Prologue
The plain was awash with flame. Fiery plumes rose high from horizon to horizon. War’s gory maelstrom had descended on the world, laden with scents foul enough to confound the senses. The sky was clotted with black smoke. The earth was a sea of blood.
The nightmare continued without end, as far as the eye could see. A patch of newly grown wildflowers died where they budded. Beside them, a corpse smoldered, brutalized beyond recognition. A horse’s hoof came down among the myriad swords protruding from the body, crushing its ruined flesh to mulch.
“Is anyone alive out there?!” the rider cried. Blood poured from his side as he galloped on, fleeing over corpses that had been laughing comrades only a day before. He looked around desperately, but there was no life to be seen—only an endless field of charnel blossoms blanketing the plain.
“Curse it all! How could this happen? How?!”
Sensing encroaching danger, he leaned forward and spurred his horse as fast as it would go...but life is cruel by nature, and miracles rarely deign to arrive in a man’s darkest hour.
“Tell me, doomed soldier—to where do you run?”
Before him stood a girl holding a fan in one hand, her features oddly out of place on a battlefield and her attire wildly inappropriate for war.
“How is it that you can flee in so miserable a state?”
“Stay back!”
“There is nothing to fear. I am quite merciful. I offer the swiftest of ends.”
With a depthless smile and chilling words, the girl took a single step forward—and the soldier’s heart shattered. He had fought his way through countless killing fields and survived innumerable scenes of carnage, but something in that movement broke him utterly. Hope left his eyes and the blood drained from his cheeks. His mind was gone.
And then—
“Hyaaaaaaaaagh!”
He exploded. That was no simple turn of phrase. He quite literally burst apart from the inside out. A sickening noise shook the air, and ribbons of blood and gobbets of flesh rained down on their surroundings. Somehow, the girl remained untouched. Her lips drew into a beguiling smile as she flicked open her fan.
“You and your comrades have done no wrong, ’tis true—naught but the misfortune of being born on imperial soil. Yet that sin alone deserves a thousand deaths.”
The hour of ruin was at hand. The empire that had stood so steadfast for so long against every outside threat was crumbling at last. Now that events were in motion, they could not be halted. A human being could not stop a raging tempest in its tracks; they could only wait for it to pass. The sole recourse of the weak was to bar their doors and hold their breath.
“Butcher. Slaughter. Conquer.” She whispered the words like a prayer.
Screams echoed around her—not only one or two, but dozens, mingling and layering and swelling loud enough to split the sky. There could be no survivors here. The slightest exhaled breath would be met with thrusting spearpoints. Beasts stalked the battlefield, and they offered their prey no escape.
Even so, a valiant few still resisted.
“On your feet, men! All who can stand, to me!”
Like a conquering hero, his every swing sent corpses sprawling. Like a demon from hell, his every slice slicked the earth with blood. His unassuming appearance belied his overwhelming strength.
“Show these invaders no mercy!”
One of the champions known as the five high generals rallied the routed and charged into the fray.
“High General Vakish von Hass, the Shield of the West. Your head will make a fine prize.”
A woman stood in his way, splattered with blood from head to toe and wearing a ghoulish smile. She carried a war hammer longer than she was tall.
“Step aside, little lady. You won’t like what I’ll do to that ghastly face.”
“And you won’t like what I’ll do to your rib cage.” She braced her foot against the ground. Wind rushed inward, then exploded outward.
“Gaaahhh!”
“I see the five high generals are as mighty as they say. I had meant to leave only your head intact, but you’re sturdier than I expected.”
“This...cannot be...” Vakish fell to his knees. Blood bubbled from his mouth as he gazed down at the gaping hole in his torso.
“My, but you don’t die easily. I may get some entertainment from you yet.” The woman raised a hand. Her soldiers pulled out daggers, sporting wicked grins.
Vakish hacked up another gobbet of blood. “What are you...doing...?”
“Why, torturing you, of course. Aren’t you curious how long you can last?” Despite the cruelty in her words, her smile never faltered. “First we’ll pull out your nails, trim your ears, and cut off your nose.”
“Aha... Ha ha ha ha!” Summoning the last of his strength, Vakish hurled himself forward, sword in hand. “You rotten curs!”
His last stand was not to be, the weak defiance of a child. The bite of sharp blades in his flesh soon taught him the futility of resistance. Soldiers swarmed around him, submerging him in a maelstrom of hatred. The battlefield made no exceptions for the lauded. It was a place devoid of compassion, where anyone and everyone perished by steel.
At last, the commander’s head emerged from the press, cut free from his torso. A roar of elation rose from all sides.
“High General Vakish has fallen! Send word far and wide! String his head up high before every town! Let the imperials look upon it and tremble! Let them know that Six Kingdoms has come!”
Still, the soldiers did not stop. The commander might be dead, but they would not let the battle end just yet.
“Slay them all! Leave none alive! Cut down highborn and commonfolk alike!”
The call went out and the corpses piled high, sacrifices to satisfy countless years of resentment. The girl watched the horror unfold, and not once did the smile leave her face.
“’Tis time for our forebears to have their vengeance.”
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