@VitaVitaAR@ghastlyIncAs the ranks dispersed through the field to begin a thorough examination of the corpses, a rough sound seeming caught at the halfway point between a growl and a sigh loosed from the rear, a somewhat miffed, deflated swordsman approaching the fore to investigate a corpse near the Captain. His face was still a more or less serious knot of furrowed brow and stern lines, especially near the jaw, but the inimical fire behind his eyes had receded greatly.
"Not to overstep rank and dole out orders, Captain," he grunted as he turned over the corpse of a fighter that had been blown aside by a force great enough to invert his elbow joints.
"But it's best you just let it roll off your back for now. Mercenaries are all like that. Especially the leaders. Builds trust within the unit."Alette the Shark. That recontextualized essentially their entire encounter. Hailing from the North, her band had campaigned multiple times in Velt and Estival as well as the nation the Roses called home— consequently, there was a significant overlap in "stomping grounds" between them and the company he'd been picked up by. He'd never had the dubious pleasure of seeing the Shark in person, but he knew her well from the perspective of a professional rival— or perhaps more accurately, as someone under the employ of one.
Wasn't like I was the leader out on recruitment drive or negotiating contracts against her, after all..
Just one of The Faceless.It was clear enough that her reputation's preceding her was some measure of mark towards character— completely untrustworthy scum didn't last terribly long on the field, nor as a unit. Warfare was their business first and foremost: to join a band like hers or his meant that the enlisted troops trusted them to get food into their bellies. As such, leaders needed certain qualities to hope for any success in bolstering their ranks.
Martial prowess was always beneficial. One wouldn't be remiss to call it the rule in a mercenary band, and Alette had plenty at her disposal— the crimson lance she toted was almost as revelrous in battle as she, and her storied agility made delivering its (supposedly) accursed, lifestealing strike all too easy against a long, long list of enemy combatants. Clearly, she had strength covered, but it was a foolhardy soldier of fortune to ignore her aura as a leader.
Was she successful?
Was she dependable?
Was she on the side of her employers, or her soldiers?
Your life was on the line when you made that choice. You were no patriot, nor champion, nor revolutionary. The question was whether you would be risking your life for the sake of your comrades, or whether you would be reduced to a simple pawn. That she had enjoyed continual success over the years meant she definitely needed to be doing something right on that front, near as he could tell.
The smell of dried blood, the clanking of armor as his comrades shifted bodies to uncover boar tattoos similar to the one he found himself staring at, the air thickening with the gloom and tension of recent, massed death... His body knew it all well. Before Candaeln, this was the scene of home— the field of a battle, recently concluded. Many comrades dead at his feet, alongside many of the enemy, known or otherwise.
His intra-company unit was what they called a "forlorn hope" in Thaln— a corruption of the words for "lost troop" found in most military manuals. Those amongst the wider company who held the unenviable role in the battlefield of vanguard— on the front of the lines and the very first to clash with enemy ranks. Those that threw themselves into the meat grinder to gain a toehold the rest of the troops could utilize and fall in behind to reinforce. Increased pay for increased risk— so it usually went.
High mortality rates, even given the company captain's disciplined and measured leadership informing the tactics of their deployment. Legend amongst those that survived along side him, the veterans that had brought him up into their ranks, said that the
black leather masks the company wore into battle originally were only issued to the Forlorn, then disseminating out into the entirety of the enlisted ranks as their Captain's career continued.
They said he meant to foster the boldness of the Forlorn into the whole of the company, increasing uniformity and cohesion within his troops. Emulating the archetypal
Doppelsöldner en masse in this manner quickly became the calling card of The Black Regiment, leading to another moniker altogether being bestowed upon them.
And it always concluded that we actually became "Franz's Faceless" so we cared less about living and dying as a result.At his end, he wasn't convinced he had been on the right side of the "loyal comrade" and "unwitting pawn" equation. Perhaps he would have been better served, if he had the luxury of shopping around, in a group like Alette's. If he remembered correctly, her band had a higher focus on singular, quality troops— in the league of a less scrupulous adventuring group as opposed to his company's larger masses of rank-and file, militaristic regimentation. It was entirely likely that she, for all her universally attested brutality, had built her band upon more personal connection than that.
Things may have been so.
They may also have not.
He couldn't take any of it back now, and as a Rose, he knew where he stood. The present served to be the morning he'd trudged through that hell in the past for. He was dwelling on the latter rather than focused on the former. Enough. The soldier he'd inspected had indeed bore the same tattoo the others had reported upon the fresher bodies— a boar with burning eyes, and gilded tusks growing from its jaw. That...
That could have been coincidental.
"Sir Gillian." he said in greeting as he approached after a moment, dropping to a knee to closer inspect the body the Reliquary had casually kicked aside while striking up conversation with Alette.
"Marking on this one too? Ah. There it is. Swear I've seen it somewhere..."He didn't wait for an answer— the ink was the same. Gold tusks and red eyes... The men around him all reported likewise. No mistaking it: these men were The Golden Boars. Among the most unscrupulous companies on the market today, they typically garbed themselves in purple and gold coloring as uniform, but even during covert operations, those tattoos served to brand their allegiance into their skin. A lifelong employment, where duties sank so low they reached the flames of hell. Unfortunately, there was no way out of facing the fire— deserters would get sent there personally by their brethren's swords.
"They're more mercenaries, Captain! I recognize the brand!" he barked immediately upon confirming the second brand upon the neck of the fallen sellsword, voice clipped and pointedly professional above his mounting confusion.
"She's not lying about 'em."His sword was still in hand as he did so, something he was sure any present wouldn't fail to notice, but so long as he'd not raised it to her he doubted Alette would quite take it as picking a fight. To enjoy and welcome battle was one thing, but he was hard pressed to imagine her to particularly appreciate her chances against this contingent of well-equipped knights by her lonesome.
She had a point in reminding her captain of that.
However, since they'd determined the cause was an enemy group of mercenaries, ones that had no qualms getting their hands as dirty as they needed, it raised its own share of questions.
"Now that we've figured that out," he intently into their conversation this time, releasing his left hand's grip upon the collar of the fallen body. His tension had not yet left him— the setting didn't allow for it. Nor did his trust in her. Now he knew who she was and who the men she had killed were, more or less. But the image was still woefully incomplete, especially if this would amount to the entirety of the answers they could get from the pigtailed spearwoman.
Firstly, this couldn't be the full battlefield. There were important people missing.
"Where'd you send the rest of your cohort? They dealing with whatever brought the Boars here further in while you greet us at the gates?"His amber gaze searched her face openly, his speech reverted to the gruffer, direct tones of his former profession. The messenger making it here, the timing of this scene, the lack of a protracted siege to cause it, the older bodies of the soldiers suggesting them to have turned upon eachother with staggering uniformity— what on earth
was this? Had they walked into a ritual suicide's aftermath? How had the Boars managed and infiltration of this scale? Had they done so under orders of some client? Were they deserters?
Did you really come here because things looked off, or because these men were marked for death by their Condottieri?As much clarity as could be lent to the picture, the knights needed. Even if she didn't have the full scope of things, hers was still a damn sight more complete than theirs.
"I'd have figured you and that spear of yours to be at the center of the action." 
