Following Salome was a somewhat underwhelming but equally unnerving endeavor. I was expecting to be led through the forest into a secret stash with secret operatives and secret passcodes. Instead, she simply walked through the break into the trees and through the no man zone that created a divide between the border walls and the forest. It was a barren field with weeds growing only up to the ankles, being cut short by something. Walking in the open was a new feeling to me, as even when I was still Adam tall buildings and city walls abound, creating a cover for me to hide behind.

It was a novel feeling, and I found myself immersed in it and enjoying it as we marched the distance back to the fortress. Salome only veered from this straight-line course once, veering onto a path that seemed less paved and more well-travelled, the weeds having been worn away not by any tool or deliberate action, instead the constant treading of feet, day after day, year after year seemed to wear the weeds down all the way to their routes.

Cresting over a slight hill, I could finally see the small gate that seemed even smaller when compared to the size of the wall. Getting closer and closer revealed more and more details about the gate, it was a simple metal gate, and while it seemed small, this was only when it was compared to the wall it cut through. It was probably four or five times as tall as me, and it was hundreds of feet wide.

There wasn’t anyone visible manning the gate, in fact it was strange. It almost looked like a derelict gate, empty and cold. As we got closer and closer this idea seemed closer and closer to the truth. The closer and closer we got to the gate the emptier and emptier it appeared.

Soon Salome, my knights, and I were at the front of this yawning gate. Salome seemed unfazed by all of this, and I could feel that her soul was at ease. When undertaking new or risky behaviors the agitation from the soul is almost palpable, but hers, it was calm and serene like the ocean.

I trusted her so deeply for multiple reasons, one was that she was basically in the same or similar boat to me, two was that I had a portion of her soul, I could read her mind if I wanted to (not that I had any reason to) and even if I didn’t, I could gauge her mood just by simply glancing at the sliver of her soul. And above all, I could see it even if she didn’t realize it yet, she loved the Void just as much as I did, she would follow and help me not because of any faith in me, instead her loyalty was inspired by her faith in the Void. With this I felt pride, pride in that I could show her the way of the Void, pride that someone else felt so venerated by something I held so dearly to myself. It was like a touch of sanity in this insane world.

Reaching the front of the gate, Salome simply sat down leaning her back on the wall with a sigh. Looking back up at me she seemed to be examining me. Her eyes were a beautiful blue color, but they were deep, so deep. She opened her mouth to say something, but quickly closed it again, seemingly losing the words she wanted to say.

I could feel it, she was curious about something but didn’t know how to word it. It was funny watching her mouth open and close like a fish out of water. I wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask, and while there was a certain temptation to read her mind again, I felt that unnecessary invasions of privacy, were well, unnecessary. Passing the boundary would probably not be appreciated, however well it could save her from these troubles.

Instead, I simply decided to take a seat next to her, laying my back against the wall just alongside her. My praetorians were being a little obnoxious here, standing protectively in front of us facing outwards, but to be honest it looked more like they were bullying us.

It was something that causes me to chuckle, yet all anyone heard was a dry wheezing. Hearing myself I stopped immediately, there was no need to unsettle anyone right now. With a single thought, my praetorians shuffled off to the side, remaining ever vigilant, and unflinching in their resolve. With nothing to do, I simply laid there and closed my eyes and waiting for her Salome to find her voice.

After what felt like only a few seconds I heard a sweet voice ask, “You know that it’s a two-way mirror right”

Without turning or opening my eyes I silently responded, [What ever could you mean?]

“I mean that I can see your thoughts just as much as I can see yours”

[Oh? Find anything interesting?]

“There isn’t much thought about your past life, don’t you miss your parents? You’re fiancé?”

[Adam would miss them; Adam would want to see them again. But I’m no longer Adam, and I no longer have that luxury, and that might be a good thing. There’s a lot I don’t know about the situation]

“Do you not miss them? Isn’t the saying blood is thicker than water? Aren’t your family ties important to you?”

[The blood of the covenant is thicker than the milk of any breast]

“What? That’s gross, what does that even mean?”

[It means that those we choose to fight with, die with, live with, are closer and more important to us then those we end up with by chance, our family]

“Pfft, and you couldn’t have just said that normally? Less weirdly?”

[It’s a saying… you’re meaner than you let on]

“What do you mean? I’m a saint and I resent you for stating otherwise”

[Why are we here? What are we waiting for, and why is there no one manning the gate?] I asked, gesturing towards the wall behind us and the gate a little further back towards the right.

“The wall covers the entirety of the southern border coast to coast, and it’s way too long too man all of it. Instead, there is a seer every twenty miles or so with detection abilities, when they sense someone, a squad of knights and seers are dispatched, usually with a teleporter. Because of this there are only stations of knights every couple mile, and because of this strike and fade defense strategy they don’t want to advertise where the knights are. So instead, the gates stay closed until dawn and dusk where they are opened for a bit to the guards and harvesters back in, and then its closed again”

I simply nodded, this was good information to have, and I assumed we were allowed to pass earlier since they weren’t worried about people leaving into the death forest, instead worrying about incursions of strong beasts or of the outlaws thriving in the wild.

We sat there in silence for a bit, and I could feel her anxiousness. We talked for a bit, but I could tell there was something she wanted to address herself. Once again, I just let the silence lengthen between us and simply reviewed the plans I had.

Once we had secured enough money for passage to the capital, depending on how long it took my plans were going to be different. The next cycle marked the acceptance cycle for the royal university, and I planned to gain acceptance. I could bring my praetorians as guards and depending on how Salome wanted to approach it, she could join me as my servant, or she could gain access herself. I would prefer she gained access herself, as this would mean that I could move her as an independent piece, the bishop to my king.

“Bishop really? I feel like you’re selling me short. Oh, are you still in love with your fiancé, is that who the queen is going to be?”

Red hot anger flashed through me, so hot and quick that Salome leaned backwards almost instinctively. Calming myself down, I simply brushed past this and simply though [If you want to be the queen then you’re going to have to get over hating me so much. Remember you were the one who reminded me about the whole two-way connection thing, also being so scared of me doesn’t help either]

“I wasn’t scared, I was preparing” Salome muttered this, tilting her head down. I could feel her embarrassment, and I also could feel the sliver of her soul shrink, almost as if it was trying to make itself as small as possible. Heh, that was cute.

We waited like this in silence, with our praetorians standing off towards the side being as awkward as ever, I would need to teach them how to act more naturally, as they fit in as alert guards, but no guards stayed that alert that often. They were going to unnerve people, that’s for sure, especially in the soft capital, where people were just naturally not used to being on guard for physically attacks.

Soon, as the sun began to set, more and more people began to filter in from the forest, emerging in great groups. Some of these groups were as small as four or five, most likely rogue knight bands, mercenaries who either broke away from their lord or lost their lord and now had to gather resources to survive, and larger groups of hundred plus gatherers all being watched attentively by knights in shiny golden armor, probably serfs and their knighted guards.

We mostly kept to ourselves and bided our time, waiting for the gates to be open. Soon, trouble came to find us when one of the mercenaries walked over and began to harass Salome.

“Hey there beautiful, is the shrimp hiding behind rags not good enough to Ya? Someone as pretty as you shouldn’t be missing such a beautiful appendage”

As he began to approach us, my praetorians a little bit away seemed to bristle in anger and made their way to intercept, I had them hold for a bit, Salome was my talker lets see how well she could talk her way out of this.

Seemingly checking him out, Salome gave him a once over before simply stating, “You clearly have eyes for me, so can I perhaps borrow your eyes?”

His band of seven behind him chuckled to themselves, laughing at the absurdity of the statement. That is until their friend smiled, happy to help, and plucked his eyes out of his head. Reaching up with his fingers, and a creepy smile on his face, he grabbed his eyeballs and pulled them from his head, the stems snapping from his brain, all the while the smile never left his lips. He attempted to hand his eyes over to Salome, but by now his friends had reached him and were trying to restrain him.

Wanting to nip this in the bud, and noticing how decent their weapons were, I gave the order for my praetorians to step in. Stepping forward with brutal efficiency, two of the mercenaries had their skulls crushed before they knew what happened, blood squirting through my praetorian’s fingertips, and they were the lucky ones. One of them had his arms ripped off and his chest plate and chest caved in by a sharp kick. Three of them were bludgeoned to death by their previous friends’ arms, and the last one peed himself and tried to run but was laid low when the crushed helmet of one of their friends smashed their brains to pieces. Falling headless, silence descended upon the grove in front of the gate. While there was no sound, only the serfs and the gathers feared us, everyone else was silence simply because they were in no mood to talk, no one else seemed to pay us any attention.

Without having to be told, my praetorians cleaned the blood off their hands as best as they could, and then proceeded to grab the weapons they wanted. Only four of my five praetorians had found weapons suitable for themselves, two of them grabbing bucklers and maces, one of them grabbing a large battle axe and a great sword, and the lead knight didn’t find a weapon suitable for them. I pacified him with my mind and simply glanced at the final remaining member of the group.

I didn’t care about what happened to him, so I let Salome know that what she did with him was up to her.

Opening her enchanting mouth one more time she simply instructed, “Be a dear, and slit your throat for me”

The man complied, a scream leaving his lips as he tried to regain control over his body, but the smile remained plastered on his lips. Taking a small dagger out of his boot, the man put it up to his neck and simply sliced it across. Standing there, eyes now smeared into his palms, he stayed there swaying, until the blood loss became too much, and he collapsed onto the ground.

Chuckling to herself, I closed my eyes once more and drifted off into a quiet meditation.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries are knights and seers without a lord, forming teams to either survive through hunting and subjugation of bandits. Not all the knights were sainted, but some of them were. Not all the sainted abandoned their lords, instead, some were sainted through their own efforts and simply never attached themselves to a lord. While it is true that it is basically impossible to become a sainted without the resources of a noble, that doesn’t mean miracles don’t happen.

Nobles have the advantage of knowing the summoning and communication rituals to communicate with the gods and goddess, but this doesn’t guarantee a sainted. Instead, all it ensures is that your deity hears your pitifully cries into the Void. Your deity can still hear your prayers normally, and while it is virtually impossible to get your deity to notice you that way, there is still a slim chance that your deity cuts through the static of hundreds of thousands of others screaming for their attention and gifts you power.

Mercenaries take an important part of the empires self defense force. Usually, noble knights are too slow to mobilize to defend out of the way or unimportant villages or trade routes, so there needs to be a force to deal with bandits. Mercenaries aren’t directly paid by the government to remove these bandits, instead they are allowed to keep whatever the bandits have on them. In this way, mercenaries can carve out an existence in this brutal world.

Sometimes, if a mercenary band becomes famous enough, they can be hired by merchantmen to protect them on trade trips through the empire and even sometimes outside of it. Some mercenaries by the southern wilderness will attempt to venture out into that accursed forest to maybe strike it rich by finding an old ruin or temple.

Mercenaries are generally looked down upon by everyone who lives in the city or near a large settlement, but to the poor people living near or by the border these people are venerated saviors.