Carrington had gotten seperated from Moryan in the fire as the beams came crashing down. He had to run through the burning building and exit the kitchen doors, making his way outside. A soldier ran up to challenge him, but Carrington reared back and took the man down with a single, massive smite. The man was incapacitated, but not dead. Just then, an Albion armsman came running around the corner to see what had happened. Carrington adjusted his cloak and nodded.


"Take him away." Carrington said, walking away, without turning around. He had to find Mory, and make she and everyone was ok.


He had to find all of them...any loss would have meant the night's failure...D'Vena wasn't worth one of them. They had to have arrested her...there was no possible way she could have gotten away in his mind. He ran around in the darkness lit only by the flaming manor, and tried to find his friends.

 

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Albricht rode with four masked riders into the Black Mountains. His face was bruised, and his body beaten, but at last, Basaia had freed him. Albricht never said a word about where he got the bruised or the scars, and he never would. But tonight, they had more important things to worry about.


As they neared a small village, they could see smoke rising from a chimny, and a child sneaking outside of play with one of the cats who had found it's way here.


Albricht nodded to his men. This was the sight the haven was to be constructed on. Moryan's home, and home to many others. The small, peaceful, even beautiful village nestled in the Black Mountains. Albricht raised his hand, and he and his men ignited their torches. The scarred, blonde soldier's face sneered as he gave the order, and they slowly advanced on horseback. Nearing the the quaint village, peaceful, and wishing nothing else than to be left alone, the riders raised their torces. A fearsome sight they were....in the center, Albricht, with his rust colored cape and grey polished armor, and his men drressed in entirely black robes and hoods, with awful, silver masks shrouding their faces. A woman let out a lone shriek in the otherwise quiet night.


"NOW!!" Albricht screamed, shattering the silence of the dead still night.


And he and his men let the torches fly. They seemed to suspend in mid air as they flew, slowly flying toward each of the straw and sod homes that had been built. One struck home on a roof of a small, delapidated old hut, which almost immediately caught fire. Shriks of fright began to fill the night air as the torches flew through open windows, and striking doors, ignited the peaceful hamlet in flames.


Albricht, a wicked, almost sadistic grin on his face raised his hand again, and his men drew longbows. They lit their arrows aflame and raised them into the air, toward the hamlet. Albricht lowered his arms and flaming arrows hissed through the air.


A rain of fire fell as the arrows plunked home all over the village, some missing, some creating new fires on the homes. Once again, Albricht raised his hand, and more arrows raised, flaming, setting a horrid glow off the metal masks of his followers. And again, the arrows hissed through the air.


Albricht turned to his men and nodded.


"Flush them out." he said coldly, "Kill all the adults and cut them down, but round up the children. Tonight, we send a message."


His men all nodded and drew massive, unwieldy looking scimitars. Albricht drew his own, jagged blade and raised it into the air, signaling the charge. He and his men, on their massive war horses charged toward the small village...people were running all around, screaming, trying to rescue those caught within the flames. Then, a single woman turned to see the men charging, and let out a scream of warning.

 

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Albricht and his men spurred hideously through the village. Men and women with thier children scattered alike. An old man let out a desperate cry as he was cut down by one of the riders. Albricht raised his jagged blade and cut down a woman from behind, killing her instantly. Her child screamed and began to weep.


He and his riders killed. They ran down men, and slaughtered the woman. Albricht rounded a corner and saw a young man, perhaps not even 17 years of age, raising a small sword, staring at him, a look of petrified fear in his eyes. Albricht raised his blade and brought it down on the young farmer's head, ending his young life. Albricht rode off, expressionless.


Albricht's horse thundered into the village center as he met his men.


"I'll take care of the rest of the survivors. The rest of you..." Albricht eyed them, all of the men looking like sadistic demons in their cold, expressionless masks, "Round up the children."


The men nodded grimly and rode off. Albricht turned, spotting a shrieking woman running out of the corner of his eye. He took off letting out a yell to spur his hosse foreward. The blonde soldier raised his blade and beheaded the woman cleanly, ruthlessly, with no regard. He left her writhing body there, and spurred off. He saw an old man limping around a corner, and spurred ahead. He had no feelings whatsoever for these commoners, they were chattle to him, mere pawns in the grand scheme. He didn't care about their family, or that one of them was Moryan's father, he didn't care. He saw the old man clammer into a large heystack as he rounded the corner. Albricht leaned over and repeatedly drove the blade into the haystack, the old man letting out howls of death as he thrusted the blade again and again into the haystack. Straw of gold ran red.


The rust-cloaked cultist rode away from the village and nodded to his men who surrounded the children at sword point. Most of them were weeping, some crying for their parents. Albricht tugged his helmet off and tossed it to the ground, his face black in places with soot. He let his pale blue eyes wander the children before he tilted his head, as if judging them. Albricht pointed to the small grove of trees and uttered a statement that would shatter a million souls.


"Hang them."


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Buildings smoldered in rubble. The once quiet little village was now nearly completely destroyed. The small street ran red with blood. Bodies were everywhere, some burned, some lying cold, cut down in shallow graves. It was a scene of chaos.

The village had been ended, no, killed by sadistic madmen. A rural genocide...a mass murder.


And just near the village the small grove of pines, the wind whistled through. The bodies of three dozen children rocked lightly in the wind, lightly touching each other as they hung and blew in the end.


On each body, the insignia of the Cult of the Long Night had been carved with some sort of twisted dagger, on each of the chldren's cheeks. They had made their intentions known.


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Glenin was wandering through the black mountains. Strange she thought, something big musta died, wonder what it was, as her eyes were drawn to a circling group of scavenger birds, and was that smoke...


She frowns to herself, a fire out here could kill lots of things, and shall probably need ta warn the locals around here. I'll take a look first, could be all over now.


Slowly she heads towards the direction of the circling birds. She frowns as she gets closer, the smell of death and burning lingering in the air.


She leaves the protection of the trees and rounds a small hill. Stops.


'Farkin hell'. Gazes at the scene of destruction around the village. The women and men brutally slaughterd. Pauses, drawing her sword, looking around cautiously for signs of Midguardians or Hibernians. Nothing else could have caused such a slaughter.


Skirts the village, cautiously, looking for signs of movement, somebody left alive, swearing under her breath as she looks.


Completes a circle of the village and has found nothing alive. 'They will pay fer this' she mutters.


Stoops ta pick up a doll lying on the ground and frowns. Looks around the village quickly.

Nae children to be seen. A movement catches her eye and she turns towards a copse of trees, the birds circling there also.


Approaches cautiously, hearing the wind through the trees and the creaking of branches.


Pushes her way through the trees and stops in shock. Her sword drops from nerveless fingers, a tear rolls down her cheek, she sinks to the ground staring at the bodies of children, her mind in shock from such a horror.


'

D'Vena was being prepared for transport back to the palace, surrounded with guards, vigilent and aware.


She saw them emerge from the building, Moryan, that bitch, carrying the pig-farmer Arguyle. Mithiel, broken and bloodied came out being carried by two royal guardsmen, and followed by the king. Her mouth contorted into a pleased sneer at the sight of his body so. Lastly came some young warrior, also carried by royal guardsmen, who laid his body down on the grass. D'Vena hissed in anger and rage.


She knew him! And he, her. Intimately! Yet her he was, in the bossom of all those who would destroy her and the plans she held for the world. Damn that Bitch and the Swine Lord Uncle, and her husband! Her mind raged, insane hatreds welling and flowing in malice. Her eyes bulged and her fingers twiched, first in shock, then in a subtle pattern.


Slowly, she raised her arms slightly and chanted, words of power forming quietly then growing. A slow lassitude spread from her to the guards, their minds turned outward from her actions, if she could hold it long enough.


"Appetitio depravatio amatorius." Her hands snapped up, pointing at the young fighter as he lay on the ground and her eyes blazed with insane delight.


A cuff to the head brought her around quickly.


"Gag that wench and bind her fingers! She's a wielder of magicks you louts!" the captain barked, and led her off toward the palace dungeons.


No one saw her slight, twisted smile of pleasure as she was marched off.

 

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One of the riders slung herself off her horse, choking upon the smoke pouring from a nearby hovel. Her dark velvet cape fell to the ground, riling the cinder upwards in a small vortex from a burning crosstimber. Throwing her silvered mask to the ground, the pale-faced horseman looked at what her and the Cult's hand had carved.


The creation, the "Simulacrum" as the others had come to call her, stood still while wind fueled the flames of the ruined villa. Torchlight and fire, the smell of burning hay and tallow, an overturned cart of horsetack; the destruction was evident. Winterborne looked towards Albricht in the far distance, her knight-errant, her trusted liege, her lover and paused for a moment. She began to question her intent, to question what was right or wrong, what this was meant to prove. It was not the children's bodies that swung from a nearby tree that made her question these things, nor the slaughter of the villagers or the cruelty of the Cult's actions at this backwood homlet. Looking towards the ground, she focused into the mask, polished bright silver like a mirror; she saw her own visage. She ran her blackened fingers down her face, touching her high cheekbones and her thin lips. Was this who she was? Was this who Basaia created in the image of the true Baroness of Snowdonia? What was she, was she being used? Was she human, or just a cruel 'copy' of the original host? The Creation had never pondered these things before.


"Perhaps the Baroness would have answers...I am so utter-"


"Winter!" Albricht spoke clearly above the sound of the whistling of the burning wood. "Let us ride, we must depart before dawn!"


She mounted her powerful steed and joined with Albricht and the others as they rode away from the burning village. The only remain of herself that was left behind was the silvered mask, upturned, the sight of the village in ruin still captured upon it's surface.

Bump!

/bump while I write more...

 

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The royal guardsmen came and collected their charges, moving them to the palace some distance behind the detachment in charge of D'Vena.


The royal surgeons' infirmary was a splendidly appointed room in the lower level of the palace. Their small staff bustled about and attendents descend on those brought in, devesting them of armor and inspecting for more wounds.

 

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God alone knows how long she sat there. Her mind lost in the horror of the scene. Her eyes red and swollen, the horror reflected in the depths.


A scavenger landing right in front of her, squawking loudly brings her out of her reverie.


As she moves to stand up, she groans, her muscles locked in position.


She glances around, notices the fires are almost burnt out. Hmmm, how long did she sit there. Well better go and report this....


She stretches, working blood back into her aching muscles and then slowly starts to jog to the nearest guard tower.