeted him raising an ornate glass full of wine. “As I understand it, you’re a master merchant, I’ve brought tasks that would require said skill. Oh, and asked for help, you might need it.”

“Before I get started, please, address me as Casimir or Voreband,” he said, taking a seat, quil, and parchment. “Otherwise, I’ll simply be petty, and not do anything at all.”

“You dare-“ Saeraniun started.

Casimr threw a cup at hers, and the two shattered. “I’m sorry, I don’t dare, I do. So please, my name, or else, fuck off.”

“Mama?” one of the kids muttered, scared.

“You…wretched…little..” Saeraniun growled.

“The hell are you doing?” Rosaline stared at him in disbelief, mouth agape. “You said not to piss them off!”

“Shut up and trust me,” he whispered, preparing himself.

Saeraniun flashed, wind howling in her wake, as she hauled him by his neck. “Your impetuous behaviour, cretin, is stretching the very limits of my tolerance!”

“My name,” he told her, staring her down. “Or snap my neck right now, and save both of us the trouble.”

Rosaline whimpered.

“You little piece of-” Saeraniun took a deep, aggravated, breath. “Very well, Casimir, very well,” she dropped him. “But do not push your luck, Casimir,” she sneered his name.

“Thank you,” he rubbed his neck.

Mood ruined, no desire to exploit Rosaline, focus ruined, boundary asserted, Casimir ignored the screaming in the back of his head. The endless, terrified, screaming.

“The fuck,” Rosaline muttered. “What the hell went into you?”

“You never did introduce your children, Saeraniun,” he rolled his shoulder, picking up the quil again. “They look like you.”

“You’re intolerable,” she said. “You, girl, pour me wine.”

“Rosaline,” Casimir said sweetly. “Sit the fuck down.”

Rosaline obeyed him, sitting down right beside him.

Saeraniun growled. “I’m beginning to regret my decision.”

He read over the parchement. Taxes rates between different income brackets, and different institutions. “The kids?”

“The first chance I get, I will shove a burning iron in your defecation orifice,” Saeraniun said.

“Mhm, nice,” Casimir replied. “Rosaline, organise those into three stacks, luxury goods, necessities, and life improvements.”

“Why the fuck should I-“

Casimir glared at her.

“Sure, yeah, okay,” Rosaline blurted out. “Right on it.”

He took an empty parchment, and jotted out preliminary notes. “So, the kids? Unless you didn’t give them a name?”

“Oh you-“ her red lips curled into a frown. “Erran and Erram,” she pat their heads. “And why do you care?”

“Despite my complete irreverence of you,” Casimir said. “I don’t hold ill will to your children. Also, hi Erran, hi Erram.”

The two shyly waved back.

“Progress,” he smiled.

“Don’t interact with him,” she hissed at her kids. “He’s a servant who’s yet to learn who his betters are.”

“Hi kids, don’t listen to mom, I work with your dad, not for him,” Casimir scratched out a line of text on a parchment. “And what’s this Cult of Reason?”

“The institution responsible for stamping out the plague that is religions,” Saeraniun replied.

“It says, and I’m quoting them, ‘we’ve had to torch six homes and their residents for un-enlightened thoughts, costs compensation has been reimbursed to the crown.’ End quote.”

“Good riddance,” Saeraniun said. “Why, I’d wish they work quicker. Such religions are so prominent among the newly enlightened, they’re so dreadfully easy for the Outsiders to use as infiltration points.”

“And the solution is full force erasure?” Casmir asked.

“Well, yes, those of ill thoughts must be removed for the greater good of society,” Saeraniun furrowed her brows. “Why should we tolerate illogical beliefs, and allow them to have influence upon our society? Such would be idiocy, no. They must simply be erased, or enlightened into true civility.”

“Sounds good,” Casimir replied.

Don’t flinch. Show no fear. Have no fear. Give no weakness, Have no weakness.

Rosaline flinched, paling. “All of them?”

“Yes?” Saeraniun said, confused. “Why would we tolerate madmen with delusions of grandeur, calling themselves religious guides? That would be obscene. Obscene beyond belief. The Imperium is the only guide the people need.”

“Sounds good, doesn’t it, Rosaline?” Casimir tapped his quil on the parchment.

“Yea-yeah, it does. Perfect, yeah,” her hands shivered, her eyes wide.

“And the ‘six thousand units’ of ‘servile stock’ what is that?” Casimir asked.

“The slaves made from undesirable, criminals, and the enemy,” she replied, amused. “The magi had recently made a new crystal enchantment, a pain collar directly attached to the neck. It has made the servant trade more secure.”

“Explains their enthusiasm,” Casimir muttered. “They’re sending massive amounts of them.”

“We’ve had need of them, the last batch had died of disease,” Saeraniun explained. “The rest were put down to ensure the disease was eradicated. It has made a shortage of labor.”

No fear.

No weakness.

Only forward, only forward.

“Well then, there’s a few suggestions I can make,” Casimir started.

No stop.

If he stopped, he'd fall apart. So he could not. Not until the end.

Casimir closed the door to his new private chamber, he brushed his hand across a crystal, and the lighting turned on.

His next step was a stagger, the one after a boneless fall. Nerves utterly failing him, breaths coming in raged, shaking whimpers. Every shook, his hands and knees and legs and arms. All the fear, all the terror, let out at once.

Shaking hand grasping bedpost, he pulled himself, gasping, heaving and quaking, off of the ground. The laughter came, laughter and tears and he shoved his fist into his mouth and screamed.

He couldn’t keep doing this.

He couldn’t.

He’d go mad, cracking and failing and getting torn apart. His mind whirled, seeing a thousand, thousand deaths where he slipped up. Where one mistake led to his complete annihilation.

Where he’d never go home, and instead die again. Or be enslaved, or be tortured to death, or be fed to the dogs alive. This was beyond him, beyond anything he could ever fight, never mind escape from.

The scale of this Imperium, the sheer blatant disregard for others, the merciless, and apathetic calculus of its systems. It was so much worse than he could ever conjure.

He’d hope for weakness.

Instead, now, now he could see the titan’s who’s shadow he’d fallen under.

He closed his eyes, hoping for sleep.

“How?” he whispered. “How does anyone win this?”

“You don’t.”

Casimir shot up, knife drawn up and pointed at- at no one?

“You’re almost as good an actor as the Warmaster is,” the voice said.

He grabbed a vase, and threw it. It cracked against a wall, a wall where there was no one. The light died.

Casimir blinked. “Rosaline?” he asked.

It was her face, her figure, her luscious lips and full curves. “Certainly not,” Not-Rosaline cocked her hips, hand on her waist. Speaking in Rosaline’s voice. The figure wore nothing, but it did not need to.

It was a mannequin, a doll in the resembling of a woman, and it had nigh perfect resemblance.

“I’m going to stab you if you don’t do one of two things. A, wear clothing, B, stop flashing me, C, explain who you are,” Casimir pointed his knife. “Preferably, all three.”

Not-Rosaline stalked around, hand weaving clothing out of thin air, hands manipulating skin like dough. He blinked his eyes, and Saeraniun was sitting before him. Arrogant smile plastered before him, red and gold dress imperious upon her.

“I’ll give you all three, only out of the kindness of my heart,” Not-Saeraniun tutted. “Though I have to admit, you don’t seem to need any.”

“I’m thinking of stabbing you.”

“You can try,” she said. “Do you think it will work?”

“I’ll still do it.”

She smiled. “You do truly remind me of the Warmaster.”

“Don’t push me, I’m at the end of my wits.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, inspecting the place, striding as if she owned it. “You’re actively breaking yourself down, and rebuilding yourself. Reformulating a new identity, a new mask, creating a new beast to survive in this jungle.”

She glanced at him. “You’re not the one trapped her, I don’t think so, they’re trapped in with you. Sooner or later, you’d have exploited them, found the weakness you needed, and drove in the dagger.”

“All I want, is answers, and to go home,” Casimir growled. “Now give them to me.”

“My name is Moonwind, Mother of the Veiled,” Not-Saeraniun said. “Beloved of the Warmaster, or so he tells me. I believe he simply likes to flatter me, even as he sends my daughters to their graves.”

“And why are you here?”

“Is that not obvious, Returned?” she asked him.

“In that case,” Casimir gestured with his knife towards the door. “Go away, find someone else to die in your little war, and don’t come back to recruit me, it won’t work.”

“You already have joined us,” Moonwind replied. “From the moment you wake up from the Styx, to when you used the Yggdrasil. You are of the Warhost, you belong with us, and you would not have woken up from that river otherwise, it is designed as such.”

“How?”

Moonwind picked up a vase, inspecting it. “The Styx catches the souls of the dead, before they pass to the afterlife, it feeds them into the Yggdrasil. The unworthy are pulped into pure ether, fuel for the Warmaster’s legions, and the worthy awaken, made whole once more.”

Casimir swayed, his heart plunging his gut. “You’re stealing the afterlife to pulp souls into fuel?”

She shrugged. “Supposedly, the mind long passes once flesh, soul, and mind are disconnected, and the soul we pulp is the remnant of that connection.”

He burst out laughing. “I don’t even know what sanity means any longer, but I know, I know, this is all mad.”

“It is,” she smiled softly. “Yet it is all worth the cost, worth every daughter I birth, worth every night I spend bedded, knowing my progeny will die, for my beloved Warmaster.”

“Why?” Casimir roared. “Why do all of this?”

“For the future,” Moonwind replied. “Hell has long been abandoned by its stewards, its keepers slain, its gates torn open to the ringing dirge of scourges. The boundaries lie ravaged by the Outsiders, their madness death knell of our reality and law, their will dominance of us all, and the Imperium, ruled by the Emperor, is oppression and subjugation and erasure of everything we are.”

She put down the vase she was inspecting. “There is no future for our children, Casimir, there is no peace, not unless we make one. Oh, my children, my sweet daughters,” a hand went down to her stomach. “How I’ve sacrificed and given to the cause, how we all must, should we wish to see the light of day.”

“That’s not my fight to fight,” Casimr looked at the knife. He threw it away. “Tell your Warmaster I thank him for bringing me, us, back to life, but we don’t want his war. We want our homes.”

“There will be no home if you do not fight,” Moonwind replied, shaking her head. “You cannot hide from the conquests, from the scourges, from the outsiders. They are coming, and swords can stop them.”

“You can do that fighting and dying,” Casimir said. “For me, going home is enough.”

“Soon enough,” Moonwind said. “You’ll realize the folly of it.”

She glanced back at him, hand sculpting her face, another weaving her clothes. She tore flesh from breasts and buttocks, buried fingers into guts and nose. A male Fey guard stood looking at him.

“Soon enough, Casimir Voreband, you’ll realize who your enemies are.”

She walked out of his door.

He collapsed into his bed, exhausted, exhausted in soul and heart and body.

They could have their wars.

Casimir was going home.

The markets were in boom, loud voices yelling, swathes of people buying. The supermarkets and massive mercantile buildings attracting countless. They were insulated from the crowds by a dozen guards.

They stood a distance away, having been invited to watch the spectacle of the opening.

“Your abrasive conduct aside,” Dunusias said. “You certainly did deliver upon your promises, your clever ideas show merit.”

“Aye,” Byre agreed. “And you’d better show gratitude, after what you’d done to us.”

Rosaline nodded along. “Better than the piece of shit you called a market.”

“You should teach your pets manners,” Dunusias said. “They have little capacity to hide their antagonism. It is irritating.”

“Irritating?” Casimir’s heart skipped a beat. He knew that tone.

“And I’ve reached the limits of my patience,” Dunusias smiled, clawed gauntlet lashing out, skin tore as Byre fell bleeding to cobblestone.

“Pick him up,” Dunusias commanded. The guards did.

Five ugly scar rent Byre’s face, weeping red. His eyes rolled in their socket, the impact dazing him.

“As for you, woman,” Dunusias said. “I simply wish an apology.”

“Go fuck yourself you sexist pig,” she turned her face away from him. “I don’t have to listen to you one bit.”

“I full heartedly agree,” Dunusias nodded, starting to unsheathe his sword. “You will simply be made to listen.”

Byre growled, eyes still unfocused. “Do not dare touch her -“

“Byre,” Casimir said. “Rosaline. I don’t want to even hear your voices.”

Rosaline clicked her tongue.

Byre shut his mouth.

“My apologies, they’re slightly bitter over our first meeting,” Casimir said. “If this happens again, gouge out my eye.”

Byre grit his teeth.

“The spine on you,” Dunusias sighed, letting his sword drop. “If I’d had one tenth men like you, I’d have no issues letting my army run un-attended.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Casimir said.

There was a long, echoing howl.

“But now, there is the question of how far you can take your ideas,” Dunusias started. “The Imperium has long had issues producing firearms, our abilities render such chemicals and technologies inert and dead.”

“I wasn’t aware,” Casimir replied.

“Neither are the barbarians we conquer,” Dunusias waved a hand dismissively. “But that is not the matter at hand. We have a substitute for such long range engagements, magi crystal bows. But they are expensive to produce, I’ve seen your idea for a ‘factory’ and if, if, you can successfully make one for such weapons.”

Another long, drawn out howl.

“Then you’ll allow me to insult you?” Casimir queried.

“I’ll grant you, and your compatriots, a fiefdom,” Dunusias said. “You will be under my direct aegis and authority, and you will, for all intents and purposes, be given all you want. All you’d have to do, is help feed my curiosities regarding the Warhost.”

Casimir smiled. “I can do that, no problem.”

Byre pushed the guards away from him, as Victoria cut her mantle, and used it to bandage the cuts.

“You are an excellent investment,” Dunusias chuckled. “Now then, I do believe you were supposed to help me understand the Warhost’s dream structures, we’ve little to do for the rest of the day exc-“

Casimir’s eyes widened, heart plunging to his guts.

Byre’s hand leapt to his sword.

Rosaline’s face was a rictus of fear.

It was a wolf, if a wolf was six-armed, trunk legged abomination. It’s fur rose on end, it’s six eyes were lightning bolts, crawling across its face, alight with flame. It’s tail was a segmented whip of blades.

Its name rang in their skulls, made of howls and colours, thoughts and concepts.

Lufulgar, Near Outsider, Wolf of the Forgar Boundary.

Its pounce led it straight towards Rosaline.

Let her die, the thought popped into Casimir’s head. She’s a hinderance, and a consistent problem. No strategic or tactical advantage, no uses.

Tears slipped down her face, mouth opening to say. ‘Help.’

Casimir let it happen.

No point in stopping it.

Lufulgar’s jaw snapped shut, ripping meat, crushing bone, and severing limb as it jerked it’s head back. Its claw flashed, cutting skin and flesh and bone and eye.

Casimir’s arm was ripped out, arteries pumping blood in gushing pounds.

His eyes popped, torn to bits, dribbling fluid and blood.

“Graaah!” he roared, ripping out his knife and slamming it into the beast’s nostrils. It did not cry out in pain; it did not scream.

It smiled.

It kicked off of him, trunk legs cracking his ribs, launching clear into Dunusias, the two becoming a blur of claws, sword, and sparks. All the guards between them fell apart in meat ribbons, sliced in the split instance between the jump, and landing.

Casimir swayed on his feet, vision swimming. Rosaline yelled for him, having fallen to the ground when he jumped in the path of the beast.

All across the city, lightning flashed, the sky darkening, rumbling and booming. The city shelled by impacts unseen but felt and heart. Dozens, hundreds, thousands.

One lightning bolt impacted in front of them, manifesting into a warrior. Clad in steel head to toe, his blade a massive two-handed sword. He swung once, and the rest of the guards were bisected.

Guts and organs splashed across cobblestone, and the warrior flicked the blood off. The warrior’s foot fell, crushing the skull struggling guard begging for his life.

“Warhost!” cries rang out. “Warhost!” alarms and bells were rang.

Byre acted, hoisting Casimir to his shoulder and pulling Rosaline alongside him. “Move! To the tree, we must go, now!”

Casimir’s hearing faded, darkness growing on the edges of his vision. He felt faint. Fainter now. Fading. Weak.

He saw wood. Stairs. The chamber.

He saw Leonardo, haggard, soaked in sweat. Mohamdou, Victoria in his arms, a gash across her face. He felt every vibration of their descent, he felt his fading heartbeat. And he, with all his desires, wished for one thing.

One, singular, thing.

Safety and rescue.

Lightning flashed around them, coiling and sending them away. Once more, they rode the lightning branches of the Yggdrasil.

His last sight, was Moonwind, her sympathetic, piercing stare impossible to mistake.

Casimir awoke to the steady ringing beat, of a heart monitor. For a breath, he believed he’d returned home, he was home, home to his family, to the bed of him and his wife, to the smiles and habits of daughters, to the comfort of his mother.

The illusion was shattered at the banner, hanging from the wall.

His arm was gone.

He could only see out of one eye.

And there was someone here with him.

Eyes missing and covered with cloth, the man greeted him with a kind smile. Shoulder length hair a blinding white to his charcoal black skin.

“You’re safe now, have no fear,” the man said, somehow looking him in the eye. “I am Rostrum, Grand Orator of the Warhost, leal servant of the Warmaster, and to you, Returned, a brother in arms.”

Casimir’s head hit the pillows. He tried to move a hand not there, and pain ran across his senses, a shock that made his heart ache.

Slowly, his right hand reached towards his left, it was gone beyond the elbow.

“You were in rather bad shape,” Rostrum said, tapping the IV bag, fluid dripping into his veins by a feed. “You would have been dead, had Moonwind not guided your ride across the Yggdrasil’s paths to us.”

“I’m not a brother in arms,” Casimir whispered, tone acidic.

“And why not?” Rostrum asked.

“I’m not going to fight a war for you,” Casimir replied, turning on his side.

“But do you not wish to go home?” Rostrum questioned. “Do you not wish for this madness and pain and suffering to end? Do you not desire your spouse whom you cherish, and your progeny whom you’ve yet to raise?”

Casimir’s mouth went dry. He did not turn around.

“You seem to believe this to be some coercion, that you were brought here against your will, against your desires,” Rostrum continued on. “But did you not have a purpose for why you could not accept death? For why it was, that you could not surrender your last spark of life?”

Casimir ignored it. A sales pitch, little more.

“The Styx was designed to give those who wished it, a chance at return,” Rostrum spoke, passion in every word. “You were not drafted to a war you had no choice, you were given a chance to take back what was taken. Your life, your wife, your strife was not in vain, it was to this meeting, here and now, for me to ask, do you not wish to go home?”

“I don’t want to fight!” Casimr turned and roar. “I don’t want more pain and fear and hurt and suffering and misery! I want my fucking television and movies and children and wife! I want to not have to put on a fucking mask of being strong!”

“Then kill yourself!” Rostrum roared back. “Do you think you could return from death with no consequence? That the path to earning what was lost would be simple? Easy? Painless? Are you blind? Mute? Death?”

“I…” Casimir stopped.

“Nay!” Rostrum yelled. “Nay,” he lowered his voice. “It would not be, it never was, never will be, never could be, never has been. But you, you have a chance that none others may have. It is the chance to fight, fight! Fight! Until you can fight no longer, until your dreams are within reach no longer.”

“I…” Casimir found his words missing.

“You were not returned form to death to waste upon this bed,” Rostrum continued, growling. “None of us were, we were returned upon the desire to plunge our blades into the heart of hell, to bring kneeling the gods, to shatter the tyranny of conquerors, to carve our path home. Home. Home to where we belong, not here. Not trapped in war, mired in conflict. To fight so that we may returned home.”

“I can’t fight,” Casimir murmured.

“You already have,” Rostrum said. “You have faught every inch of your path to here. With words and leadership, with swords and powder, with guile and wit. You are a fighter, injured indeed, scared indeed, laid low indeed. But you have faught. And now, you rest before you must fight once more.”

“I…I can’t.”

Rostrum leaned back in his chair, kind smile returning. “You fear death.”

Casimir laughed, he said nothing, shying away, the weight of mental suffering and physical pain dimming him.

“You fear dying, and losing the chance you were given.”

Casimir slowly nodded.

“There can be victory without defeat,” Rostrum replied. “Do you think there was any chance you could have escaped the Imperium without our aid? That there was any chance you could have escape the Bloody One, favoured of the Emepror, upon your own?”

Casimir grit his teeth.

“No, no and no and nay and never!” Rostrum hissed. “Alone you shall fall and never see your home, divided and weak you shall fall. Upon this path, you have seen the weight of your enemy, the scale of their might, the insignificance of yours. Alone, you are nothing. Nothing to what waits, slumbering beyond the Boundaries.”

Casimir swallowed, biting his lips.

“But not among your brothers here, not among us who wage war relentlessly, hungering in sufferance, zealously striving heavenward,” Rostrum leaned forward. “There is no path for the likes of us but forward, forward, to the end of the only path there ever was. You cannot go back now, you cannot stand still, and so you must advance, until the bitter end. Tell me, how else could you achieve your dream?”

“…I can’t,” he bitterly chuckled.

“And so, here you are, missing one arm and an eye,” Rostrum stood up, placing a hand on the rails of Casimirl’s hospital bed. “Defeated by the twin mockeries of fate and circumstance, the very same thing that had brought all of us here, to wage a war beyond death, to serve the greatest warrior king there had ever been.”

“…Why?” Casimir asked. “Why…all of this?”

“Because there is a tomorrow out there, where we lay down our weapons, and go to hour homes, safe and content, dying and leaving more peace and contentment to our children,” Rostrum said, quietly. “Because we have all suffered pain and sin, and we wish for a better world, and we cannot rest if we do not.”

“Why does this Warmaster care?”

“Because he was the first of the Returned,” Rostrum paused. “Roaming an existence ravaged by endless conquest, the first to realize power, and seek to break this endless cycle. Because there is strength beyond strength, power beyond power, and a dawn we were promised.”

Casimir closed his eye.

“Shall you not come, brother,” Rostrum said. “And fight as was ordained upon us, shall you not strive, our brother, for a dawn we were promised?”

Casimir opened his mouth.

He closed it.

Not my job.

His wounds itched.

I don’t owe existence a damned thing.

His mouth hung open, muscles twitching, eyes tearing, heart pounding.

I’m not a hero.

Casimir Voreband spoke his answer.