[color=Maroon][center][h3]The Black Mass[/h3]
[code]Location: Somewhere in Rural Iburia, Morktree Frontier[/code][/center][/color]

[center][hider=Music of the Revolution][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERkJ4N7o-as[/youtube][/hider][/center]

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[h2][center]The Black Mass[/center][/h2]

He could see nothing with the blindfold they'd placed on him, forced to march, pulled behind a horse, they laughed as he stumbled. He had no idea what had happened to the other riders that had been with him, knew that it had been his fault. Wherever they'd gone, from farm to farm, abandoned villages the rabble had scattered like rats. When they'd come across the looters struggling up a slope with a broken wagon full of ill-gotten gains he'd thought nothing of it: he'd spurred his men after them.

Right into the ambush.

Fire and smoke from the treeline. Struck in the helm, he'd been struck from his horse. By the time he'd come to, everything had been chaos. Horses running this way and that, and they'd been upon him. Threw him to the ground, bound his hands and legs.

These men had been different than the bandits and looters.

They'd known him. Called him by name without prompting when they took him.

There'd been little to do during the blind march than go over in his head what had gone wrong, and listen to his captors talk. They weren't Owned Men, their dialect was that of field slaves - but they were clearly different than the looters, murderers and rapists that were despoiling the countryside that they had been putting to the sword.

He learned while they'd been riding up and down the frontier countryside - the locals, and people they'd been chasing - had been reporting to these men. Where they went. How long they stayed. Learning their habits. Finally they'd guessed which route they'd sweep next - gave them bait they'd known they'd take. The whole thing had been a setup from the beginning.

And he'd walked right into it. He'd been so sure.

These men were organized. Disciplined. Someone had trained them.

"Prepare to halt!" The command went up and down the line at intervals, then with a second command they stopped; not haphazardly like militias often did, but all at once down the whole line. He could tell by the sound.

There were orders being given out and acknowledged, people moving, he could hear all this. It often meant they were making camp which usually meant he'd be tied to something, and at some point, something resembling a meal might been thrown at him. Occasionally they might untie his blindfold then, They seemed to delight in throwing meat, hot from the fire, basted in grease that burnt his hands. 

"Dhe masters liked to do this in dhe quarries witt us." One of them had guffawed. "But dhe meat is good, yeah?"

It might have been before he'd dropped it in the dirt.

Here though no one made an effort to lead him away or untie his blindfold. Instead, he was aware of men behind him. "On your knees prisoner!"

He could already tell this stop was different from the others. The sounds here were different. There were women's voices, people milling about like they were in a town or major encampment. Nothing though could have prepared him as they removed the blindfold.

He saw the mass of people first, gathered around the great fires that rose up ten or twenty feet into the darkened sky. Such a collection of humans he'd scarcely seen, crowded together but it wasn't these that drew his eyes.

Along the road approaching the great manor house around which this collection of people were massed. From the great trees that lined the way were suspended the figures of elgafolk, swaying back and forth in the breeze, four here, six there, on and on from each tree on either side. Together he couldn't say how many there were... hundreds at least.

People milled around and approached the manor house.

"Come on. You meeting dhe Preacher!" One of his captors declared, giving him an almost gentle kick to prompt him back to his feet.

As he approached, making his way through the strange human faces that scowled and spat as he passed he could see and hear the man these people had gathered to see.

He knew this man. Skotinodasos. The bandit. There'd been a bounty on the man for some time, slipping through the hill country, into the Morktree, where it was said his enslaved mother had been taken.

People gathered in the firelight. Strained to listen to the man's words. How many were gathered, he wondered? Hundreds certainly. Thousands... actually seemed more likely. Here, he realized was, where much of the banditry and lawless that afflicted the countryside was coalescing around.

"... listen not to dhe preachers and dheir god, who demand we do only good things while dhe masters commit every evil! Two hundred years we do dhis - two hundred years of pain, two hundred years suffering, two hundred years of our children being taken from us of our women being forced to degrade themselves - two hundred years of praying for a justice that will not come! Where has dhis gotten us? No! Listen here! I have heard it! I have seen it from dhe gods - not dhe blind god who turns his back upon us and blesses our oppressors no! The old gods! The gods of wind and rain and fire and blood! The gods who tell tings as dhey are!

"Dhere is not justice for us that we do not take for ourselves. You tink dhe masters will forgive? Dhat dhey will change dheir ways!? You tink because you burn the farms and run away dhat you are free!?" The man was standing atop the balcony, flanked by armed and armoured men, shouting out to the crowd, his face turned red with the vitriol he was spewing. "Dhe masters is coming for you! Dhe masters is coming for us all! Dhat is dhe truth of it. We fight. Or we die. Dhe masters, dhey can go to their home in the west any time dhey choose but us? We have no ot'er home. For us, wit'out victory dheir is tomorrow!

"Young men! Come forward!" There was a rustling through the crowd as the young humans among them began surging forward, towards the front. It was here he could discern some of what was going on. There were armed men at the front, with weapons, pikes and muskets and swords, they surged to meet the young men - urging them into lines, into formations.

"I know what you people tink. What are we to do? We who are simple, against the Elgafolk, wit' dheir armies and dheir horses, and dheir cannons and dheir guns. How do we stand against all dhis? What can we do, we do not have dheir discipline or dhe centuries spent butchering ot'er peoples. I will not lie, it is so.

"But dhey fear us all the same, and we can beat dhem. We [i]did[/i] beat dhem - at Rodelkog - and we continue to beat dhem! Do not tell me it cannot be done because we do it!" With a grand gesture down the central boulevard, Skotinodasos, looked and pointed directly at him.

He realized, suddenly, with alarm, that he was a part of this production as the men behind him prodded him forward with the tip of a sword. Eyes turned to him as he proceeded, forward, surrounding him and he could feel the oppressive hatred of these humans bearing down upon him like a physical weight even as the bodies of his fellow countrymen passed lifelessly overhead - the faces of the men and women hanging silently above etched in the deathly rictus of their final death throws. He could see the men arrayed before the manor house, set in neat lines, watching him, awaiting his arrival. He could see there were other elgafolk ahead of him, still alive but nooses already strung about their necks, hung from the great balcony of the manor house upon which the priest stood presiding over the mad mass.

"But dhey fear us all dhe same. Dhey fear our numbers. Dhey fear our strength. Wherever we go dhe people come to us! Look around! When we go nor't dhe people will join us! When we go sou't, dhe people will join us. Dhey tell us when dhe master's and dheir men leave dheir garrison. Dhey tell us when dhey are near. Dhey feed and hide us. Dhey help us put dhe black magic in dhe masters' homes - dheir souls rot from wit'in! Every day our numbers grow! I have heard it from dhe spirit-gods - dhey tell me as clear as day - dhis is our moment. We can fight dhem! We can beat dhem! Dhat beyond our victory, dheir lay a world where families are not separated, where dhey do not kill us in dheir mines, or set dheir dogs upon us! Where our children, and our children's children may live, not as slaves, but as free men and women! But to get dheir good men, strong men, must dig in dheir heels AND FIGHT! I fear not dhey masters whips nor dheir swords, nor guns nor dheir mercenaries.

"Not like stupid men, but real men. You must learn to fight smart! To stand toget'er, to do 'tings dhey proper way and make sure dhey are done dhe proper way. No excuses! Dhe masters, dhe have grown fat and lazy while we do all dhe work. Dheir mercenaries, oh dhey are strong, and dhey are tough, and dhey are trained - but who, I ask you, is more able to suffer dhan we!? Will dhese men who fight for dhe money be more willing to stand and die for dheir money more dhan we, who have not'ing to lose!? Hm? Who is willing to work harder? Who will march longer, on less, dhan we!? Dhe masters will kill us all for what has been done - dhe guilty will die alongside dhe innocent - dhey do not care. You know dhis! You all know 'dis! You hat' seen it wit' your own eyes!

"You! Young men! Are you willing to fight!?" He turned his attention then to the throngs of young men gathered beneath him as they were being arrayed into ranks and files. They shouted back that they were willing. "Are you willing to die!? Are you willing to trade from dhis moment and all your moments dhat are wor't no'ting anyway for dhe chance, dhe opportunity to be free!? To deliver your people, your wives, and your children, your sisters and your brot'ers from dhis nightmare dhat never ends?! Do you not want dhat, wit' every'ting you have. I do! I will fight! I will die for it! Will you fight wi't me!?"

Again the men were shouting back, and louder, that they were. To the point the sound of their collective shouting hurt his ears and nothing else could even be heard even as he began passing the back ranks.

"Dhe spirits hear you! Oh great spirits! Oh god above who hears and sees all dhat is done - bear witness now and grant me your power!"

With every step he took, the manor house with it's white-washed stones loomed further over him, and carried him closer to the makeshift dias, and line of men set with nooses. He realized, quite suddenly, that he was being marched to his death surrounding by this madness as the shouts and crowd began to draw silent, seeming to sense that something was approaching.

He himself didn't know what that something was, or what would happen once he reached the manor house and the men waiting there: only that it was approaching. That nothing would stop what was now coming. There was no one coming to save the men with their nooses. No one coming to save him. Two centuries upon this world, all the things he'd seen and done, the battles he'd fought: only to have fate deliver him up to this moment of ineffable finality.

Skotinodasos' voice raised up out of the sudden, expectant silence. "Dhese men you see here below me, dhe great elgafolk of dhey elderblood: dhey are eminent men, powerful men, yesss..."

He reached the front veranda of the manor. All at once the guards standing behind the condemned kicked away the stools upon which they'd stood, leaving a dozen elgafolk in noble garments to fall to their broken necks, thrashing about as their bodies went through their death-throws, or worse, remained gasping and clutching at their necks... waiting for the blessing of death.

"... and now dhey are dead. Dhe masters may have dheir armies, but dhe spirits and dhe magick is wit' us! Come forward ye men, recieve dhe blessings!"

"Kneel." The men behind him demanded once again that he kneel before the steps of the veranda, making him wait in the dirt as people waited for the condemned men to all, finally die.

He expected they'd kill him alongside them, but for some reason they didn't. He began to worry they had some worse fate in mind. Instead he was forced to bear witness as they slowly lowered the dead men.

Skotinodasos himself appeared from out of the double doors of the manor, flanked by his followers. Skotinodasos stood over him atop the steps, not looking down, while his followers moved among the dead men, one by one, slitting their throats and letting the blood run in bowls.

Skotinodasos began chanting in some strange tongue, perhaps some dialect of the Morktree but the words did not sound or feel like any language of this earth. His voice grew louder, like his chorus. He watched as his followers approached him in turns bearing their vessels of blood. 

Each vessel he took into his hands, his voice rising to a fevered pitch before he lifted the vessel to his lips and sipped from the blood until rivulets of it began to run down his lips and face. Somewhere someone else began inviting men forward to be healed and restored by the Great Skotinodasos' magic.

This wasn't some trick he realized, this man was touched by The Gift, he could see the glow of magic, could see men injured, worn, and beaten drawing themselves up as though infused with some fresh life. He'd seen Healers work their craft before but this felt different... profane... wrong.

When the petitioners were done he was aware of Skotinodasos' attendants moving amongs the ranks and files of young men, anointing them in blood while Skotinodasos shifted, and chanted, like a man possessed.

The man who'd invited the sick, and injured, to approach - who'd celebrated their healing like a miracle - was now cajoling the crowd. Explaining that Skotinodasos' magic, and the spirits would protect these men in battle - that blades would shatter against them, that bullets would not penetrate.

It was lunacy. Madness, utterly, be glancing behind him he looked out upon a sea of faces watching all that transpired with rapt, almost fevered intent and it seemed as though the whole world had joined Skotinodasos in their blasphemous insanity.

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He'd expected to be killed shortly thereafter, but was not.

He was surprised instead when he was ushered inside the house, ordered to bath the filth that had clung to him and dress himself. It was only then he was commanded to accompany guards into the library of the manor, a place surprisingly intact compared to the devastation he'd seen across the countryside.

Waiting inside was Stotinodasos. Dressed simply in his red tunic, and military attire, his cuirass hung loosely over his form as he looked up at him from a book.

"I know you." His voice here was very different from the fiery sermonizing he'd heard outside and with a finger, he was ushered closer. "I have read about you in my books: General Ianralei Galir Aedhyra." He spoke each portion of his name as though savouring each word.

"I haven't been a general for some time. I'm retired."

Skotinodasos nodded at that and set the book aside on the table. Straining, Ianralei could just make out the title of the book: 'Principles of Moral Philosophy' by the old Calarian philosopher Tasche; an author better known for his natural philosophy and - ironically - being hung by his Calarian countrymen than for this obscure work on morality.

"So modest! You served dhe Empire for a generation. Left to become a farmer and family man. That's admirable."

"Why am I here?" He had little patience, and was in little mood, for whatever game Skotinodasos had in mind. "If you intend to kill me, I would prefer we get it over with."

Skotinodasos watched him, his eyes glancing around the room. Ianralei too looked about, and was aware of the guards standing about the library, no less than six men, armed with sabers, pistols and muskets. More he'd passed outside. Skotinodasos though spoke to him like they were alone, just two men having another evening chat. From where he was positioned though Ianralei could see out the bay window behind Skotinodasos; could see the veranda and what lay beyond it.

"I don't intend to kill you."

"You'll forgive my incredulity, sir." Ianralei gestured at the bay window and what lay beyond it. Skotinodasos leaned back and glanced over his shoulder, nodding to himself like a tired old farmer.

"Unfortunate business."

"I would use stronger words, sir."

"Dhere is met'od to my madness general."

"Spare me the excuses. What you've done is inexcusable."

"So you say." Skotinodasos replied with a shrug. "There are two banners hung outside. Did you perhaps have a chance to read them when you were brought in?"

"I didn't look." He answered coldly.

"They are in dhe old tongue - as people spoke before your people used dhe Blight to plant a knife in our backs. One says, [i]I génnisi akoloutheí ti mítra[/i] - you recognize dhis yes? It is a legal term. Quite famous I t'ink." 

Ianralei knew the term: 'The Offspring Follows the Womb'. It was a legal term, which set out the legal basis for slavery in the Empire these days - slavery was inherited by the child. "I know it. I prefer you get to the point. What do you want?"

"You in a hurry to go somewhere general?" Skotinodasos grinned at him and only shook his head. "Dhis must be strange for you. Waking up to all dhis..." He gestured to the armed men, and out the bay window. "... all dhose moments you lived, where not'ing seemed awry - dhey coming back to haunt you now I t'ink: demanding dhe eye for eye."

"This is pointless." Ianralei went to stood up, but in the moment two of the guards crossed the span of the library from the nearest door and pressed him by his shoulders back to the seat he'd taken. "If you're going to kill me. Kill me. But spare me this mewling farce."

"As you wish." Skotinodasos shrugged indulgently, though his expression grew severe and when he resumed speaking his tone grew sharper. "You are here, because you are useful to me general. You have knowledge and experience dhat is useful to us. You live, because I do not have men telling me stories about how you do not beat, or feed your slaves to dhe dogs, or women telling me dhat you force dhem to serve you in manners improper or you will send dheir children or dheir husbands or dheir parents to die in dhe mines. Contrary to what you may t'ink, I am not dhe monster here."

Ianralei watched Skotinodasos then, the humans's eyes for the first time flashing with something akin anger even while outside the corpses of his victims - whose blood he'd exsanguinated - swung in the breeze.

Skotinodasos frowned. "I suppose from where you sit, I must seem a monster."

"I don't think there's another word for what you're doing."

Skotinodasos only shrugged and frowned before meeting his eyes. Ianralei could almost sense this man was reaching out to him. The human had read the stories of his old campaigns. Had perhaps been inspired, as young men human and elgan, had. He could feel this man looking - expecting even - his approval despite his obvious insanity. Even so, the human remained calm as he seemed to recognize this old general wasn't likely ever going to understand what he'd hoped. He didn't seem upset, but rather, saddened by this apparently realization.

"You know..." Skotinodasos said after recovering himself while he reached again for the book and began leafing through it. "I taught myself to read..."

"I hope you're proud of yourself." Ianralei shot back.

Skotinodasos paused at that, and only nodded as though acknowledging the barb before continuing. "... I read about your campaigns, general. I read scripture, philosophy. Many t'ings I learn from reading books. It is a fine library dhey have here, you know. Many fine t'ings to read... but hatred? How easy it is to kill?" He was aware of Skotinodasos' eyes then. The man looked half-feral, there was an intensity to his eyes: like a wolf stalking. He tilted his head under the candlelight, until his manic, half-mad expression were partly warmed by the glow of the candle, partly subsumed in darkness and shadow. "Dhese t'ings I learned from watching you. It is funny yes, dhese t'ings you do you t'ink are unprecedented crimes but next to what you and your people have done to us; dhey are nothing."

"You're mad. What you've done here is blasphemy!"

Skotinodasos began to laugh a slow, rolling chuckle. "Blasphemy? Now who is mewling sir? In dhis world dhe strong do as dhey must, dhe weak endure what dhey must. It has always been so, but now it is you who must endure. Dhis is our time, and you, you will assist dhe cause."

"I'll die first.'

"Of course you would die first!" Skotinodasos said. "I expect not'ing less from dhe great general. But I t'ink you will help us all dhe same. You see, you, you are useful to me. Your wife, your daughters, your son who t'ink himself a warrior like his fadher. Dhey are less useful to me." He leaned back. "We overrun your estate while you were riding down serfs and men who wander aimless. Don't worry - dhey alive. You want to see dhem?"

"Yes. I would see them."

"I will arrange it. But after I do, I need some'ting from you. You will help train dhese men to be soldiers. You will do dhe job well."

"I can't do what you ask."

"You will. Or your family will die, for an empire of sin, dhat left you and your family to rot wit not'ing but rabble militia to protect you. Look outside general? Do t'ink I will not do exactly as I say."

Ianralei did not answer.

"Look in my eyes general!" Skotinodasos was staring at him then, his muscles drawn taut, his eyes wide, veins bulging from his forehead, the look in his face and eyes almost feral in its unnatural intensity and yet somehow, there was no theatricality to this man. Everything he did was possessed of a manic authenticity that had Ianralei doubting much of what this man said but unable to bring himself to even conceive that this man was sincere in every word that left his lips. "Do t'ink I am not willing to die!? Do t'ink dhere is [i]anything[/i] I will not do for [i]my[/i] family!? You will do dhis t'ing, and your family will live and have a future. What more is dhere for us to discuss? We bo't know how it must be."