“Will you introduce me?” Monshara asked when she recovered.

Zezili grimaced but spurred her dog forward and called to the line, “This is Monshara, my co-general. You will obey her as you would me. Disobeying her is disobeying me. I will personally mete out punishment to any woman displaying insubordination. You’ll be stripped and lashed to start, and hung if necessary. Our duty in the coming months is a simple but critical task. I received it from the lips of the Empress herself.” Zezili paused for effect. Tried to think how she’d have responded if her own superior told her what she was about to propose.

“For centuries, the dajians have been a plague on our country. Cannibalistic parasites whose cheap labor keeps you all from cozy jobs in your old age. You spent your youth on patrols, putting down petty dajian insurgencies instead of conquering land for the Empress. You’ve wasted the better part of your lives policing a people that are little better to us than pack animals. Now the day has come to put our country in order. Our Empress has tasked us with their removal. We free our country from their tyranny. We free ourselves. We march to the Saolyndara camp to the north, and we offer their blood to Rhea. Today, we take back our country.”

The cheer then was more exuberant than Zezili expected. She plastered a grin onto her face. I’m Dorinah, she thought. If there was any doubt, today will prove that.

The killing started not long after. They purged three small camps of half-starved dajians near Saolyndara, rounding them up from the local farms that rented them for day labor. Zezili killed at least forty herself, with her own hands. It was a strange, senseless sort of killing that drove Zezili to drink after. She had no trouble killing people for a cause, but this was a waste of her talent and the talent of her women. There was no honor in it, no satisfaction. It was like murdering litters of puppies.

What was the Empress trying to accomplish? She had to know how much this would disrupt the harvest next year. Half of Dorinah would starve if the dajians were dead. Zezili wanted to ask Monshara but feared the answer. Do as you’re told, the Empress would say. Don’t you trust my love for you?

Then they cleared the big camp inside Saolyndara proper. They murdered eight hundred and forty-seven dajians there.

As Zezili sat in her tent that afternoon, penning a long, laborious letter to the Empress, the muddy blood of the dead caked her boots. The day was clear and warm, but the blood had turned the field to mud.

Monshara met her in the tent after the count was made. She removed her shiny armored helm and regarded Zezili with gray eyes.

“What?” Zezili asked.

“You were right,” Monshara said.

Zezili grunted.

“You are better at killing than fucking,” Monshara said.