Tosetti was quick to assign Celeste a new unit of men to work with. Prior to the winter, the fact she had only two men under her command was of little consequence. She had been operating solo for a while. Now though, he wanted her to have a full complement of twelve soldiers working with her.
They were sent off into the depths of the forests, through occupied territory and out into the enemy’s territories. The lines in the east weren’t so clearly defined. War was war though, Celeste felt. They spent a week scouting out the Ofprovian artillery, striking where they could and running where they had to. It was what Tosetti had always said Celeste would be best for.
As their supplies started to run low, the unit began to return south. Celeste hadn’t realised quite how far they had gone. It was days of walking and they were running worryingly low on supplies. Checking their maps of occupied territory, they found a village where they could resupply and set off again.
The unit had been walking for the better part of half an hour, in tired silence, when they reached the village. They arrived at the north end of the main street with a dozen buildings flanking it. The earth of the street had churned up into mud, squelching softly under their boots. In their tired state, no one questioned the silence of the village, not immediately.
Celeste herself was too focused on the mud right ahead of her. She watched her boots push it out and up, lapping onto the soft leather. It took a couple of shouts to catch her name. She had been like this more and more lately. In moments of danger, of combat, she felt alert and aware. Alive. When that passed, her mind became like an empty page. Focusing on anything was a struggle. At school, she had been able to read and write for hours. Now she struggled with the short reports Tosetti required of her.
Luckily, the shouts were about something that could hold her attention.
“Captain!” Uberto was saying as he jogged over to something slumped against one of the buildings. It was a body, one of a soldier. As Celeste made her way over, it wasn't clear what nation the soldier belonged to. His uniform was stained a bloody shade of brown.
Uberto stood back from the corpse as Celeste knelt down to look at it closer. Bodies didn't bother her very much anymore, but something about this struck her as unusual. She opened the jacket of the uniform. The shirt underneath was similarly stained. It was peppered with holes from which blood had soaked. The holes were clear, the edges of the fabric not singed like by a bullet hole. It looked, to her, as though this soldier had been stabbed a dozen times.
He didn't look like a wizard. She examined his face properly. His skin looked bloated as it started to decay, but there was nothing abnormal about his appearance, as far as she could tell. His hair had been cropped short in the Ofprovian style. She looked closer at the uniform, finding spaces where the blood hadn't soaked it. It was the Ofprovian blue.
She felt a little sick as she stood up. There was no way you would need to stab someone that many times to kill them, unless they were a wizard. And why would you leave a body out in the street like this. She stood fully and moved to talk to her men.
“The map did say this was an occupied village, right? Not abandoned or anything?” She spoke quietly, not wanting to worry the rest of the unit. She glanced around, realising it was too late for that. There were several other bodies in the street and the men were glancing at them with discomfort.
“This map should be accurate up to three days ago. It says occupied,” Uberto said firmly, unfolding the paper from his jacket to examine it again.
“Why are there bodies in the street then?” Teo said. “That's definitely not what we're trained to do.”
“I'm not so concerned about a breach of protocol,” Celeste said. ”I want to know why they killed the soldiers like this.”
She walked over to the door of the nearest building, her hand reaching out for the door handle. She waited for a moment, hearing quiet voices within. Then they burst out into raucous laughter. It didn't sit right with her, men laughing in this village of bodies. She pulled her leg up and kicked the door open, watching the planks of wood shatter off their hinges and crash to the floor.
The building seemed to be a civilian house, sparsely decorated, but lovingly so. In the centre of the room, a couple of Laocienan solders sat at a table, cards laid out in front of them. They looked stunned as the door came crashing down, but when Celeste stepped in they seemed to relax again.
“What is going on here?” She bellowed, her hand moving to rest on the hilt of one of her swords.
“We're just-”
The soldier was cut off as a door opened. Another soldier stepped in, buckling his trousers as he did.
“What's this?” He asked casually as he looked over Celeste.
Through the closing door, Celeste could make out a figure, a woman, crumpled on a bed. She didn't need to consider this for long to work out what was going on. Before she'd even registered her own movements, she'd slammed her arm into the soldier's throat, choking him against the wall.
She heard startled cries from behind her and looked back to see the soldier's reaching for their rifles that had been propped against the table. With a flick of her fingers, they clattered to the ground, away from them.
“Get the guns,” She said to Teo and Uberto. “And train them on those two.”
“Captain?” Teo said, sounding concerned.
“Now! That's an order!” She snapped, watching for a moment as her men uncomfortably raised the rifles to the other soldiers. She doubted they were loaded, but the soldiers didn't have any weapons now, and the gleam of the bayonet should be enough to discourage them. “And you, what are you doing?”
The soldier didn't answer, she was pressing too hard on his windpipe for him to speak. She loosened up, letting him gulp in air but not letting him move.
“I'm relaxing. Like we were ordered.” He managed to sputter out.
Celeste couldn't find words to respond to that. How could a rapist describe his actions with such casualness, such innocence? She felt sick to her core. It couldn't be a physical sensation; she'd never felt ill in that way since becoming a wizard. It was a deeper, emotional pain.
You feel everything stronger. That includes empathy. The spirit whispered.
They both knew this was the sort of situation it was longed for. One where she could be pushed too far, a time of high emotions already. As she looked at the sweaty, pathetic face of this scum, Celeste didn't care. If she took it too far, then it was all these men deserved. Laocienan soldiers. Her people.
“And the dead soldiers in the street?” She asked, pressing harder on the soldier again. “Were you ordered to slaughter them?”
“They're the...enemy,” He responded, almost choking on his own breath. “We have to kill them.”
“Not like that,” She growled, grabbing the man by the throat and throwing him to the ground.
He wheezed as he crashed into the earthen floor. The building shook slightly at the impact. Anger flooded Celeste as she watched him trying to pull himself up onto his feet. Logic took hold of her, just enough, that she realised simply killing these soldiers wouldn't do anything.
“Who gave you your orders?” She asked. Her voice shook slightly but she remained quieter than she'd even intended.
She stalked down the main street again, headed to the end where the command tent was. She'd left her men with their guns trained on the other soldiers, ordering one to check on the woman and make sure she was okay. Not that she knew if the woman would speak enough Laocienan to know they were there to help. Teo and Uberto came with her, though she wasn't sure if she had ordered them with her to fulfil their original orders of putting her down or not.
It took some effort not to break down every door on the street, seek out the rapists and murders that she knew were there. But the commander would be the root cause. The head to be cut. Either he was incompetent as a leader or evil. It was hard to say which was worse.
Celeste had seen wizards made monsters by magic. She'd had to kill two of them herself. But these monsters were truer than those had been. Men who seemed to delight in bringing suffering.
She was prepared for evil to have a human face now, to look like a kind man she could have known back in her home village. It may not have shocked her even. But a face she knew was a shock to her.
“Cosma,” She said flatly as she brushed through the flap of the tent.
Behind a plain desk, sat the same sneering face she'd encountered all those years ago at school. He'd grown a light beard, perhaps to appear more mature, and his hair was longer than she had seen it, but it was decidedly him. He was himself not because of his appearance, instead because of the air with which he carried himself. He glanced up at her and instantly his face curled into a cruel smile.
“Well, Captain Celeste. So good of you to have remembered my name. And here I thought us mundane students were below your gaze.”
“Shut up, I'm not here to talk about school,” She spat.
“No, evidently not.”
“Why are your men out there raping and brutalising this village?”
Cosma shrugged, sitting upright. “I have orders to hold this village. My men are enjoying some well-earned relaxation. It has been a long and hard campaign, as I'm sure you know.”
“You don't care, do you?”
“I care for my men's wellbeing.”
“Those are human beings out there that they're abusing.”
“They are the enemy. Ofprovians started this war, now they must reap the punishments. If that is in our men's anger, then so be it.”
“They are civilians. It is not their crime to receive punishment for.” She tightened her fists and stepped forward. “You will order your men to leave this village. You will return to your commanding officer and tell them what you've done.”
“No,” Said Cosma, picking up a pen to start writing again.
“No?”
“I said, no. You are not my superior. In case you hadn't noticed, I am also a Captain, a position I earned through my own hard work. In school you jumped up peasants thought you were so powerful. But you learned nothing of the military, and nothing of following orders or how to lead.”
“I wasn't there to do that.” Her voice was rising now, even as he kept his level. But there was anger in it, the silent anger of a man who believed that he had been wronged.
“Then why were you at a military academy?” Cosma laughed at her confused expression and stood. “Now then, I would ask you to leave me and my men to our duties. You might win territory, but some of us have the real work of holding it.”
“I'm not leaving here until the people are safe.” As she spoke, Celeste drew one of her swords and pointed it at him. Behind her, she could hear Teo and Uberto's flints clicking back into place. She didn't dare look to see who they were aimed at.
“So, you're a mutineer now? Very interesting. We'll never build a nation out of you people.” He glanced over her shoulder. What was he making of her men? “Not when you can't even learn to follow basic instructions.” With that he laughed, and Celeste snapped.
She threw the sword to her side and leapt up, over the desk to grapple with him. He slammed into the floor, her knees pinning his shoulders to the ground. He groaned in pain.
“I always knew you were psychotic. I watched you try to kill Edward back then. Maybe you need to relax.” As he spoke, she raised her fist. He seemed undeterred. “There's plenty of women in the village, I hear that is to your taste.”
If hatred had been boiling inside her already, this caused her to overflow. He was pompous and arrogant. He believed himself better than her, and all the other peasants like her, she supposed. He was a monster who would watch a village suffer under brutal violence. But on top of all that, he would suggest that she would enjoy such violence. As though she enjoyed any violence. That he would take her love for women and twist it into something so evil.
She brought her fist down into his face, then the other. Blood splattered the compacted earth on either side of his head. She wasn't sure if he was alive at this point and didn't care. Maybe she'd snapped his neck with the force of the punch. Maybe her strength was enough that it had done irreparable damage to his head. But her rage burned on. She threw back her arms, fire exploding behind her, and swung both her fists down into his face.
The damage was now, definitely, irreparable. The fire fizzled out as quickly as it had come. Her breaths came fast, and heavy, as she choked in the smell of melted flesh. She stood and turned, seeing her men looking shocked, but unharmed. The tent had been torn through by her fire, but its briefness had stopped the fabric from catching on fire.
Teo swallowed hard before speaking. “I think we are mutineers now, Captain.”
Celeste looked between the two men, the two boys, seeing the fear in their faces. Fear for what, though, she wondered.
“We'll think about that later,” She said, reaching down and grabbing Cosma's corpse to sling over her shoulder. “We have more work to do.”
Celeste stood at the southern end of the street as her men kicked down doors and called out the other soldiers. It was a tense exchange, but the other soldiers fell quietly into line as they came into the street and saw Cosma's body at her feet. It felt wrong, watching a dozen men in green encircling another dozen, guns held up. She wondered how likely the men were to mutiny against her. Teo and Uberto, she believed she could trust, but the rest of them...What if they saw more of themselves in the other soldiers than in her?
When Cosma's unit was assembled, Celeste began to speak. She struggled to look any of the men in the eye. She knew what they had done and seeing them look so oblivious to their crimes made her sick with rage. Some of them were sloppily dressed which only made her angrier.
“From this moment on, you aren't soldiers of Laociena.” Her voice boomed out into the street. Was that another trait of wizards, a more powerful voice? Or was that simply her rage? “You will leave this village, dispose of your uniforms, and hope you can hide somewhere you can escape your shame.”
“What are you on about?” One of the soldiers shouted back, taking a step forward. “You are a traitor, you killed an officer.”
Celeste kicked Cosma's corpse. “He was guilty of your crimes, but so are you.”
“This village is full of Ofprovians, they are the enemy. Barely human, it's impossible to commit crimes against them. They worship their fake God, we are the righteous.”
She couldn't believe the words she heard. Was this man truly trying to justify rape and brutalisation with her own faith? She noted his braid, he wasn't just a lowlander faking it. But he was delusional if he fully believed what he said. “You should feel lucky I am letting you just leave. I didn't come here to kill my own people. But if you don't leave, I will.” She kept her voice shockingly level, she thought. But it didn't deter the man.
“You can't tell us what to do. Come on, we're going to avenge our Captain.” With that, the man lunged at the nearest of Celeste's men. He was the better fighter and shoved her man back into the mud.
As they were grappling with one another for the rifle, and before anyone else decided to take his lead, Celeste glided over to them in a single bound and kicked the attacking soldier in the gut. The force sent him flying back and he crashed into the wall of a building with a cracking sound. He cried out in pain and spat blood, but he managed to drag himself up onto his elbows.
“You traitor!” He roared, but she ignored him as best she could.
Celeste turned her attention to the rest of the soldiers. They all stood alert now, as though ready to spring into action as well. They had terrorised this village and now, confronted with that, they stood by those actions? As the rage boiled in her, Celeste felt heat grow at her back. She realised she had summoned her fire replica without physical action. Just pure emotion. She saw them shrink back from her in fear and decided to play into it. She removed gravity, let herself hover a foot off the ground. Enough that she loomed above them all.
“I will tell you again. You are no longer Laocienan soldiers. You are nobodies, and you should hope to stay that way for the rest of your lives. Because if I see any of you again, I will not show such mercy again.”
And that was enough. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the soldiers left the village. Celeste hoped that, without weapons, they would cause little trouble elsewhere. But truly she wasn't sure she cared. She didn't want to kill her own people, but she didn't want those men to live good lives after this.
There was a period of stunned silence after the soldiers disappeared into the treeline. Her men looked between one another uncomfortably. Finally, Uberto spoke up for them. His voice snapped Celeste back to the moment. Her mind had drifted again in the quiet aftermath of the confrontation.
“So...We are mutineers then?”
Celeste looked at him for a moment. He was so young, younger than her, possibly. And she'd put him into an even worse place than before. At some point someone would come and find out what had happened here.
“I am. I was the one who killed their Captain. The guilt is mine alone.” She sighed as she considered all their options. “I won't hold it against you if you all leave, tell the general what happened here, and what I did here. But I shall remain, I need to try and make things right here.”
“Then I'll stay as well,” Teo said. “After all you've done for us, Captain...Celeste, it would feel wrong to abandon you here.”
There was a general muttering of agreements from the other men. It did steel Celeste's resolve somewhat to have their support. First of all, she checked if any of the soldiers spoke any Ofprovians. One man came forward, explaining he grew up near the border and knew the dialect well enough.
“You must tell them this,” She said carefully. “We are not with the last soldiers. We are here to protect the village from now on. Make sure you are kind to them, we don't know what they've all been through.”
She ordered the men to clear the bodies from the street. She didn't know Ofprovian funeral traditions, so she ordered them to burn the bodies. And throw Cosma's in a ditch. While they set to work, Celeste went to visit the woman she had seen in the first house.
The house had been left a mess. She wasn't sure if the soldiers had knocked over their chairs as they'd left, or if there had been a struggle. She knocked on the door and let herself in to the smaller room. It was sparsely decorated aside from the plain bed. It reminded her of her own room, back...Well, back where she had come from. Though with a little more room to move.
The woman she had only glanced before was sat, her back pressed against the wall. A heavy woollen blanket was wrapped over her, though clearly not by her own hands. Where it hung open, Celeste could see the tattered state of her clothing. She felt guilty looking at her. Guilty that the man who did this was Laocienan, guilty that she didn't have the strength to kill the men for what they had done.
She coughed and the women started, looking up at her with fearful eyes. In her clearest Ofprovian, Celeste introduced herself, hoping she could make herself understood even if she didn't understand dialects. She took a step forward and the woman shrank back. Her deep brown eyes darted over Celeste and she looked down at herself.
Taking a step away, she unbuttoned her jacket and shrugged out of it, discarding it on the ground. When she stepped forward again, the woman seemed a little calmer. She would have to tell the men to do the same.
“I'm sorry, for what they did to you. But I am not like them. I promise. I will get revenge for you.”
She wasn't clear from the woman's reaction how well she understood. Or how much she was paying attention. She struggled to focus herself, but she couldn't imagine how she would feel after trauma like this. She crouched so their faces were level and reach towards the woman. Initially, she recoiled, but after Celeste's hands took the blanket and wrapped it tighter around her, she seemed to relax. Just a little.
The woman - girl? Celeste tried not to think about her age - didn't raise her eyes to look into Celeste's. But her lips parted as she spoke a few words, quietly and in a thick accent.
“Please-” Celeste strained to make the rest out. “Safe- Care-”
She could catch the meaning of words, or at least guess, but she struggled to figure out a meaningful sentence. Small tears pooled in the woman's eyes. Tentatively, Celeste reached forward and placed a hand on her arm. She didn't pull away.
“What is your name?” She asked softly.
“Flore.” The name was quietly spoken, as though a secret. As though knowing who Flore was might bring her shame.
“I'm sorry.” It didn't do anything to keep saying it, but Celeste didn't know what else she could say. “I will keep you safe.” She promised and then embraced the other woman. She pulled Flore against herself, her arms encasing the other woman.
She rested Flore's head on her shoulder and felt her begin to weep now. As she held her, Celeste didn't know if she felt her anger fading away, or burning stronger. Even if she had left the village a bloody grave for those soldiers, would that have changed anything? Would that give the victims any comfort? Maybe Flore was too numb to feel anger yet. Maybe she just wanted to forget. Celeste could relate to both of those responses. What use was her anger now, if she didn't do anything productive with it, if she just let it fester inside herself?
In all there were a few dozen civilians in the village. Men of military age were a notable absence. As the story emerged, from the survivors, not all of their young men had gone off to fight. But those who had remained were singled out by the Laocienan soldiers when the village was occupied. Celeste and her soldier that spoke the dialect sat with the villagers who were willing to tell their story and listened.
By the time the sun began to set, Celeste wasn't in any state to eat. Her stomach couldn't take it. Only the two of them had heard the stories first hand; how the soldiers had made sport of killing those men they deemed fit enough to fight. And then the terrorising of all that remained afterwards. There were some women who were more able to talk than Flore but Celeste wished they weren't. Wished she could forget what had happened here.
There wasn't that much food in the village. They had come here to resupply as they had next to nothing left, but it turned out that the occupying soldiers didn't have many rations left either. Glancing over Cosma's desk, Celeste noticed that he had been sending out resupply orders when she had appeared.
The villagers themselves hadn't been able to build up much in the way of food stores either. In the woodlands they didn't rely on traditional farming, but instead managed the lands so there was adequate food produced within the forest. Crop burning obviously wasn't being used here, but the artillery and gunfire was enough to destroy much of their food supply accidently.
Celeste didn't have a problem giving her men half rations so the villagers could eat properly. It was the least they could do. While they were still new, she ordered them to set up camp at the south end of the village, rather than occupy any of the houses.
There was a quiet amongst the men as they sat and ate. Back during the trench fighting, even during the worst of the shelling, the night would still be filled with songs to lighten their spirits. Now that didn't feel appropriate.
Teo loudly sighed as he poked at his food. Celeste looked over to him, concern on her face. He looked up, startled by her expression, then shook his head.
“Sorry, Celeste, I was just thinking...” He let out a long sigh. “Back when I first signed up, before I shipped out, I had a last night down the pub with some friends. I laughed it all off at the time, it was just jokes, stupid things like that, but...This is the sort of things we joked about. I didn't think about it then, think about how awful what they were suggesting was. That we would be righteous conquerors, reaping the rewards in money and women and glory.”
Teo looked sick as he spoke. Celeste was ready to say something back when another of the men grumbled and nodded and agreement. Was that just normal then?
“You didn't do anything, though,” She said tentatively. “You aren't the soldiers who did this. You aren't guilty and you know better now.”
“But it could have been us, if I had been in that unit, I would have-”
“You would have stood up for what is right. I know you would.”
“I'm not so certain though. It's because I ended up in your unit that I'm on this side of the fight. If I hadn't been assigned to you...”
“You can't feel guilty for something you didn't do. It doesn't matter what might have happened. Only what has. And you-” She turned her head to address all of them. “You all did what is right here. We will protect this village, no matter what it takes.” She moved around and placed an arm around Teo, pulling him into a gentle side hug.
This isn't viable. Her spirit hissed at her. You can't waste your time emotionally supporting them. You're barely holding it together as it is.
You know why I have to do this, she thought, though didn't dare say it out loud.
As the next few days passed, the villages began to warm up to them. There was a tension in the air, it was obvious, but they did their best to be helpful. Patrols went out to help villagers gathering what was left in the nearby forest. In return, the villages found spare jackets to replace the military uniforms that had been discarded. Celeste refused the offer. The cool breeze running through her shirt soothed her, and she needed that feeling. Soon the villagers were comfortable with the soldiers sleeping in one of the disused buildings which they were most grateful for.
Nearly a week had passed when things went wrong. Celeste had taken to floating in the air, high above the village, to monitor the fighting going on. It was difficult to get a sense of who was winning, and hardly seemed to matter to Celeste at this point. But, coming from the south, she noticed something very worrying. A column of men, Laocienan. They appeared to be marching directly for the village. By the time Celeste had noticed, they were about a day's march away.
“You're going to retreat,” Celeste said calmly to her assembled men.
“Why would we do that?” Uberto asked, crossing his arms.
“Because a column that size will easily wipe us out. It was my decision to be a mutineer, not yours. I won't have you all suffer for my crime.”
“We chose to stay before,” Teo responded. “So I, for one, am staying now. I want to protect the village.”
“You can't. There's not enough of you. I can fight them off, possibly, but I can't protect all of you as well.”
“Then don't! We all knew there were risks to being soldiers, and I didn't expect to be fighting our own army, but it is what is right.”
“I don't want the guilt of your deaths on my conscience,” She said simply.
“If you're not planning on killing us, then you shouldn't,” Uberto said with a shrug.
Celeste sighed and complained, but it was very clear that the men were not going to run as she ordered.
Why should you complain? You can instil loyalty in your men, you should take advantage of that.
“I'm not trying to take advantage of them,” She hissed back to the spirit as she counted out their guns.
They had enough for two guns to a soldier, which would have been some good, if they had more people capable of reloading. As it was, they didn't. Celeste left the spare guns with the villagers, though kept most of the ammunition for her men. They showed the villagers who were prepared to fight how to use a rifle, but they wouldn't be able to reload quickly without a week's drilling.
Beyond guns, they had swords, most of which Celeste left with the villagers as well. If they were doing to be engaging the column in close quarters, it was probably already over anyway. Whilst the villagers picked out a house the blockade for themselves, the soldiers worked out ways to get onto the roofs of the buildings. It wasn't much height or cover, but some was better than none. And they retained an element of surprise. Waiting until the column went right through the centre of the village reminded Celeste of Tosetti's tactics, back in the so-called battle of Gloriocitta Pass.
Though she chided her men to get some sleep in the night before the battle, Celeste couldn't really take her own advice. The terror of it stopped her sleeping. It kept all the men up too, but she could order them in a way she couldn't order her own mind.
She sat on a roof, a place she realised she was finding herself a lot, and watched the forest. Maybe they would try a night-time attack. The night glow of fires was everywhere, so it was impossible to say if one of them was from the approaching column. But they must have been out there. Preparing for this fight as well.
She stared at her pocket watch as she waited, counting the minutes. She had to resist the urge to keep winding it, as something to do with her hands. Maybe making the clock run fast would bring the dawn quicker. She wished that were her power, There could be comfort in that. But she left the hands to tick at their own rate.
“I'm sorry, Sabina. I wish I could have seen you again,” She whispered, maybe to the watch. Maybe to the Winds that watched over her still. Maybe to the moon under which they had first kissed. Maybe just to herself. She brought the metal cover of the watch up to her lips and gently kissed the cool metal. It was a hollow replacement, but it was symbolic anyway.
It was a few hours after sunrise when the column finally arrived. Celeste took one last glance at her watch as she heard the rumbling of feet, before tucking it back into her jacket. She'd put the green military jacket back on, though not forced her men to do the same if they didn't want to. If this was where she died, she wanted to die in the colours of Laociena.
From the window of the house where she hid, she could see the horsemen leading the column stopping at the edge of the village. Letting them march in wasn't going to work then, it seemed. But as one of them rode forwards, she realised that no clever tactics would work here anyway.
She leapt through the window and drew her swords as Tosetti dropped off his horse. He looked resplendent in his full, formal regalia. Celeste had never seen him dressed the full part for a general, he had always been less formal than that. She supposed now that he was trying to send a message.
“Put the swords away already, Celeste,” He said with a sigh. He had the slow, irritation of a parent telling off a child. “And you can give your men the signal to stand down. Not that I'm angry, I mean, I would have placed them in the same location if I were in your situation. I don't need magic to know where they are. Maybe you could make it as an officer.”
“I'm not putting the swords away until you turn around and leave the village.”
Tosetti sighed and opened his jacket. “Look, I'm unarmed, not even a knife or pistol. I'm here to talk, not here to kill you. I would appreciate you showing the same courtesy. You know you can't kill me already.”
“Talk about what?” She said, narrowing her eyes.
“A few days ago, half a dozen soldiers came to me saying that you had killed their Captain. Now, I have some faith you in. A misunderstanding, I supposed.”
“And the column of soldiers with you?”
“Insurance. In case you had truly lost it and I needed to have you put down. It is our responsibility not to leave monsters charging around, after all.”
“It is. Which is what I put that monster in charge here down.” Her voice shook as she spoke. How dare he talk as though she could have been the monster here.
“Ah, good. And why did you feel the need to kill him?”
“They really didn't tell you?” She asked, confused but not surprised.
“Why don't you put the swords away and explain your side to me then?”
It didn't take long to explain the crimes to Tosetti. She could have retold every story the villagers had shared, but she didn't want to recall it herself. The General sat in Cosma's chair in the ruined command tent while Celeste stood opposite him. When she finished explaining what had happened to the village, he nodded slowly.
“Well, you do love to do things in the most inconvenient way possible, but you did do the right thing.”
“I didn't expect you to take this so well,” Celeste said, feeling rather confused.
“Brutalising civilians is...tactically idiotic. If we hold this territory it would be harder to control and if we don't this will only leave a bad memory of us.”
“And it's wrong,” Celeste added, firmly. The tactics of committing atrocities didn't seem that important to her.
“Of course. But this is war.”
“So, the people here mean nothing to you?”
“I didn't say that.” Tosetti ran his hand over his face and nodded. “Okay, here is what I am going to do. I will allocate this village extra supplies and a new, smaller unit to protect it. I will inform them that the soldiers who had been stationed here have been executed.”
“That doesn't seem like much.”
“What more can I do? Offer them justice and goods to make up for it. Would you like me to grovel to them instead?”
“Maybe. This is your fault.”
Tosetti looked taken aback. “And how do you figure that one out?”
“Cosma allowed his men to rape and murder their way through the village, even if he didn't lay a finger on them. You were his commanding officer; you should have kept him in check just as he should have kept his men in check.” She had been working through the logic in her head over the week. She wasn't going to let Tosetti off now he sat before her, acting as though he were innocent.
“There were several more officers in the line of command between the two of us.”
“Then all of them are guilty. You didn't know this was even happening, how would you know if it's not going on everywhere?”
“I wouldn't, you're right,” Tosetti said with a sigh. “How about this, I will send some of my most trusted officers to visit every village under my occupation, ensure this isn't happening anywhere else.”
“And if it is going on?”
“Then the same response. Offer supplies and execute the previous soldiers.”
“Killing your own men sounds a bit tactically idiotic,” She sneered.
“It is, which is why I wouldn't waste resources like that. It's why I am frustrated you killed Cosma.”
“You just said they had been executed already.”
“No,” He said slowly. “I said that I would tell the villagers I had them executed. Instead, I will redistribute them into other units. Hopefully that will improve their behaviour. Speaking of, did you really have to kill half the unit?”
“I only killed Cosma. I told them to run away,” She said blankly, not following.
“Ah, so they just lied to cover their friends' backs. Now, officially speaking, you were following my orders exactly. I'm going to back date my reports to say I ordered you to kill a traitorous Captain and that the rest of the soldiers deserted of their own volition.” As he spoke, Tosetti grabbed some spare paper off the desk and started scribbling notes to himself.
“Why would you do that?”
“If it looks like I'm not capable of controlling my own wizards, then there's a chance you'll get reassigned.”
“What makes you think I'm going to continue serving you, or this army, anyway?” Celeste said, taking a step forwards.
“Because,” Tosetti shouted, slamming a fist on the desk. “You are intelligent enough to see the bigger picture. I need you to win this war.” For once, the facade of Tosetti's composure seemed to drop. She saw the desperate man below, who knew he needed her to complete his personal plans, as well as those of the nation. “The longer this war goes on, the more things like this will happen. If we can end it, then you will have protected more people than you ever could have by aimlessly wandering and killing.”
They locked eyes for a moment. For once, Tosetti looked like he was actually seeing her, not just starring past her. The most painful thing was knowing he was right. Letting the war go on longer wouldn't keep anyone safe. The sooner the military stopped occupying villages like this, the sooner that people would be safe.
“You want to be Field Marshall. When you're that powerful, that above it all, how will you ever notice if something like this happens?”
“Well then, I guess you need to keep working for me,” Tosetti sat back and started writing again. “If you want to keep me in line in return, I will accept that.”
Kill him. Kill him now and take his plan. You can protect people better than he ever could.
Celeste became conscious of how tense her body was as the rage of the spirit filled her. She loosened her hands, realising they had been fists. She had been dangerously close to going up like a torch again.
“I'm not forgiving you for this. When this war is over, I hope you and every other monster of this war answers for their crimes.” Celeste took a step backwards, scowling at him.
“Fine by me. You can remain in this village for a few days more, if you want to make sure the recovery goes well. Then I expect you back on duty. Don't think I'm going to give you fun jobs from now on, you are in my bad books, even if only unofficially.”
“Right you are, sir,” Celeste said, her voice dripping with malice. She still had people to protect in this war. But she didn't have any patience left for those she had to protect them from.