Robert Kane - The Blackwood Dispatches

The package came on a Tuesday. Rain hammering the barracks roof like small arms fire, and Corporal Davies drops this wooden crate on my desk like it might bite him.

“Captain Blackwood, ma’am. From Records.”

I knew what it was before I cracked the seal. You don’t get packages from Records unless someone’s dead. The manifest listed contents of one Tam Blackwood, Private, Second Battalion, reported missing in action six months back. Missing in action. That’s what they call it when a man walks away from his post and never comes back.

Inside the crate, his kit. Uniform, pressed and folded. His letters from home, tied with string. His mess tin, still carrying the dent from when he dropped it during our first week on Cindermarch. And underneath everything else, wrapped in oiled cloth like something precious, a mask.

Carved from blackwood, black as the bottom of a well. The face was human but wrong somehow, the features too sharp, the eye holes too deep. Keth work, no question. But why would Tam have a Keth war-mask? And why would Records send it to me?

I picked up my pen and started writing.

To: Vaelthorne Records Office, Administrative Division From: Captain L. Blackwood, Third Company, Cindermarch Garrison Re: Status Clarification - Private T. Blackwood

Gentlemen,

I am in receipt of the personal effects of Private Tam Blackwood, forwarded from your office dated the 15th instant. The manifest lists his status as Missing in Action, presumed desertion. This classification requires immediate clarification.

Private Blackwood was my brother. I knew him better than any man in his unit. He was no deserter. If he left his post, there was a reason. I want that reason. I want his service record, complete and unredacted. I want the after-action reports from his final deployment. I want to speak with his commanding officer, Sergeant Vale Cornish.

Most importantly, I want an explanation for the Keth artifact included in his effects. Company regulations strictly forbid the collection of indigenous cultural items. How did this mask come to be in his possession, and why was it deemed appropriate to forward it to his next of kin?

I have served Vaelthorne Trading Company for fifteen years. I have bled on these islands and watched good men die for company profits. I am not some raw recruit you can brush off with official doubletalk. I want answers.

The mask sits on my desk as I write this. The Keth believe blackwood holds memory. Looking at it, I think maybe they’re right. It remembers something about my brother, something Records doesn’t want me to know.

Send me his file. All of it.

Captain Lysa Blackwood Third Company, Cindermarch Garrison

The response came three weeks later. Thick envelope, official seal, the kind of correspondence that takes time to craft because every word has been scrubbed by lawyers.

From: Administrative Division, Records Office To: Captain L. Blackwood, Third Company Re: Personnel Inquiry - Private T. Blackwood

Captain Blackwood,

Your inquiry regarding Private Tam Blackwood has been reviewed by appropriate authorities. Please find enclosed the relevant documentation pertaining to his service record.

As indicated in the attached files, Private Blackwood was assigned to Second Battalion, Bravo Company, under the command of Sergeant Vale Cornish during the period in question. His unit was deployed to the outer settlements as part of routine security operations designed to maintain stability and protect company interests throughout the Cindermarch region.

Private Blackwood’s final deployment involved participation in Operation Cleansing Tide, a classified security action undertaken to address insurgent activities threatening company personnel and infrastructure. Details of this operation remain restricted under Section 47-B of the Military Secrets Act.

On the morning of his disappearance, Private Blackwood failed to report for scheduled patrol duty. A search of his personal quarters revealed missing equipment and provisions, consistent with deliberate abandonment of post. No contact has been established since that date.

Regarding the cultural artifact found among his effects, our investigation suggests Private Blackwood acquired this item through unauthorized interaction with local populations. Such fraternization, while officially discouraged, is not uncommon among personnel serving extended deployments in remote postings. The decision to include this item in his personal effects was made in accordance with standard protocols for deceased or missing personnel.

The company appreciates your long service and understands your concern for your brother’s reputation. However, the evidence clearly indicates voluntary desertion. No further investigation is warranted at this time.

Should you require additional clarification on any administrative matters, please direct future inquiries through your commanding officer’s office.

Respectfully, Chief Clerk Morrison Administrative Division

I read it twice, then held the letter over my desk lamp until the paper caught fire. Watched it curl and blacken while the mask stared at me from across the desk.

Routine security operations. Insurgent activities. Unauthorized interaction with local populations.

They were lying. Every word of it, carefully crafted lies wrapped in official language. But they’d made one mistake. They’d given me a name.

Vale Cornish. Time to find out what really happened during Operation Cleansing Tide.

The pages were stuck together with dried blood. Had to peel them apart careful-like, the way you’d skin a fish. Found the journal wedged under Tam’s spare boots, pages warped from the damp. His handwriting, sure enough, but shaky. Like his hands weren’t steady when he wrote it.

August 17th

Can’t sleep. Keep seeing the girl’s face. Maybe eight years old, nine at most. Running toward the huts when the shooting started. Cornish says it was necessary. Says they were harboring insurgents. Says the intelligence was solid.

Intelligence. That’s what we call it when some company administrator points at a map and says kill everyone there.

The village was called Keth’moren. Means “place of safe harbor” in their tongue. Chen told me that, and Chen knows the local talk better than most. Safe harbor. Some joke.

We came in at dawn, three squads moving through the mangrove channels. Standard sweep and clear, or that’s what Cornish briefed. Find the weapons cache, arrest the insurgent leadership, secure the area for company development. Clean work. Professional.

But there was no weapons cache. No insurgent leadership. Just families. Fishermen and their wives, kids running around in the mud between the houses. Old folks mending nets and smoking pipes.

Cornish didn’t even hesitate. “Orders are orders, boys. No witnesses means no complications.”

“Sarge,” I said, “these are civilians.”

“These are obstacles,” he said back. “Company needs this land for the new trading post. Can’t have squatters claiming prior rights.”

That’s when I knew. We weren’t soldiers anymore. We were exterminators.

Chen threw down his rifle. Just dropped it in the mud and walked away. Smart man, Chen. Smarter than me. I stood there like a fool, watching Hendricks’ boys torch the huts while the screaming started.

The girl tried to hide behind her mother. Both of them looking at me with these eyes, these big dark eyes that said they knew what was coming. The mother spoke to me in Trade Common, broken but clear enough.

“Please, soldier. She is child. Only child.”

I could have stopped it. Should have stopped it. Instead I turned around and walked back to the boats. Covered my ears like a coward and waited for the noise to stop.

When we got back to base, Cornish filed his report. Successful elimination of insurgent cell. No company casualties. Enemy dead estimated at thirty-seven combatants.

Thirty-seven combatants. That’s what he called them. The old man with the pipe. The woman mending nets. The girl with the dark eyes.

I signed the after-action report. Put my name right there below his, confirming the lie. Making it official.

The Keth have a saying: “The mask finds the face that needs wearing.” Don’t know what it means yet, but I think I’m starting to understand.

My hands won’t stop shaking. Been three days now, and they won’t stop.

The page ended there, torn off raggedly like he’d ripped it from the journal in anger. Or shame. I folded it careful and put it in my desk drawer, next to the mask.

Thirty-seven combatants. I’d seen that number before, in commendations. Cornish got promoted after Keth’moren. Hendricks too.

My brother got a mask carved from blackwood.

Found Vale Cornish drunk in a tavern on Merchant’s Row, three islands south of the main garrison. Took two days of asking around before someone pointed me to the right dive. He was working security for a spice warehouse, the kind of job they give broken soldiers who know too much to fire but too little to promote.

The letter was in his pocket, folded and refolded until the creases had worn through the paper. Addressed to his sister back in Vaelthorne City. Never sent, probably never meant to be sent. Just something a man writes when the guilt gets too heavy to carry alone.

Dear Maggie,

You asked in your last letter how I’m getting on out here in paradise. You said the recruiting posters make it sound like we’re bringing civilization to grateful natives, spreading commerce and enlightenment to backward peoples.

I should tell you it’s exactly like that. Should tell you I’m proud of the work we do, proud to serve the company’s interests in these distant lands. Should tell you the Keth welcome our presence, that we’re making their lives better through trade and development.

Should tell you a lot of things, but I’m tired of lying. Tired of pretending this uniform means something noble.

Last month we hit a village called Keth’moren. Orders came down from Colonel Hendricks himself. Intelligence suggested insurgent activity, weapons caches, coordination with the resistance cells that have been hitting our supply convoys.

Intelligence. You know what our intelligence was, Maggie? A company surveyor wanted that particular stretch of coastline for a new trading post. The Keth families living there had legal claims dating back generations, claims that would complicate development. So they became insurgents. Amazing how that works.

We went in at dawn, three full squads for a village of maybe forty souls. Found exactly what I expected to find. Fishing nets and cook fires. Kids playing in the mud. Old people who looked at us with the kind of fear that comes from experience.

Private Blackwood, he was new enough to still have a conscience. Asked me what we were supposed to do about the civilians. Had to explain to him that there weren’t any civilians, not as far as the paperwork was concerned. Just insurgents and insurgent sympathizers and people unfortunate enough to be standing in the way of progress.

“But Sarge,” he said, “that little girl can’t be more than eight years old.”

“Eight-year-old insurgent,” I told him. “Happens all the time out here. These people start their terrorist training young.”

He looked at me like I’d gone insane. Maybe I had. Maybe we all had, somewhere along the way. You spend enough time following orders that don’t make sense, you stop asking if they should make sense.

Chen walked away. Smart bastard, Chen. Dropped his rifle in the mud and just walked back to the boats. Left the rest of us to do the necessary work.

Took us maybe twenty minutes to clear the village. Twenty minutes to eliminate thirty-seven insurgents, as my report stated. Funny thing about paperwork, Maggie. It’s got a way of making the impossible sound routine.

Got a commendation for that action. Hendricks himself pinned the medal on my chest, told me I was exactly the kind of soldier the company needed in these troubled times. A man who understood that sometimes civilization requires harsh measures.

The medal’s in my footlocker, next to your letters. Can’t bring myself to wear it, can’t bring myself to throw it away either. It’s proof, I guess. Proof that I’m exactly the kind of man who burns down fishing villages and calls it counterinsurgency.

Blackwood started carving something after Keth’moren. Spent his off-duty hours whittling away at a piece of blackwood he’d picked up somewhere. Wouldn’t say what he was making, just sat there with his knife, cutting and shaping like his life depended on it.

Asked him once what he was working on. He looked up at me with these hollow eyes and said, “Something I should have made a long time ago.”

Three weeks later he was gone. Walked away from his post one night and never came back. Can’t say I blame him. Takes a stronger man than me to keep wearing the uniform after you’ve seen what it really stands for.

They’re calling him a deserter now. Got word from Records that they’re processing him as Missing in Action, presumed desertion. They’ll probably send his effects back to his family, tell them he died serving his country’s interests.

His country. That’s rich, Maggie. We don’t serve countries out here. We serve profit margins.

I should have walked away with Chen. Should have dropped my rifle in the mud and told Hendricks to find someone else to do his dirty work. Instead I followed orders, filed reports, accepted commendations.

Instead I became the kind of man who burns villages and sleeps sound afterward.

Don’t write back, Maggie. Don’t want to hear about parades and heroes and the glorious work we’re doing out here. Just want to finish my tour and try to forget.

Your brother, Vale

The letter was dated two days before Tam disappeared. I folded it back along its worn creases and slipped it into my jacket. Cornish never looked up from his bottle when I walked out.

The letter was written on bark paper, the kind the Keth make from the inner pulp of mangrove trees. Found it tucked inside a hollowed-out fishing float that washed up near the eastern docks. Someone had been using the old smuggler’s drops, leaving messages where the tide would carry them to friendly hands.

Cousin Coral,

The moon-tides bring strange gifts to our shores. Three days past, one of the company soldiers came to our camp under a white flag. Not to parley or negotiate terms, but to weep.

You would have laughed to see it, this pale man in his pressed uniform kneeling in the mud beside our cook fires, tears running down his face like monsoon rain. Our fighters had their weapons ready, thinking it some new kind of trap. But Kest’hai took one look at him and shook her head.

“This one carries no deception,” she said. “Only shame.”

He spoke our language poorly, mixing Trade Common with the few words he’d learned from market vendors. But shame needs no translation. We understood well enough.

He told us about Keth’moren. About the dawn raid, the burning, the screaming. Told us things we already knew, but hearing them from company lips made the knowing different somehow. Heavier.

“I was there,” he said. “I helped them do it. I helped them kill children and call it victory.”

Young Meren wanted to gut him where he knelt. Her own sister died at Keth’moren, caught trying to save the fishing nets from the fires. But Kest’hai raised her hand for patience.

“What do you want from us, soldier?” she asked.

He pulled something from his pack. A mask, carved from blackwood in the old style. The work was crude, the cuts uncertain, but the intention was clear enough. He’d carved it himself, working by lamplight in his barracks while his comrades slept.

“I want to make amends,” he said. “I want to pay the debt.”

You know how the old stories go, Coral. The mask finds the face that needs wearing. But this was different. This man had carved his own judgment, shaped his own penance from sacred wood.

Kest’hai studied the mask for a long time, turning it over in her weathered hands. The eye holes were too wide, the mouth too narrow. Amateur work. But the weight was right, the balance true.

“You understand what this means?” she asked him.

“I understand I can’t live with what I’ve done,” he said. “And I can’t undo it. So I have to carry it.”

She handed the mask back to him. “Then wear it well, mask-bearer. Wear it until the debt is paid or the grave takes you.”

He put it on right there beside our fires. Tied the leather cords behind his head with steady hands, though the tears kept falling. Through the eye holes, his eyes looked different. Older. Like he’d finally seen himself clearly for the first time.

That was two months ago. Since then, he comes to us when he can slip away from his duties. Brings intelligence, mostly. Patrol schedules, supply convoy routes, the locations of weapons caches. Small things, but useful.

He never removes the mask when he visits. Eats through the mouth hole, drinks water we pour for him, sleeps curled up by our fires like a dog seeking forgiveness. The mask has changed him, or maybe it’s just revealed what was always there underneath the uniform.

The other fighters call him Ghost-Face, but not unkindly. He’s proven his commitment with blood, leading company patrols into ambushes, ensuring our people escape before the killing starts. Three times now he’s saved lives that would have been lost to company raids.

But the work is eating him alive. He weeps when he thinks we aren’t watching, curled up in his blanket with his shoulders shaking. The mask grows heavier each day, and he grows thinner beneath it.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he told me yesterday. “They’re starting to suspect. And I’m starting to forget who I was before Keth’moren.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” I said. “Maybe the man you were before needed to die.”

He considered this, tilting his head the way he does when the mask makes thinking difficult. “Then what am I becoming?”

“Something better,” I told him. “Or something dead. The mask doesn’t care which.”

Last night he didn’t come to the fires. Word from our people in the port towns says his unit has been asking questions, checking alibis, watching for signs of treachery. The noose is tightening around his neck, and he knows it.

I think he’s going to run soon, Coral. Or try to. But the company has eyes everywhere, and a man in a blackwood mask stands out like blood on snow. If he runs, they’ll catch him. If he stays, they’ll catch him eventually anyway.

Either way, he’s a dead man. The only question is whether he’ll die wearing the mask or have it torn from his corpse.

Strange to say, but I hope it’s the former. He’s earned the right to die as he lived these past months. Paying his debts, carrying his shame, trying to balance scales that can never be balanced.

The mask finds the face that needs wearing. But sometimes, the face finds the mask first.

Watch the tide-pools, cousin. If his body washes up on our shores, make sure he’s buried with the mask still on. It’s what he would have wanted.

Your sister in the long struggle, Senna Threadeyes

I set the letter down and looked at the mask on my desk. The wood was darker than I remembered, or maybe that was just the lamplight. But I could swear the grain had shifted, showing new patterns in its surface.

My brother’s face, maybe. Or mine.

The colonel’s office smelled like pipe tobacco and old leather. Hendricks sat behind his mahogany desk like a king holding court, medals catching the lamplight every time he moved. I’d requested this meeting through proper channels, filed the paperwork, waited for approval. Everything by the book.

He didn’t invite me to sit.

“Captain Blackwood,” he said, not looking up from the reports spread across his desk. “I understand you have concerns about your brother’s service record.”

“I have questions about Operation Cleansing Tide, sir.”

That got his attention. His head came up slow, pale eyes studying my face like he was reading a tactical map. “That operation is classified, Captain. Above your clearance level.”

“My brother participated in that operation. He’s dead because of it.”

“Your brother is listed as Missing in Action, presumed desertion. Hardly the same thing.”

I pulled Tam’s journal page from my jacket, set it on his desk. “He kept a record, sir. Of what really happened at Keth’moren.”

Hendricks glanced at the bloodstained paper but didn’t touch it. “And what do you believe happened at Keth’moren, Captain?”

“I believe my brother and his unit were ordered to massacre civilians to clear land for a trading post. I believe they were told these people were insurgents when they were actually just fishermen and their families.”

“Interesting theory.” He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. “Tell me, Captain, how long have you been serving in the Cindermarch?”

“Fifteen years, sir.”

“Fifteen years. And in that time, how many villages have you pacified? How many insurgent cells have you eliminated? How many times have you pulled the trigger to protect company interests?”

I didn’t answer. We both knew the count.

“The difference between you and your brother, Captain, is that you understand the nature of our work here. We are not missionaries or diplomats. We are not here to build schools or negotiate treaties. We are here to extract profit from these islands, and everything else is secondary to that goal.”

He stood up, walked to the window overlooking the harbor. Company ships rode at anchor, their holds full of spices and precious metals bound for Vaelthorne City.

“The Keth had their chance to join the modern world peacefully. They chose resistance instead. When you choose resistance against the Vaelthorne Trading Company, you accept the consequences of that choice.”

“Even the children, sir?”

“Especially the children.” He turned back to me, and his eyes were flat as a snake’s. “Children grow up to be insurgents, Captain. Better to solve the problem before it develops.”

“That’s genocide, sir.”

“That’s business.” He picked up Tam’s journal page, held it over the lamp flame until it caught fire. Watched it burn to ash without blinking. “Your brother lacked the temperament for necessary work. He allowed sentiment to cloud his judgment. Fortunately, most of our soldiers are made of sterner stuff.”

The ashes drifted to the floor like gray snow.

“Operation Cleansing Tide was a complete success, Captain. Thirty-seven insurgents eliminated, strategic territory secured for development, no company casualties. I was personally commended by the Board of Directors for the efficiency of the action.”

“And my brother?”

“Your brother chose to abandon his post rather than continue serving his company with distinction. That choice led to his presumed death in the wilderness. Regrettable, but hardly surprising given his obvious instability.”

I wanted to hit him. Wanted to grab the letter opener from his desk and put it through his throat. Instead I stood at attention and kept my voice level.

“I want to see the full operational report, sir.”

“Request denied. Is there anything else, Captain?”

“No sir.”

“Then you’re dismissed. And Captain? I trust this conversation will remain between us. The morale of the troops depends on maintaining confidence in command decisions. Spreading rumors about classified operations would be… inadvisable.”

I saluted and left. Walked through the headquarters building like a woman in a dream, past clerks and junior officers going about their daily business of empire. In the courtyard, a squad of new recruits was drilling, their sergeant barking orders while they practiced bayonet thrusts on straw dummies.

Fresh-faced boys from the homeland, eager to serve company interests in exotic lands. Give them six months and they’d be burning villages without question. Give them a year and they’d be recommending it as policy.

That night I sat in my quarters with the mask on my desk, writing by lamplight. The wood seemed to absorb the flame, drinking in the light like it was thirsty for illumination.

After Action Report - Personal Investigation Subject: Death of Private Tam Blackwood Classification: Personal and Confidential

Colonel Hendricks confirmed the essential facts today, though not in the way he intended. Operation Cleansing Tide was exactly what my brother’s journal described. A massacre disguised as counterinsurgency, carried out to clear land for commercial development.

Thirty-seven people died at Keth’moren. Men, women, children. Murdered in their homes by soldiers following orders. My brother helped kill them, then spent his final weeks carving a mask to carry his shame.

He didn’t desert. He defected. The intelligence reaching Keth resistance cells, the failed patrols, the supply convoys hit at exactly the right moment to minimize casualties while maximizing damage to company interests. That was Tam’s work. His penance.

They caught him eventually, or maybe he just stopped running. Either way, he died wearing the mask he carved. Died trying to balance scales that will never balance.

Hendricks thinks I’ll stay quiet, keep serving faithfully while my brother’s memory rots in the files as a deserter. He thinks fifteen years of faithful service has made me loyal enough to swallow any lie, commit any crime in the name of company profit.

He’s wrong.

I know what I have to do now. I know why the Keth sent me that letter, why they wanted me to understand what my brother became in his final months. They’re offering me the same choice he faced.

Stay loyal to the company that ordered the massacre, or find another way to serve justice.

The mask is waiting. All I have to do is put it on.

The letter was never meant to be sent. Found it hidden in a false bottom of Tam’s footlocker, wrapped in oiled cloth to keep the damp out. His handwriting, but different somehow. Looser. Like the man who wrote it was finally telling the truth after months of lies.

Lysa,

If you’re reading this, then I’m probably dead and they’ve sent my things home to you. Knowing the company, they’ve told you I was a deserter. That I abandoned my post and ran off into the jungle like a coward. Maybe they even gave you some story about going native, losing my mind to the heat and the isolation.

All lies, but useful ones. Easier to explain away a mad deserter than a soldier who found his conscience.

I need you to know what really happened here. Need someone in the family to understand why I couldn’t come home wearing this uniform. Why I had to choose between being your brother and being the kind of man who could live with himself.

They ordered us to hit a village called Keth’moren. Fishing families, Lysa. Old people and children living in huts by the water, making their living from the sea like their ancestors had for generations. Hendricks called them insurgents, said intelligence indicated weapons caches and resistance coordination.

The only weapon we found was a rusty harpoon hanging on someone’s wall.

But the company wanted that stretch of coastline for development. New trading post, they said. Strategic location for expansion into the outer archipelago. The Keth families had legal claims to the land, documents going back three generations. Made things complicated from a commercial standpoint.

Dead people don’t have legal claims.

We killed them all, Lysa. Every last one. Even when they ran, even when they begged, even when they were so small they could barely walk. Cornish said it was necessary. Said leaving witnesses would create political complications back home.

I helped. That’s the part that eats at me every night when I try to sleep. I didn’t just stand by and watch. I participated. I pulled the trigger, threw the torches, filed the reports that turned murder into military action.

There was a little girl. Maybe eight years old, dark hair in braids, wearing a dress her mother had sewn from trading cloth. She tried to hide behind the water barrels when the shooting started. I found her there, curled up like a frightened animal, tears streaming down her face.

She looked at me with these huge dark eyes and said something in Keth. Don’t know what it meant, but the tone was clear enough. She was asking me not to kill her.

I shot her anyway. Put two rounds in her chest and watched her fall back into the mud. Then I helped Hendricks burn the village to cover the evidence.

That night I started carving. Found a piece of blackwood washed up on the beach and began cutting away everything that wasn’t essential. Working by lamplight while the others slept, trying to shape something that could hold the weight of what I’d done.

The Keth have masks for everything, Lysa. Celebration masks, mourning masks, masks for the dead to wear on their journey to whatever comes after. But this was different. This was a mask for the living dead, for people who’d committed crimes so terrible they couldn’t face themselves anymore.

Took me three weeks to finish it. Three weeks of cutting and shaping and thinking about that little girl in the dress her mother made. When it was done, I knew what I had to do.

I put it on and walked away from the company. Walked into the jungle where the Keth resistance was waiting. They could have killed me, should have killed me. Instead they listened to my story and offered me a choice.

Wear the mask until I’d paid my debts, or die wearing it. Either way, I’d never take it off again.

I chose the debt.

Been two months now since I started feeding intelligence to the resistance. Patrol routes, supply schedules, the locations of weapons depots and communication centers. Small things, but useful. Every convoy they hit, every ambush they spring, every company operation that fails because someone leaked the details in advance.

That’s my work now. That’s how I pay for what I did at Keth’moren.

They’re going to catch me eventually. Company security isn’t stupid, just slow. They’ll put together the pattern, trace the leaks back to their source. When they do, they’ll probably shoot me as a traitor.

Good. It’s what I deserve.

But before that happens, I want you to know I didn’t run away because I was weak. I ran toward something because staying would have made me weaker still. The company would have given me more villages to burn, more children to shoot, more reports to file that turned atrocity into policy.

I couldn’t do it anymore, Lysa. Couldn’t keep wearing the uniform and pretending it stood for something noble. Couldn’t keep taking orders from men who think murder is just another business expense.

The mask carved itself, really. My hands moved the knife, but my conscience guided the cuts. It knew what face I needed to wear, what judgment I needed to carry. The Keth say blackwood holds memory. Mine remembers everything I’ve done, everything I failed to do, everyone I failed to save.

Including myself.

If they send you my effects, there should be a mask among them. Don’t let them tell you it’s just some native curiosity I picked up as a souvenir. It’s the most honest thing I’ve ever made. The only thing that shows who I really became out here.

Look at it and remember that your brother died trying to be better than the man who shot a little girl for asking him not to.

That has to count for something. It has to.

I love you, Lysa. Always have. But I can’t come home. Can’t sit at mother’s table and pretend I’m still the same person who left Vaelthorne City with dreams of serving his country. That person died at Keth’moren, along with thirty-seven other people whose only crime was living where the company wanted to build.

Take care of yourself. And if you ever find yourself wearing a uniform that asks you to do things you can’t live with, remember what happened to me.

Sometimes walking away is the only way to stay human.

Your brother, Tam

I folded the letter careful and put it in my desk drawer, next to the mask. Outside my window, the harbor was dark except for the riding lights of company ships. Somewhere out there in the archipelago, Keth resistance fighters were planning their next strike against Vaelthorne interests.

Tomorrow I’d put in for extended leave. Tell my commanding officer I needed time to process my brother’s death, get my head straight before returning to active duty.

Instead I’d be looking for Coral Threadeyes.

Time to make my own choice between the uniform and the mask.

The tribunal met in the old courthouse on Port Caldera, a drafty stone building that smelled of mildew and failed justice. Three company officers behind a mahogany table, a stenographer with ink-stained fingers, and four soldiers who’d survived Keth’moren sitting in wooden chairs like defendants at their own trial.

I found the transcript in Vale Cornish’s personal effects after he put his service pistol in his mouth. Twelve pages of questions and answers, filed away in a manila folder marked “Administrative Review - Classified.”

Military Tribunal Transcript Case No. 447-B Date: September 15th Presiding Officers: Colonel Hendricks, Major Thorne, Captain Willis Subject: Operational Review - Keth’moren Action

COLONEL HENDRICKS: This tribunal is convened to review the events of August 3rd, specifically the military action undertaken at the settlement designated Keth’moren. Sergeant Cornish, you commanded the ground elements. Please state your understanding of the mission parameters.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Sir, we were tasked with eliminating an insurgent cell operating from the village. Intelligence indicated weapons caches and coordination with resistance activities throughout the outer islands.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: And the source of this intelligence?

SERGEANT CORNISH: That information wasn’t shared with field personnel, sir. We received operational orders through standard command channels.

MAJOR THORNE: Describe the tactical situation as you encountered it.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Three squads, forty-two men total, approaching through the mangrove channels at dawn. Village appeared lightly defended, no sentries posted, no obvious fortifications.

CAPTAIN WILLIS: No fortifications? That seems unusual for an insurgent stronghold.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Sir, these people are clever. They camouflage their operations to look like normal civilian activity. Part of their strategy.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Continue with your tactical assessment.

SERGEANT CORNISH: We established a perimeter and began the sweep. Immediately encountered armed resistance from multiple structures. Insurgents using women and children as human shields, firing from concealed positions.

MAJOR THORNE: Casualties among your men?

SERGEANT CORNISH: None, sir. Clean operation from a tactical standpoint.

CAPTAIN WILLIS: And enemy casualties?

SERGEANT CORNISH: Thirty-seven confirmed dead, sir. No prisoners taken due to the nature of the resistance encountered.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Private Chen, you were part of the assault force. Do you concur with Sergeant Cornish’s assessment?

PRIVATE CHEN: Sir, I… there’s some things I saw that…

SERGEANT CORNISH: Private Chen suffered from heat exhaustion during the action, sir. Had to be evacuated early in the engagement.

PRIVATE CHEN: That’s not… sir, I need to clarify something about the nature of the resistance we…

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Private, are you contradicting your sergeant’s official report?

PRIVATE CHEN: No sir. I just… the heat, like he said. Made it hard to see things clearly.

MAJOR THORNE: Private Blackwood, you were also present during the action. Anything to add to the record?

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: Sir, request permission to speak freely.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Granted.

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: Sir, I’m not sure we were fighting insurgents. The people I saw… they looked like civilians. Families. There were children, sir.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Private Blackwood is new to the theater, sir. Still learning to identify enemy combatants in unconventional warfare situations.

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: But sir, I saw a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old. She wasn’t carrying a weapon. She was just…

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Private, are you suggesting that children cannot be combatants? That insurgent organizations don’t recruit and train minors for military operations?

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: No sir, but…

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Have you reviewed the intelligence reports on Keth recruitment practices? Their use of child soldiers in previous engagements?

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: No sir, I haven’t seen those reports.

MAJOR THORNE: Then perhaps you should refrain from making tactical assessments based on incomplete information.

CAPTAIN WILLIS: Corporal Davies, you served as communications specialist. Did you observe anything inconsistent with Sergeant Cornish’s report?

CORPORAL DAVIES: Sir, I was focused on maintaining contact with headquarters throughout the operation. Can’t speak to specific tactical details.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Very good. Now, regarding the aftermath of the engagement. Sergeant Cornish, you reported the destruction of enemy infrastructure and materials.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Yes sir. Standard denial operations. Destroyed weapons caches, communication equipment, and structures used for insurgent activities.

MAJOR THORNE: Any intelligence materials recovered?

SERGEANT CORNISH: Sir, most materials were destroyed by enemy action before we could secure them. Apparent scorched-earth policy to prevent capture of sensitive information.

CAPTAIN WILLIS: Convenient.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Captain Willis, do you have specific concerns about this operation?

CAPTAIN WILLIS: Sir, I’m noting some inconsistencies in the witness statements. And the casualty ratio seems unusually favorable.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Favorable casualty ratios are the result of superior training and tactical planning, Captain. Hardly grounds for suspicion.

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: Sir, I request permission to amend my previous statement.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Request denied. This tribunal has heard sufficient testimony to complete its review.

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: But sir, there are things that need to be said about what happened. Things that aren’t in the official reports.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Sir, Private Blackwood has been experiencing adjustment difficulties since the operation. Possible combat stress reaction affecting his reliability as a witness.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Noted. Private Blackwood, you are hereby recommended for psychological evaluation and possible medical leave.

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: Sir, this isn’t about stress. This is about murder.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Private Blackwood, you are out of order. Stenographer, strike that last statement from the record.

PRIVATE BLACKWOOD: Strike whatever you want, sir. Won’t change what happened. Won’t change what we did to those people.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: Sergeant, remove Private Blackwood from these proceedings. Confine him to quarters pending disciplinary action.

SERGEANT CORNISH: Yes sir. Davies, escort the private back to barracks.

COLONEL HENDRICKS: This tribunal finds that the Keth’moren operation was conducted in accordance with established military doctrine and company policy. All personnel involved are commended for their professional conduct under difficult circumstances. Case closed.

The transcript ended there, but someone had written a note in the margin of the last page. Tam’s handwriting, shaky with anger.

“They knew. All of them knew. And they’re going to let it stand.”

Three days after the tribunal, my brother walked away from his post and never came back. Two months later, Vale Cornish ate his gun rather than live with what he’d helped cover up.

Thirty-seven people died at Keth’moren, and the only justice they got was a dead sergeant and a deserter wearing a mask carved from sacred wood.

But maybe that was about to change.

The letter took me three drafts to get right. Kept starting with explanations, justifications, appeals to conscience or justice. But Coral Threadeyes wouldn’t care about my reasons. She’d care about what I could deliver.

So I made it simple.

To: Coral Threadeyes, Keth Resistance From: Captain L. Blackwood, Third Company, Cindermarch Garrison

I have information you need. Patrol schedules, supply routes, garrison strength assessments, and command structure details for all company forces in the outer archipelago. I also have the complete operational plans for the next phase of territorial expansion, including target villages and timeline for implementation.

In exchange, I want what you gave my brother. A chance to balance the scales.

I knew Tam Blackwood. He wore your mask until he died paying his debts. Now it’s my turn to wear it.

I can give you everything. Troop movements, communications protocols, the locations of weapons depots and ammunition stores. I can ensure your fighters hit the right targets at the right times with minimal risk to civilian populations. I can cripple company operations throughout the Cindermarch within six months.

But I want to do it wearing the mask he carved. I want to die the way he died, knowing I chose something better than the uniform.

Meet me at the old lighthouse on Gull’s Rest Island tomorrow night. Come alone, or bring your whole army. Doesn’t matter to me. But bring an answer.

I’m done serving murderers. Time to serve justice instead.

L. Blackwood

I sealed the letter in an oiled pouch and gave it to one of the dock workers who sold fish to the Keth traders. Told him it was personal correspondence, slipped him enough coin to ensure it reached the right hands. By sunset it would be working its way through the resistance network to Coral Threadeyes.

Spent that night cleaning out my quarters. Burned my personal letters, the photographs from home, everything that connected me to the life I’d lived before I understood what the company really was. Kept only the essentials: my sidearm, a week’s rations, and the mask Tam had carved.

The wood felt warm under my fingers, like it had been sitting in sunlight. Or maybe that was just my imagination. Maybe I was finally understanding what my brother had felt when he first put it on.

The weight of choice. The relief of certainty.

I put in for a three-day leave, told my sergeant I needed time to visit Tam’s grave on the outer islands. Standard compassionate leave, nothing unusual. By the time they realized I wasn’t coming back, I’d be deep in Keth territory with intelligence that could change the course of their rebellion.

The lighthouse on Gull’s Rest had been abandoned for twenty years, ever since the company built the modern beacon on Port Caldera. Now it was just a crumbling tower on a rocky island, visited only by smugglers and lovers looking for privacy.

I got there an hour before the meeting time, checked the approaches, made sure I wasn’t walking into an ambush. Not that it mattered much. If Coral Threadeyes wanted me dead, I’d be dead. The fact that she’d agreed to meet meant she was at least curious about what I had to offer.

She came alone, rowing a small fishing boat through the moonlight like she had every right to be there. Tied up at the old pier and walked up the beach without looking around, without checking for threats. Either very confident or very stupid.

Given that her resistance cell had been running circles around company forces for two years, I was betting on confident.

“Captain Blackwood,” she said. Not a question.

“Coral Threadeyes.”

Up close, she looked younger than I’d expected. Maybe thirty, with the kind of weathered face that came from years at sea. Her hands were stained with dye from working the fishing nets, but she carried herself like a soldier.

“You have your brother’s eyes,” she said. “But not his mask.”

I pulled Tam’s carving from my pack, held it up in the moonlight. The blackwood seemed to absorb the pale light, turning it into something darker.

“He earned this,” I said. “Carved it with his own hands, wore it until he died. Now I want to earn the right to wear it too.”

She studied the mask for a long moment, then looked back at my face. “And what makes you think you can pay the price he paid?”

“Because I helped create the debt.” I told her about Keth’moren, about the tribunal, about Hendricks and his commendations for efficient genocide. Told her about fifteen years of faithful service to men who thought murder was just another business expense.

When I finished, she was quiet for a long time. Waves lapped against the rocks below us, and somewhere in the distance a night bird called to its mate.

“Your brother came to us broken,” she said finally. “Weeping for what he’d done, ready to die if that’s what justice required. But you’re different. You’re angry.”

“I’m angry at the right people.”

“Anger burns out, Captain. Guilt lasts forever. Which one will keep you alive long enough to be useful?”

I thought about that. About Tam’s journal entries, the way his handwriting had deteriorated as the weight of Keth’moren crushed him. About Vale Cornish putting a gun in his mouth rather than live with what he’d helped cover up.

“Both,” I said. “Anger to start the work, guilt to finish it.”

She smiled then, the first real expression I’d seen from her. “Good answer.”

She reached into her own pack and pulled out a leather cord, the kind used to tie blackwood masks in place. “Put it on, Captain. Let’s see if it fits.”

The mask settled over my face like it had been waiting for me. The leather cords tied easily behind my head, adjusting to the right tension without conscious thought. Through the eye holes, the world looked different. Sharper. More honest.

“How does it feel?” Coral asked.

“Heavy,” I said. “But right.”

“Then welcome to the real war, mask-bearer. Hope you’re ready to pay the price your brother paid.”

I was. God help me, I was ready for all of it.

Her response came written on the same bark paper, delivered by a child who couldn’t have been more than twelve. The boy handed me the letter at the fish market, then disappeared into the crowd before I could ask any questions.

The writing was in two languages, Keth symbols mixed with Trade Common in a way that made reading slow work. But the meaning came through clear enough.

Mask-bearer,

Your offer is accepted. The debt your brother carried is now yours to bear. Wear it well or die trying.

But understand this—the mask does not forgive. It only remembers. Every life you help us save will be weighed against every life you helped destroy. The scales may never balance, but the trying is what matters.

Your brother wore his mask for three months before the company caught him. In that time, he saved forty-seven of our people through the intelligence he provided. Convoy ambushes that let supply runners escape. Patrol schedules that kept our fighters clear of company sweeps. Warning of raids that emptied villages before the soldiers arrived.

Forty-seven lives against thirty-seven dead. The mathematics of redemption, written in blood and tears.

He died on a beach near Coral Point, shot down while trying to signal one of our boats. The company patrol found him with the mask still tied to his face, the leather cords cut deep into his skin from months of wearing. They had to break the wood to remove it, and when they did, his face underneath was scarred in the same pattern as the mask’s grain.

The blackwood had marked him permanently. Made him ours in a way that death couldn’t change.

You want to wear his mask. You want to carry his debt. But masks are not inherited, mask-bearer. They are earned through suffering, shaped by the hands that will wear them. Your brother carved his own judgment. You must do the same.

There is a piece of blackwood waiting for you at the old temple on Whisper Island. Sacred wood, cut from the Tree of Sorrows that grows where the first Keth died fighting Vaelthorne expansion. Find it. Carve your own face from it. Shape your own justice with your own hands.

When you have done this, when you have looked into the grain and seen your true face reflected there, then we will talk about the work ahead.

The mask finds the face that needs wearing. But first, the face must find itself.

Your brother understood this in the end. He knew that redemption is not given—it is carved, cut by cut, from the hard wood of consequence.

Prove that you understand it too.

The tree waits. The wood waits. Justice waits.

But not forever.

Coral Threadeyes

I read the letter three times, then held it over my lamp until it caught fire. Watched the bark paper curl and blacken while I thought about what she was asking.

Whisper Island was forty miles into Keth territory, past three company patrol zones and two major supply routes. Getting there would mean deserting my post, stealing a boat, and navigating waters that had swallowed a dozen company vessels in the past year alone.

Getting back would be even harder. If I got back at all.

I looked at Tam’s mask sitting on my desk. In the lamplight, the carved features seemed different than before. Sadder, maybe. Or maybe just more honest about what they’d seen.

“The mask finds the face that needs wearing,” I said aloud.

The words felt right in my mouth. Like a prayer I’d been trying to remember my whole life.

Two hours later I was loading supplies into a stolen fishing boat, heading southeast through waters that might kill me before I ever found the sacred tree. But dying on the way to justice seemed better than living in service to murder.

The Tree of Sorrows stood alone on a hill above the old temple ruins, its black bark scarred by lightning and time. At its base, wrapped in oiled cloth, I found the piece of wood Coral had promised. A section of heartwood the size of a human head, dense and dark as a moonless night.

I sat beside the tree for three days, knife in hand, learning the grain of the wood before I made the first cut. Tam’s journal had described the process—how the mask carved itself, how his hands moved but his conscience guided the blade.

Now I understood what he meant. The wood knew what it needed to become. My job was just to cut away everything that wasn’t essential.

The face that emerged from the blackwood wasn’t mine. Not exactly. It was what I might become if I lived long enough to balance the scales. What I might be if I died trying.

When it was finished, I tied the leather cords and put it on. The world looked different through the eye holes. Clearer. Like I’d been squinting my whole life and finally found the right focus.

Walking back down the hill, I felt the weight of it settling into my bones. Not just the mask, but everything it represented. Every choice I’d have to make, every line I’d have to cross, every bridge I’d have to burn.

By the time I reached the boat, I knew there was no going back. The woman who’d stolen this vessel three days ago was gone. In her place was something harder, something carved from sacred wood and shaped by the weight of necessary justice.

The mask-bearer. The debt-carrier. The sister of the man who’d died trying to balance scales that might never balance.

But trying was what mattered. Trying was enough.

I started the engine and turned toward deeper waters, toward the work ahead. Behind me, the Tree of Sorrows swayed in the wind, already growing new wood for the next person who’d need to carve their own face from its heartwood.

The mask found the face that needed wearing. Now it was time to find out what that face could do.