The New Blood
"Hallowed was the night when the moon was dead. A moon so darkened not even eyes could see. It was a sign of the blessed calm, where the calmed beast becomes our prey. Here we dared to fight the night. To bring a new dawn to mankind, arms in hand and fervor in heart, conquering the wilds and the taint beyond the walls."
- The Chronicle of Laranthene
Cited from the works of the long lost Order of Caerde
Chapter 1
The dead bodies numbered ten in total. For the third time Marshall Reiniss Avesro circled the heinous arrangement of corpses. Their remains tattered, rendered broken beyond distinction, limbs and skin freely dispersed about the macabre scene. What remained of their dark silver armors, each emblazoned with the griffon seal of Albion, identified them as knights of the Sovereign.
Her grimace intensified as her heart pounded with burning rage, although she kept it in check. She only spent her anger when necessity demanded, a useful commodity best left in check and reserved for those who deserved it most.
Reiniss stepped over an arm severed at the elbow, the silver Data-Armlet around its wrist reflected sunlight in between spots where dried blood now marred its polish. A lopped of ear lay close by alongside what appeared to be some part of a ribcage. The rankness of the decay clogged her throat. Even though she often witnessed the face of death during her time as a soldier, deep down she had never grown accustomed to it. Certainly no person truly ever did, not without giving up an intrinsic part of their humanity.
"I can see only eight Gauntlets, Captain," she said. Her auburn hair covered her cheeks as it extended down to her jaw line, framing her slender features perfectly.
Captain Gorman turned a bleak stare her way, his sullen eyes seemingly stared right through her. These knights all served under to the Captain at some stage or another, fought at his side on a few occasions. She knew death presented a simple fact of life, but there was dying and then there was this egregious slaughter. No words existed that could consolidate an act so vile.
"Aye, you are right, Marshall," Gorman said.
Her statement brought him back to reality as he stepped away from the bodies to join her on the sidelines. Of the dozen knights that accompanied them to the scene only a few dared to stray their sights onto the bloodbath, and all except for the Captain stayed well clear from the grotesque area in question.
Reiniss crossed her arms in front of her, clutching her fiber mesh tunic in an effort to combat the cold. Energies infused into the tan colored fabric bestowed onto its wearer an ample guard against extreme temperatures, but even with the protection of the crimson salamander scales, which the overcoat was crafter from, the cold air bit into her skin with avid ferocity.
"How can a person express life brutalized in such a way?" Gorman asked. His usually tense features even more haggard than usual.
A man casually walked over to join them. He wore the usual fiber mesh pants and long sleeves shirt, clothing crafted from a mix of mammoth hair, cotton, and synthetic fibers. What distinguished him from the average folk, however, was the embossed overcoat, bearing striking variations of blue patterns throughout. Even to Reiniss' sharp eye little sense could be made of it, but it fulfilled its purpose in identifying him as one from the illustrious order of Incandents.
"A funny affair this, is it not?" the man said. His hand absent mindedly waved over the scene as if he regarded it as nothing more than a conundrum.
To an Incandent the entire world played a game of puzzles. Where average folk lived their lives in a contained peripheral view, focused on their own states of living, Incandents looked beyond the scope of things with an abundance of curiosity. They explore the nature of the chaotic world and somehow even made sense where most saw none. While they might have invented incredible devices that changed everyday life for the better, Reiniss found their type unnerving. She always tried to keep her dealings with them minimal and to the point.
"Funny is not a word I find encouraging, Incandent Irome," she protested, her jaw tightening in annoyance.
"Fascinating then?" the Incandent said, granting her a crooked smile.
"Incandent," she said and sighed, almost losing her patience. "What did you find?"
"They were all killed moments from one another."
"So they were slaughtered on the spot, mid patrol," Captain Gorman surmised.
"That is not quite it," the Incandent said. He held out his hand, pointing out distinguishable features the others had failed to notice. "The bodies and their missing peripherals were picked up after death, as some of these markings reveal. Also, the blood splatters there and there were in response to injuries, while the blood around the bodies are postmortem. We can see a clear scene of how the deceased were moved around. The perpetrators had gone to a lot of trouble, and it was all done with implicit intent."
A knowing smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as Incandent Irome scanned between the two faces that composed of his audience. The scowl Gorman supplied him indicted well enough that he had no intention of entertaining a man too smart for his own good. There was a familiarity in the scene though which Reiniss recognized, unnervingly reminiscent to how soldiers lined up in front of a barracks.
"They were inspected."
Reiniss' response drew a wicked smile from the Incandent.
"Exactly," he said with a slow nod. "It is as clear as dawn, right?"
He stepped closer towards the scene again, each step jolted with enthusiasm. The other Incandents continued about their business, preparing alchemical samples and focusing their energies in arcane rituals that went far and beyond Reiniss' understanding. She remained unmoved though, merely folding her arms, while Gorman fidget with his hands and constantly shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"Look! The three knights lying in this neat bundle here were pounded to death in their armors," Irome said, pointing out the slice and bash marks that marred their breastplates. "Their gear are rendered useless."
Taking a more in depth look caused a pang of sorrow to clench at Reiniss' heart. No person deserved to die in such a manner.
"While these two off to the side sustained the least amount of damage, clearly this was purposefully done and the very reason behind this assault."
Irome crossed over their bodies as he spoke, completely uninterested. As he had stated, clearly this was the reason behind the entire slaughter. The two men were stripped of their possessions and had their armors forcefully removed, and they were probably the two with the missing Gauntlets. Curiously that meant very little to the obscure mind of the Incandent.
"But this… this here," Irome said. He held both hands out over the scene, reverently, as he stooped over the mutilated corpses gathered there. All of them burnt and most missing one or more limb, scattered around their mangled forms. Watching Irome as he loomed over the site, not even a sign of discomfort at the gruesome sight and smell, it filled Reiniss with admiration, disgust, and a sense of disconnection with the man, but mostly it invoked a sadness in her to know that such compassionless individuals walked the earth.
The Incandent held out his hand, palm facing upwards as he rubbed his thumb across his finger tips. Through this simple gesture Reiniss realized he was focusing his inner energies.
"Can you feel that?" he asked, his smile broadening. "These knights were not burned; they were killed by powerful discharges of energy weaponry."
"Gauntlets?" Reiniss asked, amazed. "I guess a user can build great amounts of energy and fire deathly shots, but how many attackers were there to cause this amount of damage in a very short amount of time?" She looked to Gorman for answers, but his face was reduced to an ashen pallor and contorted with such rage that she doubted he was thinking straight. The thought that humans possessed the capacity to massacre one another to this extent didn't leave her without rage either.
"This was something else, something entirely new. It is amazing, absolutely intriguing. The signatures released by these weapons, it is … I cannot find the words to describe it."
"A tragedy, that is the only true way one ought to describe this," Reiniss said, averting her eyes to look somewhere far off. Her sights only found dark clouds invading from the far off horizon.
"There is a storm coming, Incandent."
"That there is," Irome said in a grim tone. "And mark my words; it is to swallow us whole long before the end is in sight."
Reiniss snapped her tongue in exasperation. "Save the drama for those who care, Incandent, your crime scene will be drenched soon. I want you to double time your efforts so my soldiers can see to the bodies," she said and turned away from the irksome man "Knights, make certain that no one disturb the Incandents while they finish up."
"Hai, Marshall!" the knights replied in the formal, military statement of agreement.
As Reiniss walked back to her Griffon, the Captain escorted her in silence. When her mount saw her approaching, it stretched its feathered wings wide and extended its beak in a leisurely yawn.
"He was not wrong, you know. Incandent Irome, I mean," the Captain finally said to break the silence.
For a moment Reiniss didn't respond. Climbing into her saddle she regarded Gorman before she shook her head.
"I really wish I could say otherwise, Captain, but of late I have had this strange sensation that something is terribly awry."
With its front talon Viron, her mount and trusted companion, feverishly scratched at the back of its head and she recognized what it was implying. Reiniss leaned forward. She ran her right hand through the soft, white feathers and began to stroke soothingly in the exact way the beast enjoyed. Its tail curled as it drove its hind feline paws into the ground, allowing it to lean forward in a gratifying stretch.
"Are there people out there with some new weapon? Are we in danger from attack, from another nation, perhaps. It could not have been beasts. They do not even know how to focus their energies to operate energy weapons, right?"
Again Reiniss shook her head, mulling the possibilities over in her mind before she began to strap herself into her saddle. Viron puffed his feathers disappointedly at her release. A deep sigh escaped from her lips.
"I do not know, Captain. My only intention is to prepare us for whatever may lie ahead."
"If we wish to be ready for whatever caused this, then we are going to need a lot more soldiers," Gorman said, the hopelessness thick in his voice.
"I agree," Marshall Reiniss mumbled. "A lot more."