Back at Camp Scene - The Shattered Lions
The QM picked the funerary back at camp scene, and I got to play the fist leader of the Lions for this one.
‘Baronet’ meant, to most in Or, that someone was noble, powerful, connected, surely trained in rhetoric and swordplay and law, and of course needing none of those skills - or any skill - to prosper.
To Giulia, ‘Baronet’ was more curse than title. The lowest order of the landed, something barely more than a knight like Orlando had been, separated from the starving masses not by wealth – her family sure had none of that – or by education – her tutor was a drunk grandmother on her occasional cogent day – but by sole virtue of a single estate, rented out to a commercial collective that shepherded of sheep. In short, her family farmed farmers, and it paid barely enough to keep her siblings dowried.
As such, Sabbatini was no stranger to eccentric and impoverished formality. Dusty, archaic, inflexible duties on straightened means were her mother’s milk. The Lions may be two rookies and two corpses, but they were hers, the last in a direct chain of appointment from the Emperor’s right hand, General Baphomar.
The rituals of mourning, adapted and evolved from the funerary practices of the pre-Tantarian armies, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-two years in the making. As the only Lion left alive from before Ettenmark, Giulia felt the full burden of every one of those years. Certainly, the fallen must be recognised and grieved for their bravery and their loss, but for Sabbatini, there was something greater at stake. This was her chance to pass the legacy on, to make them care. A box had been rescued at Ettenmark by Corporal Jaimes Eppalias-Wrent, who died later in that engagement, and then passed on to Spite, then to Giulia. The key traveled a simpler path, inherited from Captain Bhatia, along with her last words, witnessed by Sabbatini and Sable.
Exactly seven days after the deaths of Orlando and the younger Rahj, the Baronet Giulia Sabbatini de Rogulla woke up before dawn, fumbled around in the dark for the iron key kept on a chain around her neck. The key’s head was a roaring lion, features worn down by time, notches and ridges looked a little like curved fangs. She inserted the key in the ancient lock, and three tries later, opened the wooden box for her first time. She slid off the wooden lid and assayed the contents – dozens and dozens of coins; a moth-eaten banner; an ivory horn, of the kind used before trumpet and signal flare; a few dozen Imperial death masks, the porcelain chipped; a broken sword handle; a set of silver-handled carving tools; and a smaller iron box to which she did not have the key.
She sighed, counted out some of the coins, quietly – so as not to wake her people – placed a mask next to each bed. Next to Oskanna, the Sphinx; next to Adav, the Ox with the Mane of Fire. Then made her way out and across the yard to the meal hall. She passed across a smattering of silver coins to the breakfast cooks. Normally, Ritual Victuals would be paid for out of the Grieving Fund, but Fort Fullon offered little opportunity for purchasing a traditional Imperial meal of the dead from a clergyman of Kol, so arranging for the preparation of some flattened bread and lamb’s sausage cooked in milk from commissary was the best she could come up with.
Second, she visited the disaffected Panyar survivors. There, she inspected a waist-height piece of wood carved with names, dates, symbols and Lion-ish heraldry, haggled with the goat-legged Panyar for a few minutes and handed over a coin that glinted gold by the lantern light.
Then she hauled the stele out to a hill, nodding to the watchman from the Silver Stags as she went by, before getting the thing buried deep enough in the cold ground to be stable. She then covered the thing with the ratty banner, showing a roaring lion, and appearing to read PRYDE OS THY LEO .
With that done, she retreated to camp, washed the dirt from her face and hands, went back to the Lion’s tent, and put on her own mask, a Lion. She put on the ridiculous ill-fitting helmet with the broom-like bristles. And blew the horn.
“We awake, children of Tantaraus, Pride of the Legion, Lions who Walk as Men. We awake, when others of our pride sleep forever more.”
She blows the horn again. “We awake, to march around the cenotaph, to festoon the stele, to eat one last meal with the shades of the departed.”
Awkward, tired, she watched the others, and prayed to whatever god this ritual was once devoted to they would buy in.
Adav wakes up startled and bleary-eyed. He had failed to realize he had fallen asleep during a restless night. Nothing had made sense to Adav since Hansika’s death. Life with the Remnant had passed in the monochrome blur of sorrow. None of it had played out the way he had assumed it would. The brother had always known that when the time came, he would give his life for his sisters. That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all. Beyond his longing for her love and company, the worst part had been how senseless her murder had been.
A captured soldier, slain in cold blood.
When he hears Sabbatini’s chant, the Bartan warrior leans into its comfort. Lions had lived and died for hundreds of years before him and his sister, as they would for hundreds of years after. They would see to it. Sabbatini, Dubrovna and him, for they were the Remnant.
Soldiering is all that makes sense now. And soldiers mourn, and then they move on.
Adav had slept in his clothes, again. He sits up on the far end of his cot, where Giulia had placed his mask. The Bartan picks it up, holds the false face of the oxen. He inspects the craftsmanship. It was rough hewn but elegant. In one smooth motion and without hesitation, Adav puts the mask on his face. Long red bristles drape his shoulders in a majestic mane. As the Bartan speaks, his voice cracks at first, before finding an underlying strength.
“The Ox with the Mane of Fire bears the yoke of violence. I wake, I witness, I consume, as flames find to wicker’s end.”
Oksanna presses against the coin in her hand, feeling the cool edges of the metal dig into her palm. Giving her pain a shape.
The mask sits awkwardly on her features, made at once for some larger and more refined. She feels indelicate in it, cumbersome, like a giant fuming with a bird’s wing, trying not to break it inadvertently.
She does not cry, even at funerals. She thinks she has forgotten how. Still, her voice is raw when she speaks.
“The Sphinx is the mystery. The great unknown beyond the veil. I wake, I dream, I wake again in darkness, seeking such light as I can.”
Behind the mask, Sabattini’s face relaxed. They knew the words. That much she had done right. She blew the horn again, the damn thing pressing against the rigid lip of the lion’s ‘mouth’.
She’d spoken with the other Fist Leaders over the past few days. Jahander was graceful for Jahander, poor Orpik seemed too drugged out to care, and the rest were understanding, but she wondered how well that patience held up when the horn blasted through and woke their recruits at dawn.
“I am the Lion,” she says, “I am that which survives the soldier, and stays in the lower realm. I am nameless, I am sexless, I am ageless, I am without clan or station.”
She reaches into her pocket, draws out an ancient coins and holds it up.
“The Lion has taken the Emperor’s coin.”
She reaches into the box, and holds up the broken sword, “The Lion was shattered at Janioch, and a Legion grew around us. The Lion was shattered again by the Living Blade, and became the Remnant.”
This part she improvised, but Fang had changed their title again, “The Lion was scarred at Ettenmark, and we are yet the seed.”
“Where others have forgotten, we serve the Empire. Our friends are gone, but the Lion remains.”
She opens the tent flap, and as the others leave, she hands out the silver carving tools. She leads the small group out of the camp, back to the stele.
“Ox with the Mane of Fire,” she says, “You are called to witness what was consumed. Speak of the dead, so their light may burn forever.”
“Sphinx, you know what is unknown. Speak for us what is to be lost of the dead in shadow, that it may dissolve and be forgotten forevermore.”
The moment Adav had been fearing was quickly approaching. The short walk back to the funerary monument grants him some time to consider his words. Its not enough. Sabbatini and Dubrovna are already taking their positions, flanking him as they surround the stele.
How do I sum up my sister’s life in a few sentences?
Adav stalls for time. Starts with Orlando.
“Knight Reuben Orlando was young but well travelled. Inexperienced, but steadfast. A second son, he took on the legacy of his aunt and uncle, who had also served in the Legion of the Remnant. Lady Desdemona Orlando served for four years before dying in battle during the Night of Frozen Stars. Sir Alberic Orlando retired from the Legion after eleven years of service, and died defending the family mansion from Zemyati raiders. Like his nephew, he wore the gold and green the day he died. The estate never fell.”
Reminiscing was getting harder and harder. Adav makes a mistake by pausing slightly. Resuming was difficult.
“Reuben was proud of his blood, and we were proud of him. Our young lion was earnest and untiring.”
Adav stumbles, and ends awkwardly.
“The afterlife will be a worthier place for his arrival.”
The Bartan warrior takes a deep breath. Tries to savor the moment, even though he fears it. It felt like he was going into battle. He remembers the last thing he said to Hansika. Adav had scolded her for losing her position to the Aldermani Partisans, despite them outnumbering her two to one. Not for the first time the brother wondered if that had been what had provoked the sister to stand up for the Fist to the chieftain. Adav knew it was an arrogant and selfish thought, yet it gnawed at him all the same. He was glad for the mask, because burning hot tears were streaking his cheeks.
“Hansika… Rahj,” says the elder Rahj.
Was the best cook I knew.
Will be missed.
Was a better person than me.
Was the bravest woman I ever met.
“Hansika Rahj was a good soldier and an even better sister. She took care of me when I thought I was the one taking care of her. When I was younger, I took her calmness for a lack of temerity. Now I recognize her as woman who was focused, deeply passionate, and someone who always put others needs above her own. All the way up to her death.”
Adav realized he was breathing heavily, and his hands were clenching into fists and then unclenching.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” says Adav. The brother tries to pinch his brow to ease the pressure that was building up in his head, but since he is wearing the mask of the Ox with the Mane of Fire, he can’t. Beneath the mask, he is weeping. Adav leans into the ritual, and lets tradition hold him up.
“Where ever you are, find peace Sika, and I will do the same, here. That’s… That is it.”
The Bartan nods, and takes a step back.
The Sphinx speaks. From the depths of her mask, Oskanna’s voice scratches, her grief rendering her husky, her role casting her in scorn.
“Ruben Orlando was vain. Boastful of his lineage, and over-proud of his storied training. He, who took up arms far earlier in life than many of the Legion, saw his talents as a natural advantage, not skill gifted - if not stolen - from the hands of others. A son of privilege, he died blind to it.”
She feels tenderness creep into her voice. Masks it. Mutes it.
Drawing the Sphinx. Worst fucking luck.
“If Orlando was brave, it was the bravery of the fool, the courage of a man who does not understand a threat. He faced life as he faced death - a child with dreams, supposing they would protect him. When they didn’t, his life ended.”
In times past, the Lions may have been sufficient in number to conceal the speaker, to hide their fellow in a mask beyond the role of the Sphinx. Now, she had only the shield of ritual. A flimsy defence before their dead comrade’s brother.
And when I’m dead, what will they say of me?
“Hansika Rahj was a cold fish. In fighting, feasting or fucking, she held herself apart. Aloof. Too afraid of what she might unleash maybe, or perhaps just one of those who take little pleasure in life or others.”
Oksanna looks down at the ground from within her mask, tries to avoid her companions eyes. “The one place she ran hot was anger. Hansika had a temper. When she felt aggrieved, she could not rest until she’d sought redress. Too spiteful to let anything go. She might not have shown it, but she let slights overwhelm her judgment. And now raising her fists cost her her life.”
Her voice cracks at the last, but she draws a breath and masters herself.
“These are the secrets of the Sphinx, and the Sphinx has spoken them. Let they be carried to the outer darkness. Let they be buried with the dead. They pass into the Sphinx’s keeping.”
Her voice is low and deadly. “Let anyone else who speaks such things now know the wrath of the Lion.”
Sabattini wonders if she should have abided by ancient tradition and given the masks out by lot. With so many masks unworn - the Hand That Sees, the Hound of Descent, the Senechal - it seemed dangerous, and as she tries to ignore Adav sobs, the man barely able to work through the Ox’s given task, she stands by her call.
Distracted by her thoughts of the living or dead, she almost misses as eyes turn back to her. The alcohol in her bloodstream was thinning, and the buzz of last night’s camp was becoming this morning’s gentle hangover.
She pulls back the ratty tapestry, to reveal the work on the cenotaph. It shows the deathmasks of Orlando and Hansika, the symbols of Legion and lion, and their epigraphs, ranks and time of service - but not their names, never their names - in Old Imperial.
She addresses the stele. The Baronet uses the voice her father used to open feasts, somewhere between stern and warm. The one that works on everyone from partisan nomads to virgin librarians.
“Cease now all spite. Cease now all jealousy. Cease now all hopes and wounds of equal measure, as inflicted by gods and fates. Cease all. All that remains of you now is the Lion. Even the Annals shall be denied that which dissolves.”
She worries that she can sound the part, even as she knows the others are grieving more than she ever will, but it’s a part of herself she has accepted. But she reaches in, and there is sadness enough.
“Their service ends. Our march continues. Or it will continue tomorrow.”
She turns back to her soldiers, and points to the baskets of food. She wishes there was wine in there.
“Pay your respects, Lions, and eat with this pride for the last time.”
She uses her teeth to pull the cork from the bottle, and pours it into a glass. It isn’t wine. Annoyingly, there is no wine purchased from the grieving fund. Old Imperial Virtue is so prudish and austere. But the Leions continue, and so does the tradition. For today.
“For the Emperor.”