The battle had begun and ended well before the sun had risen to its zenith. That was the way of things, sometimes. What likely had seemed an interminable hell full of screams and fear on the part of the invading army had only lasted a couple hours. Barely enough to start the day.

However, that meant that the cooks still needed to shift straight to the preparations for the feast. Even as some worked on getting the noonday meal ready for the soldiers, others began the process of preparing the evening meal. And the rest of the garrison was not idle, either. Once judgement was cast upon the leaders of the army, squads were sent out, across the battlefield, to see what could be salvaged.

Part of that salvage was, of course, carrion. Horses that fell and were not crushed into a paste were butchered and stripped to the bone where they lay. Some few of the dead and dying, if they were meaty enough, and not touched by the flames or undead, may also have met a similar fate, but I wasn’t going to call out my soldiers for such behavior. The core of the scavenging squads, after all, were part of my army before I conquered Frostreach and made it my own. I knew what they were like.

Even those troops not involved in scavenging were busy. Scouts were sent out to start tracking the horsemen who had fled once the battle started turning against them. They had not been seen crossing back, towards Nearfall, which meant that they still lurked in my lands somewhere, and that made them a potential problem, if they weren’t properly dealt with.

Of course, not everyone was cooking, scavenging, or scouting. The quartermasters were busy taking out supplies for the feast, and arranging clothes for the new slaves who would need them. Not the newly-minted whores, of course, but my new household slaves, and the ones who were going to the Mayor of J’Nast and the paladins of the Red Knight in Trenia. The whores were not going to be wearing clothes again until and unless the lady who ran the brothel I owned in Trenia decided they should.

“Mistress, is this truly alright?”

Avelina was not entirely comfortable with her new clothes. Well, considering that she had been used to fancy dresses or well-made gear, even when she was travelling, I couldn’t exactly blame her. After all, now she was consigned to wearing a short cotton dress that was little better than a long shirt, and only just barely covered her unmentionables when she was standing straight up, with nothing under it. Add on the leather collar to show that she was a slave, and it was easy to see why she might not be quite comfortable with her new outfit just yet.

“Yes, my pet, that is just fine,” I said, reaching over to stroke her head where she knelt next to me at the table. It was time for the feast, after all, and I couldn’t skip out on it, since it was in honor of our victory this day. Even if I did want to toy with my pet a bit. Siora had offered more than a few suggestions on how to do that, together, which I was eager to try out.

“Um, Mistress, I know you what you said, but are my father and the others really going to be part of the feast?”

I chuckled at the girl’s nervous tone. “Hmm. You must think us barbaric and wicked, for doing something like this, yes? Well, you have to understand that Frostreach is a blending of many different peoples and cultures. And while southern nobles might think it abhorrent, the idea of consuming the flesh of another being does not carry quite the same stigma in other lands.

“The Icewolf clan of orks is one good example. They believe that consuming the flesh of their fallen foes allows them to gain some of their strength. So, any time a particularly noteworthy enemy is defeated, they will be cooked and eaten by the clan, so that the clan grows stronger.

“The Whitepelt Goblins, which was Captain Whiterazor’s tribe, before they joined my banner, believe that meat is meat. When you live in the frozen tundra, you cannot rely on getting roots and grain, much less fruits and vegetables in enough quantity to feed a tribe, and so meat is of utmost importance. The threat of starvation, should there be poor hunting, or some monster too strong for the tribe pushing them out of their traditional grounds, demands it.”

“Even the meat of their own kin?”

“Especially the meat of their own. A goblin’s meat belongs to the tribe. When they hunt and they fight, they claim meat for the tribe. When they fall, their meat serves to keep the tribe strong. In this way, they live on, through their tribe, even after death. The only time that their meat is not offered to the tribe is when it is tainted by disease, poison, or undeath. Even a chieftain who falls will be feasted upon by his own sons and daughters.”

I leaned back in my chair, considering. “In my own tribe, far, far away from here, beyond the Worldspine Mountains, it was not unheard of to eat the flesh of another human. Usually, it was a symbolic act, eating the heart of a rival to gain their strength, like the Icewolf clan, but with the addition that, in the halls of Tempus, where warriors dine and battle for eternity, that rival would be marked eternally. And, in times of poor hunting and bitter cold, people do what they must to survive. In those cases, the wounded, the sick, and the dying ask to be put down, so that they not only do not take up stores that could be used for those still healthy, but so that they can feed the tribe one last time, and ensure it survives the winter. It is considered a sad, but noble, sacrifice, when such things happen.”

I watched as the cooks and servants began bringing out trays from the kitchens, and moving around the dining hall. Several trays were larger than the others, and took two servants each to carry them. But that was to be expected, since they were the stars of the feast.

Of course, Aveline couldn’t see this from her position by my side. It wasn’t until the tray bearing her father, trussed and dressed like a suckling pig roast, still hot from the oven, was placed before me that she saw. Her face went pale, and a shade green, but I mercifully ignored that.

“And so,” I continued, drawing her attention away from her father’s face, complete with an apple in its teeth, “Frostreach has incorporated elements of those practices. In this case, those dead and dying levies left behind by their fellows, as well as the horses and draft animals that did not escape the conflict, have been butchered, and are being distributed to the rank and file as part of the feast.”

“What of General Loweye, Mistress?”

“He, and those soldiers too badly mangled for processing, or who were touched by the undead or the flames, have been taken to the trench line that the angels cleansed with fire, and will join their fellow soldiers there. Tomorrow, the druids will bury them with spells, the same way in which they first created the trenches. The general will have a proper guard to whatever afterlife awaits him, do not fear.”

As Aveline very carefully kept her face turned towards me, so she wouldn’t have to look at the roast I was carving, she asked, softly, “Then, those paladins? They’re also going to be, um, turned into brothel workers?”

“Oh, yes. The troops have already started breaking them in, and training them. Since most of them were originally men, it is likely they haven’t had any real practice with pleasing men, and any practice they have had would be with a man’s form, and the skills needed are as different as men and women are from one another. But mostly they need to be broken of their concept that their needs and desires matter. From now on, the only thing that matters is that they give their clients pleasure.”

Aveline shuddered involuntarily. I smirked. “Chilly? Perhaps some meat will warm you up?” My smirk grew wider as she hurriedly shook her head. “No? Fine then. But it isn’t like I don’t know what you’re thinking. Something along the lines of ‘by the gods, that would be a fate worse than death’, or similar, no?”

I paused to eat part of the nice ham hock that I’d carved for myself. The cooks really had done a wonderful job. The roast was still juicy, and perfectly tender. Why, if one wasn’t looking at it while it was being carved, you wouldn’t be able to tell what kind of creature it came from. A nice change from the last time I’d sat at this kind of table, where the meat was more gamey and lacked the fat which helped to give the dish its taste.

“Well,” I continued, “I would agree. The problem is that death would be a mercy to those paladins. I offered them mercy, and they spat in my face. They thought that the worst I would do to them is devise some torturous death for them, turning them into martyrs, and giving them a chance at being rewarded by their god in the afterlife. That is basically a win for zealots like them. Since this is supposed to be a punishment, a judgement for their actions against me and mine, I couldn’t very well go and reward them now, could I?

“No, what I did was come up with the method that would break them, from the inside out. I cursed them, so that, until they have someone break the curses, they will be weak both in body and spirit. They won’t be killed. Instead, they will serve out their days being a tool of others’ pleasure. In the end, that will destroy them, and in such a way that they will likely fall from grace, and either lose their powers, or find a new god to follow.”

I took a drink of my wine, and looked out, over the feast. “I know that they will break. It is only a matter of time. Sometime in the future, there will be one thing, just one little thing, that causes them to break. It may be big, or it may be something small, barely worth mentioning. Perhaps it may even be something that they’d consider a boon, if they were thinking clearly. But, in that moment, it will be just one more thing taken from them, and it will be one thing too many. That is when they’ll break, as I broke, in my last life. And there will be no peace or rest with their god for them then.

“They tried to hunt me, searched the world for me. Now, the followers of Torm will find that it would have been best if they had simply forgiven and forgotten. I had been content to forget about him and his, but he won’t allow that, so now I must commit acts that hurt me to consider, so that they learn not to try such things again.”

I sighed, and carved another piece of meat from the roast, and placing it on a smaller plate, which I set before her. “Well, enough of my talking, pet. This is supposed to be a celebration, and it would not do for me, as the host, to get in a foul mood. But, since you’ve been so good, I’ll let you eat some, too. Consider this your introduction to life in the northlands. This bit is smaller than I would like, but for a girl’s first time, a bit smaller than average is easier to handle than something more filling.”

The girl tried to object, but there wasn’t any point in doing so. After all, she was a slave. “Here you go, my pet. A nice place with a sausage, and a couple ‘oysters’. Eat up, girl. You’ll need your energy for some of the plans I have for tonight. And if you don’t finish your meal, other arrangements might be made for breakfast, understand?”

A sob caught in her throat, but she nodded, once, before reaching out to pick up the plate, so that she could eat.