[color=goldenrod][i][h2][center]Gerard Segremors[/center][/h2][/i][/color]
[@Raineh Daze][@6slyboy6][@VitaVitaAR]


[color=goldenrod]"I smell it too. Garrisoned forts aren't this quiet— old massacres are."[/color] a tight-voiced affirmation floated in from behind as Gerard cautiously stalked forward, a wolf with hackles raised. He and those like him among their number, veterans of countless battlefields, knew this feeling well— an echo of bloodshed left upon the land. It hung in the air like smoke, deepening shadows, choking sound, turning the tawny palette of dusk into an oppressive blaze. 

He had neither of their preternatural abilities, obviously, but half a decade of honed instinct and experience were a fair substitute.

Peeling away from their burning search through the monolithic walls of stone for a moment, the twin furnaces behind his golden eyes spared a glance at the slight form of Amy as he passed by. A newcomer, arriving within only the past week, he wasn't quite sure [i]what[/i] exactly to make of her yet— a half-demon illusionist raised by Mayonite clergy, if memory served. A heady mix, that, for anyone like him to wrap their head around. He'd kept his distance until now, when the mission had brought her all but immediately into their ranks.

He was no authority to pass judgement, least of all regarding anyone's birth. As strange as it was to reconcile so many of those classically [i]demonic[/i] features with an ally... she was an ally. One of their number. Accepted and vetted in spite of it by the same arbitrators he'd been blessed by. By the sound of things, her arguments were on their face better than his own, even.

Mistrust between soldiers would get both killed. There was no room for it here.

His eyes flickered back to the walls as he continued on. Unmarred, yet barren. No breach of the gates that he could see— this place wasn't besieged from the outside. That was clear enough to anyone— whatever caused this graveyard ambience did so from [i]within[/i]. If it was an insurrectionary force, an infiltration, a coup, something human like that...

[color=goldenrod]"Can't say I've ever known one to leave the place it happened so untouched, though. What the hell..."[/color]

His scowl deepened, and his hand floated to the hilt of his longsword as though reflex. 

If the culprit was still here, horses in any appreciable mass like their own were loud enough to hear coming, the setting sun against the steel of their armor clear to see upon the flat plain. No chance the Roses would be here by surprise, if there was any lookout posted. No sense waiting for the welcoming heralds to get into position any further.

A puff of air through his nostrils, expelling trepidation and steeling nerves.

[color=goldenrod]"May as well find out."[/color]

Blade sliding free, he marched slowly through the threshold, ready to scan the field.