The bells of the holy city had not ceased their ringing since the Council of Clerics proclaimed the New Order. For seven days and nights, their bronze throats tolled across the stone avenues, a ceaseless reminder that the world was changing.
The sound carried over the tiled roofs of the capital, down to the markets and barracks, over the river that cut through the city's heart, even into the chambers where paladins like Karin were expected to bow their heads and accept the will of the Church.
She had not bowed. She had listened only, her fingers pressed against the hilt of her blade, her jaw tight as the Shepherds spoke of new revelations written upon fresh scrolls. They claimed their visions were shared—each Cleric struck with the same dream at the same hour, the same words etched into their minds like fire upon parchment. They called it a miracle. They called it prophecy. And they called it the answer to the spreading shadow.
Karin had ridden the borderlands not three months past. She had seen the shadow herself—villages swallowed by blackened fog at dusk, cattle twisted into carrion beasts, and men who prayed their last as the Abyss reached out from its ravines in the far South. She had lost good soldiers there, knights who died with prayers on their lips but no answer from Heaven. And now the Council claimed Heaven had spoken again, through them.
The Shepherds stood in the high cathedral, seven men and women robed in white trimmed with gold, their heads gleaming beneath halos of firelight.
They declared the old scrolls of the Trinity incomplete, flawed, corrupted by man's weak understanding. Their new writings—ink barely dried—were held aloft and blessed as the true continuation of the Lord's Law. The people fell to their knees in awe. Karin only lowered her eyes so none would see her doubt forming itself.
Beyond the Human Empire, the news spread fast. Messengers rode through the seven kingdoms, their cloaks heavy with the seal of the Council.
Among the elves of the Greenwood, there were whispers of human arrogance once more rewriting the will of God.
The dwarves in their mountain halls muttered in ale-stained taverns, recalling when the Empire's priests first meddled in the sealing wards of the Abyss.
Orc chieftains spat in the dirt and declared that no scroll, old or new, would chain them to any authority beyond their lands. Even the wandering beastfolk tribes and the scattered pixie courts spoke of it with unease.
Only the giants, dwelling in their high crags, remained silent, for they had never bent knee to the Church and likely never would, be it for pride or for belief that there was no such thing as new scrolls from the Lord made by men.
Still, the Human Empire rejoiced. In the plazas, processions of clerics carried torches and sang of rebirth. Soldiers marched with polished armor, shields painted with the new crest of the New Order—three flames in a circle, where once had been the interlocked triangles of the Trinity.
Karin watched it all from the steps of the barracks, her helm tucked beneath her arm. She had fought for that old crest, bled for it, carried it into battle believing it to be a mark of truth. Now it was gone in a stroke of ink.
Whispers ran among the paladins. Some welcomed the change eagerly, claiming fresh scripture would guide them through the coming darkness, calling it a sign that the Lord was with them. Others, very few at that, clenched their teeth, muttering of heresy when no priest was near enough to hear. Karin remained silent. She had seen enough campaigns to know what silence could mean—it was the weight of a soldier's heart when loyalty and conscience no longer matched.
On the seventh day, when the sun sank blood-red over the city walls, the Council gathered all captains of the Order in the cathedral.
The Shepherds spoke again, their voices resonant in the high stone chamber. They declared that the first duty of the faithful was to root out those who clung to the old scrolls, those who refused to kneel before the New Order. Villages and towns that resisted would be purged, for the purity of the Lord's Law must be upheld, no matter the cost.
The hall thundered with assent. The knights struck their mailed fists to their chests, shouting vows of obedience. Karin's voice was lost among them, not because she shouted too softly but because she did not shout at all. She stood with eyes lowered, hand resting heavy on the sword at her side, and in that silence she felt the weight of her Lord's absence more than ever.
Seven days since the New Order began, and still Heaven had not spoken.
[.]
The paladin's tent smelled of oiled leather, with the metal sounding of armor filling the ears.
Karin sat upon the edge of her cot, strapping her boots tight, the creak of old leather filling the silence between the voices of her comrades. Her bracers lay across her lap, polished but scarred, like her hands. The canvas walls trembled faintly with the night wind that slipped in from the river, carrying the smoke of braziers and the murmur of thousands of soldiers waiting for dawn.
They spoke low, as men do when their words are not meant for the ears of captains. Yet Karin heard them all the same.
"I still don't understand it," said one knight, younger than most, his brow heavy with unease. "The Church has never ordered a strike against its own villages. Not once in all the years since the Witch Hunt Era. That was before the Council itself, before the Shepherds were even chosen. Wasn't the whole point of the Council to stop this sort of thing?"
His companions grunted, one scoffing as he tightened the strap on his shield. "The witches were no different than the Abyss-spawn we see now. They were creatures of darkness hiding among our own. You think we burned those towns for nothing? Better a dozen guilty than one witch left alive to rot the land from within. That was survival. Same as now."
The young knight's jaw tightened, his hands restless on the hilt of his sword. "But there were innocents. Hundreds. Thousands. Whole families that burned. Are we truly no better now?"
Karin's fingers stopped against her boot lace. She looked up at them, her gaze hard beneath the lamplight. "Do you even hear yourself speak? That reasoning—you've worn it like armor so long you don't even feel its weight anymore. 'Kill them all, for some may be guilty.' Is that what years in the Royal Army have taught you? To be executioners without thought?"
The scoffing knight turned his eyes on her, sharp as drawn steel. His hair was cropped close, his scarred cheek catching the light. "I've learned one thing, Paladin: to kill what I'm ordered to kill, or die trying. The Word is the only law that matters, not faith-talk. Prayers didn't stop the Abyss when it clawed its way north. Prayers didn't save the villages I buried with my own hands. Tell me, do you really believe your muttered verses are keeping anyone alive out there?"
For a moment, silence pressed heavy in the tent. Karin finished fastening her bracers, the leather straps biting firm into her arm. Then she drew a steady breath, not to calm herself but to steady her words. "They keep my mind clear," she said evenly. "Something you should try to preserve for yourself. You talk so much of the darkness, yet you don't even notice how your own judgment bends to it."
She rose from her cot, stepping toward the warped mirror that leaned against the tent pole. Her reflection was dim, split by cracks in the glass, but she stood tall before it. With one hand she touched her collar, pulling free the silver cross that hung there, the edges dulled with years of wear. She pressed her lips to the metal, the kiss soft, reverent, before tucking it inside her chestplate once more. Her fingers traced the sign of the cross across her breast, a motion as natural as drawing her sword.
The younger knight who had spoken first watched her in silence, his doubt written plain across his face.
[.]
Dawn came with a sky of pale iron. The camp stirred in the cold light, the air thick with the clamor of steel, the whinny of horses, and the barked orders of sergeants driving the weary to formation. Paladins mounted first, their destriers stamping frost from the grass, while footmen struggled with packs and spears that weighed twice as much as their courage.
Karin moved through the ordered chaos with practiced ease, her steps light despite the weight of her armor. Her stallion waited at the edge of the paddock, black as coal and restless from the noise. She placed a steadying hand on his neck, whispering low to calm him, and tightened the saddle straps with firm, efficient pulls. Her sword hung at her hip, her shield slung across her back.
She heard him before she saw him—heavy steps that seemed to press the earth deeper with each stride. The ground itself seemed to groan beneath his armor. She did not turn.
"Morning, Zweihander," she said simply, her fingers fastening the last buckle on her mount's tack.
"Morning," came the reply, a low, resonant voice, echoing strangely within the hollow of his greathelm. It always carried an almost ethereal note.
Karin glanced up as he came near. Towering above the camp, Zweihander was a fortress of iron and muscle, a man of two and a half meters whose very presence parted the crowd of lesser knights. His blade—more slab of steel than sword—rose above his shoulder, taller than most men in the formation behind him. Only his eyes, a piercing blue beneath the visor's shadow, betrayed that there was still a man beneath all that steel.
He stopped beside her, his gauntleted hands resting against the pommel of his weapon. "Are you well?" he asked.
"In body," she answered, tugging the last strap tight on the saddle.
His head tilted slightly, the faintest motion of the massive helm. "I meant about the march. You hide your thoughts well from the others, Karin. Not from me."
At that, she finally turned. Her hands went to her hips, her gaze lifting to meet his through the dark slit of his visor. Beyond his shoulder, the army was gathering—rows of soldiers in gleaming armor, banners rising in the cold wind, officers shouting the names of companies to draw men into rank. The whole city seemed to pour itself onto the road, the holy crest of the New Order painted on every shield, every banner.
"I don't trust any of this," she said, her voice hard as the steel she wore. "Not the Shepherds. Not their new scrolls. For ages the Lord's word was unbroken. An eternal firmament, unchanging, guiding us through war and plague alike. It was enough to keep order, enough to make armies like this"—she gestured at the sea of soldiers forming lines in the distance—"rise only to defend our people when the Abyss pressed northward. And now?" She shook her head. "Now we march against our own villages. Against those who still hold to the Trinity. What purpose does this serve? Why force this New Order upon them when our southern lines crumble under the Abyss?"
Zweihander's helm turned slightly, the blue of his eyes glinting behind the slit. His voice came low, carrying beneath the noise of gathering companies and stamping hooves.
"I heard things in the capital," he said. "While the Old Order was being stripped down for this new one. There were members of the previous Council who argued against the Shepherds' visions. They spoke of the phenomenon of these scrolls, of how they all dreamed the same words at once. They wondered aloud if it was a trick. A deception."
Karin adjusted the saddle one last time, testing the straps with a sharp tug. She raised a brow, glancing at him. "A trick? You're suggesting this is more than ambition or madness. What, then? Some plague of spirit? Something like the Black Plague Era?"
He shook his massive head, the steel of his armor clanking softly. "No. That was rot of the body. It had an answer in medicine, even if it took decades to find. This is different. They said the darkness spreads faster through air than through earth. Faster through mind than through flesh. It could be corrosion of thought. Illusion. Influence from beyond. Just as you said—why send so many men north on holy marches, when the South is left bare before the Abyss? It makes no sense unless someone wants it that way."
Karin placed her boot in the stirrup and mounted her stallion in a smooth, practiced motion. The black horse shifted under her weight, tossing its head until she steadied him with a hand on the reins. She drew her helmet from her saddle, holding it for a moment as the rising sun struck its polished steel. The light flared across the curve, and in its gleam she caught her own eyes, narrowed and grim.
"If that's true," she said slowly, her voice carrying a weight like stone, "then we're following blind orders. I already knew it was senseless, but this…" Her lips pressed tight, her gaze still on her reflection. "It's strange, isn't it? How easily they all bow their heads. Yesterday, one of the soldiers was openly spitting words of submission for this New Order. His eyes—" She broke off, shaking her head. "There was no conviction or morals. Only paranoia, like he was afraid not to believe. It's as though almost the whole army would rather blind itself than admit something is wrong."
The bells tolled again, a heavy clangor that rolled across the camp like thunder. Officers shouted, banners lifted, and the vast column began to form along the road that led out from the capital gates. The horses pawed and snorted, soldiers bracing shields, spears glittering like a field of needles in the morning sun.
Zweihander placed his gauntleted hand upon the hilt of the great sword across his back. He said nothing more, but his gaze lingered on Karin, and she felt the weight of it—silent agreement, silent readiness.
The march then begun.
The road out of the capital ribboned away across a vast plain. Where the cobbles of the roads ended the world opened into fields—wheat and barley bowed under the wind.
Peasants watched from the hedges, faces pinched with fear or folded in hurried prayer, and when the column passed they shrank back, disappearing into doorways or sheltering beneath thatch as if the soldiers were rabid dogs who hadn't shown their teeth yet.
Some dared not hide at all; they stood in their yards and watched with hollow eyes, the weight of their gazes following every banner, every mailed footfall, until distance swallowed the shapes.
Further along the route the evidence of the South's suffering unrolled: refugees, a thin long line like a stain across the plains, walking in bands that stretched toward the distant capital. Mothers led children too small for the road, their ribs outlined beneath ragged linen; men who still clung to the shape of a plow pushed carts with what little they had left, faces burned raw by sun and worry.
They kept their distance from the marching host, hugging the far edges of the fields as if a closer step might invite inspection, might ask questions they could not answer. No one wanted to be stopped—the road to the city could mean safety and bread or interrogation and a turnback toward the ravines. Everyone knew which risk would kill them first.
Karin rode forward through the column, moving with a slow purpose that parted the men around her like water. She left her formation by instinct and drifted toward Zweihander's dark bulk. He had set himself on foot for the march, the ground groaning under each stride. His armor shone dullly where the sun struck it.
When she rode alongside, she reached out and rapped her gauntlet against the curve of his helmet, a small, personal signal.
He stopped and turned his head, the visor moving under the sun. "What is it?" The voice from within was low and almost amused at the motion of her tapping, but there was the same watchful edge to it he always carried.
"About the scrolls," Karin said. "You heard how they were announced. I was there when the Shepherds raised them up for the city. But they weren't read to the soldiers then—not in full, not aloud. The men at the front had messengers. Did the old counselors say anything of their content?"
Zweihander's eyes lingered on the distant line of refugees, then back to her. "They said little and asked less. The Old Council—those who remained— argued the shepherds' visions might be wrong—dangerous—and some of them were nearly cast out before they could speak. The new scrolls, though… they insisted the words be delivered in person. Sacred, they called them. As if the scrolls themselves were a kind of liturgy or spell and not mere ink."
Karin felt a cold, thin line draw along her spine. "Recited in person," she repeated. The pieces of the morning clicked into a shape she had not wanted to form. The officials riding at the head would not hand a parchment across a threshold; they would stand in the square and speak. Recitation is conviction. Recitation is a demand of assent, and a recited charm—answered or refused—could set a town's fate.
Zweihander's heavy nod was almost a tiny thing. "If a village denies the recitation—refuses to accept the New Order and its sacred words—what then? You know our captains. They obey orders." He glanced up, eyes hard as flint. "They would burn a stack of thatch and call it purification. Make an example. If they accept, the shepherds said such places would be 'sanctified'—meaning they will station men there, fortify those hamlets. That's why there are so many soldiers, why the columns sweep the North so thoroughly. Make every town a bastion of the New Order, and you contain dissent. You make forward bases to pummel anything that crawls from the South. Even though it just delays the inevitable."
In the bright grass her horse shifted, the animal's muscles twitching as though it too heard the shape of the plan and readied itself. Karin's mouth tasted of metal for a moment; rage and dread braided together until she could not tell which moved her hand. "So they march as if to save the realm," she said quietly, "but their shields are building cages. They'll turn villages into garrisons, then call any soul who clings to the old scrolls a traitor in need of cleansing. A sweep to consolidate control, not to close the ravines."
"They're clever enough to dress it as necessity," Zweihander replied. "Who among the nobles will say no to more fortresses? Who among the merchants will refuse roads that keep their caravans safe? And who will stand in the road when the Shepherds say this is the Lord's will?" His voice narrowed. "The people will ask for protection. The soldiers will provide it. The Shepherds will call those who dissent fools." He turned his head slightly toward her. "Which means that the weakening the South means concentrating influence on the North and removing opposition."
Karin glanced back at the thin line of refugees—those who had escaped the ravines' first claws—and the answer sat sharp and ugly in her chest. "They'd rather bind the North and keep power than face the rot in the South properly. What wielding of power calls itself holy enough to burn its own?"
Around them the army sang, an easy, practiced cadence that had the sound of ritual to it—words that smoothed the edges of violence into something tolerable.
Men wiped their brows and adjusted straps; a drummer beat a soft march; a young standard-bearer rode past and met Karin's eyes briefly, his face still too smooth for garrison life. He carried the three flames in a circle, the New Order's crest. Behind them, on the horizon, the first cottages of the village they were marching toward appeared—smaller than the capital's structures, closer to the land and its moods.
Karin watched the smoke play over the rooftops and felt the line between duty and conscience burn thin. She had sworn an oath to the Order, to the Word, to the defense of people and law. She had always believed those things were aligned. Now the syllables of the oath tasted strange, like promises given under duress. The more she rode, the more the faces of the refugees and the hedged peasants pressed on her resolve.
They rode on. The road narrowed under trees that threw shadows like fingers. The soldiers fell into a muted drum of boots and hooves; the plain's wind flattened the banners into steady sails.
The town of Blackwell had been quiet when the banners of the Royal Army first crested the ridge—quiet in that tense, expectant way of places too small to believe they'd ever matter.
Smoke drifted from cottage chimneys; children chased each other between the lanes of timber and stone; the mill's wheel turned steady over the slow brook. But when the horns sounded and the sheer weight of the host came into sight, the place seemed to still. Chickens scattered. Doors closed. Curtains drew. And by the time the first ranks of soldiers reached the gates, all of Blackwell had gathered at its entrance.
The town guard—little more than farmers with spears and leather cuirasses—stood stiff, their captain trying not to show his hands trembled on the haft of his polearm. Beside him, Marshal Darran, Blackwell's head of watch, faced the procession with lips pressed into a single pale line.
The representative, a stooped man wrapped in a woolen mantle, leaned heavily on his cane. His beard was white, and his eyes, though dim, carried the quiet gravity of years spent in council under the Old Order. He was not armored, nor flanked by men, but when he stepped forward, the crowd hushed.
"What," he called, voice rasping but clear, "do we, the people of Blackwell, owe the pleasure of the Royal Army's presence so suddenly upon our fields?" His cane struck once against the packed earth, not with anger, but with the rhythm of tradition—the kind of greeting spoken to all travelers.
The officials rode forward, horses stamping the earth, steel plates catching the pale morning sun. The commander, a thick-set man with a trimmed black beard, swung from his saddle with the fluid certainty of habit. His cloak bore the sigil of the Human Empire, but stitched above it, in sharper gold, was the ring of flames: the mark of the New Order.
His voice carried like iron struck on iron. "You may already know, elder, that the Old Order has been dissolved. Seven days past, the Council of the Shepherds proclaimed the fulfillment of divine prophecy. In place of the Old, the New has risen—and with it, the structure of law and faith within the Empire has changed. This march is the first act of the new constitution."
Murmurs rippled through the villagers behind the elder, nervous, hushed, like leaves stirring in sudden wind. The old man's brows knotted as he tapped the end of his cane once more. "The Old Order… dissolved?" His voice cracked in disbelief, though not surprise; whispers had clearly carried even here. "Without word? Without our voices, or those of the kingdoms?"
The commander did not answer. Instead, the pale horse of the messenger stepped forward, white hide bright against the ranks of armor. The rider wore no crest but the black-and-gold of the Shepherds themselves. He was young, sharp-faced, with an intensity in his gaze that seemed less human than lit flame.
From his sleeve he drew a rolled parchment bound in red ribbon. He dismounted slowly, deliberately, each motion heavy with ceremony, and stood before the gates as though at an altar.
He raised the scroll high so all could see. "By decree of the Shepherds, anointed by the visions of the Lord, the words inscribed within these scrolls bear the full weight of law. Every soul who dwells beneath the sky and upon the Lord's land must obey them. They are divine obligation, beyond refusal." He let his eyes wander across the crowd, cold and unblinking. "Any who deny these words will be cleansed, for dissent against the Shepherds is dissent against God himself."
A silence settled on the square, broken only by the uneasy shuffle of boots in the army's front ranks. The villagers, clutching children and each other, watched with wide eyes. The old representative, hand firm on his cane, stepped closer to the rider. His voice was low but steady.
"And what words," he asked, "does this holy parchment hold, that we must bow to them without knowing their truth? Speak, then. Let all of Blackwell hear what you claim comes from the mouth of God."
The messenger unbound the ribbon, unfurling the scroll.
He cleared his throat, drawing in a breath heavy with the silence of the gathered host. His voice rang sharp and resonant, cutting across the village square.
The messenger's voice dropped into a chant as he began to read, the cadence practiced and flat as a blade. His words unrolled over the square, each syllable carrying the weight the Shepherds had given them.
The villagers leaned forward; even the wind seemed to hush. The scroll's ink—still black and wet—caught the light as he lifted the parchment so all might see.
"Hear now, children of the Lord, and mark these words as the new covenant of the heavens:
'I. On Authority and Obedience
From this day, all crowns of law and banners of city shall bow beneath the one visible mouth of Heaven: the Council of Shepherds. To obey the Shepherds is to obey the Lord. Where their word stands, no other law may contradict. All magistrates, guilds, and councils shall accept the Shepherds' judgments as final. Those who speak in discord with a Shepherd shall be judged first by their local cleric; if found unrepentant, they shall be cleansed for the good of the whole.
II. On the Purity of Belief
The old writings—those scrolls, rites, and rituals of earlier ages—are hereby declared incomplete and suspect. Any who keep such writings in public or in private are to present them for examination at the next summons. Those found to conceal dangerous tenets will be disciplined. For the mercy of the Lord, all who bring forth their errors willingly shall be offered guidance and a path to sanctification. Those who conceal and persist shall be cleansed.
III. On Sanctification and Sanctuary
Every village and holdfast that accepts the recitation of the New Scrolls in full will be pledged a Sanctification: soldiers and clerical wards will be quartered therein to insure the prosperity and protection of the faithful. These places shall receive grain and aid from the Imperial stores as long as they remain true. Any place that refuses recitation shall forfeit Sanctuary and be taken into the cleansing of the Lord for the safety of the rest.
IV. On Reporting and Witness
Neighbors shall witness for one another. It is a sacred duty to bring any evidence of blasphemy, heresy, or concealment before the appointed cleric or the nearest officer. Protection will be granted to those who bring true testimony. False testimony brought to disrupt the peace will be judged as a sin against the Lord and punished accordingly.
V. On Offerings of Service and Provision
Every household, able-bodied and sound of mind, shall give unto the Order a tithe of produce and a labor service for the maintenance of Sanctified Houses and the Great Keepers. Those who refuse to provide shall have their holdings forfeit to the Order for the care of the faithful and shall be set to servitude to repay their debt to God.
VI. On Hereditary Instruction
Children of the faithful shall be taken under the care of the clerical schools from the age of seven for the instruction of proper rites and order. Those households that refuse to surrender children for holy instruction shall be considered unfaithful and shall receive the correction of the Lord's ministers.
VII. On Trials of Cleansing
Wherever obstinate denial of the Word persists, a trial shall be called. The accused shall be given counsel and three days to repent. If no submission follows, the cleansing shall be enacted, for the Lord will not allow pestilence of faith to roam among the faithful. Cleansing is a mercy for the many and a protection for life itself.
VIII. On Mercy and Redemption
Know this: the Lord's judgement is neither cruelty nor caprice. Those who come willingly to the fold are forgiven, given seed and shelter, and taught again the right path. The Shepherds do not delight in the fall of a soul; they delight in the remaking of many. To conform is to live; to harden the heart is to invite necessary pruning for the good of the whole.
IX. On the Sign of Renewed Allegiance
Each person who accepts the New Order shall swear the Oath of Flame and bear the Seal set by the Council upon their home and person. Refusal to wear the Seal is to paint oneself as separate from the protection of Heaven and to invite cleansing for the safety of others.
X. On the Immediate Decree for this March
By order of the Council, this host shall recite the New Scrolls in every village visited throughout this campaign. Acceptance shall bring immediate sanctification and garrisoning for defense; refusal shall be recorded and dealt with by trial, leading to cleansing should repentance not follow. Let all who hear these words know: the mercy of the Lord waits with open hands—but only those hands offered in full will be held safe.'
The messenger's voice fell away like a struck chord.
For a restless moment there was nothing but the creak of a cart wheel and the soft murmur of a child. The words themselves had the soft edges of mercy—offerings of protection, seed, teaching—but between each promise the iron clause stood: acceptance led to safety, refusal to purge. The scroll dressed dominion in the robes of compassion, the sort of mercy that required total surrender.
When the last syllable left the air, the old representative's hands tightened on his cane until the knuckles whitened. He looked at the commander and then at the messenger, slow disbelief carving lines across his face. Around him the villagers moved as if to breathe—some in prayer, some in a rising chill of anger—depending on the angle by which they met the decree. Some mothers pressed children closer; a few men spat into their hands as if to feel something real.
The commander's jaw was set; the new crest above his shoulder caughting the sunlight.
He said nothing for a heartbeat, then spoke with the same blunt authority the messenger had used.
"The scroll stands. You will hear its recitation in full, and the choice to accept or refuse will be recorded. Make no mistake: this host will keep the peace and enact the cleansing ordered if you will not bend your knee," he said. His words were a simple echo of the painted mercy that had just been read.
Karin felt the blood burn under her plate. The phrasing of the edict—so careful, so clean—made fear feel like a thing that had been crafted with intent.
It promised nurture while it seized control; it promised salvation while it handed the keys of life and land to those who would judge. The clause about children, the tithe, the quartering of soldiers—all of it read like a slow swallowing. If the message was truly divine mercy, it was a mercy that required devouring the old world to feed the new.
She watched the faces of Blackwell, the old representative's eyes sliding from one neighbor to another as if counting the weight of possible refusals. Around her, men in armor shifted their grips on spear and sword; a few looked away, unable to catch the gaze of those they might be ordered to strike.
A child crumpled against his mother's skirt and whimpered.
The messenger rolled the scroll closed with an economy of motion that seemed almost indifferent to the ruin his words might bring.
He handed it back to the rider who had borne it, and the white horse stamped as though impatient to continue the road.
The marshall's shout cracked like a snapped bowstring—outrage all raw and unfiltered, the voice of a man who had watched the edge of ruin for years and refused to be told it was holy.
"This is absurd! Those laws cannot have been written by the Lord. How can any man claim the Lord would demand children taken away and soldiers quartered in every home? How can—"
The commander's hand moved as fast as lightning.
"Silence."
The single word landed with the weight of iron. Around them the camp shifted; a dozen soldiers eased hands toward hilts, metal singing as it slid free of scabbards. The square tightened. Only a clutch of faces—Karin's, Zweihander's, the old representative's and a few others'—did not flinch. Those men and women who could not bear to watch turned their eyes away.
"You would call a decree of the Shepherds absurd?" the commander rasped, spitting the final word as though it tasted of rot. His boot dug into the earth as if to root himself there. "Words come from Heaven through chosen mouths. You would cast doubt upon the chosen?" His voice rose, not in reason but in command, and with it the men nearest him let the sharp, metallic bite of their blades ring the air.
The marshall's jaw clenched; he found words were small and brittle against such force. He opened his mouth again, but the old representative stepped between them like a frail hedge against a wildfire. "There is no need for violence," he said, voice shaking but firm. "We are but simple folk. Let us not spill blood in the square. If any words have offended, I will—"
The commander laughed then, short and cruel. "Laughable. Your apologies are as thin as your coat, elder." He crouched, hand on the old man's mantle, and then, with a casual brutality, he planted his boot atop the elder's crown. The crowd inhaled as one, the sound a thin thing between sob and gasp. The commander's boot pressed down, flattening dignity into dirt. "I want a demonstration of remorse," he said. "I want the marshall to take back his words, and I want assurance that this town will bend its knee. Or I will show this village what cleansing looks like."
A murmur rose—one part fear, two parts bitter, desperate anger.
The marshall's face was pale beneath a sheen of sweat. He had been a man of watch and law, not of sermons, and yet he saw the shape of the commander's intent, the way a hand clamped upon power would not let go.
His voice trembled, but he knelt. The old man's breath escaped in a short, stunned sound as his forehead met the soil; he muttered the old phrases in a voice that cracked like dry wood, offering forgiveness before the blow came, not for himself alone but for all Blackwell. "Forgive us," he said. "We are small; we are frightened. We will follow the scrolls. Spare us your cleansing."
Karin felt a pressure in her chest as if someone had wrapped a hand around her ribs. Zweihander's gauntleted fingers tightened on his sword's hilt until the metal groaned. The commander's boot dug further, like a sculptor forcing an image into clay.
The marshall obeyed with a slow, humiliating precision; he lowered himself to his knees, voice breaking as he echoed contrition and begged mercy for the heat of honest words.
When the commander finally lifted his boot and stepped back, the old man's eyes fluttered open, wet and unfocused. The crowd released the breath they had not known they were holding; some sobbed quietly, some stared with stunned, angry faces, while others crossed themselves with shaking hands.
Karin's knuckles whitened until pain flared up the fingers; she had to unclench to keep from giving voice to what she felt. This was not command. This was not the honor she had sworn to protect. It was humiliation dressed up as law.
The messenger reached into his satchel then and drew another scroll, pressing it into the old man's hands like a torch. "You will keep this safe until the governor's seal reaches you at dawn," he said, voice smooth and final. "Should any harm come to this scroll, you will be held accountable. Should you fail to enact its instructions by the next sun, you will be brought before a trial. The Order will decide your fate." His eyes, pale and hard as steel, swept the assembled villagers. "We give mercy, but we will tidy the demurers."
The commander barked an order then, crisp as frost.
"Marshal Darran, make certain the watch posts are opened to our men. Quartering begins tonight. Two men per house, with rotation. Any household who refuses will be recorded and judged. You will present your children at the appointed hour to the clerical schools as instructed. Compliance will prevent cleansing. Noncompliance will not." His tone brooked no argument; his men snatched bits of rope and chains, the tangible promise of occupation, and set about fastening themselves into the town's small structures like barnacles claiming a hull.
As soldiers moved outward to take possession of barns and council rooms, a hush settled over Blackwell, brittle as cracked glass. Mothers blinked away moisture and clutched children to breasts that trembled. Men who had lived by plow and by covenant with the land swallowed curses as if they had been given a fresh, bitter poison. A child's small hand slipped from her mother's grasp and reached for the old man's sleeve for comfort; he met its eyes and felt an ache that had nothing to do with politics or edicts.
Karin stayed where she was, the heat of anger burning behind her teeth so fiercely she wondered if the skin of her mouth would blister.
She had seen commanders enforce discipline, had worn the brand of law on her arm for years, but she had never watched a man force a whole town to its knees as sport. The duty to follow orders had never been this—so personal, so designed to break. She could see the edges of it now: not simply bending the will but bending the bones of community, the scaffolding of tradition, so that the New Order might plant new supports in old places.
Zweihander moved a step closer to her, the metal of his armor whispering. He did not speak aloud; his silence was its own verdict.
Karin glanced at him—at the way his shoulders squared, at the taut line of his jaw. He had stood with her through raids and winter sieges, through betrayals of lesser men. He had never, she knew, been a man to weep at injustice, yet she saw him flinch now, small as any child.
They watched as the soldiers began to fan out, measuring rooms, naming beds, and tossing the occupants with curt gestures. A young woman in the crowd screamed when a pair of men barreled into her home and dragged out a man who clung to a cradle. The child's wail sliced through the square and all the practiced chants and the commander's cold, ceremonial voice.
Lists were made, names were taken, scrawled onto parchment under the watchful eyes of clerics who had arrived with the host. Each house was given a small, brass token—an official Seal to be displayed. "Wear it," an officer said with bland courtesy. "It is your protection."
Karin felt the world shift underfoot as if a great gear had turned inside the unseen clockwork of the realm. The camp prepared to leave as it had come—calculated, inexorable. The commander's last orders to the village echoed in the square, cold and final: quarantine the workshops for the garrison; open the granaries to inventory; send a list of able-bodied men to the captain at dawn.
"And may those who accepted the recitation find mercy in the Lord," he added with a mock-piety that made Karin's skin crawl.
As the army unfurled back into the road, banners snapping in the plain wind, the villagers of Blackwell were left in a silence that felt like a wound.