Was it immoral? Was any of it justified? Perhaps... but then again perhaps not.The scent of burning oil was almost overwhelming in its pungency, but they'd been forced to use the gelatinous stuff. Like slime, it was, but it burned even when wet and therefore was made highly useful. An onslaught of rain beat down on them, a tinny plinking sound audible for every individual drop that connected with the black armour of Gwynne's company. The six of them, together, sounded like a delicate and discordant symphony, each plink meshing into the other until you couldn't distinguish one from the whole.
Lightning exposed every nook and cranny on the muddy street, momentarily casting everything into deep contrast and splitting the sky like an arm of blinding light springing from one thunderhead to strike another. A thunderous reply came promptly with a deafening crack and violent rumble; so roaring was it that for a few seconds afterward, Gwynne's ears rang slightly. One could imagine great beasts twisting and turning inside those dark, bulbous clouds that hung over them. Then they were thrown back into darkness, only their now seemingly insubstantial torches providing light.
The storm had crept behind them for nearly a week, like a wolf circling his prey, waiting for the opportune time to strike. And he'd gone for the jugular. Their progress had all but come to a screeching halt, horses unable to cope with the muddied backwoods streets, and the already soft earth becoming akin to a bog in constitution. But damn all that, Gwynne was more preoccupied with how nauseating the scent of that blasted petroleum was.
Useful... hah! Useful! It's not as if the stuff is so thick in the air that you could taste it! He snorted under his breath, keeping his words entirely to himself. This was not the sort of place you got chatty on an assignment such as his. It was simply the normal rounds they were mandated to carry out, and Gwynne had not been actively assigned when the deployment officer had come around. It wasn't that mage gathering was a bad job. There were certainly worse roles to fill, from an objective standard. It was just - in Gwynne's opinion - rather unpleasant. There was always at least one family who was either hiding a mage member, or a refugee in some desperate ploy to keep them from going north. It never worked, and they were found eventually, one way or another. Every time. The penalty for harbouring mages was to be treated as a mage sympathiser, regardless of circumstance. And that in and of itself was only just below the penalty for being an actual mage. It was the act of metaphorically but also often quite literally tearing these people away from their families and treating them like animals. Gwynne would be lying if he said he didn't feel a twinge of guilt at some of the things he'd done, some of the people he'd made examples of.
But it had to be done. And who was he to stand in the way of what had to be done?
Gwynne sniffed, blinked away his thoughts, and turned back to survey his mounted troop. Five Black Allars, Mordecai all of them, wore similarly ebony armour to him. They were of his personal regiment, after all. But aside from that, they looked rather like he did as well, being from the same area of the same province as he. Tall cheekbones, fair skin, and with the exception of one man, nearly white-blonde beards were all visible poking out from their various helmets.
We could very well all be cousins, to some degree, he thought to himself, not for the first time. Their clothing, similar in style and all now equally soaked and muddied around the hem only added to their uncanny invariability.
If one thing was to split them, it was that Gwynne stood nearly half a head taller than the rest, and was perhaps thirty pounds heavier as well. Nonetheless, when all together, they were formidable and intimidating. All well and good for the roles they had been cast. But... there was an odd piece out in their set.
Helmetless and clad in silver plate, Mittermeyer stood out like a sore thumb where she rode next to Gwynne, the dim light glinting off of her armour where it shone dully off of the Allars'. Nevermind her near raven hair, which sat undisturbed on her head, if a tad damp. Suffice to say she didn't exactly blend into the night as well as Gwynne's company did. She wasn't so much shorter than the other men as she was dwarfed by Gwynne, making for a humorous juxtaposition when they stood next to each-other. But they had one thing to link them, and that was the Lily that denoted them Mordecai, allied under the Grand Duke.
Now, they stood out in the street, just in front of a Tanner's shop. The house that sat squatly above it was the last in this town to be routinely checked before they could move on to the next hick village in South Matron. The faster this was done and over with, the faster Gwynne would be happy.
"Shall we?" He asked, just loud enough to be heard over the din of the rain. He'd really rather not, on account of how he sank several inches into the mud every time he dismounted. But, alas, duty called.
@Eckhart_Von_Musel