Archive of Our Own

To whom it may concern,

Allow me to introduce myself: I am Captain Leraine, commander of the gatefront ruins outpost and loyal servant of Godrick the Golden, Lord of Limgrave and rightful heir to the Elden Throne.

You may be surprised to hear from me, given the unfortunate fate that befell the one hundred and twenty men who held this post before me. I have been informed that the Tarnished, may the Frenzied Flame take him, was responsible for the untimely deaths of most of my predecessors, but rest assured that whatever madness drove him to assault the ruins outpost so consistently seems to have subsided. I have held my position for three weeks now, which I am informed is a record-setting term of office.

This aside, I write to you to make you aware of the deplorable and unsustainable conditions outside of Stormveil Castle. If you have not noticed that the flow of ore and tribute has shrunk considerably, you will soon. The Tarnished, may his bones be ground into dust, has plundered them at every opportunity, but his continued successes over our forces are not the result of any abnormal strength or skill but rather the insufficient quality of our troops.

Besides the fact that our ranks have been noticeably thinned as of late, there is a pervasive and consistent lack of discipline and professionalism among our men. For example, consider the greeting I was given when I assumed my current post at the gatefront ruins…
***
Leraine had to admit, he was disappointed. He was not expecting much, certainly not a parade or salute formation, but he was expecting that someone, anyone, would be on watch to greet him. Leraine did not consider himself an aristocratic man, but he still believed that it was a matter of professional discipline to have a certain amount of respect and deference for one’s commanding officer, and that this was to be shown, at least, by acknowledging his arrival.

It was possible that the outpost had simply not been informed, of course: communication between Stormveil Castle and the outposts had declined as of late. Perhaps they simply did not know he was coming. Leraine decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

This benefit of the doubt was immediately shattered, for as soon as Leraine caught a glimpse of a soldier, that soldier turned around and hollered: “The replacement’s here!”

“One twenty-one! One twenty-one! One twenty-one!” Somewhere within the camp an ominous chanting emerged. A handful of soldiers shambled out into the causeway to see what the source of the commotion was. Some looked like they had just woken up, a few looked like they were drunk. Only one looked sober, alert, or reasonably stable.

“Commander!” That exemplary (already his standards had sunk so low!) soldier exclaimed. “Glad to see you’ve arrived safely.”

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” Leraine lied. “Are you this outpost’s staff officer?”

The soldier laughed. “Oh, no. We don’t really do formalities like that here, at least not anymore. I’m Private Hedeby, sir. We’re all privates, so it’s kind of a first-among-equals type deal.”

“I see. Very… casual,” Leraine noted. Behind Hedeby, a few soldiers were whispering among themselves.

“He looks young,” one whispered, or attempted to.

“He looks like a prick,” one whispered back. “How long do you think he’ll last?”

“Curse is broken,” a third chimed in. “Tarnished isn’t coming around here anymore. He’ll live a while.”

“What makes you so sure it’s broken?” The first soldier replied. “Could be what happened to the last man will happen to him too. I give him a week, tops.”

Leraine strained to hear the men whispering. “Excuse me, Private Hedeby, but what are those men talking about?”

“Er, nothing of import,” Hedeby said. He turned to his men. “Come on now, back to your duties. Don’t stand there gawking!” As the men reluctantly dispersed, Hedeby took Leraine by the shoulder and led him away. “This way, commander. Let’s chat.”

“I must say,” Leraine whispered as he and Hedeby paced down the causeway. “I am not pleased with the state of this camp. I expected more.”

“And I’m sure you did, Commander,” Hedeby said, his veneer of respect giving way to a more natural cynicism. “So I’m going to level with you. These men are no longer used to having a functional or useful chain of command. This is because of the Tarnished.”

“The Tarnished?” Leraine chuckled. “That up-jumped little shit? Isn’t he dead?”

“He has a nasty habit of returning from death,” Hedeby said, stone-faced. “It wasn’t that long ago that he was active around here. In fact, he would regularly raid this very encampment. He would appear, kill our commanding officer, and disappear into the night. Or day, or afternoon, or evening. The fact of the matter is that every time we replaced our commanding knight, he would attack, kill them, and run away.”

“He sounds like a lunatic,” Leraine said.

“You’re telling me,” Hedeby said. He smiled a painful smile. “But the byproduct of this is that we have gone several months without a commander that survived more than a week. So the men are more used to… running affairs themselves now. You may not get the deference or obedience you’re used to.”

“Well, they had better get used to me,” Leraine said. “I’m here to stay.”

“Eleven days is currently the number to beat, if you’re feeling confident,” Hedeby said, clearly unconvinced.

As they walked, Leraine noticed a few men scrawling something on the side of a beached caravan in chalk. Written in what could only be a peasant’s handwriting at the top was Commander # followed by a much newer set of chalk lines that spelled 121. Beneath it, soldiers were scrawling in numbers in columns next to their names.

“What is that?” Leraine asked.

“The betting pool,” Hedeby said, a bit sheepish. “After the forty or fifty death mark, we, er, started a pool. The man closest to how long you last gets the pot. No offense,” he hastily added.

“How am I not supposed to take offense?” Leraine asked. “These men are betting on my life!”

“Well, with respect, we’ve seen a hundred and nineteen of our commanders get murdered by some club-wielding, half-naked lunatic, so forgive me if I don’t get too attached.”

“Wait, a hundred and nineteen?” Leraine asked. He did some mental math. “If I’m one twenty-one, and there were a hundred nineteen murders, what happened to the last guy?”

“Oh, the Tarnished stopped coming after the one nineteen mark,” Hedeby said. “But the soldiers are still convinced your position is cursed. You see, the last commander lasted two days before he died.”

“How did he die?”

“Allergic reaction to rowa stew,” Hedeby said. “In our defense, he never told us he was allergic, and that’s about the only edible plant around here.”

Had Leraine not been wearing a helmet, he would have pinched his nose. He could already feel the headache brewing. The work he would have to do to whip this place into shape…

“I see you’re on the list, Private Hedeby,” Leraine noticed. “You have me down for… four days?”

“And eighteen hours,” Hedeby said. “Roughly the mean value of all our previous commanders’ terms of service. If nothing else, the experience has taught us a lot about statistics.”

“How long was the record, again?” Leraine asked.

“Eleven days,” Hedeby said. “And two hours.”

“And the shortest term of service?”

“Tough to say.” Hedeby furrowed his brow. “Maybe…twelve seconds?”

Marika’s tits, thought Leraine. This strange place was beginning to make a twisted amount of sense.

“I want to place a bet,” Leraine said. “Put me down for a month, and put it under Captain Leraine.”

“Oh, um, sure,” Hedeby said. “But, er, please don’t be offended if no one remembers your name for a while.” He made a halfhearted effort at a chuckle. “We don’t like to get attached.”
***
Fantastic circumstances notwithstanding, it is both disturbing and disheartening to see the men treat the chain of command with such grim levity. As an aside, I have won the aforementioned pool, and the winnings have been reported along with the rest of my expenditures.

But besides a general lack of respect for the chain of command, not to mention a pervasive and primitive predisposition to superstition, the men of this outpost run the camp with morbid detachment and resignation. No doubt this is a result of the purge of the officer corps that the Tarnished, may he be sewn up in the belly of a live camel, inflicted upon this camp in particular.

If we could afford to pay for counseling, I would send all of these men to therapy immediately. Unfortunately, as both you and I know, our coffers have been taxed appreciably as of late without adding the additional expenditure of mental healthcare. Nevertheless, the men may be in need of shore leave, if nothing else.
***
Leraine’s after-lunch inspection of the camp, at least, was not as disappointing as his welcome. Despite the lack of central authority, the soldiers seemed to handle the relative autonomy with some efficiency: each soldier had a roster of duties, some shared, some allotted to the most capable individual (Private Taral, for example, was almost always on chef duty. He was an excellent cook, his accidental poisoning of Leraine’s predecessor notwithstanding). Indeed, his initial shock and dread had seemed overblown…

That is, until he encountered the scare-captain.

Leraine had no idea how he had missed this the first few times he had explored the camp. Tied to a makeshift cross just outside of camp, facing the gatefront, was a strange sort of scarecrow. But instead of being made of straw and quaint farmer’s accessories, the armor of a former Godrick knight, bloody, dented, and soiled with what could only be human waste, was propped up against the cross.

“Marika’s tits,” Leraine muttered, and immediately scolded himself for losing his composure. Knights of Godrick comported themselves with bravery and resolution, no matter what foe they faced. And they certainly did not resort to such vulgar blasphemy as ‘Marika’s tits.’

So Leraine marched back to camp to discover just who the clown bastard was that decided to dishonor a fallen knight in such a fashion, and, more importantly, to prove to himself that he was indeed as brave and polished as any other Godrick knight, and that he didn’t need his uncle’s help to join the officer corps.

The first two soldiers he encountered were Private Ario and Private Prescott, and Leraine privately congratulated himself on having already committed their names to memory. “Ario! Prescott!” Leraine called. The soldiers looked up like deer in the sights of a hunter, equally dismayed that the commander was talking to them as they were to learn that their commander knew their names in under three hours.

“Yes, commander?” Prescott responded. Ario, in lieu of a reply, spat a fat glob of mucus onto the ground.

“I demand to know why you men have dishonored one of my predecessors in such a way!”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Prescott said, knowing very well what he was talking about and desperately bidding for a few more seconds to think of anything that might possibly justify using his dead commanding officer as a scarecrow.

“The scarecrow, damn it all,” Leraine hissed. “You have a Godrick knight’s armor propped up and tied cruciform in front of the ruins.”

“Oh, you mean the scare-captain?” Ario said. Prescott felt his whole body tingle, much the way people who survive lightning strikes can sense the strike a second before it actually happens.

Leraine stopped, dumbfounded. “You named it?” His voice betrayed no disappointment or anger, but sheer incredulity.

Prescott cleared his throat. “Yes, well—”

“Yeah, we called it that because we couldn’t remember his real name,” Ario interjected. He drove the handle of his spear into the ground and leaned on it. “And because it kinda sounds like ‘scarecrow,’ which I suppose he’s supposed to be. Right Prescott?”

“Right,” said Prescott, who could practically feel his pension draining away.

“So let me get this straight,” Leraine said. “Your commanding officer dies, killed by a renegade Tarnished, and you strip him of his remaining possessions so that you can pretend to be farmers?”

Oh fuck, Prescott thought. Please, he prayed, Ario, shut the fuck up. Don’t tell him.

“Stripped? His armor’s still on him,” Ario told him.

Prescott could not see his commander’s face through his knightly helmet, but he heard something between a gasp and a faint sob escape from beneath the visor.

“You strapped the man’s body to a wooden pole, and you didn’t even give him his last rites?” Leraine said, his voice quavering with anger and disappointment. “Tell me, my lovely soldiers, why would one do this?”

“The idea wasn’t ours,” Prescott lied. Ario shot him a glance but remained silent. “The commander after him had the idea, with the plan that the Tarnished would be distracted long enough by it that we might attack and kill him.”

“I thought that was Faris’ idea,” Ario said.

“Well, he might just be telling another of his stories, Ario,” Prescott said. His teeth were grit tight, like he was suffering an amputation without anesthetic.

“Maybe,” Ario said. “But we also thought it would be kinda funny. You know, the scaredy-cat officer becomes the scare-captain.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Leraine said, ignoring his earlier vow not to curse.

“He shat himself,” Ario said. “Pretty badly, as you can see. I think boys went a little overboard giving him details on the Tarnished attacks, personally, because when the Tarnished showed up the guy shrieked, shat himself, and yelled ‘I don’t wanna die!’ roughly in that order. And then, you know, did just that.”

Leraine looked over to Prescott, who could no longer meet his commander’s gaze. Instead, he stared over Leraine’s shoulder at the spot where the Tarnished had appeared so many times before, praying to every god he could think of that the curse wasn’t over and that either he or Leraine would die at the Tarnished’s hand, thus sparing them the greater agony of the present conversation.

“Is this true, Private Prescott?” Leraine asked.

Prescott felt the blood drain from his face. “Yes, sir.”

“Marika almighty,” Leraine muttered. “I can’t—I don’t—I just…” He knit his hands behind his head and sighed. “I lack the words. Congratulations, Privates. I am speechless. You are both dismissed while I ponder the moral and legal implications of this.”

Prescott and Ario saluted and turned away. As Leraine slouched towards the scare-captain, perhaps to give him a proper burial, perhaps to contemplate his own mortality, Prescott grabbed Ario by the arm and yanked him away.

“What the fuck was that?” Prescott said.

“I know, right?” Ario chuckled. “They never notice the first time. Then again, most of them aren’t around long enough for there to be a first time.”

“Why the fuck did you tell him all that?” Prescott hissed. “Are you trying to get us court-martialed?”

“Well, what was I supposed to tell him?” Ario said.

“Literally anything else.”

“Oh, who cares?” Ario turned back towards Leraine, who had disappeared from sight. “I know we couldn’t see his face, but his reaction alone was worth it. ‘I’m going to go ponder the implications of this.’” He stiffened his face and posture in imitation of Leraine.

“We could be court-martialed for this,” Prescott said, distinctly unamused.

“You worry too much, Prescott,” Ario said, and flashed what he believed to be a winning smile. “He’ll be dead in a week anyways, right?”
***
Obviously, I understand that this is a unique situation, caused by the unique circumstances that the Tarnished, may he be forced to fight two Burial Watchdogs at once, inflicted upon this camp. But this is representative of what, from what I have seen, has become an epidemic of indiscipline and psychological imbalance throughout our army.

Chief among the causes of this is the relative lack of development in Limgrave which limits the human contact between soldiers outside of their own units. This is never good for the psyche, and the constant state of alertness and often combat that our soldiers are in, whether against the wildlife, demi-humans (which, depending on the author’s opinion, may be considered among the former, but that is a subject for an entirely different letter) or Tarnished vagrants.

I myself have reviewed the service and psychological records of my men, and I have come to the conclusion that these factors have substantially affected all of them, making them indifferent to human suffering at best. More often, it is worse, manifesting if not in outright sadism (thankfully, none of my current soldiers possess this particular defect, though I have met many who do) then at least in a totally inappropriate lack of respect for and sometimes a sense of humor unhealthily preoccupied with the dead, the bereaved, and war itself.

For example, consider the disciplinary reports of three of my men that resulted in their transfer here. While these reports are months old by now, they are most exemplary of the kind of mindset a disappointingly large portion of our troops have adopted in regards to death, suffering, and mutilation. I have appended relevant excerpts below.
***
Ever since the Misbegotten had rebelled, the Bridge of Sacrifice outpost has suspended its patrols to Castle Morne, though they didn’t realize that the Misbegotten had rebelled until long after the fact. The first patrol that didn’t come back was tragic, but things like that happened. The second patrol that didn’t come back was an unfortunate coincidence. Three times is a pattern, but four, then five, then six, then seven, then eight patrols went missing, and the commander was finally forced to relent to his few remaining soldiers’ demands to suspend patrols on the Weeping Peninsula or face mutiny. “Patrol” became a curse word, associated with a grisly death and the egregious incompetence of their commanding officer.

When the all-clear was sounded, on account of the fact that everyone, friend and foe, at Castle Morne was dead, patrols resumed. Once resumed, it did not take long for the fear and paranoia surrounding “patrol” to quickly recede and be replaced with the usual emotion: boredom.

“God, I fucking hate patrol!” Barson yelled.

North, his compatriot, let out a sound between a groan and a hiss. “Yell a little louder, maybe the officers back at the bridge can hear you.”

“I just might,” Barson retorted, wearing a devilish grin. “GOD, I FUCKING HATE–”

“Barson!” North exclaimed. “Are you trying to get us court-martialed?”

“Holy shit, will you both quiet down?” The soldier in front of them, Private Locke, waved his sword behind him to make his point. “I’m trying to think!”

“You? Think?” North scoffed. “That’ll be the day.”

“Maybe you could do it too, if you didn’t keep shooting your mouth off before your brain catches up.” He knew North couldn’t see it, but Locke rolled his eyes anyway.

“Well, what are you thinking about?” Barson asked.

“Tell you what,” Locke said. “Since you’re so damn bored, let’s play a game. It’s called ‘Guess What I’m Thinking Of Right Now.’”

“Lame,” North muttered. “It’s women with you. It’s always women.”

“And why is it always women, pray tell?” Barson asked.

“Because when’s the last time you, me, or anyone else saw a woman?” North replied.

“Fair point.” Barson scratched his chin. “Oh! We saw a dead villager woman last week. Does that count?”

“Holy shit, no, it does not.”

“Hey! That’s not what I meant. Don’t be gross!” Barson scratched his nose this time. “Is this a bad opportunity to ask if demi-humans count too?”

“It is not women!” Locke shouted.

Undeterred, Barson asked: “What about men?”

Locke snorted. “That’s North’s thing.”

“That was crass,” North said, slightly deflated.

“Maybe. But, it was correct, clearly. Am I wrong?”

Locke heard nothing but the silence of a guilty man in response.

“Of course I wasn’t. Guess again.”

“Fine. Good food?” North asked.

“Nope.”

“Bad food?” Barson asked.

“Also no.”

“Does it have something to do with food?” Barson attempted a comeback.

“No, it does not.” Locke effortlessly shot down his attempt.

Barson made a sad noise, but rallied again. “How about drink?” he said. “Booze?”

“That would be too easy,” North said. “He’s always thinking about booze.”

“I am not!” Locke said, but not without being reminded of the rum ration that was being shipped in at the end of the week.

“Are you thinking about the Misbegotten at all?” North said, eyes scanning the numerous Misbegotten corpses by the roadside. He doubted a dozen aviaries could muster up the sheer volume of feathers and dander they were walking on, not to mention all the bird shit.

“It had crossed my mind.” As North was about to voice a victory whoop, he added: “That was not my original thought, so no, North, you do not win, but we should put the game on pause for now. Does anyone know exactly what happened at Castle Morne?”

“Looks like the Misbegotten went apeshit and killed everyone,” Barson said. “But that’s just a wild guess.”

“They already were apeshit,” North quipped. “Or, more precisely, lion, bird, and lizard-shit. And they left plenty of it behind! Seriously, do you guys not smell it?”

“I’ve been breathing through my mouth,” Barson said.

North snorted. “Don’t you always?”

“Hey!”

“I was asking,” Locke said, restoring some semblance of order, “about why they suddenly died off.”

“An extinction event? Who knows?” North said. “I’m not sorry to see them gone. Creepy bastards.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the magic horse man,” Barson said.

“You mean the Tarnished?” Locke asked.

“Is he the guy that rode his horse at the giant crossbow on our bridge and jumped over it?” Barson asked.

“While heavily armed?” North said. He pursed his lips. “And…scantily clad?”

“The very same. Godrick’s public enemy number one,” Locke said. “You think he had something to do with it?”

“Well, I’m just guessing, but pretty much everything from here to Castle Morne seems to have died less than a week after he passed through.” Barson shrugged.

“If this Tarnished fellow did it, I suppose we should thank him,” North said. “For clearing out all these disgusting half-men.”

“Half is a pretty generous fraction,” Locke said. “But I’ve had my question answered. Whose turn is it now?”

“Barson’s, I think,” North said.

“Oh, I’ve got it!” Barson exclaimed. “Are you thinking of a joke?”

“Correct!”

“Ha-hey!” Barson thrust his spear in the air and delivered a chorus of taunting chuckles in North’s direction. “I win!”

North began grinding his teeth together loud enough for Locke to hear. “If you don’t shut the hell up I’ll make sure that this patrol doesn’t have a zero percent fatality rate, Barson.”

“Doesn’t have a zero percent fatality rate?” Barson stopped his victory lap to ponder this “Is that a double negative?”

“He’s threatening to kill you, Barson,” Locke said.

“I figured. Just making sure.”

“Oh, shut up,” North muttered, ever the sore loser.

Barson and Locke continued snickering, ignoring North’s continued muttering. As they passed the site of another particularly grisly Misbegotten massacre, Barson got an idea.

“North, you better be careful,” he said, a mischievous grin on his face. “If you don’t stop making so much noise, the Misbegotten will come and get you!”

North frowned. “That’s not funny, Barson.”

“What’s the matter, North?” Locke said, feeling Barson’s infectious mischief overcome him. “Are you scared of them?” He stopped in front of a particularly large scaly Misbegotten and prodded it with his spear. The Misbegotten rolled over to face North, its tongue wagging out of its open mouth.

North cringed but held his ground. “No, of course not. Why would I be scared of dead things?”

“Becauuuuuse…” Barson began, taking advantage of North’s inattention, “they’re coming…to EAT YOU UP!”

North turned to Barson and shrieked as he made eye contact with the cloudy, over-large eyes of a dead Misbegotten. Barson had picked up the corpse of a winged Misbegotten and was holding it up like a puppet, waving its arms as if it were still alive and cackling madly.

“FEAR ME, NORTH!” Barson cried out in a shrill, gurgly voice, a poor imitation of the Misbegotten’s cries. “I AM COMING TO GOBBLE YOU UP!”

“That is not funny!” North protested, stamping his foot on the ground for good measure. Locke gasped for breath between guffaws, proving that it was, indeed, funny.

“PRIVATE NORTH. OOOOH, PRIVATE NORTH.” Barson beat the Misbegotten’s arms in a rough imitation of flight and charged at North. North screamed and fell onto his backside. Locke quickly joined him on the ground, doubling over in laughter.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER, NORTH? AFRAID I’M GOING TO EAT YOU? OM NOM NOM!” Barson let go of one of the Misbegotten’s arms and grabbed its jaw, bobbing it up and down in a crude imitation of the aforementioned gobbling.

“Barson, stop.” North was no longer looking at Barson, but at something behind him.

“YOU ARE RIGHT TO BE AFRAID, NORTH!” Barson continued unabated. “I AM COMING TO CHOP UP ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND STEAL YOUR MAIDENS!” The waving of the Misbegotten’s arms reached a feverish speed.

“Barson, stop.” Locke had ceased laughing and was now following North’s gaze into the nighttime scenery behind Barson.

“AND THEN, I WILL DEVOUR YOUR BONES FOR DINNER!” Barson began running in circles, continuing to beat the Misbegotten’s “wings.” “FOR I AM THE FEARSOME MISBEGO—”

Barson came to an abrupt stop, Misbegotten corpse still held cruciform out in front of him. Behind him the whole time, watching him fool around with the Misbegotten corpse, was Edgar, former Castellan of Castle Morne. Around him were several dead Misbegotten, and cradled in his arms was the bloodied body of a woman.

“Oh fuck.” Barson dropped the Misbegotten corpse, which hit the ground with a dull and squishy thump.

“Hello, Edgar,” North attempted. He gestured at the Misbegotten carnage around them. “I take it this was your handiwork?”

Edgar said nothing. He stared back at the three of them, his eyes vacant.

“We’re, uh, sorry for your loss, sir,” Locke said. He cleared his throat.

Edgar continued staring at them, a faint yellow light glimmering in his eyes.

“Are you, uh, gonna report this?” Barson said. Locke shot him a sharp glance that said Why the fuck would you give him that idea? North shot him an equally sharp glance that said This is all your fault, you knuckledragger.

Edgar turned his gaze away from them and back to the dead woman in his arms.

“Let’s, uh, let’s just go,” Locke said. North quickly agreed, and the two of them set off towards the bridge encampment at a brisk pace. Barson lingered just long enough to mouth “sorry” to Edgar before rejoining them.

The walk back to the bridge was done in absolute silence. Finally, as they reached the bridge, North whispered: “Locke?”

“Yes?” Locke continued staring straight ahead, rehearsing what he would say in his defense at the court-martial.

“That joke from earlier. What was it?”

Locke gave a weak, dry laugh. “You know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
***
Castellan Edgar’s final act before going AWOL was to file an official complaint regarding the conduct of Privates North, Barson, and Locke. As you know, due to our ever-depleting reserve of manpower, high command declined to discharge them and instead reassigned them here. Since the reassignment, they have been model soldiers, although I have repeatedly overheard Private Barson making jokes of similarly distasteful character to the ones described in the reports above. Not even repeated latrine-cleaning duties has relieved him of this uncouth tendency.

Nevertheless, the character and mental stability of our troops is extremely questionable, to say the least. Their competence is also an increasing concern. Most of this is borne of laziness or a lack of motivation, and can be solved with a good bit of disciplinary action from their commander (as I have been forced to do several times at this outpost so far).

Sometimes, however, it appears that there is simply a lack of critical thinking and common sense among the soldiery. More examples of this come to mind than I am pleased to admit, but I will give you an account of one such example to illustrate my concerns.
***
“So you see, the art of Grafting allows Godrick not only gives him a tactical advantage of having more arms to hold shit with, but also allows him to absorb the strength of his fallen foes. Does it make more sense now?” Private Mennick finished his monologue with an earnest look at his two newest pupils.

His first pupil, Private Stanel, scrunched his eyebrows in an expression of distaste and confusion. “It may make even less sense than before I asked.”

“Ah, there’s just no helping some people,” Mennick said aloud, ignoring Stanel’s pronounced eye-roll. He turned to his second impromptu pupil and asked again: “What about you? Is it more clear to you now?”

“Mmmph! Mmmmmmmph!” Mennick’s second pupil tried to vocalize something, presumably an expression of agreement with and emphatic enthusiasm for Mennick’s brilliant explanation of Grafting’s purpose and mechanism, but was unable to on account of the rag stuffed in his mouth. Private Stanel, who was holding down the man’s arms, locked eyes with Mennick, who was kneeling on the man’s legs, and raised an insubordinate eyebrow.

“I think he agrees with me,” Stanel said. He looked down at the soon-to-be victim of their amputation, the messiest but also most important step of Grafting. “Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“Mmmn-mmn!” The pinned man shook his head from side to side, eyes wide with panic.

Mennick almost looked offended. “Okay,” he said. “First of all, he’s only agreeing with you because he doesn’t want his arms chopped off.”

Stanel looked down at the man. His eyes, much like his trousers, were soaked with fear.

“You know what? Fair enough.”

“Second of all,” Mennick continued. “It’s very rude to talk to your teacher that way.”

“My teacher?” Stanel said. He snorted. “And what seniority do you have over me, might I ask?”

“I outrank you,” Mennick lied.

Stanel shook his head. “No you don’t. We’re both Privates. We’re all Privates, except for Captain Leraine. Still can’t believe that guy hasn’t died yet.”

“Fine. I’m your elder, then. I’m older than you,” Mennick guessed.

Stanel smirked. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do.”

“When’s my birthday, then?”

“Fine, you’re right. I lied. When is your birthday, by the way?”

“Three weeks before yours. I checked our service records.”

“Damn! I forgot you could read.”

“Fuck you, Mennick,” Stanel said, but smiled. “Anyways, your eloquent explanation notwithstanding, I still don’t get why we have to do this.”

“Well, Stanel,” Mennick said, pressing down on his knees to pin his unwilling second student further to the ground. “We could sit here and debate the merits and practicality of Grafting as a tactic and ethical dilemma, but you and I both know the real reason for it is this: Captain Leraine told us to go out and find someone to graft, because someone told him to find someone to graft, because someone told him and someone told him all the way up to Godrick, who I imagine is running out of ice to keep the arms we send him fresh.”

“If he’s got so many, why does he need more?” Stanel asked. “I mean, at a certain point you have to reach a saturation level, right?”

Mennick pursed his lips in an attempted expression of teacherly disapproval. “Stanel, it is clear to me that you are wrestling with your conscience. Have you ever been a part of the amputation process before?”

“No.”

“Well, there you have it. I have. That’s why I'm the teacher.” Mennick flashed a dry grin and continued: “And more to the point, we were ordered to return to camp only after we had retrieved two arms to send up to Stormveil, so unless you are really eager for disability benefits and a medical discharge, I suggest that the arms come off of this poor sod here”— He gave the man pinned beneath them a hard slap on the chest, eliciting a muffled yelp— “and not from you.”

“You make an excellent case, Mennick.” Stanel patted the man’s cheek. “Sorry, bud. It’s you or me.”

The man started crying again, or rather, attempting to cry. The rag in his mouth went a long way towards keeping the volume to a tolerable level.

“Boy, I’m glad we got that rag from Taral,” Mennick said. He leaned over the man and patted his other cheek. “You should count your lucky stars that I got an old cooking rag and not the one North uses for his ‘private time.’” The fear in the man’s face briefly abated and turned to disgust before returning again to terror.

“That was kind of nasty, Mennick,” Stanel scolded.

“We’re about to chop his arms off, Stanel,” Mennick replied. He picked up his sword and ran his finger along the edges.

“But we can do it with dignity, right?” Stanel looked legitimately grieved.

“Marika’s tits, if you want to be a humanitarian so bad you chose the wrong line of work.” Mennick turned his attention to the future arm donor, still crying and looking just about ready to piss himself again. “Alright, buddy. I’m a nice guy, so I’ll give you a choice of which arm to lose. Left or right?”

The man did not respond. His eyes went wide with fear and he began furiously shaking his head.

“You’re giving him a choice?” Stanel asked.

“Of course,” Mennick said. He turned to the donor. “I urge you to reconsider. If you’re a painter or writer or something, which arm do you really need?”

The man continued not to respond.

“Alright, I’ll lay down the law straight for you,” Mennick said. “Which arm do you beat off with?”

“Mennick!”

“Don’t act like it’s not an important question!” Mennick replied. “Besides, giving Godrick the wanking hand is kind of gay, isn’t it?”

Stanel rolled his eyes. The man continued shaking his head.

“What? You don’t wank?” Mennick scoffed. “Liar. Alright, Stanel. Hold him down; I’m going for the right.”

Stanel pulled the man’s arms back, ignoring the muffled protests of the donor. Mennick reared back and swung down, severing the man’s left arm in a single stroke.

The man shrieked in pain, but Stanel used one hand to push him down by the chest. Stanel looked up at Mennick with confusion.

“I thought you were going for the right?” he said.

“I was. My right.” Mennick patted the man’s forehead, ignoring the shrieking. “I know it hurts now, but look on the bright side! You’ve just lost about six to eight pounds!” He patted the donor’s stomach. “God knows you need it. You probably were a painter or writer or some other gay shit like that with a gut like this. Alright, Stanel, hold down the other arm.”

“What?” Stanel asked. The donor could not speak, but looked up at Mennick with equal confusion and an added sense of betrayal. “You said you were only taking one!”

“They squirm less when they think they get to keep an arm,” Mennick said. “Alright, Stanel. Hold him tight now. Half begun is well done!” He inhaled sharply as he wound up for the second strike. “Or some shit like that.”

Mennick struck off the man’s second arm, leading to an even greater volume of uncomfortable shrieking. Stanel was left holding two disembodied arms and feeling sick.

“Oh, man,” he said. “This is a lot of blood.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” Mennick said, standing up and wiping off his sword. “The locals here clot quickly.”

Stanel blinked. “Really?”

“No. But it seemed like it would make you feel better.” Mennick stabbed his sword in the ground and looked around. “We need to put those arms in the ice box. Do you remember where I left—”

All of a sudden, the donor was on his feet.

“What the fuck?!” Stanel and Mennick yelled in unison. Stanel rocketed to his feet, still holding the disembodied arms. Mennick lunged for the sword he stuck in the ground but the donor, now unburdened by about twelve to sixteen pounds, struck faster. He headbutted Mennick, then body-slammed him to the ground. Stanel dropped both arms and lunged at him. He just barely missed, and the man took off at ludicrous speed across the Limgrave hills.

Stanel and Mennick stood and watched him tear across the grasslands, too stunned to do anything. They watched as the man’s silhouette slowly shrank on the horizon, going from clearly, if only partially, human to something resembling a bowling pin on legs before he finally disappeared into the sunset.

Mennick turned to Stanel. “I thought you were supposed to hold him down!”

“I did! I held on for dear life!” Stanel turned his gaze to the man’s left-behind arms, now sitting on the ground. “Although, I suppose I was holding on to the wrong part of him.”

“You know,” Mennick said, “it also occurs to me that I may have skipped one of the most important steps in the process.”

“And what would that be?”

“We forgot to bind his legs.” Mennick shrugged. “Oh well.”

Stanel steadied himself on a nearby tree. He had quite enough bloodshed and amputation for one day. In the back of his mind, he questioned this choice of career, although he acknowledged that medical school would probably have, on average, just as many amputations.

“Should we go after him?” Stanel asked.

“Nah.” Mennick pulled his sword out of the ground and sheathed it. “Technically, we got what we came for. Leraine didn’t say anything about catch-and-release. And besides, you saw how fast he was moving. See how much faster you can go after losing fifteen pounds?” He patted Stanel on the back. “Marika’s tits, that guy was cooking!”

“What the fuck was that about the losing pounds?” Stanel asked.

“Oh nothing, just an observation.” Mennick stooped down and picked up the bloodied arms. “Let’s get back to camp. And, uh, let’s keep this between you and me.”
***
Locke sat at his usual station, sipping on a gourd full of fermented rowa juice. A drink, a drink, a drink, his mind echoed. Leraine was a decent commander, but Locke was essentially his second in command, and having to deal with everybody’s shit on top of Leraine’s ceaseless insistence on proper procedure was taking its toll. Fortunately, it wasn’t anything a half-decent liqueur couldn’t fix, at least for a little while.

Locke brought the gourd to his lips and felt the sweet flavor of Rowa redden his cheeks and warm his stomach. What a day…

“Locke,” someone said.

Locke looked up in surprise, almost spilling his drink. Despite the fact that the man was fully clothed in metal armor, Leraine had managed to sneak up on him.

“Commander,” Locke said, more sheepish than afraid. “What brings you over here?”

“Locke, you have to stop drinking on duty.” Even with his face obscured, Locke could just imagine Leraine’s disappointed expression. Well, sort of. Locke had never actually seen Leraine’s face, come to think of it.

“I’m not on duty, technically,” Locke said. “My shift ended thirty minutes ago.”

Leraine sighed. They remained quiet for some time.

“I worry about you,” Leraine said.

“Look, it’s not a big problem,” Locke said. “But it helps me deal with the madness.”

“Like?”

“You know what like!” Locke said. Wow, he thought, that was barely comprehensible. He didn’t think he was such a lightweight. “This outpost is cursed, I swear. And the men are all lunatics.”

“I thought you liked them.”

“I do,” Locke said, venturing to take a sip. “I do. But they do the craziest shit. This morning I caught Ario and Barson making a mini-Misbegotten head out of straw. They wouldn’t tell me what for. Said it was an ‘inside joke.’”

“Seriously, Locke? That’s why you’re drinking?” Leraine shook his head.

“Well, at lunch they dumped it in the soup. North damn near shit himself when it came up in his bowl.”

Leraine sighed. “Look, Locke, I can understand wanting to take a break when shit gets strange or out of hand. But this is army life. The men will be assholes sometimes, and you need to be able to deal with it.”

Locke sighed. “I know, I know. It’s gotten a little out of hand. But I’ll try to keep it to a minimum unless some truly bizarre shit happens.”

“Good,” Leraine said. “That’s all I ask. Now—” Something caught his eye. Locke turned around to see what he was looking at.

Bleeding profusely, half-naked, and down two arms, a man was running at near-inhuman speed down the outpost causeway. Locke and Leraine watched as he sprinted through with no resistance and disappeared over a hill.

“Locke,” Leraine said. “Did you see that?”

“I think I did.” Locke looked at his rowa gourd, wondering if his homebrew had some impurity in the recipe.

“You remember just a few seconds ago when you said that thing about ‘truly bizarre shit?’”

“I do.”

Leraine sighed. “This is one of those times. You wouldn’t happen to have some extra, would you?”

Locke revealed a second gourd of rowa liqueur concealed next to the first. “I thought you’d never ask.”
***
While I do not fault those two men for expecting their, shall we say, donor, to die of his wounds quickly, I do fault them for not properly restraining him, as his escape took him directly through the center of our camp. “No-Arms Neil,” as my men have nicknamed him, has become yet another blemish on our camp’s admittedly spotty record, and Privates Mennick and Stanel have been forbidden from any collection missions from here on out. As a brief aside, we never did manage to track down that miraculous survivor, but I am told that numerous sightings of him have emerged among the surrounding encampments and settlements. I fear we may have created a folktale.

This is certainly the most remarkable incident, but it is not an isolated one. Incompetence is a plague on our army, one that is just as widespread and equally as difficult to cure as resignation. Of course, incompetence and resignation are the ugly parents of a far worse disease: corruption. This is a charge much more deadly than either of the previous two. It is also an excellent opportunity for me to offer some constructive criticism on the subject of our wages.

I know that the Tarnished, may his every step be in a swamp of Scarlet Rot, has been a particularly troublesome thorn in our collective sides, especially for our logistics: he has almost singlehandedly ended our flow of tribute and equipment to Stormveil Castle, of course, not to mention personally plundering the runes of every unfortunate soldier of ours he kills. Nevertheless, I would encourage the payroll overseers not to delay any longer on the payment of our wages. Not only is this to preempt the increasingly dire threats of desertion and mutiny among the soldiery, but it would also serve to stymie soldiers from feeling the necessity of looting, which is not least harmful to the army’s discipline but is also responsible for a large portion of recent fatalities in the region.
***
Jedvard and Yorick surveyed the devastation. The dragon Agheel must have been the one thing that the Tarnished had not deigned to slaughter (or, Jedvard considered, he lacked the stones to attempt such a thing), because Agheel was hard at work burning the lakeside settlements, thinning the already-strained local population even further, and in general being an unpleasant nuisance. The particular village that Jedvard and Yorick were observing was some of Agheel’s latest handiwork, and still fresh at that. What few structures remained were singed to a crisp and were still visibly smoldering, along with the many men, women, and children that had been given a premature cremation.

“Cor blimey,” said Jedvard.

“Yeah,” said Yorick.

Jedvard turned to Yorick. “This must have really fucked up real estate prices, don’t you think?”

Yorick turned to Jedvard. “Those people died, Jedvard. Horribly.”

“And while that does deprive us of tapping into their future productivity, it does enable us to take a 100% tax this time, without having to go through the effort of actually asking them for it!” Jedvard beamed. “Oh, I love economics.”

“Marika’s tits, boy, we are looting their bodies,” Yorick said. He started down the hill into the burnt-out settlement. “Stop being such a fucking nerd.”

Jedvard quickly caught up to Yorick, deciding not to comment on Yorick’s lack of speed and letting his youthful stride do the talking for him. Yorick was by far the oldest of all the men at the gateside outpost; he was fifty-eight, having refused several honorable, a number of medical, and even a few dishonorable discharges in order to keep collecting military benefits. Even Prescott, the second oldest man at camp, was a spring chicken compared to Yorick, and Jedvard was barely more than a newborn.

“Aw, you’re just mad because you don’t have a retirement portfolio,” Jedvard said.

Yorick glared at him, and Jedvard eased up off the youthful stride. He and Yorick had their back-and-forth, but he never pressed the old man too hard, on account of the several credible but as-of-yet unproven accounts of Yorick killing fellow soldiers he disliked on field missions. “Is economics the only thing you think about?” Yorick said.

“Numbers are easy to me. It comes to me naturally,” Jedvard said. “As murdering and looting do to you.”

“You make it sound cruel,” Yorick said. “I don’t like or dislike doing it. It’s like wiping your ass. You don’t think about it, you just do it.”

“Like taxes,” Jedvard said.

“I joined the military specifically so I wouldn’t have to do taxes.”

“What, not big on thinking about numbers that high?”

“Not big on thinking about numbers at all,” Yorick retorted, but there was a gleam of amusement in his eye.

“You? Not thinking?” Jedvard gasped dramatically. “Shocker, that.”

“The less you use your brain in youth, the more of it you have saved up when you get old,” Yorick said. The two of them stopped next to a burnt-out cobblestone house. “Shall we begin here? Stone houses always have the richer inhabitants.”

“I’ve no objections.” And so they entered the cobblestone house to see what there was to loot, or in army parlance, what residual taxes there were to collect.

“So let’s hear more about this neurological theory of yours,” Jedvard said as he squatted over a dead peasant. He swiftly skimmed the man’s pockets for runes or other valuables and, finding nothing, shrugged and moved on to the next corpse.

“That’s got a few too many syllables for me,” Yorick said. He reached into a cupboard and grabbed a few flame-scorched pieces of silverware.

“The brain,” Jedvard said. He took a seat on a blackened chair, which creaked ominously under his weight but did not immediately collapse. “The less you use it, the more you save it. Got any proof for that?”

“Nah, more just wishful thinking,” Yorick said. He grabbed more silverware from off the floor and stuffed it in his knapsack.

“Well, it’s still an interesting theory,” Jedvard said. “Obviously wrong, but it would be interesting to examine. Does over-stressing the brain lead to increased aging?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Yorick said. He pried a ring off the corpse of a dead peasant woman and then snatched her necklace. “But not thinking has its benefits.”

“Oh really?” Jedvard said. “Name one.”

“Well,” Yorick said. “While you’ve been sitting on your ass and having a good think about all this, I’ve been busy collecting all the silver in the household.”

“Oh.” Jedvard scanned the room and found, to his chagrin, that Yorick had indeed retrieved all of the silver. “Fuck.”

“Consider this a life lesson from your elder,” Yorick said. “Now, on your feet. Let’s get through the next house.”

As they exited the cobblestone house and began scoping out the rest of the village ruins, the pair heard the distant sound of beating wings.

“The fuck is that?” Jedvard said. Only when a giant wing blotted out part of the sun did he realize.

“Agheel!” Yorick pulled Jedvard back into the house. Together, they crouched in the doorway, waiting with bated breath.

Agheel flew over the village, but, to Jedvard and Yorick’s great relief, did not stop or circle. After a few moments of pure terror at the prospect of sharing the fate of the people they were looting mere moments ago, Yorick poked his head out.

“I think he’s gone,” Yorick said. “Come along now. There’s more to be had.”

“You’re quite cheery for a man who could have been made extra well-done just a few seconds ago,” Jedvard said.

“Me?” Yorick said. He laughed. “Perish the thought! I may die someday, but you’ll never live to see it. If the dragon gets me, it’s because he got you first.”

“Oh really?” Jedvard said. “What, you plan on pushing me over and then outrunning a massive flying dragon with a busted knee?”

Yorick massaged his knee. “Cheap shot, Jedvard. As if I’d tell you. A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

Jedvard chuckled. “You can keep them. I only need to outrun you.”

“Laugh now, youngster. Youth and energy will never triumph over old age and treachery.”

Jedvard raised an eyebrow. “That sounds entirely too clever to be something you thought of yourself.”

“That’s because it isn’t. My granddad taught it to me.”

“Was he a treacherous man, as you say?”

Yorick smirked. “He lived ‘til he was ninety-eight, so I can only assume so. Let’s check out this building.”

The pair ducked into what appeared to be an old smithy. The walls were decorated with various hammers and metal tools, useless to Jedvard and Yorick except for the value of whatever metal constructed them. The smithy also appeared to have been built by an amateur smith, by Jedvard’s estimation. Despite being nearly untouched by dragon-fire on the outside, the inside was so sooty and poorly ventilated it hardly made a difference.

“You know, on the subject of treachery, I’ve been thinking,” Jedvard said.

“Did we not just have a talk about that?” Yorick replied. He picked up an ingot of iron and grunted. “Fuck me, that’s heavy.”

“We’re here to tax the population, right?” Jedvard said. He stooped to check the contents of an oven and found a few nuggets of flattened silver inside.

“Well, ‘tax’ is a pretty generous word for it,” Yorick said. “But I suppose.”

“And the income we take goes to Stormveil Castle, yes?”

“The income we report,” Yorick said, pointedly slipping a few pieces of gold into his personal satchel.

“And what does Godrick do with that income?”

“Fuck if I know. Smelt it down and wear it as a hat?”

“He pays our salaries with it,” Jedvard said. He grabbed a few ingots of iron and dropped them into his ever-fattening satchel. “What we loot from the villages goes to pay our salaries.”

“So?” Yorick said. “We’d be making the same amount if we just stole it off their corpses. What difference does it make?”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” Jedvard said. “Recently, Godrick passed a law saying that if we pull up to a village and find it dead, it is legal to pilfer their belongings as a means of collecting taxes. That means if we keep this for ourselves instead of turning it in to, say Leraine, we’d be liable for embezzlement.”

Yorick stopped and turned to Jedvard. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If what we’re doing now, taking the dead people’s things, isn’t just theft but tax collection, then keeping it for ourselves isn’t just theft. If this is official state revenue, which Godrick says it is, then taking it for ourselves is technically skimming off the top of Godrick’s tax revenue.” Jedvard chuckled. “Yorick, we’re embezzling right now!”

Yorick snorted. “That’s your big revelation? That instead of being guilty of theft, we’re guilty of embezzlement.” He laughed. “So I guess we’re white-collar criminals instead, huh?”

“But don’t you see?” Jedvard said. “Think of the economic implications of this law! If the productivity of dead citizens can be counted towards wages and revenue, what—”

“Holy shit, Jedvard, you chose the wrong profession.” Yorick shook his head. “Why did you join the army? Why aren’t you in a business school somewhere?”

“I was,” Jedvard said. “I was part of Raya Lucaria Academy’s economics program. They shut it down after the budget cuts and I wound up here.”

“That explains so much.” Yorick bagged the last of the loot and heaved his satchel onto his shoulder. “Well, hopefully when we’re done looting this shit you’ll have enough to start at business school again.”

“Thanks, Yorick.” Jedvard heaved his own bag onto his shoulder. “Say, what do you want to do when you leave the service?”

“Me?” Yorick stroked his chin as he made his way out of the door. “Well, first, I don’t want to ever have to think about economics again.”

“Asshole.”

“Correct. But I don’t plan to leave the army.”

Jedvard stood to follow Yorick out of the smithy. “What? You chasing death in battle or something?”

“Kind of,” Yorick said, turning around to face Jedvard. “I have no intention of dying old and infirm in bed. I’m going to die proud, on the battlefield, standing up and dragging my opponents with me into the grave, not on my ass while senile and bedridden.”

“Marika’s tits, old man, that’s kind of intense.”

Yorick laughed. “Frankly, it’s a lot less scary when we know about reincarnation. But don’t worry, whippersnapper.” He smirked. “I’m not dying for a long, long time.”

While Yorick was busy demonstrating his wit and stubbornness to a skeptical Jedvard, he had failed to notice two things. First, he had taken to standing outside, where there was no cover from aerial or fire assault. Second, the dragon Agheel had returned from his earlier flight and, spying a small but tasty and oblivious morsel standing in the street, was diving toward the burnt-out town.

“Do you hear that?” Jedvard said.

“Hear what?” Yorick said. “I’m a bit old to—”

The flames engulfed the street, and the pure heat of the blast knocked Jedvard straight onto his back. Screaming and badly burned, he managed to crawl out of the way of the doorway and huddle against an anvil.

When the sound of rushing flame and the sensation of burning heat stopped, Jedvard opened his eyes. Still standing in the doorway was the shadow of Yorick.

“Yorick!” Jedvard rasped. “What—”

Then Jedvard noticed that he was not staring at Yorick’s shadow, but Yorick himself, burnt to a crisp like an overcooked chicken. A slight breeze rushed into the building, and the blackened pile of ash in Yorick’s shape bent forward and collapsed into an explosion of black soot.

Well shit, Jedvard thought. At least he died standing up.
***
In addition to decreasing the already strained local economy of tribute, looting is dangerous to the personal safety of the men under my command. We have already lost one of our men during an attempt.

Alas, poor Yorick.

On that note, I would like to submit to your judgment a disciplinary case from my men. I speak of Private Jedvard, whom I believe was present with Yorick at the time of his death. He is manifestly untrustworthy, and talks far too often about the effects of tax-collecting and looting on the local economy. For this reason, I fear he is guilty of embezzlement. I don’t have any hard and fast proof, unfortunately, but he seems to understand macroeconomics and men like that are always guilty of something.

Aside from that, I would also like to submit a report regarding the recent conduct of all my men. Indeed, the entire garrison of my outpost, more or less, has been implicated in a morally questionable but indisputably illegal venture that I am simply unequipped to handle. In truth, this is the incident that originally prompted me to write to you. I am concerned for their mental well-being, of course, for the myriad reasons I described above, but I am at a loss at what to do. Appended to this letter is a brief overview of the incident, so that you may understand the circumstances properly.
***
Leraine had come to accept, if not appreciate, that his outpost was probably the noisiest one in Limgrave. As a matter of course, his soldiers were loud, arguing, chattering, and joking without end. At first it irritated him, but eventually Leraine came to appreciate the ability to know whether all his soldiers were in the camp without actually having to muster them for roll call.

But there were days it did get on his nerves, such as when the men decided to have a cheering match while he was doing his paperwork.

As the volume of his men reached a peak, Leraine poked his head out and hollered across the camp. “Oi!” Leraine shouted. “I don’t care how much you’re losing playing cards. Keep it down!”

“Sorry chief!” Someone yelled. “We’ll keep it a bit quieter!”

Leraine knew that was a lie, so he just grumbled and returned to poring over the bizarre requisitions that some of his men had turned in. The boys would often cheer or fight over the smallest things—chicken racing was a perennial favorite, as was gambling, arm-wrestling, and whenever Private Hedeby managed to teach the wolves a new trick. Leraine had had to discipline them for their volume many times, most recently when they had gotten too drunk at a holiday celebration and organized a surprisingly harmonic rendition of Godfrey Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen at one o’clock in the morning.

Another bout of loud cheering and animalistic grunting echoed through the tent. Leraine groaned and turned his attention back to his work.

Locke’s requisition for more rowa beer—denied. Locke had an almost preternatural ability to locate and consume alcohol, and though Leraine had accepted this he wasn’t going to just make it easy for him.

“Good show!” Private Hedeby yelled. “Keep it going! Show him!”

Leraine briefly wondered whether they were having an arm wrestling contest or they had scrounged up another pair of animals to race before deciding that it didn’t matter. He returned his attention to Mennick’s request for a surgeon’s kit—approved, but he would not let Mennick have it. One armless man gallivanting through camp was enough.

“Dance, you little shit! I’ve got twenty runes on the line!” Private Jedvard yelled.

Ah, so they had begun gambling again. Leraine made a mental note to keep a close eye on the larder for the next few days. For a man who claimed to understand money so well, Jedvard had a passion for gambling as large as his ineptitude in it.

Leraine noted the next item on the list—a request for a spear from Private Ario. Leraine scratched it out with one swift swipe. The last time Ario had made such a request, he had used the spare spear to resurrect the scare-Captain in the middle of the night. Leraine was not ashamed to admit that as the current record-holder for the longest-tenured outpost commander, he was personally insulted by that.

“That’s right! Kill that half-human fuck!” Private North yelled.

Leraine blinked. Half-human was an interesting thing to hear. Of course, he knew North was fond of using epithets like that, given his hatred for Misbegotten and demi-humans.

Leraine blinked again. Demi-humans. Fighting. Betting of some kind. Some kind of spectacle, perhaps involving violence.

Marika’s tits, what were they doing out there? Leraine dropped his parchment and hurried outside to investigate.

He found the men crowded around a makeshift corral shoddily constructed from barrels and crates. Whatever they were witnessing, it animated them with an energy Leraine had seen only in the audiences of blood sport and charismatic worship. They were screaming, cheering, and waving fistfuls of runes in the air, completely oblivious to Leraine’s approach.

As Leraine made his way towards the commotion, Private Mennick turned to see who the newcomer was.

“Ah, hey chief!” he exclaimed. For a brief instant, he turned back toward the commotion before doing a double take at Leraine. His smile was gone, replaced with an expression of vague guilt, much like a cat being caught in the act of knocking a glass off a counter. “Chief,” he managed.

Leraine ignored him and muscled his way past to the corral. As he approached, he finally got an eyeful of the soldier’s raucous spectacle: the corral was an arena, and in it, two demi-humans were hacking away at each other like grotesque little butchers.

“Go on now, get the fucker!” Private Prescott yelled. Leraine looked around. Only Mennick, directly next to him, even realized he was there. The others were too engrossed by the spectacle to notice.

The demi-humans in the ring began attacking each other with renewed vigor, one swinging a crude machete and the other attempting to block with an oversized wooden club. Leraine moved around the back edge of the arena, observing. Stanel, Hedeby, Barson. Damn near every soldier in the camp was here. Whoever was organizing the thing must be making some good dividends on the betting.

That led Leraine’s gaze to the soldier at the head of the arena, standing on a crate and narrating the fight like a real announcer. Private Faris smiled and yelled into the crowd, which was far too preoccupied with the actual spectacle to listen to Faris describe it. On his left, scribbling away at a piece of paper, was Private Taral, the camp’s cook, quartermaster, and unwitting assassin of Leraine’s predecessor.

“Yes, gentlemen, this is a fierce battle indeed!” Faris waved his hands over the arena, as if anyone there wasn’t already looking. “Captain Falchion takes the offense, and forces the Bludgeonly Battler into a corner!” Leraine glanced over and saw that the machete-wielding creature, “Captain Falchion” as it were, had indeed driven his opponent into the corner through sheer ferocity, if not skill. Captain Falchion swung his rusted blade downwards over and over again, and the “Bludgeonly Battler” sank down further with every blow.

“Get him good!” Locke yelled. “Gut the bastard!”

“Come on, get up!“ Ario yelled. “Damn it, I had a day’s pay on him…”

“Oh, it looks like it could be over for the Battler! But wait, what’s this?” Suddenly, the Captain’s eponymous Falchion lodged in the Battler’s thick club, snapping the blade clean off just below the hilt. The crowd gasped, and Faris grinned like the sun.

“It looks like the Bludgeonly Battler has broken the Captain’s weapon in two!” Faris exclaimed. “It looks like this might be the end of the Captain’s winning streak! Can he pull off an upset?”

No, it seemed to Leraine, the Captain could not. The Captain backed up and dove for the crude walls of the arena in a desperate attempt to climb out. But while the chest-high wall might not have been much of an obstacle for a human, it was a near-insurmountable one for an exhausted demi-human. The Battler swung at the Captain, catching him in the shoulder and sending him to the ground. A second swing crushed the Captain’s skull, dislodging the stuck falchion blade and leaving it in the rapidly-emptying cavity where his brains used to be. The crowd became a swirl of noise, equal parts cheering and jeering.

“Oh shit! Good finisher!”

“I told you, North. Never bet twice on the same horse.”

“Suck it, Jedvard!”

Leraine took the opportunity to slip through the crowd and take his position right next to Faris. He was glad his helmet was on. It would be unseemly, if not undeserved, to show his men a well-deserved, withering snarl as he watched all the onlookers turn to Faris and realize their commanding officer was present.

“And it looks like the Bludgeonly Battler has taken the championship! Captain Falchion is no more!” Faris resumed announcing, but one by one, as the soldiers turned towards him, they realized that they had an uninvited guest. Every man locked eyes with Leraine and went deathly quiet, but Faris continued unabated.

“What’s next for the Gatefront Gauntlet, lads?” Faris continued unabated. “Who will our new champion face? Well, sit tight, because soon—soon, uh, soon…” Faris gradually became aware of the silence of the camp. He looked around. “Why’d you all stop—”

He locked eyes with Leraine, and Leraine watched as what little color Faris had fled from his face. Leraine was grateful he had his helmet on, because he knew his grimace was as wide as a Misbegotten’s.

“I’m sorry, Private, am I interrupting? Please, continue.”

“Sir!” Faris said. “I, er, thought you were busy.”

“Oh, I was, dear Private,” Leraine said. “I was. That is, until I heard everyone over here screeching and clamoring and cheering like it was the end of days. So I come over here, expecting to have to break up another wolf race or card game, and what do I find? A fucking gladiator ring? Marika and Radagon, is there no end to your tomfuckery?”

The whole camp stood silent, chastened by Leraine’s remarks. Soldiers shifted uneasily where they stood or made moves to put another man in between him and his commander. Even the Bludgeonly Battler stood dumbfounded and not a little disappointed that his adulation had been cut so short.

“My god, men! I can understand gambling, but this?” Leraine shook his head. “The effort you had to go through just to watch these creatures brutalize each other… it’s mind-boggling. Not to mention disturbing.”

“Chief,” Prescott dared to venture. “We cut people’s arms off for a living. We’re not exactly saints ourselves.”

“Butchers kill animals for a living. That doesn’t mean one ought to go around kidnapping sheep to slaughter in his off hours.” Leraine shook his head. “Men, you disturb and disappoint me. You are dismissed until I decide what to do with you all.” While the men muttered ashamedly to themselves and trickled away, he turned to Taral and Faris, still perched up on their crates. “Not you two. I know this is your handiwork. Get down from that idiotic soapbox, now.”

“What about the demi-human, sir?” Taral asked. Leraine looked over. The Bludgeonly Battler was sitting in the middle of the arena, next to the corpse of his competitor, looking lost.

“We can deal with him in a second. I want to talk to you two.” Taral and Faris exchanged nervous glances and descended from their perch.

“So, where to begin?” Leraine clapped his hands and began: “Taral, Faris, you have committed a laundry list of offenses. Gambling, dereliction of duty, illegal use of property—”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Faris tried, and failed, to whisper to Taral.
“Misuse of wages, gross violations of safety, conduct unbecoming—”

“Alright, looking worse,” Faris said. Taral said nothing. He was busy considering whether he should arrange another “accidental” poisoning for his superior officer.

“Failure to apprehend enemies of the regime, collaboration with enemies of the regime, deception of a superior officer!” Leraine took a deep breath, finally finished.

“I think accusing us of treason is a bit far,” Faris said.

“You are not in a position to opine on the matter!” Leraine exclaimed. He sighed. “Look,” he said, “I just want to understand. I don’t think I have ever met a group of people who would have thought to do this, let alone actually do it. How in the name of the Greater Will did you even go about this anyway?”

Faris locked in and began telling a story: “Well, you see, it all started when—”

Leraine groaned. “Do it succinctly, Private.”

“Hmph,” Faris said. “Fine. Me and Ario were out on patrol the other day, when we came across a crowd of demi-humans hacking the shit out of each other. And I got this idea, you know, because it was so entertaining, that we should do this more often.”

“You are rambling, Private,” Leraine said.

Faris continued unabated: “So when we got back Ario told everyone about what we had seen, and how funny it was, and how they really had to see it when they got the chance. And then I had this idea, since the demi-human caves are so close by, why don’t we just drag them back here so we can watch them fight from the comfort of home?”

Leraine let out a sigh so long that Faris and Taral wondered if he was deflating. “And how the hell did you even manage to do that?” he said at last.

“We had Gage do it,” Faris said. “While Taral and I set things up here, Gage went out and abducted the demi-humans.”

Gage. That explained it. Private Gage was not the strongest man in camp (that honor went to Private Barson, somehow) but he was the stealthiest, owing mostly to the fact that he was mute. Leraine remembered all too clearly his first encounter with Gage, when it took him five minutes to realize that Gage could not speak, and was not, in fact, just a very good listener.

“That would explain it,” Leraine muttered to himself. He quickly returned his attention to Faris and Taral. “So, then what? You abducted them, gave them ridiculous names, and prodded them until they killed each other?”

“Pretty much,” Taral said.

“My names are not stupid,” Faris said, not a little insulted.

“The Bludgeonly Battler, Faris? Seriously?” Leraine shook his head. “You do know that “bludgeonly” is not a word?”

“It’s artistic license,” Faris said.

“It’s a clever disguise for illiteracy,” Leraine replied. “And this whole harebrained scheme reeks of your strange and terrible ideas. But you,” he said, turning to Taral. “I don’t understand. What’s your part in all this?”

“I keep the books,” Taral said. “That’s all.”

“Was it your idea to include gambling in this endeavor?”

“It happened naturally. You know how the others are.”

“And how,” Leraine said, “did you come to be the bookkeeper in this arrangement?”

“Well, I am the quartermaster and cook,” Taral said. “I work with numbers every day. Besides, the only other person who might be able to work the books is Jedvard, and we weren’t about to let an inveterate gambler run the odds.”

Leraine sighed. “Fair enough, I suppose.” He turned and looked at the Bludgeonly Battler, who was still sitting glumly in the middle of the circle, his fledgling career as a gladiator cut disappointingly short. “How long has this been going on?”

“Just since this morning,” Taral said. “Honestly, I was surprised it took you so long to break it up.”

“So you did this knowing that I would catch you, and you committed to the scheme anyway?”

“If you saw the profit margins from the betting, you might understand,” Taral replied. “Even with all the, ah, unpleasantness.”

“Unpleasantness.” Leraine almost laughed. “That’s one word for it. And how many, ah, gladiators has this ‘unpleasantness’ claimed?”

“Four, not including the, er, Bludgeonly Battler,” Taral said. He skimmed his notebook. “A very profitable four rounds of gambling, might I add. Perhaps a donation—”

Leraine gave him a stern look. “Private Taral, I already read off a list of nine charges. Are you attempting to add bribery to that list?”

“Of course not sir,” Taral said. He flipped to the budget section of his notes and scribbled out the provision of overhead money allocated to bribe Leraine, charmingly and euphemistically labeled as “informational security.”

“Roger Red-Eye, The Howler, Captain Falchion, Caveman Craig, and the Bludgeonly Battler,” Faris said. “Each one dear to my heart.”

Leraine scoffed. “Not that dear, evidently.”

“It’s the memories that matter most, of course.” Faris leaned over to Taral and added: “And the house’s cut of the profits.”

“Once again, Faris, I can still hear you.” Leraine glanced around the camp. “You mentioned Gage. Where is he?”

“Out,” Taral said.

“Out where?”

“Retrieving another, ahem, volunteer,” Faris said. “Or two. You’d be surprised how many demi-humans a man can carry once you get them to stop squirming. Oh!” Faris pointed to the horizon. “I think he’s coming back right now.”

Leraine turned his attention to the horizon. Sure enough, the hulking shadow of Private Gage had appeared on the crest of a nearby hill with a great mass hanging over one shoulder. As he came closer, the mass proved to be a live and furious demi-human who, despite being expertly bound and gagged, was still thrashing violently against Gage’s grip. Gage approached Taral and Faris but, upon noticing Leraine, stopped and stood at attention. His face betrayed no shame or guilt, simply looking expectantly at Leraine, unmoving as the demi-human changed tactics and fruitlessly tried to bite off his nose.

“Private Gage,” Leraine said.

The mute Gage nodded in acknowledgement.

“You have abducted a demi-human, Gage.”

Gage glanced at the prospective gladiator he had slung over his shoulder. He nodded in agreement with Leraine’s assessment and gave the demi-human a gentle smack on the head.

Leraine put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Gage, you are aware that this operation of yours is highly illegal and I am in the process of dismantling it?”

Gage wrinkled his brow, as if to say: I had not considered the legal ramifications of this operation, and I am beginning to regret both my blithe entrance and my involvement in this activity as a whole.

“Gage, I must ask, how did you get involved in this anyway?”

“We offered him a third of the house’s cut,” Taral said. “In exchange for his, ah, ‘acquisition’ of ‘competitors.’”

“And roughing up the gamblers if they got rowdy,” Faris added. “We had a secret side pool on who would get in a fight and when.”

Gage brought his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger together in the universal sign for money. A shadow of a grin appeared on his face.

Leraine knit his hands behind his helmet and groaned. “You know, men,” he said. “More than anything else, I’m disappointed in you. Taral, Gage, you are clearly more intelligent than this. Faris, this is a waste of your, er, talents.”

“Are you saying I’m not smart?” Faris said. “That’s bullshit. Right, Taral? Gage?”

“Your talents are more…practical,” Taral said. Gage, of course, said nothing, but offered silent thanks to the gods for being born a mute. Despite the obvious hardships it entailed, it did have its occasional benefits.

“Why, men?” Leraine said. “You could do so much more with your talents. Why create this brutal celebration of violence instead of, like, anything else?”

“Because violence is entertaining?” Faris suggested.

“Because violence is profitable,” Taral said. He patted his notebook.

Gage shrugged, as if to say: Because violence is something to do.

Leraine sighed. “You know what? I’ll sort this out later. Faris, take this apart and put all the crates back in their original spots. Taral, give me the ledger. If you have any hard money on hand, gather it and bring it to my tent. Gage?” Leraine pointed to the demi-human on Gage’s shoulder. “Euthanize that thing and throw it in the woods.”

Gage immediately complied, drawing back and snapping the demi-human’s neck with disturbing alacrity.

Faris winced at the execution. “Does the Bludgeonly Battler have to die too?” Faris said, with not a little sadness in his voice.

“Especially the Bludgeonly Battler,” Leraine said. “I am going to go back to my tent and finish my requisitions. Taral, the ledger and money had best be there within the hour. Gage, please give our champion here his just reward.” Leraine stormed off towards his tent, leaving Taral, Faris, and Gage to consider their next moves.

“Oh, damn it all,” Faris said. “What a waste. This was a good scheme.”

Gage shrugged and let the dead demi-human drop from his shoulder before entering the arena. The Bludgeonly Battler looked up and briefly panicked before Gage, in one swift motion, lopped off the Battler’s head with a single swing of his greatsword.

“It was indeed,” Taral said.

“Good for morale,” Faris said. He shook his head.

“And for our pocketbooks,” Taral said.

Faris briefly recovered his composure. “How good?”

“Very good. Take a look.” Taral opened up his ledger and pointed out the number at the bottom.

“Wow,” Faris said. “That’s quite the number.”

“Indeed. A very big number.”

Faris and Taral locked eyes and glanced in the direction of Leraine’s tent. Their commander had disappeared, at least for the time being.

“We don’t have to give back all of it,” Faris said.

“No, we don’t,” Taral said. “We can always fudge the numbers. Barring that, I have a backup solution.”

“What’s that?” Faris asked.

“Don’t worry your little head about that,” Taral said. “Just go find the war chest and see how much we can skim off the top.”

“Will do!” Faris said and promptly disappeared.

Taral tapped his paper, looking at the amount he stood to gain. The lump sum was twice his monthly wages, and even a little bit off the top could grease his pockets considerably. On the other hand, risking further discipline from Leraine could be dangerous for both his career and the possession of his limbs. One does not cross Godrick the Grafted more than twice unless one has more than two arms to give.

Taral furrowed his brow. Well, that’s why you have backups, of course. “Gage!” he hollered.

Gage looked up at Taral, who beckoned him to come over. Gage dropped the dead demi-humans he was carrying and came over to Taral.

“Gage, I have a question for you, and I need you to keep it to yourself.”

Gage raised an eyebrow, both in suspicion and to remind Taral that he was physiologically incapable of sharing it with anyone.

Taral looked around and produced a handful of rowa berries from his pocket. “You wouldn’t happen to know if Leraine has any allergies, would you?”
***
I haven’t the faintest clue how to handle this situation, and I would appreciate any guidance on the matter.

But all of this, I believe, points to a central problem: the declining quality of our military and Limgrave as a whole. Between the increasing scarcity of resources, the widespread decay of infrastructure, and the feverish, demented efforts of the Tarnished, may he be forced to fight three Burial Watchdogs at once, we have seen a breakdown of discipline, morale, and communication that threatens to rot our army from the inside out. I have no solutions to this problem, nor do I think it my place to opine on it. I merely believe that it would be beneficial for high command to consider the increasing problem this represents and perhaps investigate possible solutions.

But until high command decides what to do and when, I remain, as always, a loyal and tireless servant of Godrick, our rightful lord. I pray for a speedy response to these issues and continuous victory for our lord and his forces.

Your obedient servant,

Captain Leraine
***
Leraine placed the feather back in its inkwell and admired his handiwork. Not his finest penmanship, and the whole package was fattened by the great number of addendums, but it would have to do. If nothing else, the last three weeks had vanquished any optimism he had over the quality of Godrick’s army, and though he deeply cared for his men, he recognized that his outpost was in deep disarray. He would do what he could to treat the symptoms, but it was up to Godrick to find a cure.

He stepped outside his tent, only to find that his soldiers were gathered in the causeway. There was no celebration, however, no friendly jostling or shouting or even fighting. There were just cold whispers, and it left Leraine deeply unsettled.

Once someone noticed Leraine, the crowd’s whispering subsided and all the soldiers turned to Leraine. Their silence unsettled him even more.

“Captain Leraine,” Hedeby said. “You’re up early.”

“Men,” he said. “Step aside please. I have a message I must send to Stormveil Castle.”

“I’m, er, afraid that’s not an option,” Hedeby said.

“Not an option?” Leraine’s heartbeat increased, but he stood firm. “Please elaborate.”

“Well, it’s a rather sudden development, but, er, you see—”

Private Locke, canteen in hand, shoved past Hedeby. Despite the early hour, he was clearly under the influence of alcohol. “It’s Godrick, sir,” he stated, and quickly liberated a large gulp from his canteen.

“Godrick?” Leraine started bouncing on his heels, despite himself. “What of him? Has he sent orders? Updates?”

“He won’t be sending any more of those, sir,” Locke said. “He’s dead.”

Leraine became completely still. “He’s dead.”

“Indeed.” Locke punctuated his statement by taking another swig.

“We’re all out of a job,” Leraine said.

“That occurred to us as well, sir,” Locke said.

“Do we know who did it?” Leraine asked.

A hush fell over the camp. Even Locke remained silent. Finally, Taral moved to the forefront of the group and said: “it was the Tarnished.”

“The Tarnished,” Leraine said. “The same Tarnished who murdered all your commanders?”

“The very same,” Hedeby said. Taral nodded in confirmation.

Leraine paused for a moment. “Very well, then,” said. “Back to your tents. Gather your things. We’ll be having an all-camp meeting right here in fifteen minutes’ time. Dismissed.”

The crowd did not move.

“Dismissed!” Leraine said. Uneasily, the crowd dispersed, drifting back to their tents.

Leraine returned to his own tent, still clutching his letter in his hand. Godrick was dead. The line of succession ended with him. And now, of course, he was unpaid, unsupplied, and divested of both orders and authority.

Leraine felt his hand shaking, and he looked down at his letter to high command. Godrick was dead. His army was headless, his kingdom doomed to collapse. All because the Tarnished killed him.

Leraine felt a rush of emotions. Apprehension at his future. Concern for his men. Anger at the Tarnished. But mostly, he felt a sense of disappointment, combined with a sense that he knew this was going to happen all along.

“Godrick died,” he muttered. “Of course he fucking did.”

Leraine crumpled up his letter and threw it into the woods.