Leifnir with Seven Fists’s patrol arrived at the dead city before dawn . One by one, peasants appeared at the fringes of the forrest and surveyed the remains of their city. Houses gutted by fire, wells poisoned with carrion, what had been sheep that the evening were now spread like a thick jam against the long wall of a barn. The hollow men, perhaps no more than a dozen, had swept through the fields, corrupting all they touched, and the stench they left in their wake was that of a hastily abandoned slaughter house, The peasants spoke in hurried whispers, but one name came through again and again: Soulblighter the Twice Born.
Soulblighter. Leifnir knew the name well. The most dangerous of the Fallen Lords. Soulblighter’s cruelty and ambition knew no bounds. Many believe that he is Damas, one of Connacht's lieutenants who, while campaigning in the east, learned how to indefinitely prolong his life with human sacrifices and ritual self mutilation. He has disappeared often into the Untamed Lands, sometimes for years at a time, back to the hidden temple where he first studied the black arts; always returning with something more unspeakably evil or singularly malignant than the time before.
One of Leifner’s men ran toward him. "Our scouts are dead!" the man cried. "Soulblighter is here!"
Kai o Adês akoloupsei met autou:
And Hell followed with him.
