CHAPTER 56: The Blackwood's Whisper
The Blackwood Forest – Imperial Sweep Team, Days After Highcourt's Cleansing
The air in the Blackwood Forest was thick, not with its usual damp quiet, but with the acrid scent of scorched earth and the lingering, metallic tang of fear. Major Vargus, a veteran Legate commander known for his ruthlessness, ran a gloved hand over his sweat-streaked brow. His company of Legates, reinforced by a dozen Purifiers led by Father Belmor, moved through the dense undergrowth with grim precision. Lord Marshal Daegarn's orders were absolute: find the Red Veil witch, Seyda, and eradicate every last trace of her profane cult. This forest, now, was a funeral pyre in the making.
"Nothing, Major!" Sergeant Borin, his face pale, called out. "No signs. No trails. It's like the earth just swallowed them."
Vargus grunted. For days, they had swept, burned, and blasted. They had strung up suspected sympathizers from the ancient oaks, their dying cries swallowed by the vast, indifferent trees. They had purged isolated cabins and burned down hidden clearings. The Purifiers had chanted themselves hoarse, their brazers spitting fire, convinced they were driving out demons. Yet, the forest remained empty of a tangible foe. And terrifyingly full of absence.
Father Belmor, his eyes burning with zeal, waved his brazer staff, chanting louder. "They hide in the shadows! They are the profane breath of the Serpent! We must cleanse this corruption!" He pointed to a small, crudely drawn symbol on a blackened tree trunk – a twisted version of the Flame Church's eye, similar to the marks Seyda's Veil had left in the Serpent's Spine. "The mark of the witch! They defile the very wood!"
Vargus felt a flicker of unease. His Legates, men who had faced down charging cavalry without flinching, were jumpy. They fired at shadows, at rustling leaves, at the faint, imagined whispers of the wind. They knew the stories of the Red Veil, of men driven mad, of patrols vanishing. Highcourt's "cleansing" had only amplified the chilling legend.
Seyda's Vigil – The Unseen Hand
Deep within the Blackwood, where the Imperial fires had not yet reached, Seyda stood on a high, moss-covered outcrop, her crimson robes blending seamlessly into the twilight gloom. Her veil was drawn, but her eyes, smoldering with that faint internal light, observed the Imperial sweep with chilling detachment. Below her, the distant sounds of axes, screams, and booming chants were mere echoes, a predictable symphony of the Empire's rage.
Around her, ten of her most devoted Red Veil acolytes moved with unnatural silence, their faces marked with war ash and luminescent fungi. They were not defending. They were observing. Learning. Adapting.
"They burn the innocents, Lady," Sister Lyra whispered, her voice tight with cold fury. "They make them suffer for the Sovereign's triumph."
Seyda's head tilted. "The suffering is not for his triumph, child. It is for their own blindness. They choose the pyre, not the truth. Every scream is a new seed planted in the despair of the Empire. A seed that will bloom into rebellion, given time." Her gaze drifted to the north, towards Duskwatch. Kael had given her a new message, one of triumph and retribution, but her true weapon was still the invisible wound she inflicted.
She raised a hand. The acolytes moved. Not to engage. Not to defend. To spread.
The Red Veil split into smaller cells, melting into the deeper shadows, moving east and west, circling the Imperial sweep. They would not fight Krell's Legates head-on. They would make sure the Legates found exactly what they feared.
They left subtle signs: a single blood-stained cloak, tied to a low branch in an impossibly high tree; faint, almost imperceptible trails leading into dense thickets that ended abruptly in an empty clearing; the lingering scent of their ritual ash near an abandoned Imperial campsite; a single, child's wooden toy left meticulously on a burned-out hearth, a silent accusation.
They also left bodies. Not Legates. But Imperial deserters, caught trying to flee the hungry march, or sick men from the main host who had wandered off. The Red Veil found them first. They were discovered later by Imperial patrols, not dismembered, but carefully arranged, their eyes wide with fear, their faces eerily peaceful, a small, charred bone charm resting on their chests. A message from the darkness: You cannot escape. And we know you are afraid.
Vargus's Desperation – The Unseen Enemy
Days blurred into a maddening, fruitless hunt for Major Vargus. His men were pushed to the brink of exhaustion, constantly on edge. The forest refused to yield its secrets. They found evidence of rebels—the burnt charms, the unsettling arrangements of bodies—but never the rebels themselves. The elusive enemy, always just out of reach, fed their paranoia.
Father Belmor, his voice raw from constant chanting, became more frantic. He saw demons in every shadow, heresy in every creaking branch. He demanded more fire, more cleansing, more screams. Vargus let him. Anything to give his men a tangible target for their fear. But the real enemy was invisible, silent, and insidious.
One Legate, found later huddled in a small hollow, was uncontrollably weeping, muttering about "red eyes in the smoke" and "the serpent's prayer." He had to be dragged back, gibbering, a stark reminder of the psychological battle being lost. The men hated the forest, hated the silence, hated the Purifiers' relentless zeal, but most of all, they hated the ghosts that preyed on their minds.
Major Vargus himself felt the creeping dread. He had always believed that steel and discipline could overcome anything. But this was a war against sanity. They were losing it, inch by agonizing inch.
The Message to Daegarn – A Growing Scar
Weeks later, a grim, battle-weary raven arrived at Lord Marshal Daegarn's tent. Krell's report from the Serpent's Spine detailed the continued, brutal stalemate, the high cost in Legate lives, and the maddening psychological warfare waged by Seyda. Vargus's report from the Blackwood echoed it: the elusive, terrifying Red Veil, the relentless haunting, the growing madness in his men.
Daegarn stood over the map, his face a mask of grim resolve. The Imperial Legions, this great hammer of the Empire, were stuck. Starved by Kael's earth, haunted by Seyda's ghosts, bled by Virelle's unseen hand, and now bogged down in the deep earth of the Serpent's Spine. The grand advance was failing. Highcourt's brutal cleansing had only ignited a deeper, more pervasive fear among the populace.
He slammed his fist on the table, rattling the pins. He had unleashed fury. He had commanded judgment. But Kael was proving him wrong at every turn. The Emperor's fangs were dulled. The very nature of the conflict had shifted.
"Kael," Daegarn growled, his voice raw. "He wins by making us lose ourselves. He turns our strength into our weakness. This is not a war for land anymore. It is a war for the soul. And the Empire… is bleeding from every vein." The psychological warfare, the brutality of the purges, and the widespread terror were scarring the Imperial war machine in ways no blade ever could.