[h1][center][color=dimgray]Present-Day Reflections[/color][/center][/h1]
Brennen waited but a moment longer to ensure Kean sprang into action. The younger man looked as tired by the road as any of them had, but his quickness on the uptake impressed Brennen. The horses were disciplined, dauntless, but the Scorned seemed to wield a power more terrible than fang or poison: fear. Terror strong enough to send some men quivering to their knees. Perhaps it was the utter unholiness of their appearance; their untamed, feral savageness as the Blight, its vines, tore at them. 

As the attack began, almost immediately, the tall Fae and pallid boy-priest performed some sort-of dark spell or ritual. Shadows gathered about the priest, dispersing like forks to seize the other adventurers. Brennen cursed under his breath, stepping away as if to avoid the tendrils of darkness seeping towards him. This darkness, this 'magic' as it were; no good words were spoken of it in the Bog, though its practice remained infamous. Divination by fire was common among the tribes' wise-men-and-women, reading flame to discern divine messages, predict the future. But even amongst them, superstitious fanatics began associating pyromancy with the shadows their fires cast on the ground, and pursued darker arts; communing with spirits, summoning shadows, manipulating another's Inner Flame to return them from death. Those pagans' reign of terror was short-lived, snuffed out quickly by the other tribesmen, but their ill-fame-and-fortune left a black stain on the tribes' history, like a weeping wound refusing to heal. 

Suddenly, the light surrounding them vanished entirely, centered around a tiny bead that was floating in the tall Fae's palm. Brennen's earlier cautiousness became anger as a wave of cold washed over him. But before he could try and rebuke the currently-hovering Fae, the bead in her hand turned to a ray that disintegrated the Scorned monstrosity, along with a substantial part of the treeline. 

As if pleased with the result, the Fae asserted her proclamation as 'Greatest Sorceress of the Brightwood Grove', yet fell to the ground with a [i]'thud'[/i] before her sentence could be finished. 

As light returned, Brennen quickly resumed corralling the other horses with the ones he and Kean had already gathered, but not before saying to the Fae, with accusatory venom, "That is [i]no[/i] sorcery." His voice did not raise, or possess any immediately notable anger, but it nevertheless seemed to speak volumes of his own displeasure, the suspicion surrounding the kind-of magic displayed before him. 

The break in battle was short-lived, wrought with fear, as five more wolves burst through the dark woods, three of them now driven hairless by the plague that contorted their bodies and decayed their minds. The Templar found himself waylaid by one of the wolves, while one of the hairless mongrels licked at non-existent lips dripping froth and venomous drool, sizing the Pyromancer up-and-down. 

Saying nothing, Brennen's mouth twisted to a scowl of rage, a low growl from deep in his throat seeming to answer the wolf in kind. Flexing his fingers in anticipation, a ball of fire materialized in his left hand, glowing and crackling brightly as it fed on his anger as he faced the monstrosity. With a sudden snarl, the wolf lunged at Brennen in a single bound, who in turn hurled the ball of fire from his hand, letting it collide mid-air with the wolf; who's guttural screech devolved into yelps and whimpers of pain as the flames gorged themselves on flesh and vegetation, leaving the beast to keep screaming that horrifyingly human-like scream. 

Brennen drew the hand-axe at his side with his right hand and, without a moment's hesitation, swung the blade down on the Scorned's skull with a sickening [i]'crunch'[/i], and the screaming stopped. In a moment of defiance, of challenge, maybe, Brennen used his foot to kick the still-burning corpse on its back; the shadows of night blending with the sickly-black smoke, obscuring most of his hooded face from view. Yet his reply burned in the firelight.