Of My Flesh

[Saxon]

(Closed to Ataraxis)

The sound of gunfire thundered into the hills of Burgur as the cries of battle followed on its heels. On the abandoned fields of Larren a war of the worst kind was being waged by two sides that months ago had called themselves brothers. Farmers, bankers, merchants, and ordinary citizens of Corone took up arms against their fellow countrymen and within the first six months of the civil war, they found themselves in a war that everybody loses. Men fought tooth and nail within the fields, savagely defending whatever petty ideals that drove them into this fight while others cried out in agony as they were cut down by saber or gunfire.

Capitalizing on the war, a group of farmers and any they could rouse to ride with them in their cause decided to wage war with one of Corone's few barons, Lessli Ormandet. Holding firm control over the agricultural belt within the country, months before the war, the baron had seen to it that prices had been cut for sharecroppers seeking to turn profit on their harvests. Naturally, farmers all over Corone were in an uproar over lost wages and the potential for a nation-wide agricultural strike was on the verge of fruition when all talk of attritional diplomacy was drowned out by the outbreak of the country's own civil war between its Rangers and the Empire.

Naturally, the mix of war, feelings of betrayal and animosity was a recipe for disaster. For those reasons, farmers banded together under the flag of rebellion and encroached upon the Baron's fields, intending to take what was theirs even if it meant they had to kill for it. Swiftly, the Baron saw to it that his nephew and whatever forces he could muster would respond and eventually the aggression and heated exchanges between both sides boiled over into what would be later known as the Slaughter of Larren.

Long after the day had passed, the sounds of gunfire died and the battle raged no longer. By twilight, neither side had been left unscathed. For one reason or another, both the farmers and the Baron's men had underestimated each other as was common during the outset of the civil war. Civilized men that were accustomed to the horrors of warfare overlooked the reality of what lengths any of them would go to win. And often, it didn't take much imagination to comprehend the outcome of those kinds of battles.

The fields of Larren, once one the country’s mainstays for wheat, were red with blood. Bodies savaged by bayonets, pierced from lead balls from muskets, or ravaged by homemade weapons laid scattered around the field, often their faces disfigured so much that one would be hard-pressed to tell who they might have been in life. It had been hours since the remains of either force had bounded back from the slaughter, taking to whatever town or stronghold they might have had to lick their wounds and drown out the memories of the horrors they saw that day with hard liquor. To the survivors of the Baron's men and the estranged farmers, they would live to tell their children of the day that they ceased being civilized men and were born anew as something wholly different.

But whatever it was that these men turned into today didn't matter in the slightest to the dead who were left to the crows and thieves, their bodies to be collected the following morning.

There was one other scavenger that roamed those fields that night, of the macabre and unnatural variety. They couldn't smell the stink of burnt, sour gunpowder in the air or experience the immense horror or remorse a man would feel when walking within the fields. Instead, these creatures who were often the source of anger or disgust of the very same men they once were had been drawn to the fields of Larren for a very different reason.

To eat.

By daylight, the monsters and would-be scavenger known as ghouls had finished their gruesome task undisturbed, taking with them carnal souvenirs. When either side would return to the field, they'd find their comrades and their remains desecrated and robbed, as would become common later in the civil war. But, despite whatever outrage these citizens of Corone must have felt, it paled to the circumstances that would attract the ire of one of Corone's most powerful barons.

[Ataraxis]

The Lord of the Yarborough Barony, unlike many of his peerage, did not accede to his title by growing fat in lavish idleness. He had spent cloistered years deep in the studies of law and political sciences, but following these had been decades living amongst commoners, not as a noble in pauper’s garb but as the man who sought to understand the people and businesses he would one day come to rule. In his beginning years, he was known to be an avid traveler, striking deals and nurturing connections everywhere he went, and even with so little time to himself, he had earned quite a name as a man of the sword.

Yet of all the things he was, of all qualities he had and of all achievements he made, he was best known for his greatest flaw – or as some would argue, his greatest weapon.

George Lessli Ormandet, the Baron of Yarborough, was known and feared for his wrath.

When news had come of his nephew’s death on the fields of Larren, the man was stricken with grief as all doting uncles were wont to be. Yet, while tears served as salve for his bereavement, destruction was the relief to his anger, and his servants feared the Ormandet Estate would not endure the ordeal.

He had sent for his nephew’s body to be recovered, so that the boy could be given the proper burial he deserved. When he saw the undertaker remove the blood-stained shroud from his face, however, the baron had turned to cold fury. Of the strong jaw, the eyes of somber jade, the decisive features of the Ormandet men… only raw flesh and chipped bones remained, clotted over in a mask of abomination. He knew, then, what had defiled his blood. Thieves of the flesh and cannibals of imposture, those that devour identity, and make it their own... these were the ghouls.

“Kill the ghoul that robbed my nephew of his face,” the baron said at last to the men and women assembled before him. They had been recruited from all known haunts of mercenary bands, adventurers and assassins alike, and most if not all had been lured by the substantial sum he promised in exchange for the head of the thief. “You may harvest the heads of any ghoul you kill for a lesser compensation, but I will have yours on a plate if you return without what I require.”

Wasting no more words, he continued. “All cowards step back, and leave my sight. Those who remain, come forward.”

Of the fifty or so that had come, only seven remained. Once one had found the courage to run away, all the others had followed in that opening. Now, in the center of the immaculate hall, the baron stood from his seat, sidling the long oaken table that separated him from the brave few who remained. He walked across the lined volunteers, inspecting one after the other.

Two wore plain clothes, as nondescript as those of a peasant, and they seemed to bear no weapons: these were the assassins, he knew. Next to those stood a plated warrior, whose axe seemed too unwieldy for it to be effective in battle, but the fragile youth at his side seemed to be a cleric of some obscure deity: no doubt was he capable of enhancing the brute’s strength. Each of the remaining three, however, had evidently come alone. There was a tall, lanky man with a strong jaw and a clean-shaven face, yet he fashioned himself an air of vagueness and secrecy with his concealing jacket and fedora hat. He had heard from his assistant that this was a hunter of sorts, and the foremost expert when it came to dealing with these monstrosities.

There was another, slightly shorter man, with hair obviously died black to hide some outlandish color. His eyes seemed an unnatural shade of amber, almost too golden to be real… and oddly, his only weapon seemed to be a fireplace poker. Of this man, he knew next to nothing. Lastly was a waifish little girl in a white dress, and he would have dismissed her the moment she had entered the hall, if not for the rumors of a strange sorcery she was purported to wield.

“Some of you bear respectful names, while others lead lives that require theirs to remain hidden. Let me make this clear: I do not care who you are, only that you are capable.” He nodded to his attendant, who scurried to pass along parchments upon which an artist had sketched the most accurate portraits of the baron’s nephew. “Bring me proof of the deed, but leave the face intact.”

“Now, give me your word, so that I may know the voices of those who might fail me,” ordered the baron, the rage of his words tempered like cold steel. “And though it is not required, you may give me your name, so that I might begin to care for those who will succeed… and for those who I might need to hunt next.”

The assassins, the warrior and the cleric obliged only to the first command. While the former could not reveal themselves and did not care for recognition, the latter feared to incur the baron’s legendary wrath. As he had expected, however, the remaining three had taken on his veiled challenge.

“Thomas Saxon. You have my word.”

“Lillian Sesthal, and you have my word.”

The man with the stoker blinked lazily before snapping back to attention. “Ah, yes. And that of Sammael.”

And then, they were off.