Month: May 2025

31 Zamreth, Year 431

Three weeks ago, the host marched east. Now they returned with haste—back across the high flats and riverbeds. Men no longer looked for the Queen’s banners, but what might remain of them.

The Queen’s army had cut through the great eastern waste, seeking to fall on Zammora from behind. But the sands had not been kind. The oasis at Marnet went to dust. Those who reached it found only bones and cracked mud. Horses died. Men went insane with thirst.

Meanwhile, the rebel army continue to grow. Soldiers came barefoot, with hunting knives tied to sticks. The last of the garrison from Fitria had joined them, pride buried beneath hunger and dust. Baron Zirominu rode at Gasparru’s side, his armour dulled by sand.

“We end it now,” he said. “Before she rallies the southern nobles.” Tatva rode behind them, silent. The priest-doctor had said nothing in two days. Some took this for ill omen. At dusk, a rider came fast from the south. His mount was heaving, half-mad from thirst. He dismounted and fell to one knee, eyes wide with more than exhaustion.

“Zammora,” he said. “There’s been a landslide. A collapse—whole quarters buried. Hundreds dead. The children…” Gasparru did not move. “Do we know?” Zirominu asked. The messenger shook his head. “No.” Gasparru stepped away, into the wind. He said nothing. Catellina found him after dark. She did not speak his name. He did not look at her.

The army marched west.

8 Voressan, Year 431

The desert of Fitria gave no shade. Wind scored the sandstone tower, where seventy of the Queen’s men still held after weeks without relief. Their water stores were rationed to a cup a day. They drank silence with their salt meat and cursed their loyalty in whispers.

Gasparru watached Baron Zirominu. A prisoner had been brought down from the tower the night before—caught attempting to sneak through the lines with a signal cloth sewn into his sleeve. He was clean-shaven, sunburnt, and smirking.

“You’ve delayed us,” Zirominu said. “Congratulations. You’ve bought your Queen a few days.”

“She is Queen,” the prisoner replied without flinching. “You call her something else?”

Zirominu struck him—backhanded, sharp. The prisoner spat blood, but didn’t look away.

“Where is her army?”

“I’d tell you,” the man said, licking his lip, “but I don’t know. Honest.” He laughed. “Do you?”

Gasparru stepped forward, arms behind his back. “You’ve held out longer than most expected. I’ll grant you that. But you’re not fighting for ground anymore. You’re fighting for a story. Do you think she’s coming to finish it?”

The prisoner looked at the sand under his boots. “I think she would have.”

“Would?” Zirominu snapped.

“I think… something’s wrong. I think she’s not where we thought she’d be.”

Gasparru exchanged a glance with the baron. The tower still stood. But the signal fires hadn’t burned in days.

The sky churned with dust.

Tatva walked behind the supply wagons, robes dusted white with sand and salt. He carried no weapon, only his satchel of instruments and a walking stick carved with three interlocking rings. Children trailing the camp called him the Flame-Talker. Some mocked. Most watched.

By midmorning, he stopped at the sound of coughing. A boy had fallen. Blistered hands. Fever-slick eyes. Tatva knelt, wiped the child’s face with vinegar, murmured a prayer. When he rose, he left a bead of charred amber around the boy’s neck. “Let the fire within guard against the fire without.”

Later, by the evening cookfires, he addressed a growing circle. Soldiers, herders, even one of the Queen’s deserters. He spoke slowly, his voice dry as dust but steady. “We Suhedi name three Purities. The Purity of Body. The Purity of Word. The Purity of Thought. Each is a flame. When all three burn together, they form a fire the false gods cannot look upon.”

Giti leaned back, arms crossed. “And what if one burns brighter than the others?”

“Then imbalance breeds ash,” Tatva said.

Gaspar joined quietly, arms folded. “Is that what you think we march toward? Ash?”

Tatva turned his head. “I think you march toward trial. And only the pure endure trial.”

Silence fell. Not from fear—from consideration.

Catellina offered Tatva water. He took it with a nod. “Many here believe their gods are watching. I say: the gods are not watching. They are waiting. And if this war opens a gate, it will not be one you can close with steel.”

Gaspar said nothing. He studied the fire. One log cracked.

From the first of Thazrel, men gathered not only with arms, but with relics and oaths. Some walked barefoot. Some fasted. A few came wrapped in burial linen, singing songs meant for the dead. Gaspar left behind his crown. He slept among his men. Drank from the same water skins. Ate bread broken by the same hands. The gesture was not lost. Word spread fast—this was a crusade.

Among the host walked Tatva, a foreign physician of the Suhedi order. A man of learning and zeal, he ministered to the wounded and weak, preaching a doctrine of Three Purities—body, word, and thought. Though strange to the men of Zammora, he earned their silence through skill and sincerity. Even Gaspar listened—if not with belief, then with interest.

Tatva noticed the shift. “They believe this war has meaning,” he said one night as the fire cracked low. “Not just vengeance. Not just land or gold. They think it matters to the stars.” Tatva hesitated, “…to the Gods.” Giti scoffed. “Every man thinks his axe swings for destiny.” – “But not every march carries ghosts,” Tatva said. He gestured east, toward the rising wind. “The gods the Voj defied—some say they stir. That blood calls them.”

“Stories,” Giti muttered. “Creeds,” said Tatva. “And creeds can outlive empires.” They passed ruins etched with glyphs and script none could read. Thorn shrines, long-abandoned, were adorned again with prayer cloth and stone. Men muttered old verses. Others fell silent. Even Catellina, skeptical as she was, paused when a procession of pilgrims joined the march—seven women in white veils, each bearing a shard of obsidian said to come from the crater of Naha.

One night, a goat died without reason. The herders burned it on a pyre of dry saltbush. The next day, almost nobody spoke until noon. Tatva said softly to Catellina: “If they believe this is the end of days, then how we walk matters more than how we strike.” She did not respond, and motioned for him to be silent. Later that evening, Gaspar watched the sky, where three stars aligned at dusk. Once, that might’ve been cause for celebration, a party to mock the gods. However, now it was an omen.

9 Vandaryn, Year 431

Teresa clung to her mother’s robe as the sun broke over the hill. Angelica, too young to understand, patted her sister’s arm and babbled to the goat grazing at the palisade. Catellina bent and pressed her forehead to theirs—one kiss for memory, one for hope.

The steward of Zammora, an old man named Harun, bowed. “Your daughters will be as my own. This I swear by hearth and rain.” Catellina rose. “Keep them near the shrine. Let them walk the olive rows. Tell Teresa she must keep her promises.” – “She will,” Harun said.

That morning, Catellina rode out. No veil. No guard. She caught the army before they reached the river’s bend. Her horse was lean, her eyes steady. The men stared, but no one dared speak. Giti did. “You should return. There’s no shame in staying.” – “I’m not here for pride,” Catellina replied. “I serve where I’m needed. And I am needed.” Gaspar met her eyes. “It won’t be safe.” – “It isn’t safe anywhere.”

She rode at the center of the march. Water stores. Grain weights. Sick rolls. Bandage counts. She bore them all. Tatva, the foreigner, observed her closely. “Many claim virtue,” he told Gaspar. “Few count beans and wounds in the same breath.” By the third week, men no longer whispered. They came to her with cracked feet, fevers, missing sons. She never promised more than rest, food, and a listening ear.

In the shadow of the dunes, when firelight danced low and silence hung between footsteps, she began to pray aloud. Not to the gods. Not to the Exile Hero. To no one.

She prayed for the living.

I Vanadryn, CDXXXI

The tents stood crooked on the salt flats, buffeted by wind that smelled of copper and ash. The sun was still low. Fires hissed low over wet coals. Men murmured in their sleep, some rising to piss against the dunes. The banners fluttered limply. It was cold, but the heat was coming.

Gaspar stepped out from his tent. The scarf about his brow was damp with sweat. He looked east, toward the ridgeline. He had dreamed again of his father’s voice, though not the words. Only the weight. Tatva waited near the central fire. He’d already dressed and boiled water. His robes, even travel-worn, bore no crease. He stirred herbs into a black clay bowl.

“Bad sleep?” he asked without looking.

Gaspar crouched by the flames. “What gave it away?”

“You don’t sweat in the cold unless the spirit labours.”

From the shadows beyond the fire, Catellina emerged. She poured water into a tin, glancing once toward Gaspar’s eyes, then away. “We’ve had word,” she said. “Chief Mauru’s envoy arrived after nightfall.”

Giti joined them, half-dressed and still chewing dried fig. “He brought a scroll. Unsealed.”

Gaspar unfolded the parchment. Ink bled along the creases. The Queen had declared Mauru a traitor. Gobar was to be ‘restored to direct rule.’ Troops would be dispatched ‘at once.’

“She’s not bluffing,” Giti said. “Three revocations in a month. Fitire, Dauro… now Gobar.”

“She’s not bluffing,” Tatva repeated. “But she may be overreaching.”

Gaspar stood. “Wake the scribes. Call the chieftains. Let’s see how many names still mean something in this world.”

By midday, forty men sat cross-legged in the open dust, the ridge to their backs. Gaspar read the Queen’s words aloud. Some muttered, some listened. When he finished, he said only: “We answer or we fall.”

A long silence. Then one voice—Tatva’s. “Then let the gods be dead.”

The vote was taken in dust-scratched lines and callused thumbs. Every hand rose. That night, drums sounded.