Zalia walked solemnly across the battlefield, looking at the faces of the dead. What remained of them at least.

The sheer number of corpses painted a horrific, blood-soaked picture that showed the slow step-by-step retreat the vanguard had taken, with a single circular spot near the beginning of the bodies that was knee-deep in ash. It was the place Hildebrandt had stood her ground, holding no bodies at all. Everything that had attacked her had been burnt away or turned to a fine mist by her power.

Many of the vanguard behind and around her held similar expressions of solemness, others with tear-streaked faces or horror evident. Despite how many had been burnt away, the number of dead that remained was nothing other than horrific.

Zalia felt numb like she was an outside observer watching her own body step across the field. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Boreal, for her part, was not so much horrified at what had happened as much as she was concerned for Zalia.

There were just so many.

She looked at the face of a young boy, no older than Aylie, his body below the chest missing entirely. This had been someone’s child, perhaps one of the other thousands of people strewn across the battlefield.

What had once been a road surrounded by a grassy field was now a mass grave.

Her aura was still flowing across the entire thing, growing back the grass that had been trampled down. It slowly grew long enough to start hiding some of the horror.

She walked up to Hildebrandt, not properly processing that the ash around her had once been people. Hildebrandt still stood firm, a beacon of light, solidarity and strength on the battlefield. They had lost a few good men during the fight. Zalia had seen one of the vanguard torn from the front line and slowly clawed, beaten and torn apart under the mass of undead. She knew there were others, too.

Without Hildebrandt, there would have been a lot more.

“How are you holding up?”

Zalia looked blankly up at her.

“This…”

Hildebrandt nodded.

“Yeah.”

They stood in silence, looking around them. As everything settled into Zalia’s mind, a realisation dawned on the edges of her consciousness. They would have to do this again, possibly more than once, as their destination was the capital of the kingdom. What had its population been?

“I’ve had word that there were demons in the town after all. They tried escaping and took out one of my teams before being caught by Larel and a couple of the adjacent teams. There was only one other team that went down while Larel was busy, making a total of seven dead. The majority of the vanguard lives as well, though they’re still counting. All in all, it’s minimal losses for what we were up against.”

Zalia nodded. It was a small comfort.

“A fresh unit of legionnaires has been sent to scour the rest of the town for any possibly hiding.”

Zalia nodded again. Boreal rubbed against her leg.

She was glad for her heirloom armour and how easy it was to clean with Heat Resistance. The soldiers that would have to clean the remains of this battle off their own armour… well, she didn’t envy them.

“What now?”

Hildebrandt put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Go and rest. Faian and the army can take care of everything else.”

Zalia could feel her hands shaking and looked down. Why were her hands shaking?

“Ok.”

She opened her vault right there, stepped in and walked to the back of the room where she passed out.

⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻

When Zalia woke up, she was momentarily confused as to where she was. Then the memories of the previous day flooded back through her mind and she shuddered.

Her breathing came jaggedly as panic tried to set in, but the calm, warm lights and comforting aura of her vault helped her fend off a breakdown. She dreaded having to go through that again.

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Boreal was snuggled up beside her, purring gently. Zalia hugged her close, burying her face into Boreal’s thick fur and blocking out the outside world for a few more minutes.

Soon though, the world came calling and she had to get up. Her aura would have been somewhat weaker while she slept and the army was relying on that to survive. They were able to see past the far edge of Healing Presence, where the grass was dead, the ground dry and cracked and the odd tree here or there warped and twisted much as they had been in Cormaine. That was what awaited them if she was unable to hold up.

Well, Ro would take over at that point, but they wanted to keep him secret as long as possible.

When she stepped out of the vault, Hildebrandt was still planted firmly before it. Everything else outside of that had changed though.

The battlefield had been made clean. Earth mages must have been working hard, because the bodies were gone, the wild grass having overtaken entirely. The nearby town had been fortified, enchanted stone walls built and the army having moved in. She wouldn’t have thought they had only been there for a few hours with how settled it all was.

“They’ve been hard at work.”

Hildebrandt turned to her, looking her up and down.

“Yes, they are quite quick at what they do. I’m impressed.”

The way Hildebrandt stood, the feeling of solidness she gave off, made it hard not to be comforted by her presence. It was as if she was a solid boulder standing tall in the current of a rushing river.

“Have you… ever done something like this?”

Zalia personally had, in Cormaine. That had felt different though, the people so long dead and disconnected from anything she knew. They were almost entirely skeletons at that point, no flesh remaining on them. These undead, on the other hand, had faces still.

“No. And I hope I never have to do something like it again.”

The memories of the battle were seared into her mind. Shambling people blasted into mist or burned to ash by the cursed fires she spread. Screaming vanguard soldiers dragged away and slaughtered by the ever-silent undead. Swords and spears slashing and piercing. Blood, despite being undead, so much blood.

“Where is Faian?”

Hildebrandt pointed out a large state house taller than the rest of the town’s structures and Zalia headed off towards it. She ran her hand through the long grass as it brushed past her, trying to get her mind into a space where it could rationalise everything they had done. It was for a good cause, it was for a good reason and it was necessary. So why did it feel so wrong? Maybe wrong wasn't the right word. It was just... it was just horrible.

She was allowed through the gates and she could see in the expressions of the soldiers a haunted look that mirrored her own emotions. Many of them had puffy eyes, evidence of tears. It hadn’t occurred to her until then, but many of these soldiers probably had people they knew, family or friends, that had lived in this city. This city, or the capital. They had been part of a rebellion, sure, but not all of them would have had time to get families and friends out. Some of them were definitely more affected than others though. A few of the soldiers were stoic, looking less sad from loss and more disturbed by what they had seen.

The rituals had happened so suddenly, without much time to even stop it let alone evacuate people from affected areas. Now these soldiers were killing undead that might be people they had known. It was bad enough for Zalia, but it was nothing compared to what a lot of them must be going through.

The town was near silent, no boasting or cheering, no shouted stories of kills made. No, this was a solemn and quiet place, filled with the grieving. This hadn’t been a fight against an enemy nation, or even against the demon invasion. This had been a violent burial.

All through the camp were similar sights. Horror-stricken faces, traumatised soldiers, men and women trying to hold themselves together. Many didn’t seem to want to take houses for themselves to sleep, simply curling up on porches or benches. She didn’t blame them. Some of the soldiers looked as if they were doing better than others, though. They comforted the others, helping them clean up or organise themselves.

Zalia’s thoughts strayed to what would happen if they did win. She didn’t know what would happen if they managed to kill the Thousand-eyed one, whether the undead would die without the power of the creature or if they would need to clear out every single town within a hundred or so kilometres of the capital.

She hoped for the sake of the soldiers that it was the former.

It took a short walk through the town before she reached the state house, even the usual whirlwind of administrative types that accompanied Faian somewhat subdued.

She found Ro still with the generals in a room with a long table, obviously being kept close in case they needed to make a snap decision to show their hand.

“Zalia, come in.”

Their advisors were there too, along with a few other people unknown to Zalia.

Zalia could see that Faian was much like many of her soldiers, horrified by what had happened. Yet she still maintained a posture of strength, shoulders squared and eyes focused. She was ever the stoic general, even in a time like this.

General Ballast was missing his usual joviality, but somehow looked less affected by everything than Faian was.

Zalia looked awkwardly at everyone in the room, then back to Faian.

“General… what’s the plan?”

Faian watched her closely, then nodded.

“We’ll rest here for a day, then leave behind a small contingent to protect the town. It’s… hard to say how long it will take us to get to the capital from here. There is unknown numbers of… of undead and demons.”

She heard something unspoken in Faian’s words. Those who were left behind would be those who couldn’t, or shouldn’t, go on. Not all of the soldiers would be able to handle it. Zalia didn’t know if she could herself.

“Understood.”

Unfortunately, in her case, it wasn’t a choice.