Day of reckoning

The day had finally arrived. For over a month, Arnold had led a relentless war, crushing rebellion after rebellion , justice had been meted out, and the crown's authority was steadily being restored to lands that had long since fallen into disarray and defiance. Yet, as triumphant as these campaigns were, Arnold could not ignore the scars they left behind—scars etched deep into the countryside.

He had been among the first to witness the rebellion's grim toll. The charred remains of once-fertile fields, the hollowed shells of villages razed to the ground. Even the few cultivated plots that had survived the initial uprising now lay in ruins, trampled underfoot by the very people who had once tilled them.