Revolution
an excerpt

Centuries old rubble was disturbed by her trailing cloak. The wind rustled dead leaves around her limbs and the distinctive crush under her feet was the only sound she heard. From within the hood her blood red hair, slightly curled from the damp weather, blew around her face distractingly.
She was home.
The smell of ancient death was thick in the rancid air. Her face betrayed no emotion as she turned down another once mighty promenade of the dead city. Not all the buildings had been repaired by the succession of High Lord’s for eight centuries since they had come here, and those parts that had been made liveable were lacking in skill and art. What one had been the largest and most renowned city of the arts, beauty and passion, now was nothing more than an army camp ground and a pitiful excuse for a throne room where upon the current High Lord sat.
Rasha was fresh back from the battlegrounds and rode ahead of her army to inform the High Lord Ahmed of yet another victory. Victory had become almost meaningless to her since she had joined the ranks forcibly and risen to become an Armana, portending a high rank as a female offensive leader. She was not short in honour or glory, and it had been noted amongst many of her rivals that that High Lord listened to her closely and often gave her the preeminent soldiers and creatures for the attacks he bid her win.
Despite the pretences of peace, the five great assemblies of the land constantly fought for superior control. It was this that the Armana Rasha was sent out for, to succeed in retrieving a positive position in the war.
The path before her was blocked by a shadowy figure.
“Armana,” the Keres spoke in dark tones. “I see you have returned. Again.”
“Tephra,” Rasha inclined her head in the falsity of showing respect, but any could see that her black eyes barely concealed distaste for the creature before her. “I do but serve my realm and the High Lord.”
“Your pretty tongue does not protect you.” Keres Tephra spat on the ground before her feet.
Rasha was not at all surprised by Keres Tephra’s attitude towards her. The Keres’ were highly trained in death and resurrection magic, and sold their reproductive systems to some demon or another for that power. As it was little known, while the energies associated with life and death are inextricably bound by nature – it is the unnatural ways that can give someone such great control over one or the other.
“Good thing I am no diplomat, Keres. My protection sits up on the Bone Throne.” Rasha confidently gestured to the largest hall, in the centre of the city. “Ahmed would never let you get away with my murder.”
The creature before her snarled.
“You cannot sit behind that boy’s throne forever. I can see to that!”
“Be careful, Tephra, one might interpret your words as treachery and cut you down. In His Name, of course.”
Tephra, wordless, spun about on her heel and stalked back to whatever hole in the ground would take her, Rasha presumed and she herself continued the walk towards Ahmed’s palace.