Vokmortian

Before the legions come the terms, and the terms are Vokmortian. Master of the Bone-tithe, he arrives at city gates with a small honor guard and a large ledger, and delivers the Ossiarch Empire's offer in tones of impeccable courtesy: a schedule of payment in bone, precise to the ounce, in exchange for continued existence. He answers questions patiently. He grants time to grieve. The courtesy is the horror of him, for Vokmortian negotiates the way a headsman sharpens — without malice, and without the slightest possibility of a different outcome.

Unlike the blended masses of the Mortek phalanxes, Vokmortian is a whole self, an Ossiarch noble crafted for a task that armor cannot perform: arithmetic. His ledgers bind like chains. Kingdoms that refused the tithe generations ago discover their debt has compounded; heirs inherit arrears along with crowns; and when an account finally comes due, the legions that arrive are, by the empire's law, merely collections agents. More than one proud city has beggared its own graveyards to keep his signature out of their history.

The tithemasters under Vokmortian whisper one irony their lord never speaks aloud: he too is owed. His existence, his eloquence, his whole immaculate self are held on contract from Nagash — and the Great Necromancer forgets a debt no more readily than his collector does. Vokmortian tallies the realms knowing that at the bottom of the last ledger, in a hand colder than his own, his own name is already entered.