"My brothers and sisters!" the voice called out. "We stand at a precipice!"
Aria stopped at the corner and looked down the adjacent street to see the city square, an immensely, beautifully crafted fountain sat as the centrepiece. All around it, a throng of people gathered around, the voice coming from the front of the mass.
"People of Vizara, the time is nigh! For the stars foretell of the end." The voice grew louder, becoming a shout as the crowd grew quiet.
Aria approached curiously, pulling her hood tighter to her face as she entered the crowd. She pushed through to the front, where she found herself face to face with men garbed in scarlet robes and white cowls. A symbol of a ring of fire surrounding a diamond with a cross in the middle emblazoned on their breasts. She looked behind the grim-faced men, and atop the fountain, she noticed a man dressed in a severe black cassock and red stole. He raised his hands up high over his head, palms up to the sky.
"This day, five centuries ago, the veil to our world was torn asunder by the nefarious force called magic. This day, from the abyss, did beast of horn and fur and scale creep atop our earth. They wielded claw and fang and curse upon us and sought the blood of us all!"
"We pushed back the daemons, with faith and steel! Sword and axe! With righteous glory did we force the beasts from our lands, and sealed them back in the fiery pits that sired them. However, after so long, the stars foretell our destruction once more! The inhuman creatures that sought our lives scratch at our very walls."
"They have grown clever in their absence, for now, they send others in their place. Ones that use devilry and illusion to hide amongst us, weaken us from within." The speaker turned and gestured to one of the men, who pulled a figure from behind their ranks. A woman dressed in nothing but a ripped smock and a leather bag on her head. The cowled man knocked her legs out from under her, forcing her to her knees and held her by her hands behind her head. The speaker turned to the masses once more, his eyes burning with an intestinity that made Aria uncomfortable.
"Look upon the face of the deceiver!"
He ripped off the bag, and a startled gasp rushed through the crowd, followed swiftly by panicked screams and praying. The woman was no older than Aria, her face beaten and bruised with blood running free from her mouth and cheek. What they all saw was silver hair, sheared short by the edge of a knife and her long, pointed ears. Aria held her hand over her mouth to stop her voice. Hushing it as she gnawed on her finger as she looked upon her own kin.
"Gaze upon this, the devil of mankind." The speaker demanded harshly. "Look upon its inhuman, slitted eyes. Eyes of a serpent, of a deceiver! This is the face of our enemy, hiding amongst you with our face in its place."
"Please," a racked, painful filled sob left the Elderblood woman's bloody lips. "In the name of the gods, I beg you. No more."
The mans answer was a swift backhand, blood streaking on the cowl of the man who held her.
"You speak of gods and mercy. Devils have no such privilege." He approached the crowd and he pulled out a silver dagger, the blade glowed malevolently in the now lit torches of his men. "Know this, brothers and sisters. The Migrant Halo will defend its flock from the devils filth. With silver and fire, we will purge them from our lands. With salt and divine water, will we purify the earth in which they corrupt with their presence."
He turned back to the Elderblood woman, her tear-filled eyes now horrified as the speaker dragged the silver dagger across her throat. The life in her eyes drained away as her body slumped forward, blood running down the front of her smock, drenching the cobblestone floor.