The walls were much as he'd last seen them, with shattered earthworks built up in front of the gates and the gates themselves standing open. The corpses were gone, and he hoped they were honorably buried; the conjuror had offered him a real challenge and deserved a decent grave, and the city's champion likewise.
He reached the gates, and pushed them wider. Then he stepped into the city, cautious, letting the armor assess nearby threats but also looking back and forth himself, seeking after things that the armor might have missed. His steps were heavy, unavoidable, unsubtle -- and he hated that. He would much prefer to have been something more like the Shadow of Edrias, but no: his ancestors had praised the dark armor, and his father preferred to awe their enemies with its unstoppable strength.
Nobody approached him, or the armies that followed in his wake. Nobody cried for help. Nobody begged for mercy. Nobody attacked, or even shouted threats.
The streets of Marinul were empty... almost.
He paused, and his father's voice filled the helmet: Onward to the governor's manse. The High Magister suggests this route. A quick image of a map filled his consciousness, and he shoved it into the helm to guide him. A moment later, he saw the first of them:
Statues.
This one was a woman, remarkably lifelike, with her hand on a doorframe. The sign outside the building suggested a chandlery.
The next was a coachman, the statue in its place atop the coach, reins in its hands, the four horses that would have pulled it statues as well.
A chill went through Pallian, though the Black Knight let none of it show. The whole city is dead, he thought, turned to stone and gone. Killing the Emissary, necessary though it is, will bring none of them back... just as killing me would bring back none of the people I've killed. It was small comfort that the ones he'd slain had been soldiers in battle; for the most part, they'd been barely stronger than the civilians, barely more able to defend themselves. Oh, this is going to end so badly.
He didn't have to wonder about that. It already had.
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