INHERITANCE: Memorandum Of Scales

THE SEALED

They were the children of night.

Sixteen of them circled the black fire, deep in the woods of their realm. Tattered cloaks surrounded faces darker than the night sky, devoid of stars.
Sharp ears poked through holes cut out from the sides of dirty cowls, and blonde hair fell over eyes as blue as chrysocolla.

"Do you see anything?" One of them whispered, hushed and frightened. Their leader, a shaman named Herzig Bloit, ignored the question, watching the movements of the ebony blaze. The night was still, no wind passed through the trees that watched their dark ritual.
Herzig Bloit leaned over the fire, inhaling the flames as they sprung into his nose. Some of the Sealed Elves gasped and recoiled in fear, but the most seasoned of their acolytes simply watched.

Herzig opened his mouth slowly, gray mist escaping from his sharpened teeth, rising into the night like a freshly slain soul.

"It is time." He said, rising to his full height. His arms were striped with swirling tattoos, and one of his ears was missing. Scars were racked across his face, and underneath his black robes, he commanded a body that was honed and brimming with strength.

His disciples that gathered around the fire parted as two higher-ranking acolytes dragged a Laen Elf to Herzig. The Elf had been beaten so harshly that his face was almost as black as his  counterparts, with eyes swollen shut and a mouth filled with broken teeth. His naked body had been cut and burned, three days of torture that left him on the brink of death.

"We were powerful, once." Herzig began. The speech was routine for his acolytes, but the newest disciples listened aptly, ears eager.

"We had ruled all of the Elves. Before the curse. Before we were burned."

"What was burned will rise from the ashes, a people of the Prince." The voices of the acolytes said, whispers in the cold air.

Herzig grasped the Laen Elf's head as his two acolytes dropped him and joined the circle. In Herzig's right hand, a thatched dagger was found, evil in shape and design. Dried blood painted the long blade, and the handle was crafted from bone.

"I have foreseen our rise. Our return to greatness. The Prince stirs in the west, and his sire, our forebear, Golhlobor."

"May his dark art forever linger in our mind, as our bodies have been sealed." The acolytes sang, their voices rising from a whisper.

Herzig leveled his dagger on the neck of the Laen Elf, the tip of it poking the white flesh.

"We are descendants of Golhlobor, sealed with blackness because they feared his Magic. They sealed us with blood, and Golhlobor screams within his prison. But as they have imprisoned us with their own blood, we shall in turn free ourselves with the blood of their sons."

"Golhlobor, Lord of Night, Father of Darkness, hear our prayer, free us, Father, aid us against the High Elves, against the Elves of the Wood, and against all who oppose us. Give us your strength, Father, so that we may one day free you from your crypt, so that you may watch as your Prince burns the land with your own eyes."

Their voices rang together beautifully, melodic and thick with anguish. A tear fell from Herzig's eye, trailing down his cheek, silver in the moonlight.

"Golhlobor, bless us."

The knife drove into the Laen Elf's throat, spilling bright blood into the black flames. The fire greedily ate the blood, dancing and licking the air and growing larger.

Herzig pushed the body of the Laen Elf into the small pyre, and the body exploded in heat. The acolytes moaned and cut themselves with knives, weeping and crying and screaming. Herzig watched the body slowly burn, the smell of burning flesh bringing a smile to his thin lips.