Private Revival of the Butcher King

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Darth Carnifex

The forests of Stewjon had never truly left him.

They lived in memory, in instinct, and in the quiet moments stolen from a life that no longer afforded such luxuries. Before there had been councils, campaigns, and the weight of an Order upon his shoulders, there had been towering pines, rushing streams, and the rhythm of paws against damp earth. Those memories had followed Gerwald to every battlefield and every world he had claimed until, at last, he carved out a place where they could breathe once more.

Hidden within the heart of the Obsidian Spire, beyond layers of black stone and polished durasteel, lay a preserve few outside his family had ever seen. Beneath a vast transparisteel dome rose a forest transplanted from Stewjon itself. Ancient pines stretched toward an artificial sky while clear streams wound through moss-covered stone before disappearing beneath exposed roots. The air carried the scent of rain, pine, and rich earth instead of machinery and ozone. Wolves roamed the woodland freely, disappearing into the undergrowth as they pleased. They were not caged or trained. They simply belonged.

So did he.

A gray wolf moved effortlessly through the preserve, weaving between trunks with the confidence of a creature that knew every trail by heart. The others acknowledged his passing with little more than a glance before continuing their own pursuits. There was no challenge to issue and no dominance to establish. The pack already knew its own.

Gerwald lingered beside the stream before the familiar pull of the Force gave way to flesh once more. Fur receded into skin as the wolf became the man. He stood in silence for a moment, drawing in the cool air. Here, the burdens of a Dark Councilor felt distant, if only for a little while.

The soft hum of servomotors drifted through the trees.

An attendant droid emerged from the trail, its polished black chassis reflecting shafts of filtered sunlight that broke through the canopy above. It paused several paces away.

"My lord, your guest has arrived."

Golden eyes lifted from the stream.

"Bring him here."

The droid inclined its head in acknowledgment before turning and disappearing back along the trail. Silence settled over the preserve once more.

Gerwald rested a hand against the rough bark of a towering pine. The forest had grown alongside the Spire, season after season, while the Sith Order itself continued to change. Empires rose. Councils shifted. Wars came and went. Nature cared little for any of it. Here there were no titles to hide behind and no positions to preserve. Only strength, resolve, and the will to endure.

It was a lesson the Sith had once understood.

Perhaps they would again.

The sound of measured footsteps eventually carried through the preserve. Gerwald turned from the stream as the familiar presence entered the woodland. It had been years since they had last stood alone together. The Malsheem had settled questions that neither man needed to revisit, and the years since had only reinforced the respect earned there.

A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.

"Welcome to the one place in the Spire that still feels like home."

His gaze drifted briefly toward the wolves moving through the trees.

"The rest of this fortress was built for the Order."

He looked back to his guest.

"This was built for the wolf."

Gerwald stepped onto the narrow trail that disappeared beneath the pines, leaving the invitation to stand on its own.

"Walk with me."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He walked solemnly, bare fingers reaching out to caress the tips of the pines which overlapped the earthen trail. It was a different world from the one He had known, the one encoded in the deepest bedrock of His DNA. That had been a world of sweltering heat and endless jungle, fraught with danger and deception. Interwoven vines hid deep valleys filled with fungal groves and subterranean lakes, where one wrong step could send the hapless plummeting to their doom, while predators of every niche lurked just out of sight.

This world was different, but no less primordial. He could sense it through the Force. For Him, Panatha was a distant memory, but this forest ripped straight from Stewjon was only a transplant. Stewjon yet persisted, albeit far away. The Wolf could always seek out that world if he so desired, but the Eternal Father had to settle for recreations. It was where their shared interest in their homeworlds diverged.

Cloaked in a heavy shawl of sound-dampening susurra-weave, Darth Carnifex stepped out into the clearing. Awaiting Him was Gerwald Lechner, Dark Councilor, Lord-Imperator of the Dreadborne Second Legion, and Empress' Wrath. Long ago they had struck an accord, and with the now-Empress Srina Talon and Dark Councilor Taeli Raaf had formed the Revivalist bloc within the Eleventh Sith Empire, though it had been some time since they had spoken at length in privacy.

Silently, the towering Epicanthix fell into step with Lord Lechner. As they walked, He listened to Lechner briefly explain the purpose of this insular forest, a separate world from the spire to which it was attached. "An admirable labor," replied the Dark Lord, "I have built sanctuaries of my own to stimulate the memory of Panatha, I was able to safeguard a great deal before the world was rendered moot."

Carnifex's gaze then lingered upon the wolves as they disappeared and reemerged between the pines, each moving with quiet purpose. They neither jostled for position nor sought to remind one another of their strength through constant challenge. Their hierarchy had already been settled. Every member understood its place within the whole, and so each could devote itself to the pack's survival rather than its own vanity.

There was a lesson in that. One the Sith had once understood but had gradually forgotten.

Too many proclaimed themselves wolves while behaving like carrion-feeders, forever tearing at one another over fleeting opportunities and imagined slights. They confused ambition with instability, never recognizing that dominion demanded more than the ability to seize power. It required the wisdom to preserve it, and the discipline to subordinate lesser rivalries to a greater purpose.

Nature did not reward endless conflict. It rewarded enduring order. Even the fiercest predators understood that a pack forever consumed by internal struggle would soon lose its territory to one whose hierarchy had already been decided. The Sith so often preached that the strong should rule, yet many spent their lives proving only that they were incapable of ruling anything beyond themselves.

He looked away from the wolves and back to Gerwald, watching Him as one predator would regard another. Here, at least, was a wolf who understood the difference. "How fares the Second Legion?"

Gerwald Lechner ​

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Darth Carnifex

Gerwald listened without interruption as Carnifex spoke of Panatha. His gaze moved through the towering pines, following the shafts of pale light that slipped between their branches and settled across the forest floor. Stewjon remained within reach, a world he could return to whenever duty allowed, while Panatha had been reduced to what Carnifex had managed to preserve before its loss. There was no useful comfort Gerwald could offer for that, and he respected the Dark Lord too much to attempt it.

“Then I am fortunate. Stewjon still waits for me.”

His hand brushed against the rough bark of a pine as they continued deeper into the preserve. The trees had grown thick enough to hide the walls of the Spire, leaving only the scent of damp earth, the murmur of running water, and the occasional movement of wolves slipping through the undergrowth. This place had never been intended to replace his homeworld. It gave the wolf room to run when the burdens of the Council, the legion, and the Empire kept Gerwald on Jutrand.

Carnifex's attention returned more than once to the wolves moving among the trees. Gerwald noticed, though he kept the observation to himself. The two of them walked through the preserve much as predators might share the same forest, neither yielding ground nor feeling compelled to prove why the other had been permitted there.

“The Second is ready.”

The trail curved beside a stream before descending toward a broader stretch of water. Moss covered the stones along its banks, and the roots of the oldest trees reached into the current as though drinking directly from it. Across the stream, several wolves moved through the shallows with their heads low, unconcerned by the two Sith walking nearby.

“They know what they are. The Second was never shaped to sit behind walls or govern what others conquered. They are the force sent ahead of the line, where resistance is strongest and where something must be broken before the rest of the Empire can advance.”

There was pride in the words, though none of it was careless. Gerwald knew what he had forged within the legion. Its warriors carried the fury of the old clans into a modern war machine, throwing themselves into battle with the discipline to direct that violence rather than be consumed by it. They did not fear the charge, and they did not mistake brutality for purpose. Every axe, blade, and rifle existed to drive the same relentless momentum forward until the enemy's line ceased to exist.

“They have waited long enough to be unleashed against an enemy worthy of them.”

The stream narrowed ahead, crossed by a broad span of dark stone that appeared almost natural beneath the moss gathering along its edges. Gerwald led Carnifex across it and toward higher ground, where the forest gradually opened around them. The trees gave way to a wide clearing set beneath the highest point of the dome, its center occupied by a weathered circle of standing stones brought from Stewjon. No banners marked the place, and no symbols of office had been carved into the rock. It was simply somewhere Gerwald could stop after a run, listen to the forest, and remember that titles mattered far less than the strength required to carry them.

He stepped into the circle but did not immediately take a seat. Beyond the stones, the preserve stretched beneath them in layers of pine and mist, wolves appearing and disappearing between the trunks below.

“When you, Srina Talon , Taeli Raaf , and I first began speaking of what the Order might become, there was no war to test whether any of it had taken root. We could influence appointments, shape expectations, and place the right people where they could prove themselves, but peace allows weakness to hide behind position.”

Gerwald rested a hand against one of the standing stones.

“The coming war will remove that shelter.”

His gaze shifted from the forest to Carnifex.

“That is why I brought you here. The Republic is only the enemy before us. What matters is what we make of the Order while it is forced to remember what strength costs.”