Part 30

There was no stopping the wave once it had started.

It was a wave that did not break on the rocks it was thrown against, did not wear it slowly away over the eons until only sand remained. This wave crashed into one fortress city after another, and it was the stone that shattered. Some cities burned with Eastern Fire as Idris had before them. Others threw down their arms, opened their gates, and begged for mercy as they invited in the Truth. Those who showed their devotion were welcomed with love. Those who did not, their battered bodies served as the sacrifice that tore down the next defiant wall.

Our numbers had swelled into the millions before the host found itself before the walls of the final city. My force outnumbered the citizens of Caedra several times over, and by this point, the chaff had been well and truly culled from our ranks. The weak had perished, either to the blades of the enemy, or to the faith of their fellows. They would not abide charging into battle alongside cowards, next to those addled with disbelief, not when it could cost them their lives and souls.

These days, there was precious little for me to actually do. It had been six months since our war started, and the East was defeated. It was a bleeding corpse, thrashing its last, not in hope of resurrection , but in defiance of the encroaching dark. My army had heard my words, and the truly devout among them had taken those words to heart. They now preached their own wisdom, echoes of my inspiration, or perhaps whispered to them by demons all their own. Whatever the case, my days were spent lounging in luxury in my lavish tent, fed by chosen worshippers, tended to when I desired it by my husband, by Shiss’kill, by Naryssa, or by all of them. My whims were enacted as law, and every moment I was surrounded by the glory brought on by faith in Chaos.

My only moments of action were ones such as these, and I reveled in them as fully as in my own chambers.

Blood splashed my face, splattering on my grinning teeth, my wild eyes wide and unblinking as I kicked the most recent corpse free of my blade. It fell next to all the others, great, ruinous wounds carved into their bodies, terror and agony etched onto their faces forever. The last bastion of the East, surrounded and hilariously outnumbered, and yet they refused to surrender. They refused to hear the Truth. Each time I had appeared to address the walls, they had drowned out my glorious words with group prayer. Prayers to the Emperor.

It had infuriated me beyond words.

I had not organized a ritual to call for the demonic allies that had so often broken the defenses for us before. I did not craft an elaborate strategy. I didn’t even send letters entreating my foe to see reason. They had given up their chances at redemption with this grave insult. And so I had raised my sword, and pointed it at the walled city.

My army had charged without hesitation, without fear, and with roars of exultation echoing from every throat. And I joined them.

Purple flames engulfed our front ranks, but those behind did not care. Great siege engines burned to cinders, as did those inside the towers, and those bearing the battering rams. It mattered not. Ladders hit the wall in numbers beyond counting. Hundreds more siege towers lurched toward those walls. I was among the first to reach the ramparts, surrounded by foes, by meat. I laughed as their blades bounced from my hide.

And then I began the slaughter.

Red filled my vision as I hacked, slashed, massacred the foe. The faithful flooded onto the wall I had cleared, their blades flashing. The first gap was made, immediately filled by those who followed. Each time we cleared the top of another ladder, our numbers swelled ever faster. At first the foe fought to win. Then they fought to hold us back. And by the time they fought to get away, it was too late. The gate had been ripped asunder by the improbable strength of Shiss’kill, my army flooding through it. Their only escape was down the stairs and onto the waiting blades of my people.

So they had stood their ground, and for their trouble, they died to the last man.

My army swept through the city. Everywhere they went, buildings burned, doors were broken in, blood was spilled. I had given no such order, but no quarter was given. I hadn’t needed to give the order. The faithful were as incensed as I at the insult delivered to their prophet-queen, and they were eager to reap bloody vengeance. It had not been the voices of soldiers or priests alone that had drowned out my words. It had been the voice of a city.

A voice that would now be silenced.

Chaos swept through Caedra, and cries of rapture sounded even over the screams. Bathed in warm blood, I turned my own exultant eyes to the heavens, breathing in the reek of battle. Oily light clouded the stars overhead, a physical manifestation of our collective faith. All over Caedra reality was torn asunder, not by ritual, but by the sheer power of our belief. Demons leaped through eagerly, drawn to this glorious feast. Blades slashed, claws tore, teeth bit and ripped, fire warped flesh into monstrous shapes. All the city was engulfed in praise to the Dark Gods!

And at that moment of my greatest victory, the last true obstacle on Lachrys falling around me, I was shown the folly of my pride.

Sun-bright beams lanced from the heavens, piercing the oily clouds, slashing their way through the ranks waiting outside the walls. Thousands died in a blink as those coruscating beams of energy slashed apart my believers, annihilating them as though they’d never existed. Cries of confusion and terror replaced the joyous chanting as volley after volley hammered down, cratering the very planet beneath their feet.

And when my army was in ruins, perhaps half still breathing, then did the devastation cease. I looked to the sky, uncertain what had caused the onslaught to begin, and what had caused it to end. I did not know what those brilliant, fiery sparks overhead were at first, but I know now. The burning blaze of lander engines. They were the prometheum fueled thrusters of landing craft in the hundreds, bearing the most devoted warriors of the false emperor. They had come to destroy us, to cleanse our faith from the world they had claimed out of nothing more than spite.

And as I watched the fires streak toward the ground, the oily light overhead dissipated, doubt flooding through the faithful, their demonic allies blinking out of existence. My stomach churned as I witnessed the first craft land, a vast ship capable of bearing a legion of warriors. A blazing skull stared back at me, backed by an ornate letter ‘I’ with three bars crossing it horizontally.

Again, I did not fathom the meaning of such a thing then, but I do now.