The books of Rö are the most precious written texts in the Empire. Partial copies exist and are very sparse, but the original works are found in the Imperatrix’ chambers. There are forty-three different works, and there are, at first glance, no similarities between the books, the covers and authors being entirely different from one work to the other. The books are not secret per se, but they are not of common knowledge either, and through the century, they were mostly only known by researchers or Sage-brothers. Many of those believe wrongfully that the Conqueror was the author of all the books, but of those forty-three, Rö only wrote “Travels outside the world” and “Autobiography”. The content of the books isn’t what brings them together either, some speaking of history, others of economy, some even of myths and fictional stories, or also some not even really books, but collections of schematics that bring light to impossible and incomprehensible technological advancements.

The only common point about those books is that it was Rö who brought them into the Empire. Those are the works that he judged essential to bring back, as they all trace cultures and stories of cultures outside of our border. The knowledge contained in those books is considered so precious that many experts do not hesitate when they say they are worth all the gold in the Empire.

Adienha’s secret, second edition, Sage-Brother Bartholomew of Villipende.

Nay stood between the three guards running at them with drawn swords and her friend. She herself, did not unsheathe her weapon, staying standing straight, her expression closed and hiding the fatigue of the Conqueror’s door. The soldiers, from Leïn according to their armours resembling the one Nay was currently wearing, paused three large steps away from the two women.

The Legio could still sense the accursed box from where she stood, but fortunately, it was far away enough to let her sixth sense work without issues.

“Duchess, step away from our Mother of us all!” The man who spoke, even taller than Nay by an inch or two and built like a lumberjack, was without a doubt the highest graded of the men facing her. A captain, if Nay was reading the chevrons on his torso correctly. His posture, his very well-maintained sword and shield despite their obvious use, as well as his gaze not daring to leave Nay, was telling enough about his qualifications for the Legio. The two others standing at his sides were less impressive, but not much. “…And you and the Darae will follow…”

“It seems our old sovereign fainted, captain. Could you carry her back on the Plateau so she can rest in her quarters?” Trinne interrupted him with a perfectly neutral tone of voice.

Nay gave her a glance, her eyebrow raised. Really? She received quite the freezing stare back. Trinne wasn’t liking the lack of confidence given to her by Nay. Mutely reprimanded, the Legio turned her attention back to the guard.

“Duchess, there are at least thirty or so witnesses, you cannot…” The captain was trying to meet Trinne’s eyes, but his eyes always fell back on Nay. And from his Rreico, the Legio could feel that he wasn’t really comprehending why that was.

“And there are thirty witnesses that saw our dear old Imperatrix try to murder me. Well, that is what they’ll claim at least, while my official report to the Emperor will only tell of a fainting incident due to the very harsh smell of our nice coastal city.”

“I…”

“We do not have time to resolve our little disagreement when the enemy is at our doors, captain. If you try to create insubordination in our troops, I will promptly court-martial you. Now, bring back the ex-Imperatrix to her quarters, or I’ll have to ask the daughter of Sergeant-General Marke and Commandare Redrick Darkstar’s disciple to pull out her sword.”

The captain hesitated one short moment, trying to meet his two comrades' eyes.

“Move away from our Mother of us all.” He finally responded. Nay and Trinne stepped back at the same time. Without losing track of the Legio, the three men inspected Hyn, then the captain took her in his arms in a princess carry, and they left without a word.

Nay relaxed her shoulders, the tense moment completely gone. The feeling of her own rhythm of life was strange, it had been a year since she let it loose like that, and she could feel something new behind the almost cumulonimbus of darkness escaping her.

“Do you think I should pull my Rreico back in?” Nay asked her friend.

“I don’t know, you’re the master Legio, No?” Despite the initial barb, the Duchess followed with an attempt to help. “Couldn’t it attract the Anger?”

“No, they read my magic, or something like that, not my Rreico.”

“Well then, let it go free, the worst it will do is make the Carradin’s tattoos to spot mages itch. An annoyance for our enemies.”

Nay nodded. She disliked her own rhythm of life, but she felt that there was something there that she needed to learn, something she had put in the background for too long. It would need to stay there for a bit longer, unfortunately.

“Hyn?” She asked simply.

“I’ll talk to Jarl. He’s not involved in this, I’m sure of it.”

“He won’t punish his own mother.”

“No, but he’ll stop her from trying something so stupid for the foreseeable future, and I believe that even if she is desperate, Hyn knows that she had only one shot to surprise you. Make you use the door to lower your guard was smart but is not repeatable.”

Nay thought about it for a moment. And concluded that she agreed with her friend’s analysis.

“Why did Hyn do this?” She questioned instead.

“Mmmm.” The Duchess hesitated a moment. “A few possibilities, in truth. We’ll have the occasion to make sure when she wakes up. Making you lose control is the first reason I would say. The fact that she asked you to liberate your Rreico before is proof of that. A mage as powerful as you will assuredly make the Carradins hesitate, and even maybe flee. But they would never believe in something like that appearing out of the blue, hours before their first attack. The king of Mindor will without a doubt justify this as a Firante intimidation ploy.

“But then if the city they try to invade gets covered in a sea of ghosts made of night…”

“Exactly. The king’s justification becomes wobbly at best. But even then, the strategy is ridiculous, our own troops will end just as terrified, even more probably, than theirs.”

“Except they are stationed north in the trenches right now.”

Trinne grimaced. “True, it stays stupid though…She does not believe in our chances to win, and even if her plan had worked, even if some Carradins would refuse to attack after your demonstration of power, the king of Mindor would not change his plans. It is not in his skillset. This brings me to my second theory…she sacrifices herself, and my city. Your shadows would kill her, undoubtedly, but it would make the Carradins hesitate, everything to waste their time. So that ultimately, they would find themselves in the path of Angels attracted by your magic.”

Nay didn’t hide her disbelief and horror. “That has to be the worst idea I have ever heard.”

“I approve wholeheartedly. But Hyn used the Angels during the War, they were her allies, and unlike us, she has experience using them. The arrival of one or more Angels in Gite, in the middle of a war, would definitely destroy the Carradins and ourselves. No more Gite, but no more Carradin invasion either. An easy decision to make if it is purely mathematical and inhuman. With the miracle of the door, you are untouchable, and with your family here, she knows you would flee with them. But in any case, all of this is conjectures, if we have the opportunity, we shall ask Hyn herself.”

There was a long silence as Trinne looked beyond Gite’s harbour, at the blue sea that had shown the Carradin fleet before.

“So…what happens now?” Nay finally asked.

The Duchess turned to face her, her expression like stone.

“Now? Now, it is war.”

Sergeant Jordin was a true guard of Makaka. He was gifted, and could have become a Vanni guard, with a few more years to his belt, but with Vanni’s keep destruction, as well as his city very slowly recovering from a civil war, his dream had become distant. And as if that wasn’t enough, now the Biach raiders of the West were attacking them, forcing him to leave his family that so desperately needed him. Karki was only five, and she was crippled by nightmares since their house had been taken by the fires. He had thanked the gods for sparing his family, but now, he was afraid he was asking too much, as he prayed to be able to go back home sound and safe after kicking the invader like when you burned the scales of a Lesardo.

“Sergeant?”

Jordin raised his head, and stared at the young Touched that was crouching in the sand trench. He was barely seventeen, and the young man had admitted himself that he had only left Leïn’s Cathedral two months before. He had been given only two miracles, one closing wounds, making him a Lebe priest, and another letting him communicate with thought at medium ranges, a Jormun miracle that should have been forbidden, but that had been reinstated because of the war. Another horrible thing that the war brought with it: children having to chant too dangerous miracles, that the Gods would have preferred never to have to give their Touched.

“Storr?”

“I received a message. Ships are incoming, ten minutes, more or less.”

The boy was shivering like a leaf. Jordin could see his eldest son in him, even if Karim was only twelve years old. The sergeant glanced one last time at his men. Boka, Tronin, Hanno and Modave were his forever soldiers, those that had accompanied him when they had to fight their own neighbours, and with the exception of Tronin, all had been trained together by the Vanni guards. Modave met his gaze, and gave him a quick nod, assuring that he was ready, a thing that Jordin knew very well already. He did not remember the names of the three men and the only woman in his platoon that he was currently seeing, neither did he remember the seventeen others further down his line of defense. From diverse occupations and age, they were the official archers of his platoon. He didn’t count on them to stop the assault of the animals of the west but hoped that they would not break formation before the retreat order. There was another platoon inside a trench behind the top of the dune behind them, some thirty meters or so, and he wanted to reach it alive. That wasn’t counting the four platoons north and south from his own, that were depending on his ability to decide the right moment to flee, forced to mirror his every move as they did not have a God-Touched to tell them what would be happening on the battlefield.

His nerves had never been so harshly put to the test. The sergeant then reconsidered a short moment, and a small smile appeared on his face. That wasn’t entirely true, as he remembered a happy moment with his wife.

“Sergeant?” The priest asked, clearly taken aback by the expression on his commanding officer’s face.

“Nothing. Stay on your guard, and I want you in the trenches hidden behind the shields. No heroics from you, and if I die…”

“I will listen to corporal Tronin.”

“Good. You are chosen by the Gods, Storr, your life is…”

“TAKE COVER!!!”

Boka’s shout as he was observing the warships was immediately echoed by a dozen others on the beach.

Jordin barely had the time to catch the collar of the priest’s leather armour to pull him to the ground when an enormous cracking sound burst throughout the battlefield. It was like the crashing of a waterfall followed by the exploding of bricks under impossible heat. The sergeant, despite his experience, was unable to do anything more than to put himself on top of the priest. He had no illusions though. If whatever this angelic magic fell on them directly, his attempt to protect his only communication source would be reduced to nothing.

PSHSSHH-CRACK. PSHSHSSS-CRACK.

Sometimes far away, sometimes extremely close by. The unnatural explosions were making his bones tremble and his eardrums rattle.

And it wasn’t stopping.

Even the sergeant started to despair, as an eternity passed but the explosions did not stop.

And when finally silence came back in the beach of the Refugees, it took him a dozen seconds to realize it. And a dozen seconds more to stand up.

Then, his training and experience kicked in, forcing his trembling to stop, forcing him to breathe, calm down, and observe.

Observe.

Miraculously, as it clearly showed the God’s will, his trench had been spared. His men were getting back on their feet slowly, but all seemed unharmed. He raised his eyes above the ditch they had dug to survive. The beautiful beach was now cheese, some holes already filled with water, and instead of a radiant blue sea, there was now hundreds of ships landing. For the first time in his life, he met the eyes of the Carradin troops.

“STORR, transmit to the others that the Carradins have landed! Hanno, Boka! Shields and archers! NOW!”

And like a well-trained Lesardo, the war machine rumbled alive. Heavy tower shields were struck inside the sand in front of the trenches, and Gite’s defenders woke up from the shock of the falling cascades and armed themselves with their bows and arrows before finally, they used the space between the shields like the windows between city ramparts.

The first arrow flew true and hit the first Carradin exiting the water, but the three that followed were engulfed by the waves and disappeared forever.

“Save your arrows! Only precise shots! If the Carradins come close we will be there to protect you!” Sergeant Jordin did not even flinch as an enemy arrow struck the tower shield an inch away from his head. He took his own bow and started shooting himself, but barely two minutes later he had to leave it to unsheathe his sabre and take his wooden shield. He and his men were there to keep their archers shooting a handful of seconds more, minutes maybe, so they needed to intercept those that would reach the trenches.

He ran behind the tower shields to catch up to the first raider that had managed to dodge the barrage of arrows from him and his men. There was no fight, as the Carradin had been too focused on the markswoman that he had pushed to the ground and was ready to strike with his axe. He didn’t seem to understand why the woman was screaming at first, then had suddenly sighed in relief.

The Carradin’s body fell, but the sound of the cadaver was muted by all of the living ones fighting for their lives.

“Up! Up!” The Sergeant shouted, and the woman stood back up. A scream echoed, and Jordin saw Modave hit a deadly swipe at a Carradin’s neck. Too late, one of their archers was laying still in the trench.

His training took charge, and Jordin observed the situation.

Thirty seconds. That was his estimate. Thirty more seconds and they would be overcome, as the waves of the sea had been overtaken by the sea of invaders.

He managed to reach another raider, this time having to use a risky counter with his shield to get rid of his opponent as fast as possible. The Carradin scum were dangerous, he knew that, but that short exchange of blows ending with his victory still surprised him.

“Retreat in fifteen seconds! Storr!”

He barely heard the response of the priest, hidden behind Boka’s shadow protecting him from on top of the trench.

“Understood! Oh you Jormun, God of our mind…”

“Two minutes.” Storr informed him.

Jordin nodded. Three lost was a good number, but they had lost Hanno. The trenches on top of the dunes would hold two more minutes, maybe less, then the fighting would start again for him and his men. They had taken point at the third line of defense, and now his archers had one defender less. Six lines of trenches had been dug. A titanic amount of work.

“Sergeant!”

“Tell me.”

“A Carradin strike team is attacking our position north, they appeared for the woods north-east!”

Jordin showed his teeth in a predatorial smile. “Our Mother of us all and the Duchess are as impressive as they seemed.”

“S…sergeant?”

“We knew of this ambush, Storr. No need to worry. You may pray for the poor fools attacking us there though, not that it will help them.”

The priest seemed relieved.

But the joy of the Sergeant was fleeting. He had seen the ships; he had seen the enemy troops.

Six trenches would not suffice, and the platoon of the best warriors of the Empire would not suffice either.

“Retreat!” He heard someone shout on top of the dune.

His sombre thought ceased.

He squeezed the sabre in his hand, and thought of his daughter.