1st of Griham, 351 E.O.D, Altalusia
Marshlands.
The padded drumming of the horse hooves rushed across the slick, sodden soil of the marshlands, sending frigid spatter up in quick spurts of gray and gold-flecked glitter. The sun struggled through the weighty clouds, its pallor shining in beams and scattered auras.
In the valleys and across the paths lay the remnants of what pyres could be mounted, and the scavengers have long claimed the rest.
Then, the scavengers themselves were claimed.
War meant death, and much death meant that perturbations of the Shroud turned into hearth of something spreading on the wind like a plague.
Makeshift carcasses of metal moving with the only purpose their constituent parts have known in life - to sow death.
Bodies of rotting flesh still trying to lay claim to the lands they have been marching through, and march on and on.
Spirits of fear, despondent souls, bitter ghosts wandering about, reliving death, seeking for warmth of company, trying to return home.
Worse, less human things, waking up from nightmares and collective daydreams of those who had to trod back.
It was spreading. Even the sunlight did not have as much warmth beyond the veil of the stain.
The villages of Clarant, Arepina and Dzika have already been consumed.
Ahead, westward, lay Arpa - a fortified town that still stood, at least in body, on the border of the warzone.
It volunteered shelter to those bearing the authority of Her Majesty's Edict, if little comfort besides the protection of its walls.
*
A day before, a caravan bearing help had arrived, its banner - a a silver fox under a bull-horned crescent crowned by white briar, treading verde mount on azure field. The people of Bremen brought the excess of the early harvest - preserves, grain, cotton and wool fabric, medicinals and armaments to last the settlement a while, and also to provide for the arrivals.
Some people wept for joy at the caravan's arrival. Some had a glint in their eye.
The lord that governed Arpa's lands could do his due no longer, having joined the wraiths out in the field months prior. Most of his family, in search or in attempts to find the token of power granting inheritance, joined him all too soon to care for the commoners left to their own devices, with no logistics and no future.
A unifying order was issued to those serving in Her Name, and others, warriors of chivalry, scientists, and mercenaries of repute alike.
Head to Arpa. Present the Edict on entry. Meet others. Organize.
Help cleanse the land and stop the spread of the affecting Shroud and whatever or whoever may dwell in it.
Armies weren't going to solve what remained.
*
There wasn't an inn, but these days a lot of houses had a hollow-windowed gaze. One of those, a former carpenter's, elevated from the streets glistening with the moisture of the wet season, was turned into a command centre. Inside - a simple hearth, a large table, and quite a few waxed maps and tallies made over the past couple days.
Stood over the wealth of the initial knowledge, broad shoulders wrapped in a heavy grey wool cloak, Lord Thornley traced the feather tip of the quill on the blueprint outlining city streets, cross-referenced it with the elevation map on his right.
Flooding shouldn't have been happening the way that it was. Not unless there was some quirk of the terrain to divert the water into a non-uniform pattern.
Candle light echoed in his eyes in a dim glimmer, making the irises look almost black. He didn't know why this detail in particular had gripped his attention with the intensity that it had. But it had, and proceeded to gnaw at him once all the immediate duties were completed, and in the quiet moments in the murky, foggy nights.
No crickets, no frogs. Everything that could hunt - hunted, and then the things that hunted ran out of things to hunt, and many trod for better grounds.
Even as he was, he wasn't going into the field alone, past hunting down undead on close patrols.
Worse things were waiting a day or two out, things that sat by your fire and stared, and falling asleep on his own out there was tantamount to suicide.
He had the luxury of time, a few days for other queensmen to make their arrival known.
They would be met as heroes, he thought, since Percy was handling the locals. Percy was much better at handling people.
At least there's people in here. We aren't alone in this mess...
