We are Myrken.

[Cinnabar]

One might note - were one in possession of the wider view of things, the broader plan of the hunt - that there are certain patterns visible, certain... irregularities in the disposition of patrols, of groups as they spread out into the countryside. To the west and south the hunters are formed into bands of thirty each, plus five soldiers, spread out to cover a fairly wide area, two patrols unlikely to catch sight of one another during the course of the night's search.

Northeast of Myrkentown, though, matters are slightly different. The groups are larger, having an extra complement of ten soldiers join some little way outside of town to round each patrol up to forty-five men, of whom fully a third are well-equipped men of the Myrken Army; the patrols are more numerous, such that from a hilltop one might see two or three clusters of torches and lanterns toiling their way across the countryside within a couple of miles, and more spread out towards the horizon.

It is this heavier, more intense search northeast of town that the Governor's group joins. Calomel travels on foot, setting a steady pace for the rest, a steel helm donned to complement his cuirass and pauldrons, heavy boots and sturdy leather gauntlets rounding out his armour; a broad-bladed falchion and hand-axe weigh at his hips, and fully half of the soldiers accompanying this patrol - not including the Duke's Companions - bear round shields in addition to similar weapons. The rest carry waterskins marked in charcoal with the sign of the One True Faith. Calomel himself bears a half-dozen cylinders of perforated brass at his belt.

It would seem that the Governor knows something.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

Uriel kept to himself in the cool autumn evening, amidst a rushing sea of people bitten with anxiety that bled from their pores and threatened to stain their souls. Myrkenfolk, however, were stout people - solid of mind and body. While the recent vanishings had increased the perpetual tension that plagued the land it did not threaten to break them.

At least not yet.

For his part, he moved along with the crowd, doing his best to help search abandoned properties. Reaching one of them, just like any other, he felt the knife catch against his arm. The cold blade reminded him of his duty, reminded him of the providence of this moment, to send him along with these mortals who sought to oppose his master; who sought to burn out the Ashfiend's flame.

His right hand, chill with nervous sweat, slipped into his left sleeve. The arm there was strong, beyond human potency. A gift from his master and a reminder of how, had he possessed such strength, the cart might not have crushed his boy to death. With a bitter grimace at fate, he grasped his weapon's handle and rent his remade flesh, feeling a moment's nothingness, a stinging jolt of reality, and the warm river that flowed through pain with a promise.

Inside the abandoned house with the other men, pretending to kneel after overturning a table, he turned expectant eyes towards his own shadow. One of the townfolk gasped as they caught the livid stain upon his sleeve, the blood chaotically dropping to the floor with an angry, staccato rhythm. He kept his dark eyes on his shadow however, allowing himself the barest of smiles upon his soot-baked visage only when the room suddenly went cold.

His shadow grew into a towering figure, darkness weaving an armored silhouette within the house. A pair of crimson flames erupted, set beneath a black hood hemmed in gold; furnaces that drew in the light about him, the warmth from their blood, the hope from their souls.

At once the emergent Ashfiend is in action. With a mailed hand he tears free Arak's Ruin while with the other he raises a mailed fist that fuels a sudden eruption of a wall of flame within the house that carves through the civilian ranks. Amidst screams of surprise and the shrieks of those suddenly aflame, with smoke billowing into the night air, the Ashfiend begins heaving through flesh and fire alike; leading with a merciless fist and a bloodied sword.

Uriel fell to his knees and clung to the floor as people stumbled into each other, clawed at the Ashfiend, at the walls, and at each other. Those caught within the ring of flames that almost encompassed the entire house leaving them caught between fiend and fire clawed at themselves. Several legs stumbled into his sides while Arak's Ruin hissed about him in the smoke-filled darkness that burned a perverse, sickly yellow from the fire's wildly dancing lights.

He felt a spidery caress of tattered cloth against a dark cheek and beheld his master's booted feet pressing relentlessly through the press of people. He knew his master was laying about himself with utmost calm, as if he were harvesting wheat for a small dinner. Throughout it all the Ashfiend offered no words, no pity, and grace only in a quick death beneath hand or sword rather than suffering beneath the flames.

[Malaroth]

Laurence Talbot ambled down the road, his companions stumbling along behind him. A pallor of fear clung to their cheekbones while their chain armor bore the mark of recent conflict. Torn chains, ripped black tabards and mail painted with faded scarlet testify to battle along with the distracted stares offered by those who followed Sir Talbot's command.

Horseless, though their boots fell heavily to the ground with the staccato chiming of sharpened spurs, the sextet of men struggled towards the crowd that approached. The garb and faces stamped them as common folk, Myrkeners all, resolve screwed up to a sword's point or hammer's face to crush whatever evil that they found. This was a scourging mob directed by some force that, Talbot hoped, could be found towards the rear of their ranks for he did not see any obvious leaders amidst or ahead of them.

"Peace!" he cried out, raising his palms while the words left him in a hoarse, scratching bellow. "Peace, good people! We are Shepherd Knights hunting the Ashfiend!"

The knights paused behind him, standing at still attention as the crowd roared its way closer. He steeled himself, sparing a glance for the notched sword at his side as his rent tabard fluttered in the breeze, hugging his left leg in its ruined state.

"We would join your ranks!" he added in the face of the approaching throng, heels dug into the ground should the mass of men decide to trample the knights underfoot rather than stop and speak. The Shepherd Knights were undoubtedly not so well known in the town proper. However, they did hold the line at Snowstill Priory against the Ashfiend's forces, and the Grand Master had been an enemy of the Fiend's since the beginning.

"And speak with your leaders!"

[Vanidor]

Rumour had perhaps circulated that the Duke and the Governor had put aside any... difference of opinion the two might have shared, and joined ranks in order to hunt down this 'Fiend. It was true, for with the Governor's group indeed moved a knot of men in the crimson and gold and black of the Ducal Bodyguard, and the Duke, himself tinted with cloth the colour of freshly spilled blood and the whitest of snows to ever dot the landscape. He move with a sort of detached calm that seemed to put his own men at ease. A few of the others as well, perhaps, for here was a man who, much like the Governor, moved with such purpose and determination.

The image of a man that did not allow the noises of the night to drive him to distraction. Did not allow the tension to seep into his being. He was simply one of them, mismatched gaze doing it's part to seek into the darkness and assist in the hunt. He and his men were dissimilar in the manner of their weaponry, for out of the nine of them that Burel's personal group consisted of, only two bore swords. The Duke himself, and the Under-Lieutenant that commanded this squad. The rest were an assortment of hammers and axes, one had a pair of cestus' hanging from his belt.

The oddest bit to notice, however, was the fact that they seemed to take orders from the Governor if and when he would give them. Or at least the Duke did, and the men with him did as the man relayed. Bodyguards would be bodyguards. Though, for the most part, that crimson band remained silent. When one hunted, one did not spend the time idly chatting away.

[Cinnabar]

Hidden, perhaps, by the small forest of brandished farm tools, or the dark of the night, but the crowd isn't entirely composed of fierce-scowling civilians; there's a fair number of stern-faced soldiers in there too, variegated black-and-red Myrken livery over padded jacks, along with the crimson-and-gold of Thessilane. As Talbot and his men draw nearer, into the light of lanterns and torches, there's some murmur of unease from the civilians at the state of the warriors; torn and bloodied tabards, rent and battered mail.

They call for the group's leaders, though, and a more heavily-armoured figure steps forward, clad in the polished steel of the Night Watch. The Governor pauses on the edge of that group, a frown for this unexpected encounter. Grey eyes take in that damage to their armour, the pallor of their faces. Something... some tense edge to his posture, some wariness. Still, he shows no fear and little hesitation as he nods to the knight.

"We also hunt the Fiend. What have you to report?"

[Malaroth]

Shadows and darkness had concealed the number of others amidst this seeming peasant-crowd bewitched int he fires of their own hatred. Small, private fires that paled in comparison to one particularly hateful flame whose sparks had been set alight in their stilled hearts and that yet stirred them on to move and to serve.

Laurence stepped forward as the Governor bade them to report. Vague memory instructed him to curl his pale lips in some minute, petulant gesture for this figurehead given arms and strength. He slowly ran parted fingers through short-cropped hair in a measured, human gesture. For their part, the handful of knights behind him made a godo show of occasionally shifting their feet or turning their eyes from one person to the next.

Yet each one seemed distinctly dim. Strength drained by the Ashfiend perhaps, or the sight of his victims.

"Alas, only death," he offered in words quieted to prevent the common folk from overhearing. "We've come across several of the houses he visited. We parted ways at a crossroads with companions, some of us remained behind. Those that did barely escaped alive."

He paused then, chest struggling for a deep, cleansing breath that left him with only the barest touch of warm air meeting the cool evening.

"There is fight left in us yet, Governor. If you permit us to accompany you."

[Cinnabar]

Pale eyes move from knight to knight, frown deepening as Talbot speaks. A keen gaze for their faces, for their lips, and a sidelong glance for the men nearest him, notes how the chill night air reddens their noses, causes their breath to appear in small clouds before their faces.

As it does not for these knights.

Features pallid, gazes dull, bodies barely warmer than the night around them. Such slashes and rents to their armour, such blood, and yet they stand there uncomplaining. Fight yet left in them, indeed. Finally the Governor shakes his head, expression firming. Some fresh deceit, some fresh abomination.

"No."

That stout falchion blade is drawn from his belt, and he raises his voice such that the rest of those who accompany him may hear.

"You didn't escape at all. Your breath is cold, your hearts are still. You are dead." A ripple of unease spreads through the crowd, grips tightening on weapons, eyes widening in alarm. And yet, there is also resolve, a determination spurred on by the Governor's boldness, his certainty. Calomel's free hand raises, then drops to point at the knights as he drops into a fighting stance, voice raised to call the command.

"Cut them down!"

And then he moves; fast, faster than one might expect, broad-bladed sword flashing a gleaming arc in the torchlight as he seeks to carve the risen Laurence Talbot apart.

With a roar, the crowd surges forwards, a living wave of sharpened steel and angry humanity.

[Vanidor]

'Cut them down!'

This was the cry that rent the evening air, the command so intense that men used to obeying such orders immediately withdrew their weaponry and proceeded forwards with such grim intent. Civilian and soldier alike, Myrkenite and Thessil alike. The bodyguard that accompanied Duke Burel was unlimbering weaponry already kept loose, hammers and axes and maces filling hands. The pair of knuckle-dusters being slipped onto hands and cracked together. They would pause only long enough to cast an eye to their lord and master, only... Only to find him already gone from their midst.

For Cinnabar Calomel had surged forward, aiming to slice his way through the twisted remains of once proud knights, his heavy bladed falchion raised high like that of a righteous crusader. There was no difference with the Duke, in this regard. For here he was, a graceful creature slithering forwards and withdrawing his elongated weapon. Like a bastard sword, in that the blade was long, and it could be wielded with one or two hands. Like a Katana, in that the blade was curved with a razor-sharp cutting edge. Unlike either, in that the blade was narrow and the handle itself curved to provide the man with a peculiar grip. A grip that proudly showed the gold-embossed Herons. The sword of a Blademaster. However strangely fashioned it was, however specially treated it was, here he is, moving towards the fore.

The weapon spun in his grip, as natural as a windmill flowing in the breeze. It was sad, perhaps, that neither Cinnabar nor Burel had trained together. For it was obvious that the two, singularly, would be dangerous opponents. Can one but imagine what they would be if they knew the nuances of each others combat styles? Burel could wish it, but wishes were not for tonight. Which is why he did not assault the same ghoulish entity that the Governor struck out at. But instead, he would find himself gliding forwards with that Blademaster's stride into the mass of undeath waiting behind, the blade of his sword igniting with the cold fury of his void-enhanced calm.

[Malaroth]

Calomel's order is obeyed also by those he would see rent asunder. Yet their obedience is not quite the same. Wheras peasant, soldier and constable seek to destroy these latest servants of the Ashfiend, who yet blink and emote, these same servants rush to meet the attack. For the dead there is little to be surprised by and, given their singular task, the sudden onrush does little to flutter heats that no longer beat.

Yet it will make their task all the more difficult.

The attempted asassination of Constable-Governor Cinnabar Calomel.

Luckily the Constable surges forward with the rest. Even as Burel's finely wrought blade cleaves into one dead man who, faltering, yet turns to meet the attack. Laurence and the remaining four who, momentarily unengaged, all surge for Cinnabar. The knight's blade lashes out to catch Cinnabar's own, meeting mortal eyes with those of the dead and dim. A spark in their depths, the spark of his master's hatred for the living.

About him, for their likely only shot at their task, the others all seek to swarm Cinnabar and slay him then and there. A pair of daggers hurled, a pair of knights darting and thrusting for the Constable's sides as Laruence and Cinnabar clash. The fifth left to deal with Burel. The fifth who, while a capable swordsman, is unbothered by the gash rent in his side. The fifth who is unaware of most pains.

The fifth who, recoiling from the ferocious and swift assault, attempts to step forward and prevent Burel from finding any space in this gathered, murderous throng. Blade leading the charge in a bold thrust for the foreign Duke's abdomen, as if to gut him like a mean animal, while his empty hand snatches a slender dirk that aims to puncture the man's neck with a sideward thrust.

[Vanidor]

The foreign Duke was not obliged to die this evening. Nor any evening not of his choosing, at least as far as he was concerned. He figured he knew his fate, and it was not to perish here. For Myrken, perhaps. For Thessilane, surely. And so, the man twisted himself, a turn that seemed as planned as every step he took, as every motion. The blade would skirt past that Ducal body, perhaps scraping the finely wrought silk to display master-crafted chain hidden beneath the obfuscating cloth. Material that could have shimmered, were there enough torchlight to illuminate the metal.

The sword was ignored, for it was of no matter. The chain that shielded his torso, as well as his natural agility, would see that it did not touch precious skin. At least not yet, while the Duke was fresh and alert. Instead, as the man turned his hips the proper amount to avoid the gutting strike, his weapon flashed upwards. Not to deflect the dirk, nor to parry the blow. But, instead, the aim was to rend flesh from bone and wrist from arm, and then sear the dead limb into submission by the innate energies contained within his sweeping blade. A simple upwards chop, if such a maneuver could ever be considered... simple.

The fifth, there, would not allow him space? Then the Duke would make it himself.

For following this cut, and the subsequent adjustment of his head to avoid the strike itself (if he missed and it managed to follow through), or the flying of the limb itself, as it was surely to continue onwards if the blade did manage to amputate the ghoulish knight. The next step was to continue his spin, to sweep that slender blade at a place near the throat, and continue it on downwards towards, say, the thigh. He did not mean it to hit, exactly, but to make space if it did not. But if it did? The searing magics within his blade would seek to cauterise animated flesh.

As this act was performed, the man would bark a command and a battle shout. A cry that filtered backwards through the throng and towards his Guardsmen. "With your lives, shield the innocent and the weak! Protect the Governor! For Myrken! For the Hawks! Destroy them!" And the Companions would try to surge forwards, one with a pair of hatchets sweeping his arm backwards to hurl the steely blade forwards. The target one of those seeking to flank the Constable-Governor. Another emulated the first, only in this case it was a heavy-bladed throwing knife. He aimed for the other creature, seeking to disrupt the flow of combat here. The other Companions, weapons drawn, tried to seek a way into the combat. Their Duke had commanded it, and they were seemingly intent on getting between the Governor and the blades that sought to end his life.

[Cinnabar]

The spark in Talbot's dead eyes is met with a silvered gaze, eyes narrowed to glittering slits as Calomel ploughs into the undead knights; even clad in gleaming steel there is a grace to his movements, a fluidity of motion that treats the sturdy plates as not so much an encumbrance as a second skin. There are those who saw him fight at Snowstill, wading through the ranks of the Ashfiend's shambling army until armour and skin was caked with their stinking blood, and spoken of it in hushed voices thereafter; there are those who saw him fight the Ashfiend directly, during the attack on his farm, in which Calomel had walked through fire without being burned, had belaboured the ghoul with a blazing roof-timber wielded as easily as if it were a Constable's baton.

At Snowstill, though, the Ashfiend's servants had been old, mouldering, dead for weeks if not longer, shambling husks held together by sorcery alone, for the most part. Here, though, Talbot and his fellows are altogether less decayed, more vigorous, more robust. The feel no pain, they know not weariness or fear or hunger, so the way to deal with them is simply to inflict sufficient injury to them that they cannot fight any longer.

So it is that the Constable-Governor moves, twisting and stepping with startling swiftness. As once-Talbot's blade intercepts his own, Calomel is already lashing out with his free hand, a blinding-fast strike intent on grasping the walking corpse firmly by the throat; the blades coming from each side are allowed to scrape across the steel of his cuirass as he half-turns, and a sharp flick of his head sees the thrown daggers clattering from the brow of his helm - this is what such armour is for, after all; and then the Constable-Governor is moving again, boots planting firmly to push him forwards; an attempt to step inside Talbot's reach and bear him back, lifting him from his feet if necessary, the knight's longsword hopefully rendered unwieldy in such close quarters.

Meanwhile the undead knights' focus on Calomel and the Duke allows the rest of the patrol plenty of opportunity to lunge and stab and slash with all manner of makeshift weaponry. One particularly bold soul lowers his pitchfork like a pike and does his level best to skewer the knife-throwing knight, using the tool's length to keep him out of arm's reach; the rest bear down on Talbot's former comrades en masse, five or six to a man, a storm of hatchets and clubs and blades seeking to beat them to the ground and hack their unliving bodies apart. There is little that is elegant or refined or graceful about their fighting, but what they lack in finesse they certainly aim to make up for in brutality and vigour. For days, weeks, months, the people of Myrken Wood have lived in fear of the Ashfiend and his servants; tonight, they have an opportunity to fight back, and it would be well for the Duke's men not to stand in the way of that.

Innocent and weak, indeed.

[Kylerryth]

"Light," rumbled Joacim, looking out a window. After a few moments he allowed the curtain to fall back in place. "We could be out there, helping."

"They don't want our help," said Pasi, not bothering to look up from the book he was reading. Of the four men in the room, he was the only one laying down -- his joints were aching again. He adjusted a pair of thin reading glasses on the bridge of his nose; he then licked a thumb and used it to turn a page. That was the sum of his actions.

"Nor do they need it," said Nils, who was seated on a stool in the middle of the room and juggling. He was entertaining Tuomas, who was in turn seated on the floor a few paces in front of him. Tuomas, who remained silent and still the entire time, moving only his eyes, following the multi-colored balls as they circled and looped and twisted through the air above and around Nils' hands.

"That isn't the point," Joacim began.

"It is the point," said Nils, interrupting Joacim before he could start another argument. Normally the four of them agreed on everything, or just about everything; this subject had been a point of some contention among them, and not because of any real disagreement. Truth be told, they all agreed with Joacim: they could be out there helping the Myrkenfolk search for the Ashfiend instead of sitting in their capacious, yet relatively isolated room at the Shepherd's Crook.

The reason it was a sore spot for them? However much they discussed it, argued about it, or even thought about it, Pasi and Nils were right -- the Myrkenfolk did not want or need their help. Calomel had Myrkentown on the brink, on the razor's edge, and the channelers' interference would only serve to knock them down again. That the Duke had departed some time ago did not bother them. They had an inkling of what he intended, but they would have no part in it. This was Myrkentown's moment to shine in the darkness.

This was Myrkentown's stand against evil.

The whole time Nils had not paused his juggling; in fact, he now had two separate circles going, one on each hand. Tuomas' face did not change, but Nils thought he saw an amused gleam in the boy's eyes. That was good enough for him.

Joacim stood in sullen silence, leaning on the wall and occasionally glancing at the window, as if he could peer through the curtains without moving them aside. He scratched his beard. He muttered under his breath. And with a mumbled farewell, he then left for the inn's common room.

They weren't worried about it. They might not know if he left the building, but there was a good chance -- more than good, actually -- someone would come to tell them. The Duke had forbidden channeling within the confines of the Shepherd's Crook, and they still obeyed the Duke, so Joacim would have to use an old-fashioned, regular door to leave.

If they detected any channeling, on the other hand...

"Okay," said Tuomas suddenly. It startled them: Nils very nearly lost the pattern he was performing, and Pasi actually leaned on an elbow to get a good look at the boy. So rarely did Tuomas speak that it continued to surprise them every time he decided to. At least Nils hadn't dropped any of the colored balls. It would have been a pain to search for all of them.

Regardless, Nils understood: Tuomas had had enough of juggling. Nils snatched the balls out of the air one by one, then dropped them into a small wooden chest on the floor next to the stool.

"And that's that, I suppose," Pasi grunted, settling once more into a comfortable position on his bed.

"I suppose," Nils said, smiling and tousling Tuomas' hair.

Tuomas smiled, too, and somehow that made it all right.

[Malaroth]

These were not peasant men dragged from their graves or rescued from their pyres. They were knights in service, once, to the King of Trae Kelsa. Now they called another master. For all their bloodless flesh and passionless hearts they remembered several things. They remembered the sun and sky, the stars and trees. They remembered how to fight.

While they gave beneath the onslaught, it was not without cost. Beneath a storm of festering outrage, given lead in spears and hatchets, the dead flesh breaks, the preserved bone shatters, and the tempered sword sunders. It is a quick and brutal affair.

While his companions fell around him, dragging a few of the reckless peasants into the grave with them, Talbot dropped his long, slender blade. The Constable's grasp constricted still airways while one of his hands seized the constable's armored own. The other snatches a second dagger from his belt, even as the swarming throng closes in.

The slender blade drives towards the gap at the elbow joint, seeking to skewer and tear after slipping through. There was no thinking that he would survive. And, being dead, he no longer cared about anything save one.

That the Ashfiend's will be done.

[Cinnabar]

A grip fit to crush and splinter bone tightens around the dead knight's throat, the Constable-Governor's limbs bringing unseemly strength to bear upon his foe. Talbot's dagger catches on the metal links of Calomel's mailshirt, a couple of the rings buckling and parting enough that the blade's tip might draw blood, but almost certainly not so deeply as the revenant might have hoped - if he's even capable of such a feeling as hope. This meets with a snarl from the silver-haired young man, grey eyes glinting mirrorbright in the shadow of his sallet helm.

Another step, seeking to throw the once-knight off-balance as that falchion blade lifts to catch torchlight for the briefest instant, then descends with swift and crushing force for Talbot's brow; further blows follow, one hand to hold the knight by the throat while that heavy blade goes to work with steady and methodical effort; if the dead man's armour prevents the weapon's edge from splitting his head like a melon, the weight of the blade and the force behind it should be more than adequate to stave in his skull regardless.

The Duke fights like a dancer, a series of elegant and graceful moves appropriate to the fine blade he wields; the Governor, meanwhile, works like a butcher cleaving meat, which is arguably what these knights have been reduced to - dead meat walking. No point in aiming strikes to the vitals, no use in seeking to puncture lungs that no longer breathe, to wound a heart that beats no more, to sever arteries that no longer flow; instead, a matter of brute dismemberment, of hacking the foe into small enough pieces that he no longer presents a threat. So it is with Calomel's struggles against the corpse that was once Sir Laurence Talbot, and so it is around him as Myrkenfolk and soldiers set to with hatchets and blades.

Strenuous, unpleasant, and not without peril. But such is life in Myrken Wood.

[Malaroth]

The anger of Myrken Wood combined descends upon them in a violent wave. Perhaps the living were stronger than the dead. The enemy broken, the assassination foiled by a man too clever to be caught unawares, soon the animated knights are nothing but broken corpses once again.