Valkyrie's Shadow

Empire in Chains: Act 6, Chapter 19

Empire in Chains: Act 6, Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Was it wilful callousness or an unbelievable state of systemic blindness? Time and exposure to the citizens of the Empire brought Ludmila no closer to a long term solution for their one-sided perspective of the world.

Rather than reaching out to work hand in hand with the Imperial Army and bringing awareness to possibilities that they had previously been unaware of, Ludmila felt like she was conducting a one-woman siege of a fortress constructed out of their worldviews. Or rather than the siege of a fortress, something stood between herself and everyone else when it came to specific things. They saw her; spoke with her; even admired her, but it was as if some malevolent force actively worked to keep her from striking at the heart of the matter.

It was worse than her words going into one ear and out the other: they were received and waylaid by a vast array of rationalisations and ignorance, overridden by imperial worldviews or simply received with politeness and discarded out of view as irrelevant. Half of the time, she thought that they didn’t even recognise what she was saying.

She did her best to understand not just the motivations of the Empire and the Imperial Army, but also those of its officer corps and as much of the rank-and-file that she had time to speak to. Yet developing an understanding of them brought her no closer to her goal. The only things that mattered to them were the approaches and solutions that they saw as valid. All else was dross.

Regardless of background, education or training, they were products of a society that had long drifted from many truths of the world. By all indications, Re-Estize was much the same but the divergence was even stronger in the Empire…no, that wasn’t correct. Both had diverged under the same starting conditions but the Empire was the more successful of the two states. That success worked to continually reinforce their problematic perceptions.

It was the tragic irony of the Great Seeding…or perhaps it was the true damage of the heresy of The Four. Creating a geopolitically safe nation in the hopes that it would one day become a bastion of humanity had instead resulted in the progressively weak and misguided states of Re-Estize and Baharuth.

In the west was a country incapable of upholding order and by all reports was due for some sort of catastrophe. In the east was a country building proud glass towers on illusory foundations. The tenets of her faith, which conveyed the truths of the world as they were relevant to humanity, had been replaced by a heresy that did nothing to correct the self-indulgent whims of both.

From what she had seen of the Temples in the Empire, they were an institution that only existed to uphold the status quo. Even when they ministered to their own faithful, it felt woefully shallow. Its standards and measures felt ineffectual because they never addressed the important aspects of life beyond misguided temperance and arbitrary Human niceties.

Ludmila gave her head a shake, taking a deep breath as she guided her horse along. Being judgemental would get her nowhere and her friends weren’t around to provide elegant solutions that they would probably derive at a cursory glance. All she had were her rigid and clunky ways of doing things – ways that depended on mutual understanding, willing cooperation or brute force.

Compared to Re-Estize, the Empire was in a far better position. This was not only because it was more secure and stable, but it had created institutions that could effectively spread the ideas and attitudes that those in power wished to spread. In short, they were more easily taught. She imagined that if the Empire had eventually taken over Re-Estize, Re-Estize’s leadership and population would be reshaped within a few generations.

The Empire’s success with its institutions was what drove Ludmila to thoroughly study them, as she wished to emulate that success in the Sorcerous Kingdom. It was what also dangled the highly attractive possibility that, if she could sow the seeds of change with the Sixth Legion, the entire Empire would eventually follow suit. To that end, she could be as patient as she needed to be.

“M’lady,” Iguvel called out to her, “that a monster den?”

“No, you dumbass,” Destin replied for her, “that’s just a broken boulder.”

The men of her bodyguard laughed. Iguvel seemed to take it in good humour and continued peering at every bush and boulder they passed.

Between the denser concentration of potential threats and the fact that there was now a full company forming his ‘mobile headquarters’, General Ray’s energy went more towards the command of his forces than acting as her guide. He even brought his men into combat where possible in an effort to make up for the loss of flexibility that came with the changes to his operations.

With this being the case, Ludmila spent more time quietly observing the battalion than discussing matters with the General. Her squad followed her around as she went back and forth taking note of everything that she could. The Owlbear encounter of two days previous had heightened the alertness of the men, though it was more them being alert for potential windfalls than dangerous threats. The atmosphere that it created was positive in certain ways and worrisome in others.

?Whatever comes, comes – don’t go out of your way to find trouble.?

The men returned to her and tightened their ranks.

“If you want them to stay out of trouble, my lady,” Joachim Ward said, “we should return to the centre of the formation.”

Upon hearing the Cleric, the men turned pleading gazes toward her. Ludmila glowered at their expressions.

Whose hungry hatchlings are you?

She already knew the answer to that. Ray’s battalion had been groomed to be ambitious and she had ‘fed’ them once. Much like wild animals, they hoped for more. They had passed quite a number of valuable things, but she hadn’t pointed them out for fear that they would start stopping to uproot every bush and boulder in their path.

There was nothing inherently wrong with possessing ambition and it was natural to desire the improvement of one’s situation. The problem was the Empire’s idea of what ‘improvement’ was, the imbalances that it caused and what might inevitably happen to correct those imbalances…except with the protection of the Sorcerous Kingdom, the Empire could become a blight upon the world. This was a future headache that could be preemptively avoided.

Prime Minister Albedo’s carefully-constructed scenario created a place where the Empire could be made aware of the problems that Ludmila had identified, but, so far, the ‘nice’ or perhaps ‘soft’ approaches were ineffective. She needed to make things relevant somehow; to have them recognise what she was showing them. Pushing too hard was unacceptable, as the Royal Court did not want the Sorcerous Kingdom’s answer, but the Empire’s.

To provide an appropriate answer, however, the Empire required a baseline of knowledge that it seemed to lack or at least discount to the point of being irrelevant…it was an increasingly frustrating loop of apparent futility.

When it came to her ability to measure how people aligned with His Majesty’s Will, imperial citizens were a bit worse than the Human residents of E-Rantel, which was not so terrible that she felt compelled to enact corrective measures. They also ‘fluctuated’ just as frequently. Even General Ray was no exception, so she could only continue to poke them lightly hoping for a favourable response at some point.

“We’ll continue working the outskirts,” Ludmila replied. “General Ray is focusing on his duties – it would be improper for me to distract him from them now that we’re in more dangerous territory.”

“The tribes don’t seem much tougher than when we started, m’lady.”

“The tribes are strong enough as they are,” she replied. “You’ve been seeing relatively effortless success so far because not only are you striking tribes unprepared for an attack, but you are overwhelming them before they can muster effective retaliation. Once you lose that momentum, the situation will change.”

“That makes us sound like Demihumans.”

At the mention of Demihumans, several of the men slowed their steps and glanced around. Ludmila smiled slightly.

“If you plan on serving in an expeditionary force,” she said, “it would be for the best if you reexamine the concepts that you’ve brought with you from ‘civilisation’.”

“What does that mean, m’lady?”

“In the Empire,” Ludmila replied, “‘Demihuman’ is more idea than reality; a ‘creature’ that comes in a variety of forms that adds spice to tales. It does credit to the Imperial Army’s security efforts that the vast majority of the Empire has never seen one before, but it also distances its citizens from the reality of what they are. Out here, you cannot allow a label to become the entirety of your threat assessment.”

“I still don’t get it. We’ve fought plenty of Demis now – they’re every bit the dirty savages that I thought they were.”

“That’s because you only see what you want to see,” Ludmila said. “The results of your actions thus far make it so that it is unnecessary to think otherwise. You may believe that you enjoy a superior position to these ‘Demihumans’ for now, but Humans are not a strong race in the grand scheme of things. You will eventually reach a point where your ‘momentum’ will carry you straight into a wall that you are oblivious to because the ideas that you cling to are blinding you to the truth. I can only pray that you will survive that experience.”

Attempting to put forward the idea that other races might be less ‘savage’ or ‘alien’ than they thought didn’t work because the ideas already entrenched in their minds made other races irreconcilable with humanity. A more involved process seemed to be in order, such as chipping away at those ideas through topics immediately relevant to her men’s tasks. Hopefully, enough cracks would form for her to squeeze into or even bring the whole fortress of societal constructs crumbling down.

“When you think of ‘Demihumans’,” Ludmila said, “which race first comes to mind?”

“Goblins.”

“Why?”

“I guess cause we see ‘em the most.”

“What comes to mind when you think of ‘Goblins’?”

“The smell.”

Low chuckles rose around them.

“Anything else?”

“There’s a lot of ‘em.”

“They’re noisy.”

“Ugly.”

“Fighting ‘em is pure chaos.”

Ludmila nodded at each of their answers.

“Every race has its own standards of beauty,” she said, “so we’ll leave the point of their appearance aside. Have you wondered about the reasons as to the rest of what you’ve observed?”

“Because they’re Goblins?”

“Because they’re social,” Ludmila told them. “The smell and noise of Goblins can be overwhelming to the senses precisely for that reason. They possess collective behaviours that confuse predators and improve the survival rates of a Goblin tribe as a whole. Additionally, if you dropped a monster into a busy market plaza in Karlsheim, how much of that same behaviour will you see? Will panic and chaos not erupt? Will people not scream and shout? Who will run? Who will fight? For what reasons might they risk themselves? I’m fairly certain that everyone already knows the answers to these questions.”

“I-It’s not the same, m’lady.”

She looked over to her left, where Frank was riding beside her.

“It’s not?” Ludmila asked, “Why?”

“Because they’re Goblins.”

“You’re going to have to come up with a better answer than that.”

“They’re dangerous. They raid.”

“You also raid,” Ludmila said. “You’re Ray’s Raiders, yes? Do you not believe that what you’re doing is dangerous to them?”

They crossed a churning brook, which filled the air with the sound of its rushing water. Winson spoke once they left the noise behind.

“We’re doing it for a good reason.”

“Demihumans also have valid reasons,” Ludmila told him. “They raid for resources or they raid to enforce their territorial dominance, which is essentially securing resources. Sometimes they migrate and come into conflict with other populations. Has the Empire not effectively been doing the same thing? You run out of land and spares fill the towns and cities. Out of a desire for a better life, some join the army. Your conquests will open new lands and new opportunities to the destitute, facilitating migration.

“The new Legion created for this new frontier will enforce the Empire’s territorial dominance while the victorious expeditionary army will continue to carry the torch of imperial progress far and wide. That same torch will be used to set Demihuman communities aflame and it will grow brighter and burn more fiercely with every conquest. Eventually, someone will act to extinguish that flame before it comes to burn down what they care for.”

“B-but they won’t be able to, right? We got those Undead from the Sorcerous Kingdom. The Empire will be safe from that kind of thing.”

“They are for defensive purposes, but the culture of conquest cultivated by generations of imperial expansion will carry the Empire into wars that consume the lives of its citizens as quickly as they are born. If it does not, it will collapse under its own weight. Every generation will see tens of millions sacrificed upon the altar of war. Some will believe that this is a necessary thing, others, not so much. It might even be interpreted as a good thing for those with a vested interest in imperial expansion. What outsiders believe will be contingent on their perspective.”

Predictably, Joachim Ward was the first to react to the image that she painted for them.

“How can that be seen as a good thing?” He asked, “No nation would willingly pursue such conflicts! Wars of that magnitude would give rise to countless Undead who do not care for either side.”

“That didn’t stop Baharuth from pursuing its war with Re-Estize,” Ludmila told him. “If anything, the creation of more negative energy zones is a convenience: nearby places where two countries can agree to fight their battles, much like the Katze Plains…though I suppose how they are created would encourage aggression. It’s strange how that works.”

“How so, my lady?”

“Well, if negative energy zones are the product of overwhelming amounts of death and the negative emotions that come with it, then they can be weaponised. If, say, the Empire encounters a defensive position that it finds particularly problematic or identifies a key territory whose loss will result in the economic and industrial collapse of the territories around it, all they need to do is fight there until it becomes so steeped in negative energy that the defenders cannot maintain their position against the resulting Undead.”

Joachim’s mouth fell open, aghast at the brutal and indiscriminate tactic that she had suggested.

“The…the Empire would never do that!”

“The Empire removes obstacles to expansion and development in the most efficient manner possible. The Temples of the Four have no say in the matter. If they create another Katze Plains at their enemies’ expense to gain ten times the territory, then they will.”

“Then they’ll have another Katze Plains to deal with after the fact.”

“It will have been worth the cost,” Ludmila shrugged. “Their newly acquired territories will vastly outproduce the drain in resources since they’ll have leased Death-series servitors to contain the threats that manifest from those negative energy zones. In the future, they may also possess the capacity to cleanse these zones after they’ve served their purpose. Furthermore, for most of the Empire, it will be something that happened ‘elsewhere’.”

“I still do not believe that we would be so heedless.”

“What is heedless to you may not be to others. No one shares the exact same considerations, but they do share laws and culture that act as chains that both bind their behaviour and pull society as a whole in ways that it isn’t aware of. It is something that people cannot entirely resist.”

While individuals might be able to quickly adapt or change their ways, the collective ‘will’ of society was not so easy to bend. Furthermore, it was a force that dragged its members into line and pulled them off unwillingly and often unknowingly. This was especially the case for the Baharuth Empire, where culture was an instrument used to manipulate the masses into forming and adhering to the mechanisms prescribed by the state.

If those mechanisms sent them hurtling towards a cliff, they would not be able to stop even if they knew it was there. They were already in the process of falling off of several and didn’t even realise it, convinced that they were instead taking flight.

“Yeah, but we’re just small folk,” Merg said. “What you’re talking about is for the big important people. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Everyone contributes to the identity of a people in some way,” Ludmila told him, “and the chains that bind society tomorrow are forged today. This is of particular importance to the Sixth Legion: what you’re doing now will set the precedent for the Empire’s expeditionary forces and influence its future policies. You will be what comes to mind when the world beyond thinks of the Baharuth Empire, but, so far, what you are doing indicates that you believe that the world is yours to do with as you please.”

“You must have thought a lot about this, m’lady.”

“I have, but my thoughts are not solely from examining the Baharuth Empire. There is at least one other example of an expeditionary force that I’m well-acquainted with.”

“Re-Estize…?” Joachim frowned, “I don’t recall them having any kind of ‘expeditionary force’.”

“Re-Estize does not,” Ludmila said, “but the Sorcerous Kingdom does. The Adventurer Guild of the Sorcerous Kingdom is its expeditionary force. It’s ironic, really. The Sorcerer King – who is feared by so many as an evil Undead being – reforged an antiquated, nominally defensive organisation into an institution that promotes exploration, discovery and diplomatic goodwill. The Empire, on the other hand, reforged the advanced and defensively-structured Sixth Legion into an instrument of unbridled conquest.”