Throne of Steel

Chapter 6 - Promises Broken

When they broke from the roads to march east, they eventually came to Reaper's Corridor. A desolate, rocky landscape formerly home to Separatist troops between their attacks on the Charr's outposts. And the Commander could plainly see why they chose to attack Charr settlements from here. A constant throughout the entire region were the stumps. As far as the eye could see, the ground was covered in the stumps of felled trees, a giant forest, once teeming with life, reduced to dry rocks and tree stumps.

The Separatists chose this region for an obvious reason, as a sign. A reminder of why they fought against the legions, an unignorable glimpse into all the beautiful nature the Charr had destroyed. And as he found out on his nightly talks with Rox and Rytlock, that the point of this gesture flew right over the Charr's heads. They had known about this place for years and it never occurred to them just how much sorely-grown forest had to be chopped down to even make for a sight like this.

In the end, the Commander had to admit to himself that humans and Charr had fundamentally different ways of thinking. The Charr were neither aware of their surroundings and how their actions had changed them, nor did they care to even waste a thought becoming aware. Their minds were occupied only with their base needs. How to eat, how to sleep, how to prepare to defeat their enemies. They saw no point in preserving nature if it didn't serve to give them some advantage over the enemy.

It was perhaps the same thoughtlessness that would set off the first of their real troubles. The legions made it a habit to set up their encampments around the ruins of Separatist outposts and camps, to scavenge for supplies or tools. One such camp involved an improvised woodworking facility, they appeared to repurpose dug-up tree stumps to make tools or other equipment. It was incidentally one of the only places around that had any new trees growing. Broken equipment, loosely put-together and since overgrown furniture, abandoned tents, all kinds of junk piled up around here.

While the scouts were still busy sifting through the stacks of crates, the Imperator made his rounds in search of a suitable place for his noticeably larger tent. When one of his consultants rushed past him, a shot was heard and the Sylvari fell to the ground. The nearest Charr checked on the Sylvari and immediately shouted: "Snipers!" Everyone dropped to the ground or took cover wherever it was possible.

They barely had more than a second to investigate where the shot had come from, when many of the crates burst open in gusts of flames and embers were launched everywhere, setting all the piles of wooden objects on fire.

Imps, small flying humanoids with horns, made entirely of fire, emerged from the crates and flew towards the cowering Imperator. From within one of the larger piles, bits and pieces thought to be random trash like the rest, assembled themselves as if by ghost hands into a large effigy of a Charr. A crudely assembled construct almost as tall as three real Charr, made of iron rods tied and forged frame held together coal or other flammable objects inside. The same fire magic conjuring the imps also set the effigy on fire and animated it into standing up and joining the attack.

The Imperator's guards quickly struck down the imps, but the effigy simply swiped the nearest legionnaire aside with its claws and charged through the opening. When it was about to tower over Smodur, Tribune Rytlock took the initiative raising his sword to press it against the effigy and slow it down.

When Goreblade and then more and more of the Iron legionnaires did the same, they leveraged enough of a force against the effigy's advance to press it back and throw it onto its back. More legionnaires joined them in bashing its frame open and cutting it to pieces. When the effigy's interior gave way to the Charr's repeated strikes, they eventually got to the burning stone powering it and struck it until it shattered.

As soon as it did, the effigy's fires dimmed and the Charr were left to put out the fires they caught in the process. "Find those enemy snipers!"

One legionnaire very aptly asked: "What enemy snipers? It's all our own army as far as the eye can see!"

"Then the enemy is in our midst! Search every thief or sniper you can find! Check their rifles, everyone could be the shooter."

Tribune Desertgrave, decked out in her usual plethora of badges and ribbons took issue with this: "You can't just put all of Ash Legion under suspicion like this!"

"If none of you tried to shoot the Imperator, then you have nothing to fear."

Rytlock got between both of them and reminded them of the obvious: "This isn't a stray shot or a momentary coup attempt. This was planned. If our scouts didn't see this coming from a mile away, whoever set this up was extra careful to hide away the summoning crates. And the shot that sprung it proves it's not just a trap either. We're being watched. Someone with contact to Flame Legion is waltzing in and out of our army like it's nothing."

Goreblade followed up on his comments. "You heard him! This is exactly why we don't bring unpledged gladia on deployments like this! Round up everyone with a sniper rifle and make sure everyone is here with a warband or under a Centurion's command! We find someone unaccounted for, we got our shooter!"

"Or, if they weren't born yesterday, they're already miles away at this point."

"We have to run these checks nonetheless."

Now that the situation somewhat calmed down, more and more turned their attention to the Imperator. He was curled together on the ground, trembling and muttering with Sylvari kneeling around him, looking just as helpless as he did. Under fast and irregular breaths, he muttered. "They're coming for me! They're coming for me!"

Smodur waved at the disheveled tea servant to fill him a cup but instead of holding up his cup, he just grabbed the consultant's teapot and tried to pour larger amounts of it directly into his mouth, missing half of it in the process. "This is - this is death! It's not working! It's too much, I can't do this." He got up and turned around, facing west, opposite from where the entire rest of the army was moving. "Consultants, to me! Account for supplies for the journey…we have to go west!"

"Go where, " Rytlock shouted at him.

"Home - away from here - away from all of this! I have to go! I have to go!"

Charr left and right watched as their Imperator walked through a gauntlet of murmuring voices. More and more Charr voiced their confusion and disappointment as they saw their supreme leader for all its purposes turn tail and run. "What's going on?"

"What is he doing?"

"Where are you going?"

"You can't abandon us like this!"

The more dissent the Imperator got from the Charr around him, the louder and more frantic he got. "Don't speak out of line! Know your betters! I have a grasp of the situation! I assure you I'm in touch! I have to go!"

Rytlock and the Commander kept up with him while the former tried to talk sense into Smodur. "You can't be serious! The Flame Legion isn't going to stop! You can't expect us to just throw ourselves at the enemy while you run away like a coward!"

Brashness like this was enough for the Imperator to stop and draw his sword at Rytlock. "Watch - watch your tongue, Brimstone! I-I-I'm still the Imperator!"

The trembling in his meekly held-up arm gave Rytlock little cause to back down. He instead stayed close to the Imperator with his arms spread wide open to give Smodur plenty of room to strike him down if he had it in him. "Think of all those deserters we had killed! How are you any better than them if you run away now?"

"One more word and you're joining the deserters." They both stared at each other, frozen in motion. Rytlock with his arms stretched out and the Imperator with his sword pointed at him.

The Commander felt that something had to be done, but a foreigner getting between an Imperator and a Tribune would only have worsened the situation. He stared at Tribune Goreblade who was watching this unfold as well. When he realized he was being watched, he soon got the hint and went up to the two others. "Executing a Tribune when we're about to make contact with the enemy forces will only tank our troop morale."

After a few more moments of tense silence between the three Charr, the Imperator pointed at Rytlock. "You owe this man his life. Now don't squander it getting in my way." With that said, he left. Accompanied only by the Sylvari, and the dolyaks and treants that carried their supplies.

As soon as he was far enough so as to not be provoked, the Blood Legion Tribune turned to his Iron Legion counterpart. "Are we seriously just letting this happen?"

"We don't have much of a choice. We'll have to face Flame Legion by ourselves. Ultimately the only actual combatant we lose is the Imperator, the Sylvari made this abundantly clear."

"Abandoned by the highest in command while the enemy Imperator spearheads his own army's advance. There have to be consequences for this or people will say we've lost our bite."

Goreblade shook his head. "They already think so. There wouldn't be any deserters if they didn't." Though with many misgivings, Rytlock accepted that the Emperor was gone and that they had to face the Flame Legion without him. And not long later, the dreaded day came when they passed the mountains towering over the many caves on the eastern edge and got to the carefully carved steep paths connecting the plateau to the Iron Marches far below.

The first unusual detail was their interactions with the convoy. In the distance, the legions' army could see all their warmachines strategically positioned on elevated platforms overlooking the slopes and an Ash Legion Charr from the convoy sought out the Tribunes and confirmed that they had taken position. The convoy was the first to approach them. If someone from the army sought out the convoy, they didn't return to report on it to Tribune Goreblade, but the inference drawn was that any scouts present didn't see it necessary to seek them out for confirmation. They simply assumed that all was in order.

And not long after the very front of the army was half-way over the slopes with troops spread across the length and width almost evenly, something strange happened. The sight of the Iron Marches, clearly visible and devoid of enemies from what they could see, suddenly blurred for a moment and the empty landscape seemed to unravel before their very eyes, leaving behind a colossal army of Charr.

Beside the infantry in robes and suits of armor, the enemy Charr brought carts and vehicles, some of wood and some made of a black metal. All constructed in a way that allowed their wheels to adjust around the uneven terrain. Rows of effigies marched along with their ground troops, mobile attack towers, even small barracks and tents on wheels, pulled along by dolyaks and chained Charr.

The Commander hadn't seen a mass of people this huge since the joint army rallied to liberate Kryta from the Shining Blade. And yet the Flame Legion had amassed an army to rival that - possibly even dwarf it. All by themselves and they were all in one spot. "It's too many…" he mumbled to himself and soon, the inevitable shouts of Charr who agreed came from ahead.

"Enemy contact!"

"Flame Legion! Lots of them! Too many of them!"

"Tight formation! But they're covering so much! How many are they?"

"Fall back! Tribune! Tribune Goreblade!" One of the frontline Iron Legionnaires ran straight back to where the Commander and the others were, fast enough to have to catch his breath by the time he got there. "Enemies sighted! Their army - it's got to be the whole army! They're in the Iron Marches!"

"I can see that, but how is that possible! The marches were empty just a second ago."

"Delusions!" shouted an unexpected voice from above. Imperator Smodur stared down the army from an elevated position on the rocks at the side of the slope and with an abnormal strength in his voice, called down to them. "Just like our delusions of sovereignty in the face of our subjugation by a foreign nation! Too long have we accepted our lot as vassals to Lion's Arch! No, not vassals. Slaves! Slaves To a despotic imperialist force that sees us as merely a pawn for their schemes!"

The Charr were too surprised to take their eyes off the Imperator. The Iron Legion Tribune was stunned with his mouth agape for a moment before he caught himself and mumbled: "Imperator…you returned."

Smodur continued his speech: "At Ebonhawke, we humiliated ourselves, forever defanging ourselves and forsaking the fundamentals of our ways! At Fireheart Rise, we resigned ourselves to playing second fiddle to the Pact and on the shores of Orr, we solidified our place as expendable mercenaries, slaves sent to fight and die on the behest of Lion's Arch. The way of the Charr is one of waging total war and the moment we forsook this, we lost our spirit! "

All the Charr were too captivated to stop and think. Too respectful of the Imperator to question what was happening here. The Commander looked back to the approaching enemy army in the distance. He too had seen it, they weren't there before, this wasn't some kind of maneuver involving hiding places, they crowded the landscape too thoroughly for that to be possible. "It was an illusion. This is the work of me- "

Before he could go on, Rox sneezed and in doing so, lost her footing on the ground. She fell forward over a little rock poking out of the slope and her attempt at catching herself only led to her slipping sideways and soon rolling down. In a moment that felt like a minute, a feeling of dread gripped the Commander's tripped and fell, just like in that minefield and if her luck was as reliable as it seemed, this meant one thing: Whether it was something the Flame Legion had, a large mine, a searing cauldron or something else, something deadly was about to happen and whichever position she rolled to, was the only spot that was safe.

He quickly tipped and then punched Rytlock with enough force to draw his attention and pointed at her. "Stay with her!"

"What?"

"Trust me and do it, now! MOVE" That was all the time he took to warn Rytlock before he rushed after the helpless Charr further down.

Rytlock grumbled but then ran after the other two, while Smodur continued his speech. "Ever since, our path was one of submission, easily tricked and manipulated and so the legions were soon led over a cliff and into the jaws of death!" Rox came to a halt behind the cover of several tilted rocks, close to the edge of the slopes in the north.

While following her and the Commander, Rytlock called for the troops to take cover and tried to get the other Tribune's attention. "Bhuer! It's an Ambush!", but like most others, Goreblade was stuck in the same stupor listening to the Imperator's words.

He soon gave in to the Commander's more insistent waves to follow and get behind the rock formation. It dawned on both him and the Commander that this wasn't Imperator Smodur. If enemy mesmers were involved, then nothing could stop one of them from conjuring an illusion and projecting his voice. Which was why he was so much louder and so different from the Imperator that had left. Much more confident and with no tea or Sylvari anywhere around him.

And after a longer chase under the brooding words of this impostor, the increasingly antagonistic tone of his words all but announced the impending attack. "Death to those who forsake the ways of the Charr! Death to Blood Legion! Death to Ash Legion! Death to Iron Legion! Death to the Black Citadel!"

The wail of a flying mortar shell was heard, followed by a nearby explosion. More and more explosions were heard and felt all around as a deluge of explosives were launched onto the unsuspecting army. "Long live the Renegades! Long live the Separatist movement! Long live Flame Legion! Long live Storm Legion! Long live the Axis Infernalis!"

More shrieks erupted around them as a slew of siege weapons were trained right onto the legions' army. The voices of confused Charr amalgamated into an unintelligible blur between the quakes and bangs of explosions and randomly discharged firearms, the cracking of broken rocks and the hissing of dust launched through the air.

The enemy strikes from above were so frequent, each detonation without a doubt lethal for anyone struck and too fast to spot and dodge - all the Commander and Rytlock could do was stay tucked away in their corner with Rox. A few Charr had followed them here, but it was too cramped to fit too many people into the safe spot and a few of those trying to squish inside were claimed by a stray shell.

By the time the siege died down, almost everyone outside their hiding spot was dead and the bodies piled up at the cleft that made for the only entry point. They had to push and pull several corpses out of the way before they could even get a good look outside and even then, they saw stragglers get shot dead by snipers.

Then they heard footsteps. Along with the clashing of blades and gunfire from more low-range rifles. Rytlock drew his sword and the others followed his example. "They're sending in infantry. Get ready to fight."

And the stray voices shouting short phrases that made little sense without context from seeing what was outside began to come closer. Eventually, a much more human-sounding voice called out: "Commander of the Pact! We know you're there somewhere! Come out with your hands up and we will spare your life!"

The Tribune bore his teeth. "Humans. I should have known."

Before doing anything else, the Commander turned to Rox, who was cowering in the very edge of their little hideout and patted her shoulder. "Good work, your clumsiness and luck saved us." He then joined Rytlock in moving the last few bodies out of the way. "The false 'Smodur' mentioned Separatists and Renegades. If they're behind this, that'll be why they have mesmers backing them up."

The voice resumed calling for him. "Our patience is limited, Commander. The longer you stay in hiding, the fewer the prisoners we take and the more we execute instead!"

The Commander tried to run his mind through all the possible scenarios from here. He couldn't see where all the enemies were, so he had no idea where each one would be. If they tried to fight their way out here, he would only have a single moment to take them by surprise. And he didn't know where their snipers were, so if he had a weak point like a head, he could die from a single shot.

In his case however, he had an advantage. His Death Shroud, assuming the form of, a sentient cloud of pure death magic and to draw the life from all his enemies. As he got ready to run out there, he went through the motions in his mind and spoke the words: "I am death incarnate!" His body diffused into its more nebulous form and he rushed outside to spread what he had for arms, ripping open the arteries of any enemies around him and drawing the blood right from their veins.

For a solid two seconds, he seemed to be succeeding, until something struck right through him. He lost control of his powers, whatever flew through his body sapped his strength to the point where he collapsed on the ground and couldn't maintain focus. He solidified back into his human form and was practically glued to the ground, so devoid of strength was he all of a sudden. "Bullseye!" the gnarly voice of a Charr cheered from above.

When he looked up, several humans in patched-together rags, closed in on him with their rifles raised. "Surrender! We have you surrounded and siege and snipers both aimed at your position!" He recovered enough from whatever that was to push himself back up, but by the time it got to that point, there were already dozens of humans pointing all kinds of weapons at him and the few Charr that had followed.

They had no choice but to put their hands up and a group of humans in torn work clothes came along with cuffs and ropes to tie their hands with and burlap sacks to pull over their heads.

In a single strike, the entire army of the high legions had been obliterated before the Flame Legion could even lift a finger and the last survivors were hauled off to who-knew-where.