Letter to Mirielle Rosseau

[Ahmet]

Condottiera Rosseau,

This has to end. These excesses are spilling over the brim, making a mess of everything. People are dying. More people will die if we don't fix this.

I urge you to make the time and visit me in my office at your soonest convenience. We have to speak. This won't end well for anyone, not you, not I, not anyone save Iakmes if this keeps going the way it has been.

I won't be cowed, and you've made it rather evident that neither will you, but I am willing to be amicable and cooperate. The question is: are you?

With regards,
Legate Ahmet Yildirim

[Moonlighter]

Legate,

Do you recall how we first met? The Janissaries had assaulted me in the Plaza, after building a checkpoint directly outside of the Krak des Roses. You were there to beg for my mercy. No one died that day, thanks to my steady hand, even as they begged me to kill them.

I thought you could use the refresher!

I would be much more sympathetic to calls to "work together to destroy the Orcan Threat" had a Janissary not just murdered my fucking officer in the Plaza. Had a Magistrate not violated the Accord by conscripting an officer of the Cinquefoil Rose to serve the Sultan's Janissaries. Had a Legate not run a campaign of vitriol and hatred toward the Modini people that resulted in the lynching on my Balestriere.

Make no mistake, the history books-- should anyone be alive to pen them-- will remember Emilia Laurentis' role at the battle of Arslan. How despite the Banda Rossa being shot in the back by the Sultan's Janissaries, how she took the banner from the mangled corpse of her comrade Bruce Danebluff, hoisted it high, and held against impossible odds for hours.

How when the last Seeker-after-Death was ran off, the War Groknaks slain, the Bronze Colossi dismantled and the orcs were in retreat, how she, I and Yataghan all stood together in that burning City and reveled that mortal hands had grabbed the Wheel of Fate and changed it's course through wit, mettle and determination.

Her body is barely even cold, while you call her a "felon-butcher" and a "devil-worshipper."

How should the history books remember you, Legate?

How about "The Legate who made Ephia's Well lose to Iakmes and the Thousand Clans in his first week?"

You need me. You need my soldiers to die for you.

You will fucking honor them.

Condottiera Mirielle Rosseau
BANDA ROSSA