The Unburied

The Reviled

Where once the pits of the north had been filled to the brim, they now ran dry.  In the empty eye’s of Silas, they were no different than they’d been in his many winters.  Nothing more were they to him, than a cluster of crumbling entrenchments in the desert stones, overlooked by a decrepit watchtower, jutting crookedly from the red sand.  

The phantom did bear witness to the Sanguine Horror, as he turned his gaze to the few Skull Kin that had accompanied them upon the road to the badlands.  

"I bid our dead to the pits, and the Leper Knights strewn beside the tower."  He instructed, quickly pointing briefly towards the crumbling tower, before joining the scarce skeletal warriors in their grim labours.

Such an intent was shared by the phantasmal marksman, as he made his path unto the carriage of his fallen comrades.  With grim memories called to mind, the Musketeer mournfully lifted the grey sheet that covered the cart, laying empty eyes upon the cadavers of his kin, whose souls were yet to be allowed any manner of relent.  In a fate not unshared, and in some eyes, not undesired, Silas did find an ocean of doubt to believe that such a relief would yet befall them.

The first of the dead to be extracted, was the youngest.  Maynard, the aspiring son of Jeremiah, was laid to the ground not by Silas, rather the Bone Weaver, who did take her stance beside him.  

“I trust such a duty as this, would be found grim, and without ease.”  She stated, laying the young man’s one-eyed cranium to the comfort the sand.  

“As are the majority of the duties I face.”  Silas replied, as he took in his arms the remains of yet another fallen comrade, “I suspect it bears a minimal difference to the assembly of your Skull Kin.”

As Silas set the corpse of Jeremiah to lay beside his son, Lucretia responded, “You’d find yourself mistaken, phantom.”  The raven hair commandant contradicted the Musketeer.

As Lucretia did take hold of the subsequent Leper Knight, Silas inquired, “In what manner?”  

Placing the fallen Amous to the red sand, Lucretia answered, “To assemble my warriors, is to gain yet another comrade.  Such a duty as this…”  

“To ensure their loss.”  Silas curtailed her explanation dryly, as he quietly dragged yet another shell of blackened steel from the depths of the cart in which they did reside, “I can assure you, it is devoid of ease.”  

After a moment of uneasily silent labour, Lucretia commented, "I'd consider them fortunate, in their fate.  Or to the least, as fortunate as such a fate may be twisted to."

As yet another of the Leper Knights was laid to the ground, Silas replied, "I see no fortune in my fate.  Nor do I see a discrepancy from theirs."

Lucretia then asked, pausing her labours for a moment, "Has Aleric yet made clear his intent for the remaining of the dead?" 

"I'd assumed they're to share the fate of my comrades."  Silas replied, declining to pause his morbid work.  

"You'd be mistaken there as well."  
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The prolonged trudge upon the mountainside, had not taken as great a toll upon Letifer, as he’d expected.  In its majority, this was due to the alienation of his motion, having not enlisted the service of his legs for quite the prolonged span.  Indeed, he’d somehow suspected such a trek to tire him, as it did the living.  In some manner, he’d hoped for it.  Of course, such a glory was not to be.  As had become constant, Letifer found no fatigue in his body, nor was revealed to him any other manner of bodily notion. 

    
One could suppose that the crumbling, narrow staircase upon which they did tread, would offer some solace to the living, in such a tedious hike.  Indeed, it did match the pair of ruined towers that lay on the jagged rocks below, jutting out from the base of the mountain.