Pay for Pyre

A town on the Western Frontier of the Empire.

This stretch of the frontier was usually lively. Its proximity to the Blighted Plains ensured a steady rhythm of patrols, supply caravans, and rotating garrisons. Soldiers came and went. Coin flowed.

The current state of affairs, however, was anything but usual.

A unified tribal host had gathered beyond the frontier. Rumors placed their number at half a million. The largest force ever seen in living memory, marching with the intention of finally claiming the Imperial Heartlands for themselves.

They had lost.

The Empire responded by dispatching two of its Imperial Legions. A small necromantic attachment accompanied them at the request of the Arch-Mage of Torment, largely composed of students.

What followed was a slaughter.

The engagement was officially recorded as the Battle of the Screaming Sands. The name came from the screaming, which lasted for ten hours without pause, until it seemed the sands themselves had learned the sound.

Roughly three thousand of the plainsmen survived. Imperial losses numbered in the hundreds.

Medals had already been issued and were waiting in the capital. Many of the soldiers who earned them had not yet left the frontier. They were here now, drinking.

The Empire declared the Blighted Plains pacified, once and for all. Same way it did the last time tribes marched onto the frontier.

Across the Empire, celebrations followed. Frontier towns, in particular, prospered.

It all starts in such a Frontier town with a simple hedge knight looking for work, not interested in the celebrations.

Then in another where work involves cleaning up the cost of that celebration.

Pay for Pyre is a novella set in the Empire of Suffering.