The camp was quiet, except for the rain and the sounds that tired cyrans make when they’ve settled in, but can’t find sleep. Boots squelching, low voices and the odd, quiet coughing. No fires crackled, no laughter to light up the night, no reprieve from the soaking rains.

Vorpei couldn’t find sleep either, so she shirked her guards, and wandered her camp alone. Unthinkable, for the General of two of Cyre’s finest legions to be wandering alone in a war. But this was her camp. At least, what was left of it…

Tattered tents and rained-out foxholes clustered in the curving folds of the valley. Black trees and their gnarled roots sank into the mud, marching through the hundreds of riverlets streaming down the hills. No one spoke to her, only the quiet salutes as she passed her anxious, aimless movement. All quiet, except for the sounds of fatigue and sickness turning to something worse among what was left of her legions. The stocks grew thin, and since they were cut off from all supply lines, they were starting to scrape the bottom. So many mistakes.

She thought of Consul Deioch, her oldest rival. How he would love to see the state of her once-proud legions. How it would fuel his ego, as if he had accomplished all this through his own will, and not the Emperor’s.

If she was being honest, the anger helped. Her hatred for Deioch was the impetus that got her out of bed some mornings, in the hope that, at least, she might get the chance to wrap her fingers around Deioch’s throat, even as her dreams of cyran freedom rotted on the vine. But with each passing day, with each new report from her splinters - each new death toll - that hope passed more into vain fantasy.

Vorpei had never lost a war before. She had no idea it would be this hard. That it could drag out this long. That the life of so many could drain so slowly, circling and circling, but refusing to die.

In a way, she was proud. Desertion had diminished to almost nothing, since most of the weak and disloyal had already been shot. It took a strong will, or a total lack of imagination, to survive out in the uncharted wilderness of Thrass et Yunum this long, to survive so many sieges and losing battles.

The dullscales were the most welcome surprise. Long had Vorpei been taught to look down on the cyrans from the provinces and their “inferior bloodlines.” Yet, how many of them had proven to be the most resilient of all?

Out here, they had lost their religion. Something about this planet, and its effect on the Emperor’s gifts - neutralizing all the old tech machines and weapons - helped them see the truth. The Emperor might be a god. But that didn’t make him their god.

Which left only one goal in this suicidal crusade. All who were left clung to the belief in the mission: freedom for cyrans. Freedom from Him.

Under the smell of wet earth, the scent of shit and rotting flesh stung. Pungent. She wondered how the grim-faced guards who patrolled closest to the medical tent could stand it. Then, she opened the tent flap, and realized why they didn’t mind: the smell from inside stung her eyes and her throat, making her gag and swallow.

She took one last lungful of the outdoor air, and headed inside.

The medics worked by weak, smoky torchlight (they had run out of gas for the lanterns weeks ago). Piles of used bandages littered the walls of the long, low tent, some of which were black and red, and still being reused. They were doing what they could, to get the soldiers back on their feet. Not to win, not to be shipped back home with all the medals and honors they deserved. But to fight the Emperor’s whim, and to fail valiantly. And then, to die.

As all cyrans were born to do.

Vorpei found a bowl of clean water, and came to the nearest bed, where a medic was cleaning up after another amputation. She couldn’t tell who looked bloodier - the patient or the medic. He was about to put down the bloody rag he was holding so he could salute her.

“At ease,” she said, handing him the bowl so he could rinse off his hands. His fingers turned the water red.

Behind him, row after row of knapsacks and blankets and thatch lay on the muddy soil. Soldiers in each. Groaning, sleeping, bleeding, rasping for breath. Some, Vorpei could see, were already dead. More medics, quietly worked in the smoking darkness, checking on a soldier here, offering what little opioch remained to another there. There were no chaplains offering rites here. Not anymore.

Vorpei looked down at the new amputee. A soldier, little more than a girl. Not even in her youthful prime. She was a whiskerfolk, a dullscale provincial, and only now did Vorpei see that besides her newly severed leg, she also had stitches running across her stomach. A line as long as Vorpei’s arm. Her eyes were closed, though Vorpei did not think she was sleeping.

“Will she live?”

“I’ve done all I can,” the medic answered. The exhaustion clung to his voice like a fog.

Vorpei put her hand on the medic’s shoulder, wishing she could lend her energy to his. “It is enough,” She said. “You are doing good work. The best I’ve seen in a long time.”

And it was true. She had never felt such pride in the strength of her people. It swelled inside of her, making her wish she could do more. All these dullscales, fighting. Refusing to quit. How long had she been blind to their strength? How long had all cyrans, born with glittering scales, been conditioned to look down on their sibling peoples?

Not your fault, Vorpei. It had been drilled into her from before birth. The Veneratian. The Academy. The priests and the nobles. The whole of cyran society, built upon a separation of classes. By the Emperor’s grand design. She could see it all now. All because the Emperor had somehow turned her own son against her. My Kirine. He had been right about the dullscales, at least. It only took her a damned civil war to understand that.

Through the night, Vorpei offered her hands to the medic, doing what she could, which was precious little. A runner opened the tent, letting in the barest hint of red sunlight, and they started gagging too, until Vorpei thought they would lose their stomach. The runner gathered himself, before whispering. “Has anyone seen the Consul?”

“Here,” she said. And he squinted at her through the smoky torchlight, before jogging over. Covering his mouth with his hand, and trying not to gag on the smell of rotting, dying flesh.

He gave her a smart salute, despite the filth and tears of his uniform. His pant leg was torn off, and a wound only a few days old was still shining on his leg. The Emperor’s insignia was noticeably missing too, a patchy outline on his chest where the threads had been cut.

Vorpei had fought skirmishes and battles, had held slaughters on nameless worlds. Xenos crushed under the unstoppable might of Cyre. This cyran, with all the leaves and twigs woven into his shredded uniform and his helmet, his scales painted to blend into the Thrass wilderness, looked just like the native warriors of those primitive xeno worlds. Even like the blackmouths themselves.

What have we become?

Vorpei shook her head. The path was set. There was nothing more to be done, other than to play out her part. Kill. Then die.

And then?

Would she be forgotten? Would the Emperor erase all memory of this insurrection?

And for the first time in months, Vorpei wondered about the white stones of her villa, shining in the sunlit hills of Cyre. And all her grapes, ripening in the late summer. Who would pick them, now that she was gone?

“Consul, the commanders are meeting. They request your presence.”

“What news?” she said, brushing away her thoughts like cobwebs.

“The splinters have returned.”

Vorpei had splintered the legions. Instead of large forces marching in bulk, she and her commanders split them up into smaller groups. Splinters, between twelve and twenty troops, with autonomy. Allowed to make their own orders, as long as they served the mission. They were swift and hard to trace in the thick forests of Thrass.

It had worked at first. But Deioch was no fool, and Vorpei’s throat tightened with worry. “Are they all back?”

“No Ma’am,” his voice grim. “Three failed to report last night. But the others found some old blackmouth camps, with supplies from long ago. Ammunition. Gunpowder, though it may have gone bad. And they think they found gas storage.”

“And the blackmouths?” Lassertane. The primitive reptilian xenos who lived on this gods-forsaken planet, and worshipped the strange relics that littered the jungles.

“There were none. No sign at all.”

Odd. But as Vorpei left the medical tent, and trudged through the mud and the rising morning fog towards her command tent, she put such puzzles out of her mind. All that mattered was the splinters.

There were guards posted at every entrance to the command tent. Glitterskins and dullscales, working alongside each other. They nodded at her as she approached, each of them pretending to ignore the shouting that came from inside. Her commanders were arguing. Again.

“Fan them out!” Dusius was saying, “Across the valleys. Let them think we’re everywhere. Subsist and fight for months, not weeks. That’s the only way we have a chance-”

“And who will keep them in line?” The rumbling voice of Sigennach, “Who will give them orders? How are we supposed to build this network of splinters?”

“Anything is better than what we’ve been doing.”

As Vorpei ducked inside, she heard a fist smack on a heavy wooden table. “You would have us divide ourselves, so that Deioch’s forces might walk in and take our camps!”

They went silent, all eyes turned to her, as she rose to her full height. Tired salutes.

“As it is,” Vorpei said, dismissing all their salutes with her own, “Deioch’s forces are taking our camps anyway. How many times have we fallen back this week?”

Vorpei wiped the rain from her scales and pulled off her jacket. Her boots were caked with mud, but so was the floor, so she didn’t bother wiping them. The others waited for her, their faces all serious and grim. Defeated. Her head almost brushed the top of the tent, so low had it fallen. They lost the old command tent in the attack on one of the forts. She couldn’t remember which one, anymore. There had been so many battles. And so few victories.

They looked to her for guidance, now. Over the last months, the burning feeling of revolution - of finally taking the reigns of their destinies - had dwindled. How quickly hope fades. And her commanders had become increasingly divided over the strategies necessary to fight this war. Now, as they came to a new chapter, (call it what it is: this is the end of your war), they landed on two sides of the problem. Some still fought with hope in their hearts. Desperately clinging to the notion that there was a way to win. Dusius and them wanted to split up all the remaining forces, and fight a guerilla war. Use the forest, become a part of Thrass. Drain Deioch’s resources, until the Emperor has no choice but to recall him - and then, when they finally had room, perhaps they could strike.

Sigennach and the others were more… Realistic isn’t the word. They knew there was no coming back home from this. They wanted to go out in a final, all-out assault. A grand battle, worthy of the old songs. Pure suicide. There were other, lesser plans, but none of them felt right. They sat, they stood, they spoke with hushed tones and raised voices in that tent for hours. Arguing. Discussing. Fighting each other.

Waiting for Vorpei to make the choice for them.

She knew what she should say to them. What emotions she should stab at, how to light a fire in their hearts. But to do that, she needed to have a fire in her own. Only, the rain never seemed to stop on Thrass. And her heart smoldered, guttered, but it just wasn’t there…

None of these plans felt right. Nothing could make this right.

She had never lost before. She didn’t know how it was supposed to be done.

So, the commanders argued in vain. And Vorpei said nothing, except once to ask for tea, and they gave her boiled water with grass in it, and it was the best they could do. The more her commanders argued, the more doomed ideas they cast about, the more she drew in within herself.

What should I have done differently?

Was there ever any hope at all?

It made her angry, that such thoughts could take hold on her, once Consul and High General Belossian Numenus Vorpei. It didn’t matter how many times she crushed those doubts, using every ounce of strength of her will. Always, like rain seeping up through the mud, the doubts and questions always crept back.

What could I have done?

Nobody had slept. Two of her legates were shouting again, and one of them kicked the far table, sending it over. The rest of the camp could hear them, and she had no idea what this might be doing to morale for the officers, let alone the boots outside and Vorpei had her head in her hands, she just wanted some damn time to think and…

“Consul?” The same runner as before. When did he come in?

She looked up. Realized everyone had gone quiet. And was staring at her.

“Consul General,” the messenger said again. “One of the lost splinters is back.”

“Which one?” She asked.

“Sergeant Rutilian’s.”

Vorpei blinked, trying to remember. Feeling like everything was draining out of her.

“The, uh, the special one.”

Oh yes. That one. She have forgotten the strangeness of their visitor, the sickly metal thing that had attached itself to one of her soldiers and called itself Sovereign, among all the other strange things that had happened these last months; Her own son, coming to accuse her. The Emperor, starting a war. Not to mention the godling, or whatever he was, so innocent and small. Who had walked into her camp, and walked back out, as if nothing had happened.

“Bring the Sergeant in here.”

“Shall I let the, uh, thing inside too?”

Te messenger’s eyes shifted when he said thing. What was that look in his eyes? Fear?

“Bring them all in,” she said, gesturing impatiently.

The messenger disappeared, and a moment later, Sergeant Rutilian, who had been a corporal only a few weeks ago, stood at attention in the center of the tent. Smoke curled around her, and torchlight showed how haggard she had become. Her uniform was unrecognizable, except for the fist of Vorpei pinned to her breast. The Sergeant wore no helmet, which made it so much easier for Vorpei to see the tight lines of worry wrinkling her scaled forehead.

Behind her, the thing. The agent, they had called it, back when they had the resources to spare for such offhanded ideas. It was hunched over, and something odd about the way it moved made Vorpei not want to look at it. It wasn’t just the shadows. The agent was part soldier, and part machine. At least, that’s what the Sovereign had promised.

“Sergeant Rutilian,” Vorpei saluted.

The Sergeant’s eyes were wide. Not blinking. Her mouth slack.

“Sergeant,” Dusius growled.

“What?” Rutilian twitched, as if she didn’t realize where she was.

“Your General is talking to you.”

“Oh,” Rutilian said. And snapped a salute. “Sir, Sergeant Rutilian reporting, sir.”

She was a smoothscale, one of those from the southern provinces. Dull green, covered in scratches and criss-crossing white scars. She blinked only once, like she had forgotten how to do it. Still frozen in her salute.

“At ease, Sergeant. I need your report.”

“Sir, we did as commanded. My squad went into the bush, we took the agent with us.”

“And? Could it follow orders?”

“Sir, it tried, Sir. We went at night, but it didn’t seem to want to walk quietly. When we came to the enemy scout camp, they didn’t spot us. But he… it… It stood out in the open.”

Vorpei cast a glance at the shape, its rasping breath in the shadows. The thing seemed to stand, hunched over silver-gleaming crutches.

“Then it disobeyed?”

“No, sir. We didn’t tell it to go quietly. We thought it would be more careful.”

It’s alive, though, Vorpei thought. That was… odd. Standing out in the open like that was often the first - and last - mistake new soldiers made on Thrass.

“Well? How did it perform?”

The sergeant flinched at her question. Swallowed her fear. “It was total obliteration, Sir. I’ve never seen anything like it. We fanned out, and surrounded their camp. To make sure none would get out. Then, I gave the command. I told it to attack.”

“What happened?”

“It went, as soon as I gave the order. Didn’t give me time to tell it we needed prisoners. It crashed through the jungle, ran straight up to the enemy camp. All of them, shouting at each other, grabbing their guns. They saw it coming. They shot it. When it fell, I thought they killed it. But it kept crawling. Faster than anything. By the gods, they couldn’t stop it.”

“Sounds like a success to me,” Vorpei said, more to herself than anyone else.

But the Sergeant shook her head. Not blinking. “It pulled them apart. They were still screaming, when it… It started to rebuild itself with… They were still alive.”

Anyone else might’ve been infected by the Sergeant’s horror, but Vorpei was beyond fear. Didn’t have time for it.

Instead, when she turned to the thing in the shadows, she felt a different sensation crawling up her arms. A feeling she had to hold down, in case she was wrong. How quickly hope fades. How useless a thing, when it’s misplaced.

“Private Ornoch,” Vorpei said, using the agent’s name from when it was still a soldier. “Come here.”

The thing moved out of the corner, and all the chairs shuffled and boots squelched as the commanders backed up.

Private Ornoch, or the agent, or whatever it was, did not so much as breathe, as make a constant, slurred sound in its throat. One long, never-ending inhalation. Its body glittered with metal and rotting flesh. She could see where the Private’s arm had been blown off, for the bone was now sticking out, all splintered and yellowing. But new metal had grown over it, infused with bones and gristle and muscle from other bodies. Long metal “bones” jutted out from his ribs, slowly waving and articulating in the shadows, some hanging useless. Others, acting as long, insectile legs. There were gaps in the Private’s flesh, patched over with a hideous knitted metal.

“Private Ornoch, anything to report?”

Drool dripped from his cold, blue lips. Half his face sagged, the scales sloughing away, and where his eyes had been, a band of metal with dozens of black dots embedded inside. Are those eyes?

Its mouth split open, the tongue black with rot, struggling to slither out a single word: “Success.”

“And you said you could share this gift?”

“We have only just begun.”

Her commanders were right behind her. She could feel them, feel their opinions forming. Their arguments. Their disgust. But all she could feel was that shiver of hope.

Not all things must rot on the vine. Sometimes, they get a chance to become something more.

Vorpei turned to her commanders, saying, “Gather your soldiers. Find volunteers. We need as many as we can get. And you,” she turned to the Sergeant. “I want you to go to the Medical compound, and find every single soldier who is beyond saving. We’ll need them, one last time. Dismissed.”

The Sergeant saluted, and stumbled out of the tent. The rest erupted in protest.

“General!”

“This thing cannot be-”

“How can you possibly let this go on-”

“What do you plan to do with them?”

She waved them all into silence, holding her hand into a fist. Reminding them of who was General here.

“We will do the same as always,” Vorpei said. “We will do what must be done.”