Of Sheep and Men [Amarthaer]

[Other Space Kaiden]

​

The Sheep had fled across the Black Sea and the Crow had given chase. Dark as the night, beak glowing as brimstone and feathers tattered by battle the Crow emerged from the icy oblivion of the Endless Void and into the ocean of stars that was the Skyriver Galaxy. Wallowing in the shadow of the Black Flock it led was one of many planets the sheep had fled to and its consequence to the Skyriver was of no concern. The planet was undefended, locked on the fringes of space where the Black Flock had emerged and so, this "Kro Var' would be the first of many ravagings. First of many acts of vengeance to come, retaliation for the burning of the Tof Empire all those years ago.

The Black Flock descended without mercy, a swarm without end that targeted but one primitive city amongst the rubble and desolation that was Kro Var. Shuttles with long bows and hoisting blue flags of the Skykingdom crashed through the air and skidded to anchoring halts above the ancient stone temples and screaming crowds. Seconds passed before arrival turned to battle.

Green men, with beards as long arms and legs as thick as trees, fell from the sky sailing ships and crashed with a quaking of the earth. With ax and shield, they took to the streets of the Shaper city, some bursting into flame and others washed away by flowing water. Most, however, closed the distance and began cutting down those who could not stand their own.

All the while, Hawthorn, a man with thick hair and two long axes hanging from his belt, raised his own weapon high and screamed to the sky as he led the second charge against the tallest and greatest of the stone temples. Leaping from the shuttle, the Allking screamed to the gods and charged up the hundreds of steps it would take to reach the peak of the artificial summit the sheep had constructed here. Fire rained on him, stone pelted him and yet, with shield raised, he pushed ever onward with loyal crow-men screeching behind him.

 

[Amarthaer Saptheth]

Eyes that burned with the intensity of an inferno from within hollowed sockets were intent on flames, tendrils of fire licking up what remained of a now only vaguely humanoid figure, much of its skin charred and burnt away, features largely unrecognizable as anything once sentient. The screams were always the most tedious part, but once they ceased a certain aura of peace washed over herself and the entirety of her congregation. Only the lingering scent of burning flesh lingered in the air, an aroma that neither turned her away nor gratified her. It was merely a consequence of another sacrifice to her goddess, as the true beauty was in the fire. Oranges and reds bled together before her, casting dappled patterns about the room even in the daylight that shone in through broken stone walls and roughly hewn windows.

Reaching out with one blackened hand she dipped her fingers in the crimson that ran in rivers through the cracks of the stone floor, bringing it to her lips as the taste of iron washed across her tongue. Another swath of blood drew holy symbols of the goddess down her arms, the congregation gathered about her taking part in the same twisted ritual. All of them were intent on their worship, some bowed in prayer while others led ritualistic chanting and praise. All were entirely and completely enamored in their religious fervor, with little capable of swaying them from the various trances each was deeply immersed in. Any outsider looking in would be horrified, but to the deviants within this was home.

As the fire steadily burnt itself out and the scorched corpse cooled, she reached out to take up some of the ashes, smearing a holy symbol across her forehead in soot. Her lips moved in near-silent prayer to the goddess, the Vahla tongue foreign to all but a small handful gathered here, though its intonations were often the language in which all praise and prayer was uttered. As she seemed to close her worship a small number of those housed within the crude temple looked to her for guidance, but she only held up a hand, seemingly preoccupied elsewhere. Slowly she stood, bare feet carrying her to what passed for a window, a few others huddling close behind her, curious as to what she saw.

As if ushered on by her singular presence a resounding boom sounded that shook the very ground beneath their feet, and the sky darkened with the presence of vessels unlike the sort any of the primitive world had ever witnessed. They mirrored nothing she had seen all those years ago when she crashed here, but their intent was clear. Panic began to blossom like a slow-burning poison among the other worshipers, and again all she did was lift her hand to silence them, a deathly stillness sweeping across the room. Taking in a breath she exhaled slowly as if she was about to speak aloud, but instead her words echoed directly into the minds of those around her.

L̬̖̝͟e͟t̥͕͈ ̛̥͓͚t̷͕̯̘̤̰̬̜h̩̲̪̹̖͉e̫͇͜m̘̱̖̟̬̤ ͍̥c͚̮̮͈o̩͍̥̤͇̠͇m̛̦̮̤e̜̘̯.̡̳̫͎


[member="Hawthorn"]

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

[member="Amarthaer Saptheth"]

The fire backlashed off the steel of his shield as he pushed forward. The witches here turned the world to their whim with their dark magics. There was no calling to the gods for their power, they used their twisted nature to bend reality. That was something to be abhorred and Hawthorn had no shortage of anger and bloodlust to unleash upon them all. Bursting from the fire, Hawthorn brought down his axe hard on a shirtless Kro Var guardsman at the entryway to the temple. The pale man's sulfuric eyes lit up with fear for but a moment, then quickly went dull as the life drained from the gaping wound in his neck.

Slugthrower rounds pelted the temple as Hawthorn withdrew his blade, the marksman supporting the berserkers who'd charged forward to break the lines. Surprise and vicious assault were enough to shatter what little defences remained at this temple from whatever events had come before. All around, the witches were being slaughtered by slug and blade and the battle here at the steps of the temple was quickly turning in favour of the Tof.

Resting shield at his side, Hawthorn looked down to his beard. Flickers of fire whipped about his beard, it's end blackened and charred from the fiery attack of the witch he had charged. With a grunt, he readied himself once again and thrust his axe into the air with a rallying cry.

"Into their temple, brothers and sisters! " he cried out, storming through the temple doors with men at his back

 

[Amarthaer Saptheth]

Those that inhabited the temple had a strange relationship with death and violence. It was something that had oft shaped their lives from the day they were born, having been exiled from among their own people due to the arcane magics under their control. And so they had flocked to what had become the ghettos of Kro Var, amassing in throngs that soon turned on each other as they fought for the simple right to survive on a planet that chose to ignore their existence. The arrival of the Vahla had done little to fill that power vacuum, with all those others of her people soon meeting an untimely end. In the end it seemed she had filled that well of power, leading a congregation in their sacrificial, brutal worship.

Even that life of violence paled in comparison to what the outsiders brought with them. The crack of a gunshot was foreign to all, but it soon became apparent what omen the report of a firearm held. Finally they had come upon others just as savage as themselves, and neither side was willing to grant any quarter. Endlessly the bodies fell, and she felt the nuances of every death intimately even from where she stood within the temple walls. The arrival of these trespassers was a fast-acting poison, the numbers of those that had once resided within the temple dwindling until all that remained were those within the stone walls themselves, that being the only barrier separating them from the warmongers outside.

Soon enough even that failed, and still she remained unnaturally still even as the slaughter began anew, her focus on the first man that had stormed through the doorway. All of the death and pain that she had reveled in since even before their arrival, all of the suffering of the now-forgotten sacrifice, every fiber of hurt was brought to the surface and languished in for just a moment before she projected it outwards and onto the hulking giant of a man with nothing more than a look that seemed to pierce into the very depths of his soul, if someone of such cruelty could lay claim to one any longer. Nothing about her changed in those seconds, though if one looked closely enough the barest twitch of a smile danced across her features.

There was naught but a single word that crept into his mind, its consistency that of sludge and sweet poison that breathed as one, its potency deadly,

F̦͔̩̱͎͜a̜̯̹̝ͅl҉̢̗̺͎͕̯̦̞l͓̬͚̼̠͞.͉̫͎͔̺


[member="Hawthorn"]