***Chapter One***

“Please rise, Sergeant Vehnul.”

The moment I heard those words, I knew that my fate had been sealed. The courtroom was filled to the brim with my fellow soldiers and their families. I barely felt myself tangible to this world as I stood up but it also felt as though I had lifted the weight of all of the world’s iron. The clank of the chains on the shackles clasped around my wrists and ankles was the only sound audible. Even though my eyes settled on my superior officer who sat behind his robes and pulpit, I couldn’t help but find the irony in the situation. I felt a smile touch at the corner of my lips even as my mind recoiled at the thought.

“You are brought before me on this day for court martial to face the following charges: conspiring to overthrow the crown, assisting a conspirator in actions against the crown, and murder.”

He took his glasses off when he finished reading me the charges. I hated it when magistrates did that. It was almost as though they made a futile attempt at becoming personal with you to try and make you feel like a human being despite what you did. Guess he didn’t want to show the glee behind his eyes to the rest of the room.

“These are very high charges to be brought against you, Sergeant Vehnul. Care to say anything for yourself?”

The magistrate visibly relaxed in his chair and lightly tapped his glasses on the wood of the pulpit.

I felt my lips move and words push past them but it felt as though someone else was speaking them for me and I had no choice but to listen. I liked what I heard.

“I have nothing to say to you, Magistrate. I’m surprised these charges are being brought against me. There were no survivors.”

Now I watched his salt and pepper eyebrows furrow in anger. The collective gasp from some of the women, now widows, and the sound of leather being tightened by fists from other soldiers that would have loved nothing more than to have them wrapped around my neck all flowed into a beautiful chorus. A few loud bangs from the gavel silenced the whispers that started to rise up from the attendants.

Those brown eyes from the magistrate locked onto my own pools of green and he tried so damn hard to stare me down behind his false sense of security from his rank and title. The fear in his eyes I saw after a few seconds only kept that half smile on my face. I pity the man for what he must have seen reflected from my soul. Though I have to admit he did a damn good job of hiding it from everyone else. Training did that for you.

“Sergeant, you appall me with your flagrant disregard for your actions. Have you any kind of remorse for-“

“Just because I said there were no survivors, Magistrate,” I interjected. “Does not mean that I am admitting to what happened.”

He stopped for a moment and then leaned forward in his chair. In his careworn hands he slid a stack of paper nearly six inches thick into his hands. He began to flip through the pages carefully before he remembered to put his glasses back on. The Magistrate wasn’t much older than I was but his black hair was already going gray in long streaks around the sideburns all the way to the back. I wondered inwardly if I’d started to gray like that myself but his words interrupted my thoughts.

“Sergeant Vehnul of the 112th Trencher Company.”

He started flipping through the papers a little faster now. Apparently the magistrate was entertaining himself by scouring through my private record. I knew exactly what he was doing. Good man.

“You were a good man; a good soldier. Graduated top of your unit from basic training and you received your first NCO commission at the age of twenty. You commanded your first squad underneath the watchful eye of Commander Mahrlen and from what I understand you ran across brigands your first time in a leadership role.”

His eyes met mine. He was trying to make me sound a little more human. Why did he even bother?

“We did. They were Farrow. We ran into them near the Bloodstone border. What’s your point, Magistrate, and may I sit down?”

“No you may not sit down. And the point is that during that escapade…”

Now he looked at the report, bastard pulled it out and held it up as though everyone could read it.

“That your detachment was outnumbered three to one.”

He put the paper down and folded his arms across his chest.

“You suffered no casualties.”

“Pig men are notoriously bad shots.” I retorted.

“Pig men don’t miss at point blank range. Your detachment was ambushed. You wrote it in your double-a r. Your commanding officer saw it as well. It was your leadership that pulled them through and those men went home to their wives after that encounter.”

The tension in the room was growing and I had to shut my eyes to keep the images of the people behind me out. They had never known because that report was classified. We had been caught with our pants down and, “No one needed to know about it. We would have been seen as unprepared and weak.”

A snort came from the magistrate and he slid the report back into the stack of papers and went digging again.

“You had a spotless record for eight more years of your service and every…single…encounter…”

He pulled out my after action reports and with each sound of the paper on wood I flinched. I didn’t want to think about it and he was jarring these memories into me. He knew I was a dead man, why did he want me to suffer?

“Not one casualty. You re-upped when it was your time without question. You never went home on leave when you were on tour and never once did you ever back talk a superior officer. You were offered to become an officer as a matter of fact yet you turned it down to stay with your men. Your unit traveled with you, requesting special transfers when you were reassigned. And every single time you got into a scrap, not one casualty. You were almost-“

“The perfect soldier.”

I bit my lip so hard that blood started to trickle down my chin. He was getting to me and he knew it; he liked it.

“Then why don’t you tell me, Sergeant…”

He leaned forward and ran a hand through his hair, those scars on his face creased as he smiled.

“What happened on the day that makes you stand before me today?”

My knuckles went white with how hard I gripped my hands into fists and I was visibly shaking. Something inside me wanted me to do to him what I did to them and a part of me would enjoy it. Yet there was something deep down inside that still felt sickened for what had happened that day and that part of me cringed at the thought of assaulting a superior officer.

Why did I even care? Why did I even speak? By Morrow I’ll never know.

I gathered my thoughts and I twisted that emotional knife deep down into my soul. I brushed off my uniform to regain composure and I touched lovingly at the four rows of ribbons and two medals. For some reason, I found comfort and I found enough strength to speak.

“As you command, sir.”