(Tiberius Drusus, AXIS, Campaign Post 1) Raithali dead are received by the Mosaic Mountains. Recruitments surge as Raithali war engine demands more blood.

The soppy texture, one moment resistant, the next crunchy, warm and wet, squirted still warm blood between his teeth and over his tongue. It spasmed in his mouth, some sort of post death reflexive function - part of what made it so dangerous, even after death it could strike you. The metallic taste had never left him, it reminded him each time he had done this, of the first time he had done this. And each time was a time worth relishing.

The creature was the stuff of nightmares, six legged, sleek with tight grey fur protected by a layer of near impervious skin and fat. It moved in water as fast as it did on land, but it was land - ice specifically that the creatures could be fought on even footing. 

Indrid looped over his shoulders their blanket, warmed by her body the entire night, scented by her hair that was always the smell of first day. And although it was not usually permitted, she clucked her tongue at him with disapproval that he was bleeding from his side as she moved the blanket aside to inspect the loose flesh hanging off his ribs, with the bits of his rib exposed. 

“Could you have bled more?” She asked with  her usual dryness. Without any ceremony, Ingrid pressed the flap of his skin back against his chest. “No Kolto. The younger ones need it. You'll have to be content with healing naturally.”

He ignored the pain, and bit down again in the warm chunk of fleshy gore in his hand. He cast her a side long glance then turned back forward. He stretched out his hand, with the steaming, bleeding, spasming liver in it. 

“You have tended to your wounds, you have tended to your weapons. You have seen me eat. Now, you eat.” He said, still the liver held between him and the young man. 

“We eat the liver as it is the sweetest part of this animal. After you finish this, you will skin it, and you will take from it its claws, its femurs. You will take those and craft your own weapons for today is the last day you may use mine.”

The young man took the heap of ruined livers into his bloodied and mangled hands, one finger was purple already from bruising and a fingernail had torn off where he had held on to the beast during battle. There was only a moment of uncertainty till he took his first bite, which led to that moment of mild discomfort. The blood was already coagulating and the liver was rapidly losing its warmth, such was the cold and frozen air that swirled around them. Then the chewing started, a few times, gaining purpose and finally a swallow which leaked some dark black blood down from the corner of the bruised lips. 

Tiberius gazed at his son and he stood up, accepting the help of Indrid now that it was finally appropriate. “You started this hunt as my son. You now stand before me a Warrior of Raithal.”

-

Tiberius knelt before the grave marker of his son.

In life he died with the honour, holding a line before the navy Hutts had amassed to strike Mesea, and in death, he, like the others who died, had been granted the honour of returning to embrace of Mosea with the Mountain Mosaics. 

He watched as the glint of the mosaic caught the sun and the reflections of the other mosaics across the mountain, and swept some ashes which had fallen atop the marker stone. Indrid’s pained voice still rung in his ear as she told him that their son had passed their last breath. At least, he had died upon their snow, which was something that most had not been able to. Most bodies were not even able to be recovered. 

He swept some ashes off with his bruised and broken hand again, but the pain was a distant thought in his mind that was easily forgotten with the soft sounds of boots striking gravel, stone, and sand.  The boots came closer to him and finally came to a stop next to him. 

Tiberius glanced down at the boots before the man came to a knee beside him. He looked back forward, wiping again the top of the stone. “Balan.”

The man’s face was still swollen, purple and red from trauma and his part of his scalp was finally growing back his hair. But lost was the darkness, what was growing back was a shocking white. One eye was utterly white and sightless, and the other was filled with a sorrow which was only shared between men in privacy. 

“It took me a while to find you.” The man offered without saying much of anything in the statement. “It’s easy to lose yourself in these parts of the Mountains.”

“Locke is a madman. But he was right.” Tiberius said, ignoring Balan’s comment. “Hell, even the Tionese were right.”

There was silence for a moment. “You think we should have struck first.”

“Have you not? Do you not?” Tiberius snapped back immediately. “Do you think waiting for the fist to strike was the right answer? You had a war fleet in the middle of Hutt space, coordinates to Varl, armed with enough force to shatter the plates. Yet when it was time to make a killing strike, cowardice took the Senate. Cowardice overruled logic, selfishness overruled courage. I  could not give a damn about how many of Tussa’s almsmen, or Tagge mercenaries that died there, but how many Corulagi died there? Northern blood, died in a war that should have been over before they had a chance to turn on us.”

Balan was silent as his mechanical hand made an indent at the base of the piece of Mosaic. It was a while before he answered. “The forces were aligned, but you saw what happened in the Senate. What was happening.”

Tiberius’s answer was harsh. “A Chancellor then who was eager to appease instead of decisive. And now a Chancellor who is eager to rule. You think she’s really slipping into the background and into the shadows? I’ve met her three times and each time I spoke with her I left more certain that her peace is yet another maneuver of hers. I should not need to tell you this, Balan. You should know better than anyone.” 

Balan brought his palm to his mouth and sunk his teeth into it, drawing a pool of blood which he left fall into the hole he had made. When the bleeding began to slow, he pulled his hand back and wiped it against his trouser leg. Silence fell between the two men, and they knelt in continued wordlessness until the sun fell and night gave in.

The Ash kept falling. 

-

Tiberius unbuttoned his blazer and let it hang on the back of his seat as he finally sat down after a day of briefing, rebriefing and debriefing the admirals, the generals, the specialists and everyone in between.

“How many?” Indrid asked, holding a mug of something steaming and leaning against the door frame. Her bare feet padded forward and she offered him the mug, to which he shook his head.

Tiberius looked past the display suites at the holoimage of his son, still a young child in it and his smile was still full of life, full of innocence. He looked back to the display and tapped his finger against the terminal a few times to issue it off to the Juven, Nathaniel and Stephan, encrypted and for their eyes only. “More than half a million today, which takes us to nearly two.” 

Indrid placed the mug down on his desk and put a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Any more and the industries will be stunted, you’ll need to talk to the clans and persuade them to accept the foreign workforce aid.”

Tiberius only nodded as he looked outside the windows, at the fresh snow beginning to drift from the ink black skies. Falling snow like ash. 

-

TLDR;
- Raithali war dead are granted honour of returning home to the Mosaic mountains
- Tiberius's eldest son is amongst those dead, and some background between Balan and Him during the war is revealed.
- Balan returns (approved by Balan)
- Axum, Anaxes and Iridonia war engine surges to new heights as more ships are needed to service the amount of Raithali entering the military service for training for readiness.
- Surrounding worlds and people looking for work will find it within the Principality of Raithal due to the surge in demand for workers and opportunities.