[i]How had they arrived in this damned bog?! Where had this mist come from...it had come in [b]so[/b] fast, like a curtain being dropped over them, or more like a shroud; for several weeks they had been marching across the rain-soaked island of Albion, parallel – or so he thought – to a number of other Imperial and Tilean forces, but when messengers were sent to make contact with these allied armies they never returned.

Duardo de Palanza de Fallucci de Trantio had spent a whole quarter of his considerable family fortune on equipping an army of hardened sellswords, paying ship masters to take them across the sea, and to keep them with him while he joined the numerous expeditions to the suddenly visible island of Albion; already they had fought their way through many raiding parties of woad-painted savages, even decapitating one of their so-called 'holy men' when he tried to summon some form of bog monster to attack them, then there were those standing stones which he had taken a liking to and ordered to be dismantled and taken back to Tilea.

A week ago had they become categorically lost within the inner bowels of the landmass, sheltering from the ever-worsening storms and gales inside ancient pyramid structures, fighting off attacks from natives, feral undead creatures, and causing him much heartbreak when his eldest son Giacinto was taken from him by a poisoned blow-dart...he was forced to watch as his healthy and formidable offspring wasted away, would take no water, and eventually perished in his arms.

“My lord,” croaked one of the soldiers, waving an arm at the mist around them, seemingly alive with tall and cruel figures, “we are surrounded! All is lost.”

Giancarlo...Gionata...both lost, enslaved or slain by these slender wraiths and their cruel blades.

“Wha-”

There he was, holding the decapitated head of his son in his hands, the feeling of fresh, warm blood and flesh caught between his teeth making his stomach moan with hunger.[/i]


The castle of Guilamuero rang with the sound of screams, the Duke de Trantio lashing out in his bed, the moth-bitten sheets wrapping about him as he leapt from his bed dressed in an unwashed night-gown and under-tunic, his mouth foaming and his twitching hands going to the blunderbuss he kept loaded and ready beside his four-post bed.

“Keep back!” He screamed, his last follicles of lank black hair messed up on his head, stuck to his skull by heavy sweating, “get back, you devils! You can't have me!”

From the top of the keep he came, sweeping his weapon from side-to-side as he went, his bare feet half slipping on the stone steps.

Now, eventually he would reach the feasting hall, and the one he shot at could well have been anyone! It could have been the Dwarf, it could have been the huge Skaeling, it could even have been Alfredo himself...but it appeared that it was the Hobgoblin who was closest to the door through which Duardo burst, his trigger-finger itching more than a dog with flees, a cry of “die!” On his lips as he pulled the trigger, Chengizz the Slick being thrown back onto the table in a shredded and bloody mass from where he was standing, food and drink going everywhere as his limbs flailed with a last few death throes.

Alfredo, familiar with his Duke's outbursts – violent or otherwise... - was the first up from his seat and to the side of Duardo.

“Your Grace! Please, wake up,” a shockingly strong slap echoed from the cheek of the Tilean nobleman, his erstwhile glazed and unfocused eyes returning sharply to consciousness and understanding, “your Grace, are you in control of your faculties?”

Returning to the present as Duardo de Palanza de Fallucci de Trantio, the Duke let the black-powder weapon slip from his grasp, his eyes nervously shifting from one mercenary to the next and settling at last on the still-bleeding Greenskin.

“D-did I do that?” He gasped at his only servant, looking to the now silent faces turned toward him, “p-please...carry on eating...” lowering his voice slightly, putting a hand over his mouth, he twisted his head toward Alfredo once more, “[i]it seems as if we're going to need another sell-sword.[/i]”

“So, my friends,” he announced jovially, the haunted figure he had entered as now slipping away to reveal a hint of what he may have been many moons ago, “you are here to help, yes?”

Taking the seat at the head of the table, his former seat in times of greater glory, he interlocked his fingers and painted a smile onto his world-wearied features and took one shining red apple from a plate nearby.