Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Seven

Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Seven

"Did she ever call her goddess again?" Sister Zlata hugged her knees close as she sat on the stool. The rest of the novice sisters had left the lecture and gone to do chores. Zlata had remained behind to ask questions. Sister Charity didn't much mind; it was a sign of a healthy mind and good faith. "Nope. From what the texts tell us, she survived the war and settled down to rebuild the Temple with a new congregation. She lived late into her elder years and was survived by a couple dozen brothers and sisters." Zlata's face fell. "Oh." "You have to understand: we have been told these truths from the Goddess herself. They happened long ago and far from here. But she remembers those who call her and tells their story so we understand." "...yeah, but. They both killed all of those people. It sounds like they made the war *worse.*" Sister Charity nodded. "...and she dies in her bed in a new Temple?" "Mmhmm." "...I don't think I get it, Sister." Sister Charity exhaled. "Well. What is there to get? It's a recounting of a history. I never said it was a metaphor, or a parable. It's a fact of our faith. Some sisters...they take faith in knowing that it was one of us who got the "happy ending", mm? That it's not an exec or some corpo or warlord dying peacefully." She sighed. "I worry about those ones. I'm glad it makes you uncomfortable, little sister." She frowned, wrinkled her nose. "What am I supposed to do with any of this?" The older sister shrugged. "Whatever you want. The past is what it is. Our goddess kept going, and so did Nia. One of those stories...these *histories* had an end, and the other didn't. Interpret these truths as you see fit." She closed her copy of the Book of the Earth and Moon with a smile. "And you're not going to get out of all of your chores by asking me questions." The younger sister rolled her eyes as she rose. "...would you have called her?" The older sister paused. "I will only know if I am ever in her shoes. I hope I never am." https://thecoffin.club

Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Six

The history books talk clearly about what happened next after the Scourging of Roden. The Emperor was survived by his mother, Lady Belhaine, his bastard teen son, Volkan of Wrought, and his adopted cousin Firhardt of Tessalan. The members of the Inner Council had their own surviving heirs as well who laid claim to their seats (or, if they were bold enough, laid claim to the destroyed throne). Thus began the Succession Wars, where Belhaine and Firhardt tried to control Volkan for his strongest claim while also putting down the uprisings fomented by the Council's heirs. Abroad, the war to occupy Djartola ground to a standstill. Cut off from commands and logistics, the field commanders had to make their own calls. The smart ones held to the mission with aplomb or went rogue and were not punished for it. The majority of them reveled in loot and slaughter, sweeping across the roads of Djartola to feed the beast as Djartolan resistance bled them for every inch traveled. The Succession Wars had a third player as well. There were rumors that at night, across the countryside, a woman and young girl could be found stealing into the strongholds of successors and would-be heirs alike, leaving no survivors. They would flicker in and out, ghostlike, without distinct reason beyond taking one more piece off the table. In time, Roden began to fear the Daughter of Moonlight and her merciless hand. And in time, Paraleux and Svatkopt saw the weakness of Roden and Djartola alike. This was how the whole of the continent came to war and the real slaughter began. Twenty years of marching boots, barked commands, scrabbling in the mud over long-ruined farmlands, the "Continental Look" of haunted eyes and sunken cheeks, families stitched together from scraps and clutched close. Her goddess left two years into the conflict. Officially, her husband needed her elsewhere. Unofficially, she had run out of ideas for how to stop the war without killing even more. https://thecoffin.club

Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Five

It was a cold, slate grey day the morning they killed the Emperor and his Inner Council. There had been a light rain the night before. The two of them awoke to a layer of slick dew on all of their possessions. Nia busied herself with mopping it up as Argenta set up the mortar, loaded the munition. She whistled as she did her preparations. The noise made Nia's hair stand on end. The wind was measured. The sight lines were ranged. The mortar was loaded and ready to fire. Her goddess smiled. "It'll be over soon. I promise. Do you want to fire, or should I?" Nia didn't say anything. She looked at the cold sky, the clouds washed out like filthy snow. She felt the wind find no purchase on her numb fingertips. She thought about the kick of the shotgun against her chest, all of the dead between the Temple and this point. She licked her lips and tasted the past few dinners from memory. Her voice was quiet. "I'll do it." Her goddess' voice was surprised. "You will? You don't have to. You called me, I answered. I can take responsibility." Nia shook her head, extended her right hand. "It's okay. I think I have to." Her goddess didn't protest. She handed over the little box with the round button, placed it in Nia's hands. The initiate stared up at the sky as she pressed the button. There was a dull thud from the hillside. A whoosh. The sound of something screaming through the air. A smothering silence, then the roar of winds rushing forward to fill an absence, a ringing in her own ears. When she looked at the Council's stronghold, there was nothing left. Nothing at all. Most of the imperial city remained, but there was a crumbling hole where the throne of the Emperor once stood. A crumbling hole and distant wails. https://thecoffin.club

Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Four

The backup weapon looked like if you carved a sitting three-legged dog out out of a hunk of metal. Nia had known about cannons, distant weapons some theorized that they could one day be brought to bear in war. Argenta had said the "mortar" was like a cannon, down to the munitions inside, but Nia didn't know what a munition was or what a cannon looked like. It was a silly, small apparatus to see parked on a hill with their cart and horses. The munition was a packed metal ball the size of a fist. Argenta wasn't being careful with it; Nia kept her distance regardless. They sat, almost like a picnic, as they waited for the skies over Roden to clean, eating stewed vegetables and chunks of bread. Her goddess was developing opinions on her cooking and enjoying it. She didn't enjoy it enough to not talk with her mouth full. "It's funny. At the end of the day, it's basic math, cheap geometry. Being able to calculate arcs, parabolas." She smiled around a spoonful of roots and chewed. "The mortar, the explosive, it's all fancy. It's no more sophisticated than your bows. One day, you're going to have the tools to do what I do. But you'll always have known what I know, y'know?" She didn't. She nodded as if she did. "They gave us idiot-proof stuff. All point and click, no need to understand how it worked. My mother and father wanted me to, years ago, before I went to the stars. I didn't get it." She tore a chunk of bread with her teeth, muttered around it. "And then I saw how they took it for granted, pretended they had magic and miracles. There's no such thing as a miracle, Nia. There is only opportunity and coincidence. People will call what we do here a miracle, an act of god. That's only half-right. Me and my boss...we made this mortar, we made this payload. And I am your goddess. That doesn't make it a miracle." The sky didn't clear up. The goddess shrugged. "Tomorrow, then." They made camp and waited together. It would be three more days before the skies cleared. https://thecoffin.club

Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Three

The star was a small box with a handle to hold or anchor for a latch. Falling from the stars scorched its casing; they had to wait until it cooled before they could dig it out of the hillside. Nia would glance at in the back of the cart and flinch away. It reminded her of a child's casket. The strider plodded along through the forest, her goddess at the reins. Within the dawning of the next day, they were out of the woods and onto the Grand Roads of Djartola. It was slow going. The Roden soldiers traveled the paths, and Argenta had to respond accordingly. They shied away from large detachments and stuck to the lesser-known roads; Nia's experience studying maps was finally paying off. But it was inevitable. The pilgrims needed places to rest and sleep, as did the soldiers. Argenta looked for homesteads, farms, towns where the least soldiers were occupying and steered the strider towards those lands. She would leave Nia at the cart with the gun. The Bullet of Justice had her own guns, one for each hand. Heavy things wrought of metal and stone, small enough to use two at once and not knock yourself over. Nia could hear them roar and echo through battlefields like the rumblings of brass lions. When Argenta was finished and Nia would bring the cart closer, the places her goddess blessed looked as if a storm had fallen upon them and torn the world to shreds. She was precise enough to leave intact shelter and resources. They left what remained of the bodies where they lay. This was the path by which judgment crawled to Roden and arrived two and a half months later. https://thecoffin.club