Page 285 of Scorched Earth

Amarin approached, holding the reins of Marcus’s golden mare. The sight of his old servant hollowed Marcus’s stomach, and he said, “I’m sorry, Amarin. I’m sorry it took me so long to get to this point.”

“You’re here now,” Amarin replied, holding the horse steady while Marcus mounted, then straightening his cloak across the mare’s haunches. “See it through.”

At the sight of him, the Thirty-Seventh lifted their heads. Got to their feet, and then pulled up brothers who struggled to do the same. Centurions cleared their throats and barked orders to form lines. His legion, though a shadow of what it had been before this battle, stood tall. As did the Forty-First and the other legions that formed his ranks.

Surrounded by the bodies of the fallen, Marcus set aside his grief and spoke. “We have been fighting the wrong war.”

His words were carried back through the ranks, making them as loud as a storm.

“While we conquered the West, Lucius Cassius has risen as a tyrantover Celendor and its provinces, using steel and fist to beat our people into submission even as he steals their children to bolster the ranks he uses to oppress. Poverty and famine and disease run rampant through the provinces, all while the patricians of the Hill turn a blind eye to the toll, unwilling to risk themselves or their coffers to check the Dictator’s deeds. A small few stand against him, but what hope do they have against the man who wields this?” He gestured out to the tens of thousands of legionnaires surrounding him. “None, is the answer. Cassius’s power will only grow as he climbs on the backs of common men and women, reaching beyond the voters, beyond the senate, until he grasps the crown that has not been worn for generations. Until he is Emperor, his rule untouchable, his rule forlife.”

The men shifted restlessly, expressions grim.

“Since the day we were sent to Lescendor, we have been told our duty is to serve. To fight. To be the blade of Mother Empire. But above all else, we have been told to obey. To go where we are told to go, kill who we are told to kill, destroy what we are told to destroy, and to never question whether what we do is right. To question is to disobey, and to disobey is treason, and treason is death. Not one of us asked for this life, and if Cassius has his way, not one of us will ever escape it. There is a word for what we are, and I tell you, it isnotsoldier.”

He waited for his words to travel through the bloodied men, seeing anger rise through their grief. An old anger that had always simmered but which he now fueled bright.

“For the sake of gold to fund his rise to power, Cassius ordered us onto poisoned ground using bribery and threats with no care for how many of us lived or died. If you need more proof of how little Cassius values legion lives, know that it was he who sent the Fifty-First alone into the blight. But he would not have been able to do so if I had not broken my promise to them. It was not you who killed them today—it was me.” His voice cracked on the last, and silence stretched.

“I swore to protect them until they were ready to protect themselves, but instead I cast them back into the arms of Cassius when Austornic questioned my methods, my justifications, my goals. The deaths of Legatus Austornic and all of the Fifty-First are on my hands, not yours. Nic defied the Empire’s desire for more conquest—my own desire for more conquest—and he died for it, sure and true.”

Marcus paused, allowing his words to disseminate. Allowing them to take what he’d said into their souls, full well knowing thathe was giving them the opportunity to turn their back on him. To cast him down. And that they’d be right to do it.

“There is not a one of us standing here who is not guilty of blindly following commands. Of doing the worst while washing our hands of culpability because what choice have we but to obey? None more so than me, for in recent days, weeks, months, I have embodied that belief. Embodied that villainy, all while burying my head in denial by sayingthis is how it must be. I have no choice, and therefore what I have done is not my fault.Except that I did have a choice. I didnothave to obey, which means that every death, every hurt, every loss that has come by choosingthis”—he gestured around—“is on me. But also onyou, because just as I had the choice to defy the authority of the Dictator, the Senate, the Empire, you had the choice to defymeand did not.”

His words rolled through the ranks of men like a wave, and instead of row after row of legionnaires, Marcus saw men. Individuals with their own minds, their own hearts, each grappling with the awful truth that he set before them.

We do not have to obey.

“The legions serve the Empire!” he shouted, taking the Thirty-Seventh’s standard from Servius. “But the Dictator is not the Empire. The Senate is not the Empire. It is thepeoplewho are the Empire, and so it is the people we should serve. The people we should protect. Instead we have abandoned them to suffer while we fight to fatten the pockets of the very man who does them harm.

“We are not the sons of the Empire, we are the sons of the people. We are Bardeen, Sibal, and Phera. We are Sibern, Atlia, and Faul. We are Timia, Denastres, and Chersome. We are Celendor.” Marcus surveyed the masses of men, seeing a rage long contained rising in their hearts. “I say it is time we return to the Empire to do our duty. I say we return to the Empire and remind Lucius Cassius who rules.”

“The people!” the men screamed. “The people!”

“I will not ask you to follow me. I will not ask you to obey me.” He lifted the standard into the air, his arm shaking beneath the weight of so much gold. “But I ask for you to march with me and return to the East. To join me in one last battle, because together, we will remind the Dictator that the legions are people. And that the people are legion!”

The roar of the men was deafening, fists and weapons and legion standards lifting in the air.

“All well and good, Prodigy,” Drusus said, rocking on his heels. “But how thefuckare we going to get back east? Your girl blew up all our lines of retreat.”

“Not all.” Marcus cast a backward glance at the smoke rising in the distance where the fight raged on. But not their fight. “She left us one. Now let’s march.”

110KILLIAN

Killian stared at the mass of Mudamorian undead surrounding the lake of blight. They’d have to cut through them, leaving unsavable corpses in their wake, then wade the horses through poison to get to the stem, which meant everyone in their company who wasn’t marked wouldn’t be long for this world.

A terrible toll, but Killian knew that every one of the soldiers in their company would ride into that lake knowing it likely meant their lives. That was not what had drawn them up short.

It was that every one of the blighters standing before them was a Mudamorian child.

“I hate her,” Lydia whispered. “How is it possible for one woman to have so much evil in her soul?”

Malahi rode alongside them. She was breathing hard from the gallop, her amber eyes staring bleakly out over the dead. “How do we get through them?”

“Slaughter,” Agrippa answered, ever Malahi’s deadly shadow. “Rufina thinks we won’t be able to do it.”

Killian gave soft orders to hold back, but below, none of the blighters so much as even twitched. As though they didn’t even see them, despite being only thirty yards away.