The Books of Blutora

15 : The Eshels - II/II

By late in the year of D-545,  the Eshels had completely reformed and rebuilt following the massacre of many of its members due to the assassination of the Prince. The resistance group against the crown had gone completely rogue as the crown was offering rewards for any information on the group. They were roughly twenty members strong at this point, and each person was completely trusted and respected by the others. As a result of this, the Eshels were arguably now at their strongest, their ability to work together was otherworldly. 

During the course of the rebuilding efforts by the Eshels, the crown had continued in their nefarious ways, while using the Eshels as a scapegoat blaming much of the kingdoms problems on the resistance. They spread rumors to the people that the Eshels were a bandit group who infiltrated the city under the guise of protestors and had been a large source of thievery and murder since. None of which was true of course, nevertheless Fidril further believed that the only way to take on the crown was to fight fire with fire, to match the wickedness of the crown. 

Between the wealth offered for information on the Eshels, and the increased security, operating from within the kingdom proved to be near impossible. Due to these complications, the Eshels left the city and made their way up Mount Fis to the North of Schium. A perfect vantage point of nearly every spot in the city, they set up camp in a small cave near the summit, hidden from view. This would be their acting base of operations from this point onward, as it was in a spot that nobody would discover.  Once settled in and ready to take action, the planning for a large scale retaliation begun. 

Early in the following year of D-546 their first act of revenge towards the crown was under way. The group made their way stealthily into the city from atop the west dunes, led by Fidril, they took out city guards atop the wall to the inner city via crossbow. The moon was disguised by an overcast night and as such visibility was just low enough. They made their way up and over the inner wall, at this point just behind the Eraikull palace. Using a distraction from one of the Eshels, the remainder of the group were able to incapacitate the guards at the front, and hide their bodies in bushes near the front of the building. Once inside the palace, the group carefully made their way to the treasury, taking out any guards they needed to on the way, and hiding the bodies as best they could. 

By the end of the night, half of the cities wealth stored within the Eraikull palace had been moved to the streets right outside the stables. The Eshels were nowhere to be seen, there was no evidence left behind besides the lifeless guards. The common folk of Schium flocked to the riches that lined the street and made off with whatever they could manage. From atop Mount Fis, the Eshels watched the results of their efforts take place... most of them anyway. Fidril was still in the city, and had taken the appearance of a harmless citizen, watching the events from nearby.

It didn't take long before a division of the city guard marched out of the palace and into the streets. Without warning or hesitation, they began to round up the citizens one by one, killing any who resisted. Upon noticing this, Fidril tried to abruptly make his way towards a building to take refuge in, but was stopped by a guard who turned the corner at the wrong time. He had no choice, he had to obey the guard to keep his life. The guards took the group of citizens that they rounded up in the streets to the Eraikull palace, and underground into the dungeons. 

For weeks, the common folk held in the dungeons were beaten, tortured, starved, and slowly killed. A group that had been near thirty in size upon capture, had been dwindled down to ten in one months time. Fidril amongst this group with his true identity unknown, had witnessed some truly terrible things. He had watched as corrupt officials tortured the common folk in what they claimed was for information on the Eshels, but was truly out of enjoyment by the majority of them. Not a single one of the captured group was safe, not the elders, and not the children. For some of them, surviving the starvation and torture wasn't enough, as the corrupt guards would get bored sometimes and decide to kill a person in whatever gruesome way they desired. 

During this time period of Fidril's capture, the Eshels had plotted a scheme to free the captured citizens. By the time a month had passed since capture, the group made their move. They weren't going to be able to infiltrate the palace as they did before, since the security measures had been increased tenfold. Taking this into account, they needed a large enough diversion and panic amongst the guards that Fidril could manage to lead the citizens out. It began with one of the Eshels killing a guard outside of the city and impersonating the official. They eventually made their way into the palace and subsequently dungeons where they slipped a note into the cell for Fidril to find. The note said only to be ready when the time came, but that was enough for the cunning leader to know exactly what to do. 

A couple days passed by, and the prisoners were awoken by the sound of an explosion above ground. Fidril noticed a small shiv on the ground that had been slipped under the iron bars and quickly began to pick the lock to the cell. Eventually he had the door open, and led the remaining citizens in the dungeon down the dark hallways beneath the palace. Rather than heading up the stairs, he led them to an obscure section of the basements, an old storage room that had seemingly not been tended to in years. To the surprise of the group following Fidril, there was a hole in one of the walls, and the leader of the Eshels led them through and up to the opposite end of the carved out tunnel, a house within the outer city. 

Fidril eventually slipped away from everyone and made his way out of the city, back to the Eshels hideout atop Mount Fis. He met up with the group and explained everything that had happened and everything he had seen in the months time of his capture. Every member of the group was livid at what they heard, and desired even more than before the demise of the current crown. Due to the increased security within the city, they could no longer enter the kingdom as easily as before, and at this point a majority of the Eshels faces were known by the officials and plastered on wanted posters. They couldn't touch the crown, and they couldn't reach the palace, at least not as things sat.

Refusing to do nothing and just wait it out, the Eshels behind their leader Fidril decided that they would take to the roads and attack anyone who travelled the deserts under the Schiumian banner. They believed that by weakening any and all support, the crown would eventually be forced to take action before they were left with the entire population against them, and as such anyone who flew the banner of Schium were open targets to the group. They also figured that if they could make their presence known across the land and feared in large, the crown might begin to patrol the roads and spread themselves thin, just enough that the palace would be in striking distance. 

They were driven by the crimes of the corrupt crown, and pushed over the edge away from trying to make change without bloodshed. They were fighting true evil, and needed to match it with evil of their own, as it was the only language the crown could speak. They began to attack unsuspecting travelers under the Schiumian banner, robbing them blind and torturing them until they faced death, or the respect of the group. As a result of this, the Eshels were no longer just a resistance to the crown, they were a notorious bandit clan within the withering sea of Odelia.