The Imperial Butcher

In a barren but also visibly beautiful land named Redwind, an Imperial officer overlooks the siege of a city sympathetic to rebels. Going by the name of Fare Rewone, the Imperial general was unpleasant even by the standards of his peers. Fare was known for cruel punishment of prisoners from starving them to driving them insane from sleep deprivation. Looking from a nearby hill, he could see rebels frantically trying to reinforce their city with makeshift defenses.

“This is fun to watch,” said Fare, “I can see that the rebels continue with their pitiful and hopeless task of defending the city from us. Soon the city will fall, and we will show no mercy to the inhabitants. I will send their heads to the emperor as a gift for his birthday.” Continuing to talk to himself, Fare also saw a group of rebels sneaking in food from the outside region.

“Pah,” thought Fare, “this isn’t worth the effort. I can just sit here, and soon the rebels will be desperate enough that they would consider surrender. We will then pretend to accept their surrender, and when they open their gates, we will enter their city, brutalizing them, and make them an example of what happens when people engage in the foolish decision in rebelling against the empire.”

Fare had every reason to be confident. His army besieging the rebel city outnumbered the garrison almost three to one and had supplies that would last them years. From his spies inside the city, Fare knew that the rebels only had a week before they ran out of food and water, and that rebels were dying every day from malnutrition.

“I will be remembered for this,” said Fare to himself, “when I deliver this city to the emperor, he will reward me. I think governor of this pitiful region would be an appropriate reward. After all, I have served the emperor faithfully for almost my entire adult life. A governorship which I obviously deserve would only be fair to me.”

Fare continued to talk to himself while rebels smuggled a strange chemical into the city, which one of his officers brought to his attention. “Sir, we can track down these shipments,” said the officer, “it will take a week to do so, because the rebels are using the local swamp to smuggle these items into the city, but it can do be done. We will also need considerable resources to do so, which we will need your approval to divert.” Again, General Fare dismissed the concerns, saying that the officers were over-worried and that the city will fall in a few days.

“Go watch a local sports game,” said Fare, “we have plenty of time to spare before the rebels finally surrender to us.” The officer continued to press his concerns though, telling the general that he believed that the rebels were building a device that could, in theory, destroy the imperial army. “Then tell me. Does this device exist?” The officer knew that the device was only theoretical, and that he could not confirm that it was either a viable option for the rebels or that it was even a plan they would consider. “There, we have nothing to worry about.”

The following day, even though the imperial camp and plenty in terms of entertainment, from card games to expensive food, General Fare was beginning to become impatient with the rate of the siege. “Alright, I admit I didn’t think the siege would go on for this long,” he thought, “I can have them build a machine that would allow use to destroy the city walls with minimal problems.”

Fare then directed his engineers later that day to build the machine, which was a device that could tear down the wall using shovels, even though his officers were concerned that it would cause more problems than it would solve. “General,” said the same officer from earlier, “this machine is unnecessary. We are spending a massive amount of resources for a military project that we don’t even need.” The general, of course, was not happy with what his subordinate was saying, and reminded him that he could have him dismissed if he thought that he was being uncooperative. “Fine, we will have it finished in two days.”

As the general was watching the machine being built, he also saw another group of rebels smuggling a crate of metals into the city. “That is interesting,” thought General Fare, “I didn’t know that there were mines in the region.” The recent developments interested the general, but he still wasn’t convinced that there was anything to be worried about as he believed within a few days, the city would surrender and he would receive a promotion from the emperor. “Who am I kidding? There is nothing to be worried about. I should be focusing on what my promotion should be.”

When the machine was completed, General Fare was excited to use it even though his officers were not nearly as pleased. After all, the imperial camp had just used most of its remaining resources in building the machine, and if the rebels figured out where the weak spots were, the machine would collapse almost immediately.

“I can’t believe that we just spent the majority of our resources building this monstrosity,” said the officer, “our soldiers continue to be undersupplied and hungry while that idiot demanded that we build a weapon that we aren’t even sure would work.” Despite being incredibly annoyed and tired, the remaining engineers and officers then directed the soldiers to move the machine towards the city walls, expecting the walls to collapse soon after it reached it.

However, just as the officer suspected, the rebels then activated the theoretical device, which turned out to be an earthquake machine that not only destroyed the machine that the imperial army spent so much time and resources to build, but also the majority of the imperial camp. “I told him that this could happen,” said the officer, “and that moron wouldn’t listen to me.”

Seeing that the rebels were attacking and that this camp was almost completely destroyed, General Fare tried to run away with a few bodyguards. “It isn’t my fault,” said the general, “it is the fault of my soldier and officers who didn’t pay attention to the siege and who are lazy.” As the general and his men ran through a local forest, they were suddenly stopped by a group of rebels who were waiting for them. The rebels were also fully armed, and the general and his men forgot to grab weapons as they frantically tried to run from the battlefield. The general also recognized the leader of the group as the rebel leader he was trying to find for years.

“Please,” pleaded the general to the rebel leader, “it isn’t my fault. It is the fault of the soldiers and officers. I can tell you where they are.” The rebels were, of course, uninterested in what the general was saying and opened fire on him and his men. While he laid on the ground bleeding and unable to speak, he tried again to plead as the rebel leader approached him with a loaded firearm. “Please, don’t kill me, I can make you rich.” The rebel leader then fired a few rounds into the general’s head, killing him.