[Blink]
Cold freezing rain pelted down on the camp that had been erected around the fallen village. Kogan. It had been burned out in the early years of the conflict. A small village of nondescript importance, and had been destroyed for one reason alone: it was a village of mages, free ones at that, whom thrived in the forest away from civilization at large.
They had lived on the edge, Roland thought, thinking that here in Sirantil Valley they were safe. It hadn't been run down by the Grand Duke's army, but instead by a mob of vigilante folk that felt the village was a danger to everyone. The mages didn't even fight back... They were burned along with their homes.
Roland had settled his men here where nobody would come to look. They were not overly large, but their numbers grew every day, little by little, word spreading. They were not always wise words, nor kind ones, some warning he was coming to sack their homes and pillage their goods. An army was only as good as the food going into its stomach after all.
Here was just another place that had been scorched by the war. Needless death, at that.
Worn leather boots stepped carefully between tents, and the rain was but a drizzle now, lightly pattering the leather of his cloak, and the fur-line of his collar. As Roland stepped between those that worked on cleaning up some of the rubble, they stood at attention and saluted with right fists crossed over their hearts. He turned and did the same, although he excused them from having to do so in the first place.
He moved toward the center tent of the encampment, where a set of crates were laid out like a table and a worn map was spread out over it. It was of a vellum, and not updated in some time, but it would do for now. The eastern edge of the Sirantil Valley, was marked with a corked needle, and he saw their position, just on the border of the eastern edge of Falkenrath. The war had taken more than lives, but even that of the wealth and power of nobles. Many were made destitute from trying to fund the war effort, and some were driven out of their homes.
He stepped toward the council of his lieutenants, listening to what they had to say, but saying nothing of his own. Roland looked up and across to Tiberius, an older man, balding, and grizzled; and he carefully measured the distance between one point of land to the next.
Roland tilted his head. "Tiberius. Measuring the distance it will take for our enemies to find us?" he asked sharply.
All the men at the crate-table peered upward, then between Roland and him. Tiberius chuckled. "I'm sorry? Haha, surely you jest."
Roland grinned, leaning against a boulder off to the side. "I think it's rather funny that you think I'm jesting." He chuckled. "You certainly seem to be smiling more. And that ring is rather shiny on your finger."
Tiberius' laugh waned. "My lord, what has my ring got to do with anything?"
"I mean, it's new. And one you seemed to think I'd fail to notice. Tell me, was it worth it? That sack of silver and that heirloom trinket, only given to high ranking members of the nobility. You're certainly not related to any duke, so how do you explain the ring? And consider your answer carefully."
"My lord, Roland, have you gone mad? Are you feeling well? I can't possibly understand what you're talking about?" Tiberius straightened and his hand concealed the fidgeting he was doing, turning the sapphire ring on his finger upside down so as to hide the jewel that reflected in its motion.
"Traitor," Roland pressed, pushing up from the rock. "You thought I didn't know. That you were paid to funnel information about our movements to our enemies." He tread closer to Tiberius, the other man looking at him squarely. "Hudson Quarry. A false lead, and when that patrol showed up, digging themselves in, I knew it was you. There was no one else it could be. Traitorous pig."
Tiberius' eyes were wide, watching Roland as the taller man was stand side-by-side with him now. No one heard him breath, stock still, hesitation and nerve keeping him locked in place. That was until Roland began to laugh, cackling like a mad man, grin stretched ear to ear and he slapped Tiberius on the shoulder. It was a reassuring touch, and the older man visibly relaxed. He even went as far as to grin himself, chuckling nervously as the other men followed suit.
Roland suddenly gripped Tiberius by the shoulder and shoved him down, pulling out the blade at his side swifter than lightning. And like it, Anguish only briefly flashed before being struck down on the man's neck, separating his head from his shoulders. Tiberus suddenly went limp, and the vellum map was stained with the blood from Tiberius' severed head.
Roland pulled the shoulder back and dropped the body to the ground. He bent down and took the ring from his hand and gave it to another of his lieutenants. "Find a use for that. You don't want to end up like him," he murmured, and the others gave way to Roland, as he moved passed them toward the camp's edge.
He watched the trees, as the hill sloped down from where he was. He carefully wiped Anguish's edge clean, resheathing the long sword, and straightening himself. In honesty, he wished it hadn't come to that. Tiberius had been a good man, but even good men could be tempted by coin, and to what end. The man was headless now, and even now being dragged into a hole in the ground.
Roland stepped just into the forest's edge, listening to the sounds of the wild. Until a sound very un'-Wild'-like caught his attention.
