I. The Famine That Wasn't
The caravan moved like a wounded snake across the dusty scrubland south of the foothills. Warren Fulkom, the Envoy, rode at the head, his face caked in the gray dust of the road. Behind him trailed nearly three hundred souls—refugees from the southern fringe villages who had fled the rumors of "pale ghosts" and the crushing taxes of the Union. They were gaunt, their eyes hollowed by the specific exhaustion of the hopeless.
Warren's anxiety was not for their safety on the road—the Black Flock scouts overhead ensured that—but for what awaited them. He had promised them sanctuary. He had promised them purpose. But as he looked at the sheer number of hungry mouths, a cold knot of logistical dread tightened in his stomach. The Union's granaries were empty or hoarded. Obsidios Lithos was a fortress of stone and iron; you could not eat discipline.
Then, they crossed the unseen boundary.
At the 30-mile mark, the air pressure shifted. The relentless, dry heat of the southern plains vanished, replaced by the cool, crystalline stillness of the Obsidian Ordo. The sky above, previously a harsh blue glare, was suddenly veiled by the perpetual, rolling cloud cover that marked Corvin's domain. The shadows lengthened, bringing immediate relief to the blistered skin of the refugees.
But it was the land that stopped Warren's breath.
The fields surrounding Obsidios Lithos, which mere weeks ago had been rocky, semi-arable scrubland, had erupted into a impossible abundance.
The crops were not green; they were the color of deep ocean water and bruised iron. Wheat stalks stood waist-high, months ahead of any natural season, their heads heavy with grain that shimmered with a distinct metallic sheen. The leaves of root vegetables, bursting from the dark, rich soil, were a deep, glossy violet-black.
Warren slid from his horse, walking into the field. He touched a stalk of wheat. It was tough, resilient, and vibrated with a faint, low-grade energy. He pulled a heavy, black-rinded melon from the vine. It was hard as wood on the outside—an obsidian-hard rind designed to survive frost and pestilence. He cracked it open against his knee; the fruit inside was vibrant, wet, and smelled of concentrated sustenance.
Obsidian-branded civilians (Obsida-Serva) were already moving through the rows, harvesting with disciplined efficiency. They looked healthy, their muscles taunt, their skin clear—the biological result of consuming this magically enriched food.
A refugee mother, holding a starving infant, stared at the fields, then up at the dark tower piercing the clouds. "Is this... is this the dark magic you spoke of?" she whispered, fear warring with hunger.
Warren handed her the fruit. "No," he said, his voice filled with a new, profound relief. "This is Order. The land obeys him, just as we do. Eat. You will never hunger here."
II. The Southern Patrol
While the city secured its harvest, the war for the perimeter began. Legion Commander Veridian Vex led the sortie. His force was substantial: 150 Scutum Legionnaires (two companies) and 75 Support Archers, all clad in the newly forged Obsidian Plate.
Their mission was to push south into the Southern Expanse, the vast agricultural belt of plains and spread-out villages that lay beyond the Ordo's influence. The intelligence from the Ravens was specific: the refugee flow was being harried. Something was hunting the stragglers.
The transition was jarring. The Legion marched out of the cool, protective shadow of the Ordo and into the glaring, unprotected reality of the Union's territory. The heat returned. The silence of the Keep was replaced by the chaotic noise of the wind and the buzzing of insects.
Veridian walked at the front, his hand resting on the pommel of his Obsidian Gladius. He felt the disconnect from the Cohesion Collective slightly—the psychic hum was quieter here, further from the tower—but the Raven Brand on his neck pulsed, a secure line back to Corvin.
"Eyes up," Veridian commanded, his voice low. "The Flock is agitated."
Above them, the scout ravens were not circling; they were diving. They were signaling a Hunt.
III. First Contact: The Terror on the Plains
They crested a low rise and saw the village. It was a typical southern settlement—a cluster of wooden buildings surrounded by indefensible open fields, miles from any Union garrison.
It was a slaughterhouse.
Four creatures—nightmares made of pale, wet flesh—were tearing through the village square. The Pale Ones (Insidiator). They moved on all fours with a blinding, jerky speed that defied anatomy. They had no eyes, only smooth, bulbous heads that snapped toward sound and heat.
Veridian watched as one of the creatures leaped. It cleared a wagon in a single bound, landing on a fleeing farmer. The creature's front leg, ending in iron-hard claws, swiped down. It didn't just cut; it sheared the man in half.
"Shields!" Veridian roared. "Phalanx formation! Archers, suppress!"
The Pale Ones stopped. Their heads snapped toward the sudden, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the Legion locking shields. They hissed—a sound like steam escaping a vent—and bared mouths filled with two-inch needles. They did not fear the metal; they smelled the heat of 200 men.
They charged.
IV. The Revelation of the Blade
The collision was like an avalanche hitting a mountain. The Pale Ones slammed into the Obsidian Scutums. The force was immense—stronger than any horse, stronger than any man. The front line of the Legion buckled but held, the Obsidian Plate Resilience absorbing the kinetic shock that would have shattered normal bones.
Iron claws raked across the black shields, screeching, but failing to gouge the infused metal.
"Push! Strike!" Veridian bellowed.
A Legionnaire on the right flank thrust his Obsidian Gladius forward. The blade caught a Pale One in the shoulder, sinking deep into the sinewy, pale muscle.
The creature recoiled, expecting to heal. In the wild, and against the Union's iron, these monsters regenerated seconds after a wound was inflicted. The flesh usually knit together like closing water.
But this time, the monster screamed. It was a sound of primal, existential confusion.
Veridian watched, stunned. The wound did not close. Instead, the pale flesh around the cut turned necrotic black. The Obsidian magic in the blade was not just cutting; it was enforcing Order upon the chaotic biology of the beast. It was unmaking the magic that held the monster together. The regeneration triggered, but the Obsidian denied it, causing the flesh to crumble and rot instantly.
The Pale One thrashed, clutching the black, smoking wound, its advantage of immortality stripped away.
"They bleed!" Veridian shouted, the realization flooding him with triumph. "The blades kill the rot! Advance!"
The fear evaporated. The Legion realized they held the antithesis to the monsters. The phalanx surged forward, a wall of black steel. Obsidian gladii flashed, hacking off limbs that did not grow back.
From the rear, the Support Company loosed a volley. The Obsidian-tipped arrows struck the remaining three beasts. Where they hit, the creatures convulsed, the arrows acting like neurotoxin to their chaotic systems.
The pack was annihilated in minutes.
V. The Cure
Silence returned to the village, broken only by the weeping of the survivors. Four Pale Ones lay dead, their bodies rapidly dissolving into gray ash as the Obsidian essence consumed the last of their chaotic binding.
Veridian Vex wiped black ichor from his blade. He looked at the weapon with a new reverence. Alcides Ynatos had not just made swords; he had made judgments.
The surviving villagers crept out from their hiding places. They looked at the dead monsters—creatures that the Union mercenaries fled from—and then at the dark, armored soldiers who had slaughtered them without losing a single man.
They dropped to their knees. They did not bow in surrender; they bowed in salvation.
Veridian sheathed his blade. He looked at his Captains. "Gather them. Burn the dead. We return to the Keep."
He looked south, toward the endless plains where more of these things waited. "We are the cure," he whispered to himself. The war for the south had just begun, and the Imperium had the only weapon that mattered.