Across the Low Lands and across the west, the black carriages rolled. Trigorah watched in cold silence as her Elites carried out their orders. Anyone who met the girl since she found the sword was found, captured, and hauled away. The orders seemed pointless, arbitrary, but they were not the first such commands to bear fruit. It was not her place to question them, only to carry them out. The other generals had managed to keep the Northern Alliance free despite a centuries-long struggle against a foe twice its size and many times its strength. It didn't matter that their methods were . . . unsettling. The only thing that mattered was victory.
Trigorah repeated it to herself during the long nights without sleep. These orders were vital steps toward victory. Victory would bring peace. Peace was an end high enough to justify any means. She repeated the words to herself as she looked into the eyes of the innocents being taken away for reasons they didn't understand. She repeated them as she heard the wails of children separated from their parents. She repeated them until the words were without meaning, until the wheels of the black carriages wore deep ruts in the roads of the low lands.
She repeated them, praying each time that she might finally believe them.