[Wildcard]

The morning wore on with the grinding of teeth like a miller's wheel. As the clouds dispersed each fated traveller began to notice the lack of oxygen reaching their lungs. Pulling deeper drags of fresh air, sweat began to collect under the arms and perspirate from the forehead of our guests.. each one here for a different reason. Their own.

Some came to mourn, others to pray.. Some did not know what fate brought their boots to stand atop the deceased, only that they were here. Waiting. For Something.. that tickled the rear of their knecks like the cold breeze.. only it burrowed under the ribcage while trailing up and back down the spine. Was the pressure external or internal? It was not easy to pull the sensation apart from one another.

As if on que, a lone whiney brought scant attention and turned knecks towards the far edge of our set piece. A lone bay mare dotted with white markings rode slowly down the sedimentary slip. It was only after it had passed into clear view that the onlookers could make out a doll like body being dragged along the ground by the stirrups behind. The silouette collided into a granite gorintou, reeling from the impact while grabbing at the ground madly. It's distant welps of pain were so distinct that only the keenest of ears could make out the individual pronounciation. It said Stop over and over.

Rising their eyes to meet the backdrop's horizon, through the blur of red pine and jutting stone, the crowd could make out the pronounced outline of riders clinging to the receding cover of forest. Antlers, skins, heavyset shrouds of bone and paint seemlessly blended into bark and dirt. Shouting a bizarre order, two legion of horsemen eased over the edge of the outcropping and down the dotted hillside chasing their solitary prey. Noticing a pronounced gathering on the far ridge, many of the barbaric figures swayed their mounts towards a new direction.
Running scouts closed in from the flanks, clad in deerskin, fur and the outlandishly beaded weaves of nomads.
To those in the procession that had tasted the savagery of true warfare, this had the taste of conquest in the purity of it's most primal simplicity. You had but only to catch their attentions, and that would be enough to unleash the three headed mongrel's lust for blood. Sitting high on his saddle, a lone broad shouldered beastman point left then right at the mourners.. a massive set of antlers crowned upon his brow.

Laughing, screaming and seething at the mouth, the first eager scouts reached the central valley of the stone cemetery. Upon incline, the whites of their eyes stood out bulging at the seams. They called in the foreign tongues of demons or worse as five berserkers stepped into the sanctity of the service. Chaos and the screams of constricted fear errupted from all sides, sending waves of onlookers down forest paths and running for the cover of a city that was miles beyond hope. These cattle would die here today.

Startled, the dark bird now lifted into the air high above the testament to the End as a new chapter would now be written, using the blood of their enemies in flayed and gruesome skin. Two riders were about to overtake the very gravesite, with a wave of ten following horsemen close at their heels. Flanking from both left and right came eighty bare and soft leather covered feet, while raised in their pumping fists were large curved and hooked swords, obsidian tipped macahuitl, bows, spears, and serrated savage weapons of numerous description.

Bone. Wood. Steel. Iron and Feather.. They came in packs like starving wolves, howling and tearing at flesh, drinking the blood and opening fresh cavities.. Hunger was their ravaging furnace. Wild, stark, glistening, wide eyed hunger. Unquenchable, unfulfilled and breeding total destruction.. The Blood tasted warm and satisfying between their lips.. but it was not.. enough.