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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fiasco" data-source="post: 2772750" data-attributes="member: 15187">During midmorning of their sixth day’s travel, Bastien, signaled a halt from the head of the company. The road had taken them through a well wooded valley and the tall trees blocked much of the warmth of the mild summers day. Bastien knew that close ahead lay the village of Ortherton, but of more immediate concern to him was the thin tongue of smoke that poked out from the woods to the side of the trail. The sickly sweet smell of burning flesh wafted over them as they stood on the road.“I think that’s man flesh” Morgan murmured, trepidation writ across his countenance.“Is it the plague?” Gerard asked in a fit of coughing, a white knuckled fist held hard against his nose.“I see no plague markers”, Bastien said. “I suggest a few of us have a look and see what there is to see.”“Ah’ll go” the woodsman volunteered and to the surprise of all, Moxadder also stepped forwards. Bastien nodded.“That should do. You others wait here and be ready to come if we call”. Kurul lay down with a grunt, as if in complete agreement with this instruction.The trio carefully picked their way through the densely packed vegetation. Argonne, who had assumed the lead felt once again the thrill of the unknown as he carefully probed forwards. Here, surrounded by the natural world he lost those feelings of awkwardness and ignorance that more social environments inflicted on him. Here there was a sense to things, a feeling of fitness, that everything was as it should be, indeed as it had been since time immemorial. Although the wild places were dangerous, the tense alertness that was second nature to him in these environs was strangely comforting. Focussing his attention on the forest ahead of him, he felt his senses expand to embrace the entirety of his surroundings. The forest floor felt soft under his feet, almost as if his thick travelling boots were the softest of moccasins. His eyes picked out the nervous scuttle of a hedgehog as it moved from one piece of shadowed safety to another, his ears thrilled to the sound of birds chirruping their mindless twittings amongst the high swaying eaves. The sun glowed a distant green gold through the trees, its burning touch much diffused by the verdant shield above. Wodensense he called it, a name he’d invented to describe the trance like state whereby he achieved a state of complete knowing that brought them in complete harmony with the wild. In the thrall of his communion, the unpleasant goal of their search was easily discerned. Argonne’s lips tightened in distaste as the odour wound its insidious way up his nostrils. Despite this, he moved with confidence towards its source. Whatever the cause of the fire was it had ceased to bother the wildlife, making him confidant that there was no intrinsic danger. Following behind, Moxadder moved nearly as silently as the woodsman while further back, less stealthy in his progress came Bastien.After some minutes of easing around massive trunks and forcing through stubborn undergrowth, the forest yielded up its sinister secret. They had come to a small glade some seventy yards from the road and in it, what had once been a great bonfire smoldered under the weight of the human corpses thrown halfheartedly upon it. Elsewhere, other bodies lay where they had been struck down amongst the moss and leaves, sad punctuation to fleeting life. Bastien’s sympathy for the slaughtered lessened when he noted the simple white cassocks worn by each ruined body. “Gerechians” he muttered with contempt, “Damned fools” he added more softly when he noticed the youth of one of the victims. Argonne’s throat bobbled convulsively and then he was bent over the bushes, clutched by heaving paroxysms as his stomach squeezed out it’s contents. The combination of the miasma of burning flesh and the visceral evidence of the battlefield was far beyond his wildest experiences. The woodsman coughed and choked, struck by successive waves of nausea. Moxadder was more composed, the charnel reek and stark ugliness of the killings were nothing new to one who had been mired deep in Halfast’s filthiest dregs, though even he did not feel inclined to search the bodies for loot. Argonne stepped back from the filth bespattered bushes and tripped over. His startled cry brought the others to his side and it was Bastien who found the cause of the mishap. Argonne had fallen over a broken handle, such as might belong to a farmer’s hoe. Examining the wood, he could clearly see the marks where the iron head had recently been removed. Looking around the clearing he noted the wounds on the corpses; the evidence was clear. The band of crusading fanatics, aggressively recruiting anyone they could to their doomed cause had run afoul of angered villagers. This was not the first such incident he had heard of. Over a century had passed since Gerech’s mighty Convocation had it’s iron grip catastrophically removed from the world, and still the followers were blamed for either their fiercely oppressive rule or for the horrors let loose as the awful consequence of their fall. Often it was for both. Remarkably, there were those who still adhered to the discredited religion, despite their god being cut off from even their most fervent prayers. Somehow, like a persistent stain they remained to taint the world and their hardships had done nothing to lessen their infamous fanaticism. Seeing no point in wasting more time on the slaughter, Bastien turned back to the road, beckoning the other two to follow him. The woodsman was still coughing and retching as he stumbled after his leader, his recently attained state of Wodensense completely lost. Uncharacteristically, Moxadder laid a comforting hand on Argonne’s shoulder. At that moment the tattooed Irudeshian felt a hundred years older than his companion, who was still young and innocent to the world’s old, wicked ways. He thought to find some platitude, some suggestion that it was all for the best somehow, but the lie stuck in his throat. Instead, he grimaced and hustled forwards after their recruiter. Once the road was regained, Bastien curtly related their findings and then resumed the journey to Yorath. They would pass swiftly through Ortherton, making no mention whatever of the savage doom brought down on the youthful crusade. In their turn, the villagers were unwelcoming and sullen. Whether this was the essential character of their community or a byproduct of their gruesome deeds was impossible to determine. It was to be the last habitation the prospective gladiatorial company would pass for some time.*****</blockquote>

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