\hypertarget{interlude-liesse-iii}{%
\chapter*{Interlude: Liesse III}\label{interlude-liesse-iii}}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\nameref{interlude-liesse-iii}} \chaptermark{Interlude: Liesse III}

\epigraph{``Oh, woe is me, you've destroyed my army\ldots Hahaha, you fell
for it again! I haven't paid them in a year, they were about to depose
me. Once more, Irritant triumphs against all odds!''}{Dread Emperor Irritant I, the Oddly Successful}



Orim was dead.

Ranker had hoped otherwise even after seeing his standard go down, but
now that Wekesa's boy had disappeared the demons scrying links were
stable again and confirmation followed swiftly. The Fifth's mages had
commanded that his senior legate was now in command. Even worse, the
bloody havoc was not singular to the left flank. Istrid was gone,
allegedly to sorcery, and Afolabi had been hacked to pieces by his own
dead men. It'd been a long time since the goblin had seen one of her own
kind fearful, much less one of matron blood, but when Sacker had
contacted her there'd been that recognizable ugly glint in the other
woman's eyes. The reformed command structure of the Legions of Terror
had been born of long conversations around fires she'd had with Black
and Grem back in the days when they had been rebels on the run, and so
Ranker knew the legions would not be taken out of the battle by the
death of their generals. To blunt that old weakness of Praesi armies,
who had once collapsed the moment the Black Knight or the Emperor was
slain, had been one of their first reforms. Yet it would have been
wilful blindness to say morale would not be butchered by the sudden
deaths of old and beloved commanders.

Reputation always cut both ways.

The chain for supreme mastery of the host now ran three deep: herself,
Sacker and then young Juniper. Istrid's daughter was making sweeping
advance against the devils but was too far to be of true use. Sacker was
on the wrong side of the battlefield, and fresh in engaging the wights
through the field of stakes. After them legate seniority would be the
rule of law, but Ranker trusted no career second with a battle like
this. It would have to be her. Salvaging the remains of the Fifth had
been her first manoeuvre, and to achieve this she had not been shy in
spending the lives of the Callowan levies. They came back undead, true
enough, but better guards arisen than legionaries. She was willing to
trade three Callowan for every proper soldier pulled out, if not four.
Some tried to run, after the first bloody clash. She had crossbows tear
through the deserters, and calls made that the same fate awaited all
cowards. It put spine in them, long enough for it to matter. Less than
two thousand of the Fifth Legion pulled back behind the barricades,
losses utterly disastrous. \emph{A year would not be long enough to
train replacements for that}, she thought\emph{. And Procer will not
even give us that much.}

The ditch that had once been meant to hinder Legion advance had now
become its very line of defence, shield wall clustered tight behind it
as sappers turned the thin space between ditch and palisade in a storm
of munitions. The Fifth's siege engines were trained on the horde of
wights, and her own hastily assembled to join them. The left flank
steadied, slowly but surely, and the danger of complete and utter rout
passed. For now. Legate Bagram had led the Sixth and Twelfth into
similar retreat on the other flank, his giving ground made easier by the
Ninth swinging at the wights from the side. The rebels in the last
bastion saw opening in that, and took it. The moment the Ninth stood
alone the wights turned towards it as one, to break the solitary legion,
but they were not dealing with an orc. Sacker was a cunning old fox, and
she'd prepared the grounds: the undead tumbled through a field of buried
munitions and razor wires with mass casualties as Sacker retreated at
her own pace, long gone by the time the undead had broken through her
traps. The Ninth marched down to anchor the side of the bloodied Sixth
and Twelfth, and Marshal Ranker had that side's combined command
officially ceded to the only general there.

They would hold long enough for the Deoraithe advancing to prop them up.
Cursory reading of the field would have one think that would allow their
side to turn the tide, begin a counterattack backed by Daoine bowmen and
fresh infantry, but the old goblin had been watching more than troops
movements with her rheumy eyes. Numbers. It was always about the
numbers, and if nothing changed Marshal Ranker knew this battle was
lost. Casualties were starkly heavier on the side of the rebels now that
the Legions had a proper position, but that moment of overextension had
been too costly. They'd been weakened, and now the rebels were grinding
away at them with their own dead. A Legion of Terror was a complex and
carefully crafted engine, meant to serve multiple purposes and
consequently involving a great many specialized parts. There was a truth
underlying that Ranker had never put to ink in any of her treatises, and
neither had the other two architects of the Legions: there were a series
of lines in the sand that dictated the combat efficiency of a legion.
Lines defined by casualties and supply expenditures. Not simple ones, as
a legion was made of too many parts for that. But the two most salient
points of failure were dead regulars and lack of goblin munitions. One
of these lines crossed would cripple a legion. Two ended it as a
fighting force.

On both flanks, the numbers were teetering dangerously closed to both
red lines for most the legions on the field. Her Fourth and Sacker's
Ninth were fresh in comparison, but also the most fragile of the
legions: they had higher proportion of sappers and engineers, and lower
proportions of heavies. There was a reason the Ninth was nigh-always
paired with the Sixth, the largest heavy infantry force in the Empire.
Her own legion was not quite so delicate, but it was still far from the
heavy assault force she needed now. Good for holding grounds, as it
currently did. But breaching the barricade anew would cost her more dead
regulars than she could afford, or this entire army for that matter.
Marshal Ranker's eyes studied the enemy lines, and the rate at which the
dead rose. Her lips tightened. It would take until nightfall, she
thought. Several hours yet. But when the sun came down, the largest army
assembled by the Dread Empire in over twenty years would effectively be
ended as a fighting force.

The Fifteenth, if taken from the Hellgate, could perhaps tip the
balance. Wekesa had implied it could be dealt with, and so Ranker grit
her teeth and sent near half the forces of Daoine to hurry that fight
along. The Watch, even, though it could have been used elsewhere to
great effect. It was too much like rolling the dice for her taste, but
she was short on alternatives. A miracle was what they needed. Answer
came, to that unspoken prayer. A miracle of sorts. It was not great
sorcery or a clever trick, a Calamity unleashed or strategy revealed at
the last moment. It was a screaming fool riding a flying horse, dragging
an orc by the neck as they crashed into the central bastion.

Which then exploded.

---

Wekesa was unused to feeling admiration for others. It was a sentiment
usually reserved for Alaya or Amadeus, whose aptitudes shone brightest
in areas of no real interest to him. Dumisai of Aksum, the father of the
girl currently giving them some trouble, had occasionally earned a
sliver of respect for his research as well: though not ground-breaking
work by any means, the man's enlightened refinement of old Wasteland
rituals was often worth a second glance. But even the insights of the
man who might have once contested his Name were ultimately the work of a
second-rate sorcery. Dumisai was to sorcery what goblins were to
engineering -- a skilled craftsman, but very rarely the herald of true
innovation. He improved but did not \emph{create}. His daughter, it
seemed, was of a different breed. The Warlock silently studied what
appeared to be a perfectly stable Greater Breach and inclined his head
in genuine respect at the other mage's achievement. This was match for
any work of his that fell under the Dark Day protocol, and truthfully
above most his own devices.

The core of the work was hopelessly Praesi, of course. Pure Trismegistan
design, from the set of secondary stabilizing arrays to the the
displacement of the energy source to the sky in order to limit the
effects of the bleed on the immediate surroundings. Yet Akua Sahelian
had starkly surpassed ever single preceding effort ascribed to that
branch of magical theory with her magnificent use of escapements to
ensure even Keter's Due did not go to waste. It was, he would concede, a
masterful thing. The precision involved was mind-boggling, likely the
result of years of calculations, and the sheer variety of arrays
involved was worthy of praise. Liesse had runic base for flight, for
planar displacement and for repeated Breach ritual use. This might be
the single most variable magical weapon in the history of Praes. It
would be delight and the occupation of entire decades to study her work,
after the Diabolist was killed. Still, reproduction was not possible.
This much he'd already determined. The Greater Breach before him
was\ldots{} simplistic. There'd been a binding inscribed in the heart of
the Hellgate that bound any devil crossing it, along with a mild
compulsion to cross for any who looked upon it, but the binding itself
could only be called incomplete. To function properly, it required one
with the Name of Diabolist to be the one initiating the ritual.

This city-artefact was tailored so that only one soul in all of Creation
could use its full potential, the very same villain who'd built it.

In his estimation, with the right modifications part of the
functionality could be maintained without Sahelian. A Greater Breach
would still be possible to open, though with nowhere as large of breadth
of range and precision. But the devils pouring through that Breach would
be so loosely bound as to be effectively independent. At best, given six
months, Warlock could ensure they were barred from a specific territory.
Any modifications more extensive would require years of research and a
complete redesign of all major arrays: everything was interlinked. The
slightest change would unbalance every other system. It was no wonder,
he thought, that Diabolist had chosen displacement as a protective
measure. Devices this sophisticated had a dangerous tendency towards
fragility, one of the many reasons Wekesa himself preferred to rely on
imbricated forces rather than runic arrays. Amadeus and his liability of
an apprentice were currently traipsing the belly of the beast, and he
was glad to have impressed on his old friend the dangers of meddling
with such delicate arrangements. He would know better than start
breaking every array in sight, and though the girl was an ignorant thug
who did not she would be reined in by her teacher's orders.

Gaze leaving the Breach, Warlock considered the soldiers fighting before
it. The Fifteenth was making short work of the devils --
\emph{akalibsa}, of all things, how very provincial of Sahelian. Some
things were not so easily outgrown, it seemed. The Knightsbane's
daughter, by the looks of it, had arranged some sort of tactical trap
and torn apart the devils with the same horsemen her mother was famous
for breaking. The irony was not quite worth a chuckle, but close.
Annihilation did not seem to be the intent here, curiously enough. A
path of retreat had been left open to the \emph{akalibsa} and the devils
were fleeing through it, simultaneously destroying the last of their
formation and preventing more devils passing through the Breach by their
panicked stampede. Within moments a mass of shield-locking legionaries
had the opening secured, and sappers lined up behind them. A killing
field in the making, Wekesa thought. Clever girl. This was, he decided,
nearly sufficient preparation for him to beging intervening. Lashing the
the shapeshifted devils that dragged his chariot, the Sovereign of the
Red Skies began his descent.

---

Masego had always deeply disliked when scholars spoke of sorcery as an
art, for it was anything but. Mages were often compared to painters and
singers, spellcrafting termed as a piece instead of the precise formulas
they truly were. It was only the ignorant who found more beauty in such
subjective matters than in the perfect arithmetic of imposing one's will
upon Creation. There was greater splendour in one flawlessly balanced
formula than in all the statues and painting of the world. It was why
Hierophant had become who he was, the reason for his love of witnessing
that which was previously unknown: to fit and explain what was once a
mystery within the greater frame of sorcery was the most genuine act of
grace possible to one of mortal flesh. Every such truth brought into the
light of day expanded the span of Creation as a whole, perhaps the only
action that could ever accurately be called selfless. After all, beyond
the petty squabbles of Above and Below lay a deeper truth. \emph{We are
rats in a cage, one and all, and the choice spoken of in the Book of All
Things is but a trick. The true choice is this: to claw at the other
rats, or seek the edge of the cage.}

Masego, like his father before him, had chosen purpose beyond the
largely pointless vagaries of transient existence.

It was unfortunate in some ways that the insights he had gained
following that purpose would not be used in the very kind of squabble he
would rather avoid entirely, but on occasions concessions must be made
for the ones we loved. Besides, he would gain much from victory today.
The Sahelian artefact that allowed one to scry beyond Creation, for one,
and unrestricted study of the Diabolist's own sorcerous efforts. Of
course, victory had to be obtained first. This was proving more tedious
than he would have liked. It was a noted fact that demons, for reasons
not yet understood, did not affect each other. When two different such
entities attempted to contaminate with their essence the same portion of
Creation, one saturated the fabric of reality first and the other's
effect simply washed over it. The phenomenon had not been studied in
great depth, sadly, or rather it had but that research had not been
preserved. Practitioners who kept extensive notes on matters demonic
tended to be\ldots{} affected by the very keeping. Their immediate
surroundings as well. Even too much knowledge of such entities had its
costs, and it was not false archetype to consider diabolists as
particular prone to derangement. If not worse.

Still, it was quite fascinating to watch the spreading corruption of
Hierophant's own creation check the efforts of the three demons that
were attempting to destroy him. Like ink in water the drop of ichor he
had inserted in the thread of the dimension had spread, but unlike ink
had not thinned in the spreading. It had, if anything, strengthened.
This had proved problematic in some ways -- he now had to regularly
craft a secondary control spell for his guidance and transfer the reins
to it lest the corruption reach him directly -- the effectiveness could
not be denied. Already he had smothered Madness in a globe of corruption
it was completely failing to breach in any way. There was, as far as he
could tell, not so much as a single mote of bleed.

``Fascinating,'' Hierophant murmured, cocking his head to the side.

The Beast of Hierarchy was proving more difficult to restrain.
Abandoning what could be considered `offensive action' for its kind, it
had instead replaced a law regarding space that Masego had yet to grasp.
Even within this closed realm, where the boundaries and rules had been
defined by his will alone, it managed to escape his sorcery
effortlessly. He'd been reduced to using a defensive screen of
corruption to prevent the demon of Order falling upon him, which was
little different from setting fire to his own garden so thieves could
not get at the cabbage. Apathy was something of a mixed bag. Though once
the largest threat it was no longer, yet to consider it contained would
be something of a stretch. While immobile, it was so because its essence
had forged an envelope of inertness around it. Corruption could not
breach it, and it kept disrupting efforts to wrap fully around its
envelope. Frustrating, this. Anything less than perfect containment was
no containment at all, with creatures such as these. Still, this was
only preparation. The attempts at containment had been purely to sate
his curiosity, the true thrust of his offensive would begin -- ah, now.
Sufficient corruption had been spread. Hierophant extended his hand, and
from his pocket dimension a long shaft of wood fell.

A gift from Catherine, who truly could be a good and understanding
friend when she tried. The old standard was long rid of any cloth but
the runes were what truly mattered, carved into the old wood, and with a
subtle shiver they responded to his will. The same demon of Corruption
he'd once fought in Liesse came out screaming into his realm, leashed to
his will. Within moments, not that time had much meaning here, it
cornered the Beast of Hierarchy. With the others stationary, he could
finally act. Trying to kill demon with demon would, of course, be as
attempting to drown a fish. But it was not the demons he sought to
affect. Corruption crept down the bindings the rebel mages placed upon
their arsenal of ruin, sliding down the sympathetic links like thick
oil. Masego smiled, and without ever leaving his realm found himself
looking into the terrified eyes of mages hidden behind layers and layers
of ward.

``Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,'' he said.

The demons struggled and screamed. For a moment he pondered offering a
pithy line to send them off with, but he did not have a knack for such
matters.

``Try not to scream,'' he suggested. ``It only makes it worse.''

Corruption surged. They did not listen.

---

Juniper watched the devils scatter like rabbits before her legion and
felt only visceral satisfaction at the sight. Minimal casualties. The
three wedges of Callowan cavalry had struck the dog-devils like a
falling hammer. Collapse complete and immediate, thousands of bodies
friend and foe moving according to her will in perfect harmony. The
Hellhound had never enjoyed a roll in the hay half so much as she did
this single moment. It must have been the way Pickler felt, she thought,
when some device she'd made worked perfectly. That instant where the
cogs turned and the chord snapped and the perfect suddenly
\emph{clarity} it brought. She felt flushed and feverish, and beyond
that hungry for more. Another battle, another moment where the arrow
loosed by her mind found the target and hit the bullseye with that
palpably pleasurable thump. Gods, she had been blessed to be born in
these years of the Empire. With war after war tumbling towards her like
a drunken lover, offering the bounty of one field of steel after another
with open arms.

Juniper felt Aisha's stare lingering on her, and so wiped away the
unseemliness on her face before the Taghreb decided to comment on it.
Teasing would only detract from the glorious lightness now running
through her veins, no matter whose mouth it came from. Besides, she knew
Aisha had touched this feeling as well. The orc remembered the war games
of the College, the bright eyes shining on Aisha Bishara's face when
Wolf Company tore into the flank of some astonished company of fools
with fire and sword. Her Staff Tribune saw more parchment than steel,
these days, but it was inside her still. The desert tribes of the
Taghreb had been raiders as famed as her own people, in the olden days
before the Miezans came. The Empire liked to paint a veneer of
civilization over its peoples, nowadays, but blood always ran red. No
one could escape the truth of that.

``The Deoraithe,'' Juniper said, gathering herself together. ``Report.''

Aisha's face bobbed down, though not deep enough to hide the smirk on
her lips.

``Lord Hierophant's removal of the demons further muddled their
deployment,'' the Staff Tribune said. ``But we have three thousand
archers and the same in foot headed our way. Duchess Kegan has,
reluctantly, ceded operational command over them.''

``And the Watch?'' Juniper gravelled.

``Marshal Ranker has granted us use of it,'' she replied, cheeks
dimpling. ``The Lord Warlock's statement that the gate could yet be
ended has her\ldots{} invested.''

The battle's other front was too far for the Hellhound to have a good
look at what was happening, but the situation did seem dire from what
she could see. Both flanks had fallen back behind the palisades and
ditches they'd once taken, and the Deoraithe in the centre were rushing
too slowly to fill the void left by the demons. If the Hellgate could be
taken care of quickly enough, the Fifteenth could move up to reinforce
the flagging legions. Swiftness was of the essence, more than ever.

``The Order of the Broken Bell is to pursue the fleeing devils,''
Juniper said. ``Prepare fresh lines for a push into the Breach. I'll
want the Watch to back them as soon as possible, too. But before
that\ldots{} The Warlock said he needs us to clear a space. So we'll
clear him a fucking space.''

General Juniper of the Fifteenth Legion bared her fangs.

``Tell Pickler her moment's come -- \emph{engines free}.''

---

Senior Sapper Pickler of the High Ridge tribe hopped from one foot to
the other, feeling like the young girl she'd never before been. Finally,
\emph{finally} the Hellhound had let her off the leash. All this talk of
strategic surprise, of comparative advantages and blah blah blah.
Gobbler be witness, the orc could prattle on like an old raider
sometimes. A depression in the grounds had one of her engines bumping as
the oxen tore it free and the goblin turned on the legionary driving the
beast.

``You,'' she hissed. ``If there's a single cog askew, I swear on all the
Gods I will flay you piece by piece and \emph{make you eat it}.''

The goblin paled and started babbling excuses, but she cared little for
his inanities. She crept to her lovely scorpion and stroked the rough
wood, checking the beauty for damages. Nothing. Good. Not that she'd
take back her words. Pickler was not her mother and despised all she
stood for, but she was matron-blood nonetheless. Punishments as unusual
as they were cruel were her birth right.

``I'm watching you,'' she barked at the legionary. ``If you don't have
any use for your eyes, you despicable little vandal, maybe Robber should
have them instead.''

Satisfied the ignorant masses had been sufficiently cowed, she stalked
forward to the gate. Juniper was fronting heavies with sappers behind
them, breaking up the devils that had begun pouring out again with
sharpers and then letting them wash up against the shield wall, but that
was just a temporary arrangement. They needed to pierce through, since
the Warlock apparently had some kind of scheme to close the gate. Not
her concern, and she'd not asked for further information. Instead she
made her way to the front and began haranguing the legionaries to
prepare themselves for a parting when her precious ones arrived, which
would be soon though if the oxen-drivers hurried and messed up her
engines there was going to be a rousing bout of crucifixions following
shortly. And not the nice kind. She'd find the rusty nails herself, if
she had to. Ten scorpions of her own design were set down as she
hovered, and two of the never-before unveiled Spitters. Getting Ratface
to sign off on the logistics of providing ammunition for her two latest
wonders had been like pulling a bald dragon's teeth, but she'd gone
above his head and arranged for the Squire to stamp her seal of
approval. It had been an easy sell, given the other woman's love affair
with all forms of wanton destruction.

That the half-blood Deoraithe had immediately suggested goblinfire be
used as ammunition as well was one of the things that helped Pickler
believe there might be worth in following her.

Ratface had later redeemed himself of his sins by using his `talents' to
ensure her childhood dream came true. Before her, delicately being set
down on the ground and deployed, were the first ten built examples of
the gloriously-named Pickler Model of the Imperial Artillery Templates.
The Supply Tribune had managed to push the official acceptance of the
design in Ater with only three separate instance of blackmail and
bribery, a splendid navigation of the maze of squabbling and
obstructionism that was the Imperial bureaucracy. Fast-tracking the
review had not even required a murder! The Taghreb would truly have made
a halfway-decent consort to a Matron, had he been born of her people.
Not a breeding partner, of course, or even a first consort -- those were
expected to be properly demure and covered in scars -- but perhaps a
fourth or even third.

The scorpions she ordered set in a straight line, with some room between
them, and the sappers taught to handle them eagerly began field
preparations. The two Spitters were set at an interval behind, the
munition carts behind them very carefully unloaded. Even with
cloth-filled crates carrying them on wheels had been risky business, but
if that much had not been possible the Hellhound would have never
allowed them to be deployed. She had no appreciation for real
engineering, their general. Pickler did not usually hold battlefield
command, save in case of sieges, but in this particular instance she had
left behind the general staff to personally supervise. She'd told the
others it was to keep an eye on finicky machines, but that was an ugly
lie. Her designs were flawless. She just wanted to seem them unveiled
for the first time from up close. Sauntering ahead, the Senior Sapper
gauged the wind and distance before ordering a last series of
adjustments. Then she screamed for the legionaries ahead to part, and
glory unfolded before her very eyes.

Ten bolts sprang forward, steel-tipped, and shattered their way through
the first three ranks of stone-garbed devils. Before the killing was
even over, the strings on her scorpions loosened and with a mere pulling
of the lever reset. The wooden store above the scorpion's length
unclenched and another bolt dropped. \emph{Chak}, and death flew. Lever,
drop. \emph{Chak}, and death flew. A manic grin split the goblin's face
as she watched the poetry of the world in motion, the work of her mind
and hands unleashed. This, she thought, was worth every strapping she'd
received for stealing chalk and drawing designs on den walls. Worth
every bleeding she'd suffered through for tinkering with her own hands,
disgracing her line by doing man's work. It was worth her mother
smilingly telling her she'd slit her throat and leave her body to the
buzzards if she ever tried to return to the tribe. The Pickler Models
scythed their way through the devils, until the six shots in the stores
were emptied and the wooden boxes had to be changed. In that heartbeat,
as the devils surged again, the Spitters fired. It pained Pickler to say
it, but these were not her sole work. The engines were, of course, but
not the ammunition.

Alchemy -- the use of it of course, not the production as that secret
would never leave the Eyries -- had never been a true interest of hers.
She had designed the clay projectiles, but within the concoction that
awaited was Robber's own recipe. Three sappers had gone blind in the
experimental process and twice that many deaf, but as she saw the
Seedlings fly she thought it had been entirely worth it. Only one per
Spitter, who as machines were almost more a long sling than anything
resembling a scorpion. Flat but angled upwards, kept as close to the
ground as possible to limit the shaking. They were not yet able to be
fired from behind a shield wall, though already she was planning a
second model that would remedy that weakness. The Seedlings, each half
as large as trebuchet stone, arced up and then fell among the throng of
devils. What ensued was sheer artistry. First an explosion, for sharpers
had been used to make much of the substance, but then spread a blinding
white flame spilling from that blast. The devils screamed, screamed as
the fire seared flesh and stone and cooked them alive. After seventeen
heartbeats the flame went out, the longest Robber had been able to
maintain the burn when exposed to open air.

When the flames winked out, the scorpions had been pushed forward five
feet. The stores began their mechanical work as the Spitters were
advanced five feet as well thenloaded anew. And so began the push
forward, heavies closing on the sides of the gate and forcing the devils
into a hall where only death awaited. Senior Sapper Pickler of the High
Ridge tribe cackled, and paid no attention to the weak-bellied
legionaries around her that flinched at the sound.

Screams filled the air as firing resumed, and it was the song of
\emph{progress}.
