CHAPTER 32: The Hungry March
**The King's Road, South of Oakhaven – Vanguard of the Silver Banner**
The morning mist hung heavy, a cold shroud clinging to the grimy faces of the Imperial vanguard. Sergeant Livius, his uniform already caked in fine grey ash, stared at the endless ribbon of the King's Road stretching before them. For three days, the grand march had felt less like a glorious conquest and more like a slow, deliberate starvation. Every breath tasted of grit and the acrid memory of distant fires. The very ground seemed to resist their passage, a subtle, insidious foe.
"Nothing," muttered Private Kella, her young face drawn and pale, eyes scanning the blackened remains of what the maps claimed was a thriving hamlet. She hugged her rifle closer, as if to ward off the chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. The silence here was unnerving, a dead quiet. No birds sang, no dogs barked, no distant smoke rose from hearths. The air still carried the faint, sickly-sweet tang of Oakhaven, which they had passed two days ago – not the comforting scent of pine smoke, but the reek of wholesale destruction. Every well they'd found had yielded only foul, metallic-smelling water, quickly deemed unusable by the field medics who were themselves looking increasingly gaunt.
"Where are the villagers?" Corporal Titus grumbled, kicking at a pile of smoldering timbers, his frustration raw. "The High Crown promised fertile lands, loyal subjects, cheering crowds. All I've seen for days are ghosts and ash. We're supposed to be liberating these people, not marching through their graves." His stomach rumbled in protest, echoing the complaints of a hundred other men.
The scouts, including Garron, were returning with increasingly grim reports. Not a single functioning farm, not a single untouched granary. The few livestock they'd found were either slaughtered and left to rot, or had vanished entirely, driven deeper into the untamed wilds. The sheer scale of the army, its endless columns of men and beasts stretching back to the horizon, now felt less like overwhelming strength and more like a massive, insatiable maw that this ravaged land utterly refused to feed. Each night, men would dream of hot meals, only to wake to the gnawing ache of hunger.
"The Purifiers say this is the enemy's sin," Kella whispered, her voice tight, almost a plea for understanding. "That they deny us sustenance as a test of faith. That Kael is an agent of the profane." She shivered. "But what kind of monster burns their own home? What kind of darkness makes a land this empty?"
Livius offered no answer, just a grim shake of his head. He had seen the fear in their eyes. The whispers of "Kael Sovereign" being some kind of demon who could make entire lands vanish were beginning to take root, despite the Archlector's booming sermons from the iron pulpit. Faith was hard to hold onto when your gut clenched with hunger and your feet dragged through endless ash.
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**Lord Marshal Daegarn's Command Tent – A Storm of Frustration**
The air in Daegarn's tent crackled with barely contained rage, thick with the scent of stale wine and unwashed bodies. Lady Edraya, Minister of War, stood rigidly, her hand clenched on her sword hilt, her usual composure strained to breaking point. Lord Tervan, the Quartermaster General, sat hunched over a disordered stack of ledgers, his jowly face glistening with sweat despite the biting cold, his eyes darting like a trapped animal.
"Fifty-four patrols lost in two weeks, Lord Marshal!" Edraya's voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy air. "Not in open battle! Not a single contact report! They simply *vanish*! And the rumors from the supply lines are crippling us. Our men are hungry, they're sick from foul water, and they're starting to look at each other with suspicion, accusing loyalists of hoarding!"
"This is not war, Lord Marshal, it is an illness!" Tervan nearly shouted, slamming a fist onto the map table, rattling the scattered pins. "The King's Road is choked with mud and rumor! We are losing more men to dysentery and desertion than to any rebel blade! This is a slow, agonizing death by a thousand cuts! Our logistical framework is collapsing under the sheer *absence* of resources!"
Archlector Malgrad, surprisingly calm amidst the chaos, steepled his fingers, his crimson robes rustling as he exhaled slowly. "As I said, this is spiritual warfare. Kael is not merely a rebel; he is a vessel for doubt and fear. He makes them question the divine order, turning brother against brother, and the land itself against the Emperor. Our Purifiers must redouble their efforts. We must show them the price of heresy on the battlefield, cleanse this vile plague of doubt."
"Faith doesn't fill a stomach, Archlector!" Tervan blurted out, glaring at Malgrad. "And we are losing men not just to the Red Veil, but to desertion. To sickness from foul water. This grand army, this *judgment*, is bogged down, moving at a snail's pace. Duskwatch remains weeks away at this rate, and our vanguard is already murmuring of turning back!"
Daegarn turned from the map to look out at the endless lines of tents. The constant low rumble of the army, once a sound of power, was now punctuated by the frustrated shouts of quartermasters, the infrequent wails of sick men huddled near meager fires, and the nervous chatter of soldiers sharing tales of unseen horrors and imperial corruption. He thought of Oakhaven, a black scar on the green landscape. He thought of the desperate report from Sergeant Valerius, of the woman in red, of the whispers in the woods that haunted his own sleep. Kael was turning the north into a vast, empty trap, designed to consume them from within.
He slammed his own hand down on the table, silencing them all. His voice, though quiet, was heavy with grim resolve. "Enough! We are not chasing ghosts and rumors. We are the Empire! Lady Edraya, you will dispatch a full Legion, supported by the Black Legates, to sweep the entire Blackwood Forest. Leave no shadow unturned. I want every Red Veil cultist strung up on every tree, a message in blood for the cowards who haunt us. Burn every last patch of wilderness if you must."
His gaze then fixed on Tervan, cold and unyielding. "And Lord Tervan, you will issue a new decree. Any village, any farm, any merchant found withholding supplies will be razed to the ground without question. Their goods seized. Their people… made an example of. This army *will* be fed, by whatever means necessary. And this land *will* yield to the Emperor's will, or it will burn until it is nothing but glass."
Daegarn knew this was what Kael wanted. He wanted them to turn into monsters, to validate the rebellion's cause by forcing the Empire to reveal its true, brutal face. But he also knew he had no other choice. To falter now was to invite mutiny and total collapse.
"This is no longer a strategic advance," Daegarn growled, rising from his seat, his eyes gleaming with a desperate, brutal fire. "It is a purge. We will not find Kael. We will leave a path of cinders and despair behind us, and he will have no land left to stand on, no people left to believe in his hollow promises."
Outside the tent, the vast Imperial host rumbled like a chained beast, its hunger growing with each fruitless step, its patience wearing thin. The phantom front was claiming its first victims, not with steel, but with emptiness and dread. The Imperial machine, designed to crush, was instead being consumed by the very void it sought to create.