Alric did not answer, letting the shame of her undoing be washed away by the rain drumming against them.

  For a long moment, neither spoke.

  Their movements locked by the weight of her words.

  His armor, slick and glistening, did nothing to shield him from her accusations.

  Around them, the cries of the dying city reverberated; a chorus of weeping walls and reaped lives.

  In this watery echo, he bent down and gathered the cloak in his hands.

  Rising slowly, he guided it to his back and fastened it.

  The banner of the sun-wreathed lightning, now scarred by mud and water, hung heavy upon his shoulders.

  But he had to bear it, he had made such vow a long time ago.

  The woman stirred.

  First, her shoulder blades drew taut, straining like a bowstring.

  Second, trembling hands pressed upon the muck seeking purchase.

  Third, a raw, gasping breath, half-sob, half-growl, escaped her lips as she fought against the dead weight of her broken body trying to lift it up.

  Alric remained motionless, not offering assistance or comfort.

  Only watching as she wrestled against her own weakness.

  Again, she tried.

  Knees sinking deeper into the mud, slipping on the sodden earth.

  Still she fought. Hating him, hating herself, hating the world.

  Her fingers clawed at the bloodied silt, as if sheer anger alone could will her upright.

  She managed to rise, legs quaking under their own precarious weight.

  Only to fall again.

  Miry clay streaked her arms and legs.

  Only then did Alric step forward.

  He recognized her attempts for what they were: life scratching itself of death, in spite everything.

  And so, he honoured it.

  His shadow loomed over her, poised to move.

  Sensing his intent, she lashed out in the only way she could: with mockery and disdain.

  “What now, commander? Would you like to carry me as a captured princess before your men? A trophy worthy of a king?”

  “Yes.” He answered her plainly.

  Doubt flickered over her face like a cloud passing over a shattered sun.

  But as he reached for her, her doubt became certainty.

  Without ceremony, he stooped low, slipping his right hand under her knees, and his left against her back, lifting her to his chest, shielding her from prying eyes, and the hammering rain.

  She thrashed against him, weak but wild.

  Kicking, digging into his chainmail with her nails, even trying to bite the cold steel of his plates.

  “LET ME GO, YOU FUCKING BASTARD! DO NOT TOUCH ME!”

  She screamed, voice cracking through the rain.

  “I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL MURDER YOU AS YOU MURDERED MY CHILDREN!”

  Her fists beat against his chest, uselessly slamming against the certainty of steel.

  But in his soul, he could feel every spike, every tip of her words pressing into his ribs like a newly sharpened dagger.

  Outwardly, he remained draped in stone.

  She flailed weakly for some time, then surrendered her body to weakness, frayed breaths between running tears.

  He turned to face his men, voice slicing through the rain.

  “Defensive perimeter around me and the rebel commander. Keep your eyes glued to the road ahead. We march back to camp. Now!”

  A beat later than usual, metal scraped against the ground in hurried shuffles around him. Soldiers closed in on him like a living wall of flesh and bone.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  While repositioning, he could hear her voice whispering something in choking gasps of sorrow.

  “Broken toys to play with, nothing more. Just meat puppets to command like a cruel tyrant. Fucking trash-eating scum.”

  Shifting her weight in his arms, he stepped forward toward camp.

  His retinue followed his every move, shielding him from danger, wherever it might’ve lurked.

  During the march, discontent with remaining silent, she spoke again.

  Mocking the mercy he dared to give.

  “Commander. Did you like my body so much you wanted it on yours?

  Want a prize for sweeping me off my feet so gallantly?

  I can give you something luxurious if you like, just like your men had. Before you dressed them like pigs of course.”

  Disturbed by her own fractured jeering, she lapsed back into silence, crying, quivering in his chest.

  He heard every word.

  But continued onward.

  He spared them no thought.

  He had carried enough broken things to know them well.

  Soil squelched beneath their boots as the unit crested over the last ridge.

  Beyond the tangle of churned mud and broken trees, Valekyrian banners fluttered in the stormy winds.

  The imperial vanguard’s camp emerged at last.

  Myriads of torches dotted the encampment, fighting against the pouring water, staving off the encroaching bleakness.

  Shouted orders and ringing steel resounded in the surrounding space. A semblance of order after such chaos, was a sight that brought some solace to Alric.

  A gust of wind swept through, forcing him to turn his back to it, shielding Priscilla from the onslaught of freezing lashes.

  His retinue tightened around him without need for word.

  As the blurred shapes of tents resolved into distinct forms amidst the storm—wood, leather and rope intertwined neatly—a scout’s voice bellowed through the rain, hoarse with urgency.

  “THE LORD COMMANDER IS BACK! I REPEAT—THE LORD COMMANDER IS BACK!”

  The camp did stiffened in response.

  The ripple of diligence shivered through the ranks like the clenching of jaws before prey.

  The stationed guards saluted him rigidly, briefly glancing at the woman in his arms, a puzzled look on their face, before averting their eyes in nervous haste.

  Still reeling from the cold, the woman looked up and saw him, unfazed and unmoving like a statue of stillness and steel. She answered the call in taunting venom.

  “Even your men are afraid. They are like frightened children in your grasp. Behold, the king of death has appeared. Draw taut the ranks, or break before his mighty blows.”

  She laughed at him. At herself. At the world. Maybe even at the gods, if they existed. And then, forgot whose hands held her, and sagged back into them.

  He did not listen to a word she spoke.

  Her words rang in the mud and drowned in it.

  His priority was her physical well-being, not her scraping for dignity in the madness left by sin-wrought sacrifice.

  As he advanced through the corridors of silt, his retinue fanned out, peeling away to escort the rebel leader towards the medicae’s tent.

  He had been covered in leather strips in a meagre attempt at protection from the hazardous elements.

  Quartermasters paused briefly to salute him, then turned to their inspections again.

  Clerks bowed over parchments, readjusting their spectacles, some in honesty, others rotely.

  Blacksmiths, perspirating through fire and flame, thudded the tip of their hammers on their chest once—the heart-hammer symbol—in loyalty, before breaking their sinews upon iron and steel once again.

  Those who saw him, stopped.

  Those who didn’t, continued.

  But no one stood in his way.

  War was won by the merit of many. And its magisterial machinery hadn’t rusted in his absence.

  Thunder cracked above him as he neared the centre of the encampment.

  Opposite him, a man came running through the rain shouting.

  “My Lord!”

  His voice unforgettable. Too many deaths and victories had they witnessed together.

  Vergo.

  All sinew and sharp lines. His frame chiseled for finesse, not power. Precision and shadow his closest companions.

  A sword and dagger rested at his waist, swinging incoherently in his stride.

  He kept his head shaven, save for the well-kept beard, now leaning heavy against his chest like a wet cloth in the pouring rainstorm.

  He carried the weight of an extra decade over Alric.

  He fell in step beside him, breath still uneven from the run.

  Alric didn’t stop. He gave a slight nod.

  “What is it?”

  Vargo’s eyes dropped to the woman in his arms.

  Limp. Filthy. Clothes barely clinging in the frost, cradled in his embrace.

  Her gaze—blank, lost, broken—he’d seen it before.

  It spoke of wounds that never bled, and never healed.

  Alric’s countenance overlapped with hers for a moment in his mind.

  Younger. Livelier. Happier. Barely a soldier when he met him.

  Then the message came through, and something in him never quite came back.

  So, he didn’t ask.

  Didn’t indulge.

  Just answered the question given.

  “The Seneschals want you at the Tents of Meeting.”

  The woman stirred.

  She shifted her face toward the commander, and then Vargo.

  Her voice was barely audible through the cracks in the rain.

  “Oh look, another loyal hound comes running to you like a lost, bearded beast. Tell me old dog, do you polish his sword after every child eviscerated? Or do you just lick his wounds when he comes back home? I know, you let yourself feast on the blood left behind. Tell me, how many skins adorn your walls?”

  Alric didn’t even acknowledge her.

  He simply continued onward towards his tent.

  She slumped back into him, a little fist bumping his breastplate, tears streaking the Valekyrian sigil etched across his heart.

  Directing his voice at Vargo, he spoke.

  “Let them wait. Fetch me supplies. I need to treat this woman’s injuries. Now.”

  Vargo did not tarry. He turned and made way through the rainy mist, disappearing from sight.

  Alric pressed onwards through the camp’s sludge-choked artery.

  Then, before him, his tent came into view.

  At its entrance, two blackened steel poles stood sentinel. From their tips flew the banners of the sun-wreathed lightning. Sodden, but ever-vigilant.

  Above, higher than all, the Empire’s twin-headed falcon loomed atop the central spire. Wings spread wide, a crown of spears arcing behind its heads in a sunless ring. In its claws a broken chain and a sceptre lay clutched, its dominion undisputed.

  Sparing no thought for such military display, he went in.