The carriage jolted violently as it trundled along the uneven, snow-covered, muddied roads of Tirgunn. Even on the most well-kept passageways of the province, the cobblestones had long since worn thin. Thick ruts inlay in the barren path, the displaced earth marking the trail of a previous vessel. The carriage barreled through the narrow paths woven between towering pines, its wheels kicking up sprays of damp muddled earth and snow.
Within the transport, two figures sat in quietude. A silver-haired, long-retired, Lothar-Knight across from an older gentleman in steward's attire. The Dame's ornate clothes were a woeful contrast to that of the man's. Not only did her attire hold a certain regality, but was marked by a striking deep blue sash adorned in heraldry. Her hands gripping the finely carved blackwood windowsill. She peered through the frosted glass. Her distant woeful gaze remained fixed on a far off scene which she could not yet fathom. Nothing but the greens of pine and white of snow reflected off her hazy blue eyes. Her loyal attendant shifted in his seat on the parallel carriage bench. He steeled himself before endeavoring to pierce the stagnation of their crippling silence.
"Countess we are-"
"Do not dare call me that." She cut him off, her words uncharacteristically violent.
"Cou-" he had begun his utterance again, though paused as Natasha's gaze jolting from the window, meeting his own with a glare.
"My Lady you must accept-" Only for her words to once again cut his utterance, biting the air between them.
"You will not speak again. Lest I cut out your tongue." She nearly snarled, a disgusted, toothy scowl crossing her eyes as she met her steward's gaze.
"That is not my title." She scoffed, shaking her head and averting her gaze back toward the icy woodland just beyond the frosted glass of the carriage's window. Biting her tongue as she mulled over her own words. Her head tilted forward, leaning into the window to see as far as possible, nearly pressed against the glass.
She brought her gloved hand to the glass, letting the cold outside sting her fingertips and palm. A distraction from the weight of the truth that awaited the two. A burden that couldn't be escaped. She was near joyful for the opportunity to feign anger toward her steward as it let her hold back her fears. After a few more minutes of quietude, the orange glow of their destination began revealing itself in the distance. She leaned back into her chair, cupping her own gloved hand over her eyes, her fingers pressing into her temples like a vice grip. But she choked them down. There was no room for them to fall. She just had to come to terms with it.
Time carried forth further as the carriage creaked on, smooth riding occasionally broken by a brief rhythmic jolt of the wheels, a maddening contrast to the violent silence that hung between the two. Her attendant's eyes flickered between her and the window. Her hands moved back down into her lap as she sat up straight. The ornate silken gloves interwoven.
She murmured to herself softly in Letz, a raggedy echoing of a begotten family mantra, hope is all she had. But it wasn't enough.
"My Lady," her steward's gruff voice finally broke through the depths of his fear, although softer now than ever before, "We are nearly there."
"Who was in the carriage?" she hissed out.
"Your son the Count, the Countess-" he hesitated to finish the list "And the young heirs Skalena and Otto."
She didn't give further response, simply pinching the silk of one of her gloves between her thumb and forefinger. Her hands were knitted as she looked back out the window. Her eyes transfixed on the faint light ahead, still distant but undeniable.
Several minutes passed before the carriage groaned to a halt. The sound like the final, agonized exhale of a dying beast. Natasha didn't wait for the steward to help her down. Her boots hit the ground with a sickening thud, the weight of the moment settling in as she stood before the nightmare she'd only imagined facing. The air reeked of blood, ash, and the unmistakable scent of death.
Before her rested the charred remains of a battle long lost. A blood-muddied clearing where pine had been burnt to ash; rows of stumps laying barren amongst the crimson tainted snow. Further down the road an overturned smoldering carriage lay in ruin. That which had been carrying her kin. Vampiric corpses in the dozens being hauled into a pyre on the road by a platoon of Darkwald knights in company of a gaggle of vun Vera retainers, operating a blacksteal steam automata.
Natasha's gaze locked onto the cornucopia of her grief, wherein her family laid. Her fallen son and his wife. Amelia sat cradled in the arms of her husband, his greataxe planted in the mud next to them. He was on his knees, head pressed downward to his beloved.
The Count's body lay still. Blood oozing from the dozen or so arrows impaled in his back. He was breathing. Labored short winded breaths, he clutched onto the Countess. Her eyes shut tight as if she had all but fallen into a peaceful slumber. Though, the pallor of her skin, the contorted unnatural angle of her neck, painted a different image.
This wasn't sleep. This was death. Brutal. Unforgiving.
Natasha looked onward at the scene, she had expected to find her family lying in state, simply to be identified. Not a fresh battlefield. She paced unsteadily toward the pair. Eyes caught on the lifeless vessel that was once her daughter in law. Panning up to her still breathing son. A twinkle of hope that he may yet live, her hand reached forward in the air, still a good few meters away, she paused at the unnatural scene.
"What the fuck is this?" She hissed out.
A nearby knight paused as they tended the fires "We were instructed to not approach incase of infection."
Natasha's eyes tore away from the knight that had addressed her, appraising her son's condition.
His short auburn hair was matted with blood and dirt. His tears fell silently, mingling with his wife's blood; his sobs croaking out in a choked slurry from his throat, a guttural rasp, his hands trembling in helpless reverence for the woman he had lost.
Hearing his mother's voice, his gaze shifted toward her. Breath hitching as she came into view. Reverie filled his eyes. They reached for her. A faint, bittersweet smile touched his lips, but it faltered, pained, as the weight of the moment crushed him. He opened his mouth to speak, voice ringing out low- the inklings of a thought coming to form.
"We'll see you on the steps- please don't—"
His voice cracked, fading to a susurrus. His breath faltered, as if the world itself had begun to slip away. The words dissolved in the stillness, and he turned back, clutching the only thing he had left. His final breath came in a soft exhale, curling gently into the cold air. All that was left behind was the long begotten dregs of silence. He toppled forward as death took him from the world.
Natasha felt something colder than sorrow. The fear buried deep within her began to stir, an undercurrent that, until now, had been contained by her carefully constructed facade of control built upon her family's deaths being but a dreadful concept, rather than the devastating reality.
She looked away from the broken scene, scanning the wreckage of the overturned carriage that sat down the road. Her family's emblem had been scorched, the carriage still engulfed in flames. Her fingers twitched, but she didn't move. There was nothing here for her to mourn-not yet. Not until she knew who had done this. Who had torn her life asunder. Who had forced her return to a title she never wished to behold.
A barren whisper dryly crept from her throat.
"Where are my grandchildren?"
The field froze, darkwald held still as their tricorn's forward tip swiveled to face the woman. A long moment passed, the only sound that of the crackling flame and the winds rustling the trees, utter silence.
"Where are my grandchildren!" This time the phrase leapt from her throat the embodied echo of her whisper.
A single knight approached Natasha, measured steps marching through the bloodied earth.
"Where are they!"
The woman in front of her simply gestured to the smoldering wreck.
Her expression and vocal tone hidden behind the Darkwald's cowl they wore to hold at bay the stench of death.
"One cadaver was found within the carriage."
Natasha stood frozen staring at the knight as the words fell away. Her eyes flickering with a dread that did not reach her face. "One?"
"We have found small footsteps leading away from the scene through the snow. Though it seems they were followed."
The newly ordained countess sat with the words. She grit her teeth, pressing one gloved hand into the other.
"How long has it been?"
"But a few hours my Lady."
She tightened her grasp, thoughts lingering on her own frozen breath. The chill on her cheeks, broken as a single tear trickled down. She swallowed, dry.
"She is gone."
The countess turned, approaching the smoldering wreck of the carriage. Her heart was pounding with unending grief. She swallowed it down once more. Stealing her nerves. She turned to face the dozen or so knights and retainers which hung on her words.
"Prepare them for burial," she ordered flatly, her voice carrying a chill as she stepped away from the burning carriage. The words seemed to echo in the dead air around her, a command that would not be disobeyed.
"This is- is this what we've become?" she whispered to herself, eyes narrowing. "Ashes."
"We leave at once," she ordered, her voice barely a tremor beneath the sharp edges. "This place is no longer ours."
Her steward nodded, though his eyes lingered on her for a moment, concern flickering in his gaze.
"My lady, the Sanguine–"
"Gone." Natasha interrupted, standing tall and meeting his eyes with a cold fury. "But they will not be for long."
"Everyone back into the caravan. We take our exit. Bring the bodies." She stepped back, her eyes sweeping the blood-soaked earth, a dark determination settling over her. "All information regarding this shall be sent across the Count's-" She paused, biting her cheek."Across my desk. I will handle the report." With that the Darkwald platoon moved to depart, boarding the carriages by which they came.
She was left with her retainers, standing awaiting an order. She pointed to the gaggle, waving her hand in a wordless gesture, they moved to salvage what they could. All but one. The hulking blacksteel automata sat still.
"R-4" Its joints hissed as its neck swiveled to view her. "New directive, recover the missing body from the pine. Red hair, white streak."
Just as that final order was uttered, so did she turn away, pacing toward her carriage as the mech obeyed. The hiss of steam pouring in a waft from its mechanisms, pushing back the smell of death, an unintentional reprieve, before it trudged onward into the woodland. Heavy steps crunching in the snow. She stepped into her carriage with a huff, removing her spectacles from a compartment at her side. There was still more to be done, more to understand.
In the deepest pieces of her mind, the whispers of vengeance began to stir.
Incident Report
Date of Incident: JANUARY FOURTH, 300 AD
Location: Three clicks east of the citadel hold
Victim Information:
- Name: Count, Ser Nikola vun Vera III, Zielen of Brücke
Date of Birth: May Twentieth, 266 AD
Age: Thirty-Four.
Relation: Father, Husband, Head of House.
Cause of Death: Blunt Force Trauma, Laceration, Bleeding. See Coronary report for further. - Name: Countess, Dame Amelia vun Vera
Date of Birth: August Fourth, 268 AD
Age: Thirty-Two.
Relation: Mother
Cause of Death: Lacerations, Burns, Feeding Marks, Combat. See Coronary report for further. - Name: Otfried vun Vera
Date of Birth: July Ninth, 295 AD
Age: Seven.
Relation: Son, Brother.
Cause of Death: Immolation. See Coronary report for further. - Name: Skalena vun Vera
Date of Birth: January First, 290 AD
Age: Ten.
Relation: Daughter, Heir to house.
Cause of Death: MIA
Incident Report || Filed 1/5/300 || 9:22AM
On the night of the 4th of January, in the year 300, the vun Vera family, of House vun Vera, fell victim to a brutal ambush by an unknown, greater vampiric or occult presence while traveling via caravan. The incident occurred within the heavily wooded area near due south of their primary residence on a return trip from a vacation home.
Preliminary evidence at the scene indicates a highly coordinated attack, corpses are also highly consistent with vampiric or occult forces, more to be learned during examination. The caravan was found severely damaged, completely scorched, toppled over with the horses guiding it gutted. Strange symbology was found etched into the surrounding ground, alongside on the inner haft of the wheel. There was no sign of material theft, suggesting the attackers were not after valuables but were instead motivated by more sinister, likely ritualistic, intentions.
The Von Vera family, consisting of Nikola vun Vera III, Dame Amelia vun Vera, Otfried vun Vera, and Skalena vun Vera, were all discovered (?) deceased at the scene. Initial observations indicate that the cause of death was varied amongst victims, the one identified (pending) as Otto based upon signet was scorched beyond all recognition and retrieved from the burning wreckage. The mother and father were plagued by what looks to be massive blood loss, puncture wounds consistent with vampiric feeding, and signs of violent struggle. Defensive wounds and the sheer number of corpses suggest that the Count and Countess fought valiantly against the oncoming forces. For more details, seek a coronary report.
At this time, local Darkwald have been jettisoned from within the chapterhouses, and actors of the house work in tandem, to pursue leads to identify the assailants and uncover the dark forces at play. Residents of nearby settlements and chapterhouses are urged to be on high alert for any signs of similar activity after such a high profile operation on the part of the Sanguine any and all reports of unusual behavior are to be actively investigated. The untimely loss of the vun Vera family marks a stark reminder of the ongoing danger posed by occult entities in the region. Title shall be passed back to the former countess Natasha vun Vera, as per will and testament of her once family.
Glory to the Empire,
Acting lead investigator;
Countess, Dame Natasha vun Vera, Zielen vun Brücke
|| The document is stained with tears at the bottom.
Responding Agency:
Lothar Order. Darkwald chapter.
Investigator(s):
Dame Natasha vun Vera
Case Number:
300 AD - 205-B
Attachments:
Coronary report, sketches, evidence packets, ash to be analyzed.
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