The Faithless Men.
Soldiers loyal to Aric Valerian alone. They are rarely mages or martial artists, more often than not, they were worthless men.
Thieves and bandits, beggars and drunks. Young men who were told the world could offer them nothing more but death—young men who had since lost faith in all but the gods above.
And even they abandoned them.
So they left their altars, abandoned their gods, and sold their hands to steel instead of scripture.
Aric found them. He gave them coin, purpose, and a name. "Faithless Men," he said, not as an insult but as a banner. They had no god to betray, no creed to bind them, only loyalty bought in blood and kept in fear.
Now their silence is no longer prayer but menace. Their eyes carry the hollow look of men who once prayed and were never answered.
And they fight like those who expect no heaven to welcome them.
———
Maps and sealed letters crowded the oak desk, their ink-darkened surfaces lit in bronze.
