Northeastern Tribal Camps

It was a retaliation threefold, perhaps even more just as the Imperials promised. They did not need a banshee queen, or demons. They had faith, steel and technology. First they enlisted the aid of many local Hunters and such, giving these dead-eyes some proper military crossbows rather than the shoddy things they used for game. These men waited for the horse patrols, stalking them like any other prey, a method new but necessary to the Vessians. They ended each one, and then made the signal to their comrades that all was clear. Without people to warn the villages they were little more the defenceless, the few Guards swiftly falling to bolts coming from so far they would barely have seen the shooters if they were looking directly at them. 

The Soldiers went in and killed all indiscriminately. They did not leave one to even tell the tale. Most did not even know of the death coming to them, being split apart whilst dormant in their beds. The soldiers seemed to have more than just revenge in mind, they attacked the people even after they were dead leaving little more than a pile of bone meal, ichor, and innards in the centre of each settlement. In the few that had gates however, the corpses and such were rigged to tarps that would drop upon the entrance being opened, for great fear value upon those who came to see what happened. They did not touch the animals and such however, to make it from a distance sound and perhaps even appear as though all was relatively normal. They left shortly after, smug and covered in gore. 

It was in the one furthest to the East that Gunther's father took him. The lad had turned fifteen recently and Lord die Kraftig thought it was the perfect time to teach his son the martial ways. Gunther did not mind fighting the Guards and Warriors about; they had chosen their path and received the death they wished for. But something was unnerving in the killing of the people,  about the slaughter of those who could not or did not fight back. When he went within he was horrified when he saw his butler, a man he saw as gentle and kind hook the leg of a running woman to get her to fall and then drive his axe into her head with a chuckle. He backed off, looking for some fresh air only to see his very father skewer a boy a few years younger than him upon his Lance. His father turned to him hearing the boy gasp. "Come on son, don't be a coward, take their pathetic lives!" He exclaimed, riding up to him. "But father... these people, they're just ordinary working folk!" Without hesitation has father responded. "Have you not heard what they did to one of our villages?" Gunther had heard, but he also knew that some were left alive. "But father, they did not murder all of our kin so mercilessly, and surely we must be better than them?" He pleaded. Lord Kraftig would have none of it and put his demand forth. "Precisely. We are better, so we shall exterminate them. Now, that one struggling, right there him. End it." He said, pointing to a man crawling away with one of his legs gone. Gunther trembled a little, looking between him and his father. He could not stand under that glare, and faltered. He approached the person and carefully drove his sword into his heart, and stood back looking at what he did. His father nodded and rode off, barking orders. 

The lad stood over the corpses, thinking over what he did and what was being done around him. He decided he could take no more and ran. He was encumbered, too preoccupied to even notice the weapons and armour still upon him. He could barely breath reaching a thicker grassland and then woods in but a few minutes. He eventually collapsed in a drift of snow, frightened at everything, and ready to accept his death of cold and exhaustion. He may still have been able to move, but at this point he did not want to and simply closed his eyes, waiting. 

Gunther was much too tired too protest and was going in and out of consciousness every few moments. When brought before the warrior Queen he looked up, and then let his head sink. He knew it was probably a gutting for him, but at this point he could not care. He was tired, disoriented and now apathetic. 

In a few places with various organs and blood it would be drawn "sanguinis pro sanguine" which she would most likely figure out. She would find that whoever came did not face much resistance; be it thanks to grand numbers or arrival when all were sleeping it was uncertain. Wherever he was brought to he would sleep for a long time, thinking that he would not wake up. 

It was quite often that Gunther's father had awoken him in such a manner to "give the lad a spine" so he rose in a rather practised and smooth manner, moving to get off of his bed; until legs that were supposed to flop off the bed onto the floor remained on top of wood of the cart. He realised that he was not in the silk sleepwear he went to sleep in when in the manor but in thicker and much less noble clothes. His movement was also restricted it seemed. Finally the words of the girl hand sunk into his head. Imperial. In the Empire all knew who they were so he clearly was not in the domain of the loyal tribes, so he was "behind enemy lines." He brushed his blond hair from his eyes, let free without any maintenance. He was surprised that the girl could speak the common tongue however. He was told that the people of the East spoke a mad tongue of clicks hisses and slurs. 

He finally sat upright, his knees tucked in while his tied hands went to his chest. Covering his torso with limbs would not protect him but a silly instinct was kicking in and he was too frightened to do anything about it. The boy cleared his throat if only at first to hide the whimper. "What are you going to do to me?" he asked, almost certain it was to include vengeance of a very nasty kind. He got the odd feeling that these people did not have a concept of ransom, at least not when dealing with Vessians. As he was more and more awake he looked about, wondering where the cart was and where it was going. The closest to a cart he had ever been in was a coach. 

The girl's grin was quick and spoke of mercilessness. "It's not what I'm going to do to you..." the blonde warrioress spoke, before her attention was caught by someone calling her name. She looked over her shoulder, her hand coming to rest on the throwing ax at her belt.

A smile turned her lips when she recognized the other blonde girl who came up to her side. Dagmar spoke in the Barbarian language, so Eydis did as well. "We're not meant to kill him," Eydis said conversationally back to Dagmar. "Mother plans on torturing him for information, I think. To learn how it was that the village was raped and pillaged."

Dagmar giggled at the way the boy seemed scared, at the way he recoiled like he was a tiny babe and not a man fully grown. "He's so strange," she said about him, and then paused to listen to him speak. She barely understood what he said, and it was more the tone of his words that gave context as to what they could mean.

"Perhaps he's not a boy," she said with sudden curiosity and insight. "Perhaps just a girl with his hair cut short?" The maiden fair was still speaking in the Barbarian tongue. "Do you know for sure that he is a boy? It would be terrible to torture a woman to death. The Gods would never forgive you, you know." She said this to Eydis, having dismissed Gunther entirely.

Gunther yelped when Aun tugged at his legs. He heard barbarians cared not if it was a woman or a man they ravished, and that seemed to be corroborated by the words of the blonde girl who said he should be scared of what they will do to him. When the man raised his axe he closed his eyes thinking that instead he would be killed and accepted his fate; he had done enough to more or less deserve it and he was a warrior anyway. 

He was quite surprised to open his eyes and see his body intact and felt himself over just to make sure. The boy stood and cautiously walked the same way Aun pushed him, occasionally going on his tip-toes to be higher and see where and to who he was being lead.