Winter winds whipped over the low fields that crept to Mont Brugele as long grasses fluttered by. An encroaching army traversed the sea of blades, clad in great armor with few below the par. The accoutrements they bore were those of prestige, poleaxes and halberds of the most modern designs. Few among them carried explosives for the blasting powders they rely on had only emerged within this lifetime. Bombs, fragmentary in design and meant to cause suffering were the choice of this marching army. Little of them was visible through the fields, their full appearance only presenting as the grasses receded and gave way to shorter brush. They were Imperial Knights bearing armor stained beige, bolts of fabric adorned with golden lace tracing choice gaps. The twin-banners of the Crow and Phoenix beat ahead with the winds at their back.

At the center of the knightly muster was an imperial palanquin topped with brutalized remains, bisected and part charred. The blackened husk was a stark contrast to the smooth wood and gilt beneath it. It stunk of acrid death, the few bits which weren’t charcoal were grossly festered by now with winter’s chill not yet preserving it. The Lord-Inquisitor, rarely treading the fields, marched ahead of the Palanquin with his hand firm upon the pommel of his side-sword. They were going to meet with a vanguard force of the self-proclaimed Archbishop to deliver the remains of his son.

“‘Tis this truly necessary, Brusa?” The sergeant beside him groaned, barely audible in the scraping of reeds.

The Lord-Inquisitor laughed, sauntering ahead, gloved palm rested atop his side-sword’s pommel. He was a plain ascad, soft of face but well scarred by wars long past. “Would you rather we take Fjori by siege, burn them all to the dirt and build a shiny new fort over its ruins?”

“We could kill his vanguard and leave one to tell the tale.” He sneered over at Brusa. “Why play politics with theocratic terrorists?”

“You’re eager.” Brusa laughed again, lower this time. “I’m sure you’ve no respect for ascadian life but we’re visitors, and it’s bad manners to barge into one’s house and kill them.”

The sergeant attempted to speak again, the same chill in his perplexed gaze, but Brusa was quick to interrupt. “And, of course, the lives of these high fairblooded men would best not be wasted.”

The sergeant grew a bit stiff, agitated by the Lord-Inquisitors nonchalance, especially how it mingled with his authority.

The force that tailed them were the peretii, blocks of dismounted knights plucked from the prestigious offices of stability, the merchant-knights and the agriculturalists, the ones who oft stood against bandits. Imperial Ascadia was a state mired by treaties and laws, their armies solely comprised of knights which spent their days as functionaries of the local states they lived within. Every noble family gave their children up to the empire as knights, a role once specific to both waging war and lording land. As Ascadia dragged itself ever further, trading hands from dynasty to dynasty, the knights became a new and more confusing tool. Warrior functionaries.

These were plain men, not warriors, though each was skilled enough to kill an ascadian with a sword he oft had little experience swinging it beyond that. The empire of course tried its best to keep this from being a detriment, the offices of stability as they were called were those which functioned less as bureaucrats and more as local guards. Supplements to what would be the job of either militias or ‘magisterial guard’, should the locale be privileged to have a functioning court beyond a lynching tree. These were of course the rowdiest of them, they seemed more like thugs than esteemed men of noble rank.

The sergeant was no different, he held himself like a crook who expected this encounter to be a bloodbath, for heads to roll for the sake of rolling them. The empire was rife with this manner of rot.

Brusa, though, was indifferent. He was aloof, almost unaware of the world around him. His armor was beautiful, polished steel trimmed with visible lengths of gold that twisted off the borders of his plates to form intricate lacelike patterns tiny enough to resemble rigid cloth. Beautiful weaves of cloth traced his articulated suite of plates, drifting against the hammering winds alike a magisterial gown.

He was, of course, from whence true law flowed.

The group was mostly silent, or rather bereft of any valuable words worth reciting for much of the remaining march. The quelleres, rowdy as they were, turned the wind whipped rattling of plates into a cacophony of what amounted to little more than a ruckus. Soon enough the hill had been crested and the armies of Hessi were visible ahead. Brusa chuckled lowly; his voice carried by a lull in the winds.

“Here we are, sergeant. I defer to your judgment; shall we lead our men to die?”

The sergeant grunted, chin wrinkling within his bevor and eyes narrowed behind his thin visor slit. “‘Tis no vanguard, Brusa.”

“You truly expected one?” Brusa snorted, lifting his free hand overhead. “Hither, let’s deliver the boys remains.” He headed further, stumble-sliding his way down the sheer face of the jagged, dunelike hills to meet what amounted to an army more than a vanguard. They numbered over 10 centuries in count, ranks of men who held cold steel leant against earthwedged stakes, beside each was what seemed like loader of sorts. He held a length of twine attached to a stick as well as a sword to accompany it. Countless other varied men, no unity amongst them in their individual panoplies of war.

As soon as the force in whole was nearly beneath the hill, the palanquin was sat atop it, not risking the disposal of the body on the way down.

Brusa pushed an arm out, holding the sergeant at bay. “Deference over, I’m back in charge.” He said flatly, stepping out to meet the peculiar head of the mismatched force of men. He wore a fine chestplate, bearing Brusa’s moreso than that of the seemingly archaic ruffians that trailed him. He wore little else though beyond tassets that dangled beneath the cuirass. What wasn’t covered in armor was decorated in perplexing patterns of cloths which seemed to jar and meld whatsoever style they pleased. He had a large, feathered cap atop his head, a massive plate bevor jutting from his chestpiece to shelter his face from strikes below.

“What an auspicious occasion, no?” Brusa remarked to the eccentric ascadian ahead of him, his clothed arms draped over the massive sword strewn across his shoulder.

“‘Tis one way to put it, Magister.” He said thick in accent, his words seeming to drag to the back of his throat as they formed. “You’ve the body of Van Hess, yes?”

Brusa pushed a hand against his hip, confused. “Aye, we’ve Volturno Hessi.” His voice clearly unsure.

“Mmm.” He said, walking back to his force unceremoniously, Brusa began to sneer as he realized this.

There was time, at least, for the men were slow to act once the signal was finally given. They fumbled with their matchsticks as the harquebussiers attempted to take sights. Brusa whistled sharply, the knights scattering and breaking into some manner of deranged charge, the sergeant struggling to get his bearings before he ran ahead.

It hadn’t taken long for the cascade of shifting plates to be overtaken with the sharp snaps of ignition and release, many of which either missed their mark or dully thudded upon the heavy cuirasses of the charging ascads-at-arms. The Riflemen ducked to the side, the second line immediately opening fire. This time screams rung out as the second line put down fire, distance having been closed between the buccella and the imperial muster. Brusa watched in horror as blood erupted from the open faces of helmets, dented backwards as they flew off the heads of their late owners. He unsheathed his side-sword and surged ahead in an effort to do something of any value. The captain of the gathered force was quick to engage his foes, beside him were men of similar stature and attire, lofting heavy blades or heavy polearms. They struck with purpose, breaking past the helmets of their victims or fishing their blades in whatever gaps they could find.

The Knights of course had little issue resolving the numerical concern, their poleaxes and halberds were hungry, and their wielders showed no lack of the same. Heavy lateral swings drove arms into cuirasses, severing them at the joints. They struck for necks, ankles, anywhere they could fine. They executed the harquebussiers with little remorse beyond the hesitation their skulls forced at the apex of their thrusts.

It was hideous, gratuitous carnage with the few ascadians poised for melee being overwhelmed by the volume of violence being imparted upon them. Brusa had not a chance to intervene in what was moreso a quelling than an act of war, he simply watched with his blade dragging behind him, fingers loosely clasped upon the hilt.

The sergeant had gotten ahold of the captain, his fist reaching behind the man’s bevor as his face was bloodied by the articulated joints of the knight-captains gauntlet. His free hand gripped the bevor for dear life as repeated strikes brought the man ever closer to the feet of charity, discarding him once his responsive twitches faded to naught.

Brusa parted as he let the imperial vultures pick the carcasses of the dead, his brain stormy with perplexion. The office of Lord-Inquisitor has not seen any deployment since the tender Crisis of the last imperial era, the Crisis which sired the Brusa of this day. A Brusa whose eyes glaze over at violence, who sees in the faces of every man the same horrified glare he witnessed in the trenches shy of his birth city, wave over wave of once-ascads breaking themselves ever-farther into the imperial heart as he seized the tender office he holds today from the bloodied hands of his father taken by that very crisis not too long before.

He hadn’t remembered war like that, not for so long. He was a man of spontaneity with an office nearly equivalent to emperor, his word carried with it a force beyond law, and he enjoyed what many would consider vigilantism had he not the authority to do it. But this went beyond that, this wasn’t mere acts of justice or soirees to resolve minor disputes as a sheer act of boredom.

This was gross and almost sobering, a reminder that there exists within the hearts of the empire a culture that defies the piety of the charitable, one that Brusa would not long forget. As he trudged to the nearest legionary lodge his thoughts raked over the details of the preceding events in a clarity his clouded head had not mustered for what was likely decades by this point.

By the time his fist hammered against the lodge’s door, night swallowing the world around him as the winds grew colder and harder.

He was met bet a familiar, almost unwelcome face. The cold, sapphire gaze of the Subherus of the Legio Cacciare.

“Lord Inquisitor.” The boy remarked with a hand against his hip. He was donning heavy, baggy woolen clothes of muted colors. He was tall, though Brusa still had the clearance to sneer down at him entirely without intending to.

“Master Fania.” He sighed, smiling as he reached out to ruffle the young sorcerer’s icy hair, his plated hands snagging hairs and parting them from his scalp to seemingly no retort.

“You’re far from Provvidenza.” The Legionary said, stepping away. “And dressed for what I can clearly tell you hadn’t done.”

Brusa walked past the boy with clear exhaustion beneath those warplates. He was quick begin parting plates from their underlying padding, scattering them upon some manner of plush bag, clearly intended to be sat upon. Brusa rolled his striking arm as he finally dressed down to his clothen form, dropping upon one of the plush pouches with a groan. “And how have you been, Cecco?” He said as he crossed his legs, a choice few joints cracking as he did.

“As I always am at the lodges.” He said flatly. “Burdened with drudgework and waiting for something to do.”

“Is the drudgery not welcome?” Brusa remarked to the perpetually agitated Legionary now glaring down at him from part-way across the room.

“No, ’tis not welcome Lord Inquisitor.” He sighed. “We’ve bandied words over this countless times before.”

“Ah, young Cecco I must admit it all starts to meld together past a point, the arrogant entitlement of youth.” He grinned.

“You’ve always a mind to incite, don’t you Brusa.” Cecco said sharply, his gaze softening as he dragged back a chair and sat upon it. “Now you can answer to my prior observation, you’re dressed to kill and you don’t oft play quellere d’ascad so far from your perch.”

“Imperial affairs, Inquisitor.” Brusa smarmed. “I shant burden you with the details.”

Cecco groaned at his superior, pushing himself back up as he made way to a wet larder not far from the cooking area in the lodge’s farthest corner from the door. Wet squelches, mildly repugnant to the older Inquisitor, emanated from the pantry room before Cecco emerged with cuts of fresh meat. “I presume you’re hungry, Brusa.” He said as he discarded the meat atop a prep surface nearby the stove he promptly stocked with hunks of charcoal. He dropped a torch to ignore it and retrieved a skillet.

In time the night faded, giving way to a warm reminiscence of recent days and a convenient avoidance of any discussion of the events freshest to Brusa’s mind. With that they retired to their beds, warm with meal for the morning to come.