Chapter 14 The Woman Who Refuses Peace
Darius pressed himself flat against a cracked section of broken wall as another powerful wave of shouting and steel erupted across the vast battlefield. Dust hung thick in the air, mixing with the metallic scent of blood.
"There," he said quietly, pointing toward the eastern ridge. "That has to be her influence moving through the lines."
Mara crouched low beside him, her infected gold eyes narrowed with focus. "Veth. She is walking among them right now. Watch carefully what happens when she passes."
Far below on the scarred plain, a towering woman with wild crimson hair and armor that looked hammered from pure conflict strode along the front lines. Wherever Veth moved, exhausted soldiers who had been dragging their feet moments earlier suddenly roared with renewed fury. Blades clashed with greater violence. Arrows flew faster and thicker. The entire battlefield surged like a living beast awakened by her presence.
"Gods below," Darius muttered under his breath. "It's not random at all. Her presence alone acts like fuel thrown on dying flames."
Mara nodded slowly. "War Incarnate does not command from safety behind the lines. She walks through the blood and the mud. She feeds them her own nature directly."
Darius kept his eyes locked on the massive figure. Veth moved with powerful, unhurried steps, her laughter booming across the field whenever two armies crashed together especially hard. "How long has she kept this cycle going?"
"Sixty years without any real pause," Mara replied. "Every time one side edges close to victory, she shifts her favor just enough to drag the conflict back into balance. She finds true peace disgusting."
Darius shifted position slightly for a better view. "Why hasn’t this war ended? Sixty years of constant fighting. Someone should have won by now. Resources should have run dry. Armies should have collapsed."
Mara turned her head toward him, studying his calm expression. "Because she does not want it to end. That is the simple and terrible truth of Veth. The Pantheon created her as War, but she fully chose to become war itself. She embraces it completely. Look at her. She laughs when the lines break and reform in fresh slaughter."
In the distance, Veth’s booming laugh rolled across the battlefield like thunder as two armies collided with renewed brutality. Soldiers who had been retreating just minutes ago turned around and charged back into the meat grinder with fanatical energy.
Darius watched the pattern carefully. "This is not maintenance of some divine balance. This is addiction. Pure and simple."
"Exactly," Mara said. "The empires send fresh troops every season just to keep the game alive. They fear what Veth would do if she ever grew truly bored. So they keep feeding her endless conflict and death."
A nearby skirmish suddenly intensified as Veth’s presence rippled outward again. Men who had seemed ready to surrender moments earlier picked up dropped weapons and fought like possessed demons, screaming battle cries that echoed across the ridges.
Darius shook his head slowly. "This is not sustainable. No economy can feed a war this long. No population can survive losing this many sons and husbands year after year. Yet here it continues."
Mara studied him with renewed curiosity. "You are not afraid. Most men would be shaking at the mere sight of her power moving across the field like that."
"Fear will not help me speak with her," Darius replied steadily. "I need to understand her first. What truly drives her. What she wants beyond this endless fighting. What might make her listen."
"You truly think conversation will work with War herself?" Mara asked, genuine curiosity coloring her tone. "With a being who has chosen endless violence for sixty years?"
"I think everything has a crack somewhere if you look long enough," Darius said. "She is addicted to conflict. Maybe she is also tired of the same old conflict repeating forever. Maybe she wants something new to fight for… or against."
Another powerful shockwave of energy rolled out from Veth’s position as she roared encouragement to her favored side. Soldiers screamed fresh battle cries and threw themselves forward with unnatural fervor, trampling fallen comrades without hesitation.
Mara leaned slightly closer to Darius. "This is very different from my own nature. I destroy because it is what I am. Veth sustains destruction because she chooses it every single day. She revels in it. She laughs in the middle of it."
"That makes her more dangerous than most realize," Darius said. "And possibly more reachable. You did not choose plague. It was forced upon you. She chose war willingly and keeps choosing it."
Veth roared something across the battlefield that carried on the wind. The sound of clashing steel doubled in intensity almost instantly. Fresh reserves of troops poured in from hidden camps, their eyes bright with the same battle lust that radiated from her.
Darius continued observing every detail. "She walks like she owns every inch of this hell. No fear. No hesitation. Just pure, overwhelming presence."
"She does own it," Mara confirmed quietly. "The empires pretend they control this war. They send orders and strategies. But in truth, Veth decides when it ebbs and when it flows. She is the reason no peace treaty has ever lasted more than a single week in this region."
Darius rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Sixty years of this madness. Entire families destroyed. Lands ruined beyond recovery. All because one being refuses to allow peace to take root."
Mara’s voice carried a quiet note of fascination. "You see the true cost immediately. Most observers only see glory or grand strategy. You see the ledger of blood and wasted lives behind it all."
"Hard not to see it," Darius replied. "I spent seven years recording exactly what wars like this cost the traders, the border towns, and the common people trying to survive on the edges. This one has been bleeding the entire continent dry for decades."
A group of soldiers suddenly broke away from the main clash down below. Their heads turned sharply toward the ridge where Darius and Mara watched. Their expressions changed in an instant. The battle lust that Veth radiated shifted direction completely.
One soldier pointed directly at them. "There! Strangers watching from the ridge!"
Another shouted with wild energy, "They don’t belong here! Kill them! Charge!"
Without any orders from commanders, without any logical reason, nearly thirty soldiers broke formation and charged straight up the slope toward Darius and Mara, weapons raised high, faces twisted with sudden uncontrollable need to fight the newcomers.
Mara tensed beside him. "They sensed us. Or she directed their attention."
Darius stood slowly, eyes calm despite the oncoming wave. "Or she simply wants to see what we will do."
The soldiers roared as they rushed forward, driven purely by Veth’s overwhelming presence and the endless hunger for battle she inspired.