@POOHEAD189@TyrannosaursRex@The Wyrm@Blueskin@Penny@Dusty@BangoSkankAt least a week had passed, it must have, since Gunulf Dickermann of Unterbrochenerweiler had found himself in his current situation of captivity and carelessness. Such were his initial thoughts as he awoke again one overcast evening in the depths of the Reikwald, attempting first to open both his eyes - a feat made nearly impossible by the crusting blood sealing one shut - then immediately wishing to screw shut the one through which he could still perceive the surrounding world. Gunulf had never been a religious man, but his experiences since becoming a prisoner of unholy abominations convinced him that he probably should have been at least a little more pious in his life, the priests of Sigmar constantly telling him that if he continued to be such a slothful glutton that he would end up in exactly this sort of situation. Well, they had been right after all.
Spread out before his itching eye was a hellscape worse than any of the priests could have conjured from their undoubtedly imaginative minds...
The Beastmen had been raiding and looting travellers and travelling caravans for months at this point, capturing any number of Reiklanders and outsiders foolish or foolhardy enough to take this route. Now the lesser number of them, as well as those most recently claimed, were pressed tightly together here at the edge of the herds clearing, singular individuals or entire groups squeezed into makeshift and ramshackle holding cells - commonly crafted most ruggedly from forest materials, they were nevertheless equipped with 'bars' broad enough not to break, and space between them small enough that no man could fit himself through and find their freedom.
Beyond the ugly cages was a vista from the nightmares of Imperial artists, or the mouths of raving lunatics locked within the confines of Frederheim, and Gunulf knew that - in the
extremely small chance of surviving much longer - he would, and could, never forget it in all his days.
Upon the central bonfire of the herd, their herdstone standing tall and erect slightly behind it, illuminated by the never ending conflagration of wood and mortal fat, small shapes that could only have been children were roasted and cooked to the gleeful braying of those cloven devils near and far; being at least dead, for the most part, before the spitting and cooking proceeded. Noticeable at the foot of the herdstone were the grotesque and flayed shapes of those that had no doubt been their parents, friends and so forth, all now mingled together in ritual death to the Dark Gods that the Beastmen worshipped and roared to in a language that hurt Gunulf's ears and made his nose bleed.
Other more terrible things he had seen - Ungor and Gor alike forcing themselves on human women until they were sated, any holy men or women made especial examples of in ways that were as ingenious as they were horrifying, the strongest of the Empire-dwellers being forced to fight one another or a chosen hoofed champion. These, at least, had a quick death given to them.
Gunulf himself had always been a coward, a fat and slow one at that, these seven days alone driving away his sanity and his bodily mass in increments. Now he was no longer Gunulf 'the fat', his belly flesh flopping like an apron inside the faecal and blood encrusted rags he called clothes, nor could he ever be called entirely sane again. Yet he need not die a coward, that at least he could change!
"You...boy." He croaked through cracked lips, his tongue too large in his mouth and his head lanced with pain by every movement.
A boy, no older than his ten-and-third winter, and now no more than a pile of bones with a thin skin covering, turned his emaciated face to the cook. Yes, this boy would never be sane again either, his cheeks hollow and his eyes glassy and wide from seeing things no child should
ever have to see.
"Boy, you
must get to Schartenfeld - you hear me lad?!"
The boy nodded slowly, mouthing the name of the burgh if not speaking it, his tiny hands grasping what remained of his clothing.
"There is a gap... there," said Gunulf as he pointed to a space between the bars, too small for an adult maybe, but not for a hunger-thin child, "go, and then run until you can no longer run! You must get to Schartenfeld, or else more will suffer as we have."
By now Gunulf was intent to die a better man than he had lived, lifting himself to his knees and heading toward the front of the cage, resolving to distract their horned jailer long enough for the boy to escape.
"Ey! You! You are one ugly shit, you know this? I am Gunulf of Unterbrochenerweiler and Sigmar shall know my name! You spawn of daemons, you mating between an ogre and a goat. Oh I do hope I stick in your gullet..."
This went on for some time, Gunulf only glancing back once before he was dispatched to whatever afterlife there was (or was not), a half-smile on his face even as he departed the world; the boy was gone, scurried into the forest and gods-willing on his way to Schartenfeld and retribution.
Thunder clapped across the sky, lightning revealing the face of Davor Arenas for but a moment, the proprietor of the
Ogres Maw tavern spitting a gobbet of pipe-weed and phlegm onto the rough-hewn dirt trail that served as the 'road' in the interior precincts of Schartenfeld.
For quite some time he had been lent in the doorway of his establishment, content to let his wife Rosine see to the regulars and their needs - they were always the same anyway, the Maw courting a reputation that generally kept any new patrons away - his grey eyes searching the sky even as his thin lips puffed at the clay instrument dangling precariously from his mouth.
"Gonna be trouble tonight," he mused to no one but himself, "mark my words."
With a grunt and the first flecks of rain beginning to fall from the heavens he turned away and made his way back inside, not an eye looking his way as he crossed the reed-strewn floor of the spacious common room to the bar. Only his Bretonnian bride gave him a quick glance, in the process of serving a bitter looking local, leading the old skinflint to question once more why such a radiant woman had ever deigned to choose
him as a partner.
"There'll be trouble tonight..." He began with a grimace, "mark your words?" Teased his raven-haired wife jokingly, "yes... mark my words."
Open the heavens did, pouring forth on Schartenfeld and the Maw most liberally, the tavern fortunate enough to have a stout thatched roof with which to protect those within; not so fortunate was the half-naked youth running through the trees toward the
burh of Schartenfeld, and for those that night that would gather at the Maw.
Fortunes would change there as readily as coin changing hands, but for now all was as it should be and the rain kept pouring.
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