Chronicles of the Grim Hunt: Birthed In Fire

The world burned...

Brilliant hues of orange and red lit up the sky as all-consuming flames climbed higher and higher into the otherwise jet blackness of the night. The column of riders had been approaching their home at a leisurely pace, their lord commander in high spirits after the negotiations that had taken place in the capital. It seemed a time of growth and prosperity was before them, the common man being afforded every opportunity to better their lives not just here in his own lands but elsewhere amidst his fellow lords as well. The excitement their lord had exuded was palpable even to stoic warriors such as they, his joy at being able to share such news with his beloved wife plain for any to see. Then they had seen the distant glow of a great fire, and though no one gave voice to their concern the tension that grew between them all was confirmation of the fear that passed wordlessly between them.

Through war and bloodshed, they had ridden with their lord, witnessing every atrocity they thought man capable of, and through it all he had remained strong of will and steady of heart. There was nothing that terrified the man they had sworn fealty to, they all believed. But when they crested the hill and looked out over the land at the sight of his home aflame, his very life burning to ash in the distance before them, the cry of anguish and fear that escaped his lips was enough to shatter even their resolve. Even from that distant vantage point, they could see the shadow forms of figure’s milling about, dancing before the destruction they had wrought upon their lord commander’s very existence.

They rode, faster than was wise. As fast as their mounts could carry them through the night. Fortunately for them, it seemed their god was with them, for no one felt his horse stumble beneath him from any unseen obstacle. No one veered off or lost their way into the darkness, their direction clear even as they plunged through the small forest that surrounded their lord’s estate.

The clatter of pitched battle assaulted their senses next. Swords clanging upon steel, the shouts of men enraged beyond reason, cries of the wounded carrying out like a mournful call. Through all that, like a pearl of pure agony and terror, the scream of a woman that set even their hairs on end. They heard the scrape of steel as a sword was drawn swiftly from its sheath, saw the glint of moonlight upon their lord commander’s sword, and with a kick of his heels his great horse was spurred forward and ahead of his knights. They moved to follow, a column of rushing steel and death bursting almost as one from the thinning undergrowth of the forest and emerging into a scene of death and horror.

The house was lost, consumed by flames so bright and hot that it would blister the skin to even draw near. Bodies lay scattered across the shadowed courtyard, which side they belonged to impossible to tell at a glance even with the aid of the firelight to illuminate their corpses. A knot of fighters stood with their backs to the house, their charge already lost though they fought on against the tide of simply clothed, crudely armed men that assaulted them. In that realization, that the enemy was not armored knights of some rival but common folk without proper arms or armor was the greatest shock of all. The knights paused a moment, confused by what they found. Their lord commander did not.

His horse plunged into the flanks of the milling townsfolk, the site of his ancestral home ablaze igniting a fire all its own deep within his breast as he cried with rage and sorrow. The chest of his horse slammed mercilessly into two who were unfortunate enough to be directly in the way and they were driven forward to press and crush those before them. His sword flashed moonlight silver and emerged darkened as with the crimson ichor of his foes as it swept back upward and plunged back down again. The knights recovered quickly, plowing through masses, and even though their lord’s arrival had arrested their attention there was no saving them from the superior might and weapons of the knights that lay into them. Within moments the ground of the courtyard was awash with the blood of men and women alike, for their lord held no thought for mercy in his rage and his knights held none within their heart.

With their arrival, the battle was over almost as swiftly as it began. Whatever madness had possessed them to attack was surrendered in the face of fear and certain death. Weapons were dropped, their cause surrendered as they instead turned their thoughts toward survival. Still, the manor blazed before them, a monument to the sheer scope of their terrible actions, and as the lord commander and his knights began looking upon their captives and recognized familiar faces, the true depths of their terrible betrayal became inescapably apparent.

It was not random vagabonds or rogues that had assaulted his home, not agents sent in disguise by a rival noble, but the very townsfolk of his own lands. Men and women who had been empowered to learn and earn a decent living by their own practices, offered a life beyond which they would have found anywhere else. The very men and women he had just left to defend and fight for against powerful men and women who were resistant to change… All of them people he had put his faith into… his trust. All of them he had loved if only because the woman who possessed his heart wished it so.

“Where is my wife.” Their lord commander asked as they knelt before him in supplication and surrender. What he felt at their betrayal his knights could only guess, for his handsome features were locked in a granite expression that was unchanging as he looked upon them. Silenced reigned between the armed warriors and the villagers they held captive, the roar of the burning manor serving as the only dirge to accompany this terrible night and the atrocities it had borne witness to. Eyes flitted about, casting nervous vision beyond the armored men and the lord they served to the burning building behind them.

Their lord commander turned, regarding for the first time more closely the inferno that had once been his home. The fires had all but consumed the roofing. Where glass windows had stood the panes were gone and tongues of flame licked upward in gluttonous search for more to devour. Even the pear trees his late mother had planted were not spared their fury, for the remnants of their fruit-bearing bows were near enough to the inferno to have been ignited by sheer heat alone. He recalled picking the sweet fruit from those trees limbs, could see the shadow of his mother's spirit resting where the shade would have been during midday as she often did.

Much of the manor’s front remained intact still, though, and even from where he stood the sight of board nailed upon the double front doors, barring it from opening was plain to see. All at once the lord commander felt his life, all that he held dear, come crashing down around him much like the ashes that would remain. He heard the ghost of his wife’s laughter within the roar of the flames, the giggle of the child they had not yet had the privilege to meet. The pitter-patter of tiny feet he would never get to hear….

“Evil…” he whispered, his heart breaking even as the timbers that held up the house's frame crashed down in a flurry of sparks and fire. “…You’re all evil.”

How much had he fought for these people? How much had he given them to try and lift them from poverty and bring into a being a world so much better than what he had come into? Education, food, land… there was nothing he had not been prepared to give his people. Nothing he would not have done to bring a smile to his beloved’s face… and still, they had taken more. They had taken everything.

His voice was firmer as he spoke again, his rage taking root and solidifying as he turned his vision toward the captain of his knights. “Kill them… spare no one.”

And killed they did, for anyone who could commit so heinous a crime as they, be they man or woman, deserved no mercy.