Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 14

“If there were soldiers everywhere, then why didn’t they snatch you and drag you off?” Cara asked with the kind of casual yet pointed directness that only a Mord-Sith could so effortlessly muster, as if the very concept of propriety was beyond her.

The same question had occurred to Richard, but at that moment he had not been able to summon his voice.

“They thought she had been designated as a servant,” Nicci said in a quiet, knowing voice. “Since she was walking around unmolested that long after the onset of the assault, the men would have assumed that there was a good reason, that those in command had reserved her for other duties.”

Jebra nodded. “That’s right. An officer who spotted me right off pulled me into a room with other men who were gathered around maps spread out over tables. The room hadn’t been ruined as had most of the others. They demanded to know where their food was, as if I should know.

“They were just as ferocious-looking as the rest of the men and I would not have known at first that they were the officers except by the deference paid them by the other soldiers who came and went with reports. Some of these officers were a bit older and had an even harder edge to them, a more calculating look in their eyes, than the regular soldiers who always gave them a wide berth. When they looked at me I knew they were men who expected immediate answers.

“I grasped at that glimmer of hope—that I might live if I played along. I bowed with an apology and told them I would see to the food at once. They said that I had better, apparently more interested in eating than dealing out punishment. I rushed off to the kitchens, trying to act with a sense of purpose while being careful not to run for fear that the men would see a woman running and react like wolves to a fawn bolting from cover.

“There were several hundred others in the kitchens, mostly older men and women. Many of them I recognized, as they had long cooked for the palace. There were younger, stronger men there as well who were needed to manage some of the work that was too heavy for the scullions or the elderly, work such as handling the carcasses for butchering or turning the heavy spits. They were all working frantically among the roaring fires and steaming pots as if their lives depended on it, which of course they did.

“When I entered the kitchens people hardly noticed me, as they were all rushing about, preoccupied in various tasks. Seeing everyone was already working at a fever pitch, I grabbed up a large platter of meats and offered to take it back up to the men. The people in the kitchens were only too happy to have someone else who was willing to go out among the soldiers.

“When I returned with the food the officers who had sent me abandoned what they had been doing. They appeared to be ravenously hungry. They sprang up from the couches and chairs and used their bare, filthy hands to snatch the meat off the tray. As I set the heavy tray on one of the large tables, one of the men peered up at me as he chewed a mouthful. He asked why I didn’t have a ring in my lip. I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“They put rings through the lower lips of slaves,” Nicci said. “It marks them as the property of men of rank and keeps the soldiers from taking them as plunder. It gives those in command servants at their disposal for menial work.”

Jebra nodded. “The officer yelled orders. A man grabbed me and held me while another came forward. He pulled my lower lip out and shoved an iron ring through.”

Nicci stared off into the distance. “They use iron as a reference to iron kettles and such. An iron ring signifies kitchen workers and such.”

Richard saw the glaze of suppressed rage in Nicci’s blue eyes. She, too, had once worn a ring through her lower lip, although hers had been gold to denote that she was the personal property of Emperor Jagang. It was no honor. Nicci had been used for things far worse than menial tasks.

“You’re right about that,” Jebra said. “After they put the ring in my lip I was sent back to the kitchens to get them more food and wine. I realized then that the other people in the kitchen wore iron rings as well. I was in a numb daze as I ran back and forth to get the officers what they demanded. I snuck a gulp of water or a mouthful of food whenever I could. It was enough to save me from collapse.

“I found myself thrown in with other frightened people who worked at the palace who were now taking orders from the officers. I hardly had time to consider how I had by chance managed to escape a worse fate. As much as it throbbed and bled, I was glad to have that iron ring through my lip because when any soldier saw it he changed his mind about his intentions and let me be.

“Before long I was sent out with heavy satchels of food and drink for officers in other areas of the city. Out in the countryside surrounding the city I began to discover the true extent of the horror that had befallen Ebinissia.”

When Jebra sank into a distant daze, Richard asked, “What did you see?”

She looked up at him, as if she had almost forgotten that she was telling her story, but then she swallowed back her anguish and went on. “Outside the city walls there were tens of thousands of dead from the battles. The ground for as far as the eye could see was covered with mangled corpses, many bunched in groups where they had died making their last stand. The sight seemed unreal, but I had already seen it before . . . in my vision.

“The worst of it, though, was that there were a number of Galean soldiers still alive, though grievously wounded. They lay here and there on the field of battle beside their dead brethren, wounded and unable to move. Some moaned softly as they lay near death. Others were more alert, but unable to move for one reason or another. One man was trapped, his legs crushed under the weight of a broken wagon. Another had been pinned to the ground by a spear through his gut. Even though in great pain, he wanted so desperately to live that he dared not pull himself off the shaft and release what it held in place. Others had legs or arms so badly broken that they were unable to crawl over the chaos of dead soldiers, horses, and rubble. With soldiers constantly patrolling, I knew that if I stopped to offer any comfort or aid to these wounded men I would be spotted and killed.

“As I made my way back and forth from the outposts I had to pass through this awful battlefield. The hills where this final engagement had taken place were dotted with hundreds of people slowly making their way among the dead, methodically picking through their belongings. I later learned that they were a small army of people who trailed behind the Imperial Order troops—camp followers—living off the scraps that the Order soldiers left in their wake. These human vultures pawed through the dead soldiers’ pockets and such, making their living on death and destruction.

“I recall one older woman in a dingy white shawl coming upon a Galean soldier who was still alive. Among other wounds, his leg had been gashed open to the bone. His hands trembled with the endless, solitary effort of holding the massive wound closed. It seemed a miracle that he was even still alive.

“As the old woman in the shawl pulled at his clothes, looking for anything valuable, he begged her for a sip of water. She ignored him as she tore open his shirt to see if he had a neck chain with a purse, as some soldiers did. In a weak, hoarse voice he again pleaded for a sip of water. She instead pulled a long knitting needle from her belt and, as he lay helpless, shoved it in the man’s ear. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth with the effort of twisting the long metal needle around inside his brains. His arms flinched and then went still. She drew the length of her knitting needle back out and wiped it off on his pant leg as she muttered a complaint that that would keep him quiet. She replaced her knitting needle in her belt and went back to rifling through his clothes. It struck me how well practiced she had seemed at the grisly task.

“I saw other camp followers use a rock to bash in the head of any man they found alive just to be certain he wouldn’t surprise them by striking out when they were busy hunting for any loot. Some of these scavengers didn’t bother to do anything to the wounded man unless he could still use his hands and tried to fend them off; if he was alive, but unable to resist, they merely helped themselves to what they could find and then moved on. But there were people who lifted a fist in the air and shouted in triumph whenever they found a fallen soldier still alive, one they could dispatch, as if doing so made them a hero. Occasionally there were those who came upon the helpless wounded and enjoyed torturing them in the most ghastly manner, amused by the fact that the men could neither run nor fight them off. It was only a matter of a few more days, though, before all the wounded survivors were dead, either from succumbing to their wounds, or finally being dispatched by the camp followers.

“Over the next few weeks the Imperial Order soldiers celebrated their great victory with an orgy of violence, rape, and plundering. Every building was broken into and thoroughly searched. Anything of value was looted. Other than the small numbers of the people like me who had been designated as servants, no male escaped capture and no woman escaped the clutches of those vile men.”

Jebra wept over her words. “No young woman should ever have to endure what was done to those poor creatures. The captured Galean soldiers as well as the men and boys of the city were well aware of what was happening to their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters—the Order troops saw to that. Several times, small groups of the captives who could no longer bear it rose up to try to stop the abuse. They were slaughtered.

“Before long the captives were sent in great gangs to dig seemingly endless pits for the dead. When they had finished digging the pits they were forced to recover all the rotting bodies for mass burial. Those who resisted ended up in the pits as well.

“Once all the dead had been collected and thrown into the pits, the men then had to to dig long trenches. After that, the executions began. Nearly every male over the age of fifteen was to be put to death. There were tens of thousands of people who had been caught up in the Order’s net. I knew that it would take weeks to butcher them all.

“The women and the children were forced at swordpoint to watch their menfolk being put to death and thrown in the great open pits. While they watched, they were informed that this was an example of what happened to those who resisted the just and moral law of the Imperial Order. They were lectured throughout the endless executions, lectured on how it was blasphemy against the Creator to live as they had been living, solely for their own selfish ends. They were told that mankind had to be purged of such corruption and would be better for it.

“Some of the men were beheaded. Some were made to kneel before the pits and then brawny men with iron-capped cudgels walked down the line and with a powerful swing bashed in the heads of each man in turn while a couple of captives in chains followed behind, throwing each freshly killed man in the trench. Some of the prisoners were used for target practice with arrows, or spears. Fellow soldiers laughed and mocked the drunken executioner if his sloppy aim failed to achieve a clean kill. It was a game to them.

“I think, though, that the sheer magnitude of the grisly business brought a somber mood over some of the Imperial Order soldiers and they turned to drinking as a way of masking their revulsion so that they could join in, as was expected of them. It’s one thing to kill in the heat of combat, after all, but quite another to kill in cold blood. But kill in cold blood they did. As the victims fell into the trenches they were covered over with dirt by those who would soon join them.

“I recall one rainy day when I had to bring food to officers standing under the shelter of what once had been a canvas awning over a shop, now held up with lances. They were there to watch an execution that was being put on as an elaborate spectacle. The terrified women who were to witness the death sentences being carried out were brought straight from the rape rooms by their captors. Many of the women were still only half dressed.

“By the many sudden cries of recognition and names shouted out, it soon became obvious to me that the Order interrogations had identified the husbands of the women and had singled them out. The couples were being brought together in a macabre reunion, separated but in full view of one another.

“The women, huddled together and helpless, were made to watch as the wrists of their men were tightly bound behind their backs with leather thongs. The men were forced to kneel near the fresh pits, facing the women. Soldiers came down the line and in turn held each man’s head up by his hair, then sliced open his throat. I remember the executioners’ powerful muscles glistening in the rain. Holding their victims by the hair, after cutting his throat, they heaved each body back into the pits before going on to the next man in line.

“The men waiting to be slain wept and trembled as they cried out the names of their beloved, cried out their undying love. The women did likewise as they watched their men murdered and then thrown in on piles of other men still thrashing and gasping in the throes of death. It was as horrific, as wrenchingly sorrowful, as anything I have ever seen.

“As they saw their loved ones killed, many of the women fainted, collapsing to the muddy ground covered in vomit. As the steady rain fell, others, in wild terror, screamed the names of the man they saw about to be put to death. They struggled against the iron grip of guards who laughed as they dragged the women away in turn, shouting out the details of their intentions to her husband who was about to die. It was a twisted kind of cruelty that inflicted suffering on a scale that I could not begin to adequately convey.

“Families were not only being torn apart forever, but being wiped out. Did you ever hear that old question: How do you think the world will end? This was how. This was the world ending for thousands upon thousands of people . . . only it was ending one person at a time. It was one long drawn out withering of lives, the final ending of each individual’s world.”

Richard gripped his temples between the thumb and fingers of one hand so hard that he thought he might crush his own skull. With great difficulty he managed to control his breathing and his voice. “Didn’t anyone manage to escape?” he asked into the ringing silence. “During all of these various rapes and executions and all, didn’t anyone escape?”

Jebra nodded. “Yes. I believe that a few made it out but, of course, I had no real way to know for sure.”

“There were enough who escaped,” Nicci said in a quiet voice.

“Enough?” Richard shouted as he turned his fury on her. He caught the flash of rage that had slipped through his control and brought his voice back down. “Enough for what?”

“Enough for their purpose,” Nicci said, gazing into his eyes, solemnly enduring what she saw there. “The Order knows that there are people who escape. During the height of the brutality, the worst of the horrors, they deliberately relax security so as to be sure that a few, at least, will escape.”

Richard’s mind felt as if it were hopelessly adrift in a thousand scattered, disheartened thoughts. “Why?”

Nicci shared a long look with him before she finally answered. “To spread such a fear that it will grip the next city in terror. That terror will insure that people in the path of the advancing army will surrender rather than face the same brutal treatment. In this way victory comes without the Order having to fight every inch of the way. The terror that is spread by escaping people who tell others what they saw is a powerful weapon that crumbles the courage of those yet to be attacked.”

With the way his heart was pounding, Richard could understand the terror of waiting for the Order to attack. He raked his fingers back through his hair as he redirected his attention to Jebra. “Did they murder all the captives?”

“A few of the men—ones who were deemed not a threat for one reason or another—were sent with other people from the city out into the countryside in gangs to work the farms. I never knew what happened to these people, but I presume that they are still there, toiling as slaves to raise food for the Order.”

Jebra’s gaze sank as she pulled some strands of hair back from her face. “Most of the women who survived became the property of the troops. Some of the younger and more attractive women had a copper ring put through their lower lips and were reserved for the men of rank. Carts frequently prowled the camp, collecting the bodies of women who had died during their abuse. No officer ever raised any objection to the brutal treatment these women received out in the tents among the troops. The dead were taken to the pits and thrown in. No one, not even Imperial Order soldiers who died, were ever buried with their name on a marker. They were all thrown in the mass graves. The Order does not believe in the significance of any individual and does not mark their passing.”

“What of the children?” Richard asked. “You said that they didn’t kill the younger boys.”

Jebra took a deep breath before she began again. “Well, from the very first, the boys had been gathered together and organized by age into groups of what I can only describe as boy recruits. They were regarded, not as captured Galeans, not as the conquered, but as young members of the Imperial Order liberated from people who would only have oppressed them and corrupted their minds. The blame for the wickedness that necessitated the invasion was placed on the older generations, not these young people who were said to be innocent of their elders’ sins. Thus they were separated, physically and spiritually, from the adults, and thus was begun their training.

“The boys were drilled in a manner that was like playing games, grim as it must have been to many. They were treated relatively well and kept occupied every moment in contests of strength and skill. They were not allowed to pine for their families—that was described as showing weakness. The Order became their families, whether they liked it or not.

“At night, while I could hear the cries of women, I could also hear the boys as they sang together, under the leadership of special training officers.” She gestured as an aside. “I had to bring these officers food and such, so I had a chance to see what was happening to these boys as the weeks and then the months passed.

“After training for a time the boys began to earn rank and standing within their group for a variety of things—whether it be in games of skill and strength, or in memorizing their lessons in the righteous ways of the Order. As I would rush about in my duties for the officers I would see the boys standing at attention before their groups, reciting back the things they had been taught, speaking of the glory of being part of the Order, of their honorable duty to be part of a new world dedicated to the advancement of mankind, and of their willingness to sacrifice for that greater good.

“Even though I never really had the chance to learn the specifics of what these boys were being taught, I remember a line shouted incessantly as they stood at attention: ‘I can be nothing alone. My life has meaning only through dedication to others. Together we all are one, of one mind, for one purpose.’

“After emotionally charged rallies the boys were brought in their groups to watch executions of ‘traitors’ to mankind. They were encouraged to cheer when each ‘traitor’ died. Their Order leaders stood proud and tall before the boys, backs to the bloodbath, saying, ‘Be strong young heroes. This is what happens to the selfish betrayers of mankind. You are mankind’s future saviors. You are the future heroes of the Order, so be strong.’

“Whatever trepidation the boys may have had at first, under the long and ceaseless indoctrination, guidance, and constant encouragement of the officers, those boys cheered. Even if it was not sincere at first, it seemed to become so in the end. I saw how the boys began to believe—with real fervor—the things they were being taught by adults.

“The boys were encouraged to use knives issued them to stab the freshly killed ‘traitors.’ This was only one of the ways they were systematically desensitized to death. In the end, the boys were earning rank by participating in the executions. They stood before empty-eyed captives and lectured them on their selfish ways, their treason to their fellow man and the Creator. The boy then condemned that individual captive to death and on occasion even carried out the deed. Their fellows applauded their zeal for helping to purge mankind of those who had resisted the holy teachings of the Order, those who had turned away from their Creator and their divine duty of service to their fellow man.

“Before it was over, almost every one of those boys had a hand in the butchering of the captives. They were praised as ‘heroes’ of the Order. At night, in their barracks, the few boys who would not go along with participating in the executions became outcasts and were eventually stigmatized as cowards or even sympathizers of the old ways, for being selfish and unwilling to support their fellow man—or, in this case, boy. They were most often beaten to death by their group.

“These few boys, in my eyes, were the heroes. They died alone at the hands of their fellow boys, boys who had once played and laughed with them but had now become the enemy. I would have given nearly anything to have been able to give these few noble souls at least a hug and a whisper of my thanks that they had not joined in, but I could not, so they died alone as outcasts among former friends.

“It was madness. It seemed to me that the whole world had gone insane, that nothing made sense anymore, that life itself made no sense anymore. Pain and suffering became the definition of life; there was nothing else. Memories of any kind of joy seemed like dim dreams and no longer real. Life dragged on, day after day, season after season, but it was life that revolved around death in one way or another.

“In the end, the only people of Galea left alive were the boys and the women who didn’t die during the brutal rapes and then as whores for the soldiers. In the end, the older boys were participating in the rapes as part of their initiation and as rewards for their enthusiasm during their assignments, including the executions.

“Many of the women, of course, managed to kill themselves. Every morning, on the cobblestone streets at the foot of the taller buildings, were found the broken bodies of women who, seeing no future but degrading abuse, had managed to throw themselves out of windows or off roofs. I don’t know how many times I would happen on a woman off in some dark corner, her wrists slashed by her own hand, her lifeblood having drained away along with any hope. I couldn’t say that I blamed them for their choice.”

Richard stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring into the still waters of the fountain, as Jebra went on in endless detail of the events following the great victory by the brave men of the Imperial Order. The senselessness of it was almost too monumental to comprehend, much less endure.

The slashes of sunlight coming in through the skylights above slowly crept across the marble bench around the pool, across the expanse of floor, up and across the granite steps. The bloodred stone of the columns glowed as the sunlight ceaselessly, incrementally, advanced up their length while Jebra chronicled everything she knew of what had happened while she had been a captive of the Order.

Shota stood unmoving nearly the entire time, usually with her arms folded, her fair features fixed in a vaguely grim cast, watching Jebra tell her story, or watching Richard listen to it, as if making sure that his attention didn’t wander.

“Galea had reserves of food aplenty for their citizens,” Jebra said, “but not for anything like the numbers of invaders now occupying the city, who themselves did not have plentiful supplies with them. The troops stripped every storehouse of food. They emptied every larder, every warehouse. Every animal for miles around, including the great many sheep that were raised for wool and the milk cows, were butchered for food. Rather than keep the chickens for a steady supply of eggs, they, too, were killed and eaten.

“As the food ran low the officers sent off messengers with ever more urgent requests for resupply. For months the supplies did not come—no doubt in good part because winter had set in and slowed them.”

Jebra hesitated, and then swallowed, before going on. “I remember the day—it was during a heavy snowstorm—when we were ordered to cook some fresh meat the Imperial Order soldiers delivered to the kitchens. It was freshly killed, headless, gutted human carcasses.”

Richard abruptly turned to stare at Jebra. She gazed up at him as if from a place of insanity, as if in fear that she would be condemned for what she knew was beyond the pale. Her blue eyes brimmed with tears of supplication for forgiveness, as if she feared he would strike her dead for what she was about to confess.

“Have you ever had to butcher a human body for cooking? We had to. We roasted the meat, or stripped it from the bones to make stews. We dried rack upon rack upon rack of the meat for the regular soldiers. If the soldiers were hungry and there was nothing to feed them, bodies would be delivered to the kitchens. We went to extraordinary lengths to stretch what supplies of food we had. We made soups and stews with weeds, if we could find them beneath the snow. But there was just not enough food to feed all the men.

“I witnessed many things that will give me nightmares the rest of my life. Seeing those remorseless soldiers standing in the open doorway, the snow blowing in behind them, as they dumped those bodies on the floor of the kitchen will be one of the things that forever haunts me.”

Richard nodded and whispered, “I understand.”

“And then, early this past spring, the supply wagons finally began arriving. They brought great quantities of foodstuffs for the soldiers. I knew, despite the seemingly endless wagons full of supplies, that it would not last a long time.

“Beside the supplies, there were also reinforcements to replace the men who had been killed in the battle to crush Galea. The numbers of Order troops occupying Ebinissia were already overwhelming; the extra soldiers seemed to add to my numb sense of hopelessness.

“I overheard newly arrived officers reporting that more supplies would be coming, along with yet more men. As they streamed in from the south, many were sent on missions to secure other areas of the Midlands. There were other cities to be taken, other places to be captured, other pockets of resistance to be crushed, other people to be enslaved.

“Along with the supplies and the fresh troops came letters from the people back home in the Old World. They were not letters to any specific soldiers, of course, since the Imperial Order had no way of knowing how to find any individual soldier within their vast armies, nor would they have cared to, since individuals, as such, were unimportant in their eyes. Rather, they were letters sent to the general delivery of the ‘brave men’ fighting for the people back home, fighting on behalf of their Creator, fighting to defeat the heathens to the north, fighting to bring backward-thinking people the salvation of the Order’s ways.

“At night, every night for weeks, the letters that had come with the supply wagons would be read to assembled groups of men—most of whom couldn’t read themselves. They were letters of every kind, from people telling of the great sacrifices they had made in order to send food and goods north to their fighting men, to letters extolling the great sacrifices the soldiers were making to advance the divine teaching of the Order, to letters from young women promising their bodies in service to brave soldiers when they returned from vanquishing the uncivilized and backward enemy to the north. As you can imagine, this last kind of letter was quite popular and they were read over and over to hoots and wild cheering.

“The people of the Old World even sent mementos: talismans to bring victory; drawings to decorate the tents of their fighters; cookies and cakes that had long ago rotted; socks, mittens, shirts, and caps; herbs for everything from tea to bandages; scented handkerchiefs from enraptured women eager to offer themselves in duty to the soldiers; weapons belts and such made by the corps of young boys who trained with groups of other boys their own age until the day they could also go north to smite the people who resisted the Creator’s wisdom and the Imperial Order’s justice.

“The long trains of supply wagons, before they went back to the Old World to get more of the supplies necessary to support the enormous army up in the New World, were loaded down with loot to be taken back to the cities of the Old World that were supplying the food and goods needed by the army. It was like a loop of trade—booty for supplies, supplies for booty. I suppose that seeing endless wagonloads of plundered riches streaming south was also intended to be a great incentive for the people back home to continue to support what has to be the enormous cost of the war effort.

“The army that had invaded was far too large to fit in the city, of course, and with the reinforcements arriving with each train of supply wagons the endless sea of tents spread even farther out into the countryside, blanketing the hills and valleys all around. The trees for a goodly distance had all been stripped and used for firewood throughout the previous winter, leaving the landscape around the crown city looking lifeless and dead. The new grasses never grew beneath the teeming masses of men, the countless horses, and variety of wagons, so that it seemed that Galea had been turned to a sea of mud.

“From new units just arrived, men coming up from the Old World were formed into strike forces that were sent to attack other places, to spread the rule of the Imperial Order, to establish dominion. It seemed that there was an endless supply of men to enslave the New World.

“I was working to exhaustion feeding all the officers, so I was frequently around the command personnel and often overheard invasion plans and reports of cities that had fallen, tallies of prisoners taken, accounts of the numbers of slaves sent back to the Old World. On occasion some of the more attractive women were brought back for the use of the men of rank. The eyes of these women were wild with fear of what was to become of them. I knew that their eyes would soon enough become dull with longing for the release of death. It all seemed to me one endless attack, one long endless savagery that showed no signs of ever ending.

“The city by then, of course, had been all but emptied of the people who once had called it home. Almost every male over fifteen had long ago been put to death and the handful who hadn’t had been sent off as slave labor. Many of the women—the ones too old or too young to be of use to the Order—had been put to death if they were in the way, but many had simply been left to starve to death. They lived like rats in the dark crevices of the city. Last winter I saw droves of old women and little girls who looked like skeletons covered in a pale veneer of flesh begging for scraps of food. It broke my heart, but to feed them would only end in execution for them and for me. Still, if I could get away with it, I sometimes slipped them food—if there was any to be had.

“In the end it was as if the population of Galea’s crown city, hundreds of thousands of people, had for the most part been wiped from existence. What was once the heart of Galea is no more. It is now occupied by soldiers in the hundreds of thousands. The camp followers began setting up homes in the places long since plundered, simply taking over what was someone else’s. More people from the Old World began to drift up to take places and live in them as their own.

“The only Galean women left alive were for the most part slaves used by the soldiers as whores. After time many became pregnant and gave birth to children fathered by the soldiers of the Imperial Order. These offspring are being raised to be future zealots for the Order. Virtually the only Galean children left alive after the first year of occupation were the boys.

“Drilled endlessly in the ways of the Order, those boys became the Order. They had long since forgotten the ways of their parents or their homeland, or even common decency. They were now Imperial Order recruits—newly minted monsters.

“After months and months of training, groups of the older boys were sent to be the first wave of attackers against other cities. They were to be the flesh that dulled the swords of the heathens. They went eagerly.

“I had once thought that the brutes who are the Imperial Order were a distinctly different, savage breed of people, unlike the civilized people of the New World. After seeing how those boys changed and what they became, I realized that the people who are the Order are really no different than the rest of us, except in their beliefs and the ideas that motivate them. A crazy thought, perhaps, but it seems that through some mysterious mechanism anyone is susceptible to being beguiled into falling for the Order’s ways.”

Jebra shook her head in dismay. “I never really understood how such a thing could come about, how the officers could teach boys such dry lessons, how they could lecture them that they must be selfless, that they must live a life of sacrifice for the good of others, and then, as if by magic, those boys would march off merrily singing songs, hoping to die in battle.”

“The premise is pretty simple, really,” Nicci said, offhandedly.

“Simple?” Jebra’s brow lifted with incredulity. “You can’t be serious.”