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[h1][b][u]The Lord-Captain[/u][/b][/h1]

[i]Twenty-six years after Antiquity...[/i]
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“Lord-Captain? A soldier has returned from Thyma, with a report.”

Lord-Captain Abbas Narek looked up at the aide, and frowned. “I would have expected my son to give me the report himself.”

They were in the Lord-Captain’s office. The Lord-Captain himself was seated at his desk, while the aide was in the doorway. As the Lord-Captain set a fresh piece of papyrus on the desk, and readied a quill, the aide gulped nervously. “My lord…” he said slowly. “He said your son is dead.”

The quill fell from Abbas’s hand. For a few moments, there was an agonizing silence, as he slowly looked up from the paper and he met the gaze of the aide who had spoke. [i]”What?”[/i]

“I… I’ll send the man in. He can explain it himself.” The aide bowed quickly and swiftly exited the room. A few moments later the soldier stepped in, looking just as nervous.

The soldier bowed awkwardly. “My lord.”

The Lord-Captain only stared at him.

The soldier gulped, and then hesitantly went on. “We went to Thyma, as you ordered us, my lord. We searched it. Standard practice. Then this man appeared. With white hair, and a strange sword. He attacked us, and the way he fought… I swear he was one of them vampires, but it was day. There was a mage with him too. Didn’t get a good look, might have been a witch, but ‘e was a man. After they attacked us, the village turned on us. I’m… I’m the only one left.”

“You are certain my son is dead?” Abbas asked in an icey tone.

“I am, my lord.”

Abbas’s hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. “Explain to me,” he began coldly. “How thirty armed and disciplined men were killed by a bunch of unwashed savages in a village less than a decade old.”

“They had a vampire. And a witch, my lord.”

“In the day? Nonsense!” Abbas exploded, slamming his fist into the desk. “Tell me. Why didn’t you stay and fight with your comrades? With your commander? TELL ME!”

“I… my lord… there was nothing I could have done…”

Abbas fumed. But once again, the rage on his face seemed to settle into a cold malice. “No. There [i]was[/i] something you could have done. Something you [i]should[/i] have done. But you were too cowardly to do it.” Then he shouted, summoning the aide back into the room. “This man is a coward and a deserter,” the Lord-Captain said, gesturing at the soldier with his quill. “Take him outside and hang him.”

The aide shouted a command, and two guards who had been standing outside stepped in to seize the soldier by soldiers. He began to shout and protest as they dragged him away, begging for mercy, or forgiveness, or redemption, but Abbas was deaf to the pleas. Instead, his focus remained on the aide.

“Someone seeks to defy us,” he said, returning to his tranquil fury. “My son… must be avenged. Raise an army. Five hundred men. We march at sunrise.”

“My lord,” the aide protested. “It’s a long journey. Those men require supplies. It will take a few days at least to secure enough…”

“We’ll take what we need on the way there!” Abbas snapped. “We can’t give this insurrection time to fester. Sunrise, I said!”

“But the King…”

“Damn the King!” Abbas’s fist struck the table again. “He’s a puppet. The army is mine!” It was not an entirely accurate statement, but Abbas didn’t give a damn. He had sent his son to raid the rebuilt Thyma as a political move, to succeed where the son of the last Lord-Captain had failed, and prove that his house was better-suited to the title. 

Instead, his son and an entire warband had been slaughtered by savages. To let that go unanswered would be to shame not just his house, but Ketrefa as a whole. The King might be angry that he marched off to war without permission, but Abbas knew the fallout would be even greater if he did nothing to avenge this insult. Besides, he yearned for vengeance. The animals killed his son. And they would pay.

The Lord-Captain slept poorly that night, thoughts of vengeance keeping him awake. In the morning, he arrived at the gate to find five hundred men assembled. The only supplies they had were what they could wear or carry. They attempted to exit the gate, but the local gate commander refused. Neither the King nor the Captain of the Gates had provided notice that an army would be leaving the city, and word of the incident at Thyma had yet to spread.

In the end, the gate commander eventually yielded, after sufficient threats had been issued. And. The gates were opened, and the column of soldiers marched out.

For the first time in decades, a Ketrefan army was on the march. No mere warband, but a proper army; five hundred strong and with a Lord-Captain marching at its head. Thyma would burn. His son would be avenged. The killer would be flayed alive. Inch by bloody inch. “By Neiya, I swear it…” he vowed.

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[hider=Post Summary]
The post begins in an office in Ketrefa. The Lord-Captain of the city is going about his day when he receives a report. The warband he sent to Thyma was slain, including his son. Enraged, he gives an order to raise five hundred men and lay waste to the village. He sets out the next day, without permission from the King, and doesn’t even take the time to gather enough supplies - he intends to sustain his army through raids.
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