Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== Coming Home ==

Andwise Bophîn, formally scribe first class and assistant to scrivener Tomnalas Haranad of the Gothic sector, was at the end of his life. He knew it with leaden certainty. He had reached the point where he couldn’t see a way forward. Voices of the men before him droned on and on as background sound. They were discussing things. Details, numbers, statistics and sorrows upon sorrow. He should be listening. He should be hearing them, knowing what has happened. He doesn’t need to; he knows enough now. He knows more than enough now and far more than he would ever want to.

He had tried to not know. To remain ignorant at first, then in doubt and then in foolish hope beyond hope for some minor mistake or for this to all be a dream or clever and cruel ruse. It is not. It never was and he can see that now. They stop droning on about things he is beyond caring about and he makes his excuses and leaves. There was pity in those eyes. Hardened warriors centuries old from the Knights of Blood and Dog Soldiers from Æsa’s Claim and more mortal men from other worlds of some he knew and other he didn’t. They who had seen horrors beyond the count of number or seasons pitied him.

And here they were at Haupstemmler Keep. He had seen the body of the late governor a weapon in each hand and most of his ribcage excavated. Some third cousin by second marriage on his mother’s side and fifth cousin of his father. Distant kin who he had only met once but they had spoken over ale and he seemed a good old gaffer with many stories to share. All stories that would be silent now.

Haupstemmler Keep. Last refuge of the kudugin. He stood upon the spot where his world had failed and finally fallen. His wandering feet bringing him to the great rend in those ancient walls, thirty or forty feet wide at the base through which oblivion had flooded in.

Scribe Bophîn stood there for a long time looking through the hole in the wall to the mountains beyond. Jagged rocks for miles and beyond them, the fields of green and gently rolling hills of childhood. This, with the sun rising but before the sins could be seen, this was how he was going to go. The heirloom family revolver was with it’s seven metal stubs in it’s holster hanging heavily at his hip almost welcoming in it’s familiar weight.

Sun was the horizon in the east turning the fields beyond the mountains to gold and the mountains into monochrome of jagged edges and bathing the snowy caps in copper.

Faces of the dead coming to haunt him in those lines and shapes. Others of his people, those who had been away on business and those serving on distant worlds, would be arriving soon. As the highest ranking member of his people remaining, a man of the Administratum and a distant relative of the ruling family he was their ruler now. He was Overthain of Ornsworld. He would be the one they looked to for direction. He would be the one to shape this broken world as it rebuilt and by the gods it would be rebuilt.

Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, burning and bitter. By the gods they would regret setting foot on this hallowed ground.