Claude was never a particularly talented member of the Carnet family, nor was he particularly driven. Being the youngest of all the children didn’t help matters. Throughout his years at school, he maintained perfectly average and passable scores in all of his classes. It was strange, then, that by his final year in school, he had become one of the top duelists in his class. Stranger still was that he had been chosen for their Lord’s ranks. It was a dream come true, so he had been told. His family would have been proud. He wasn’t so sure. After all, he couldn’t remember much about them to begin with.
What he did remember was excitement (fear?) when he was taken to an old building (prison, it had seemed at the time, but that couldn’t be right) by people he didn’t know. He remembered being bound, for his own safety, so that they could look in his head, just to make sure that he was the right person to join them. He’d had nothing to hide. It was wonderful how happy that made everyone else.
“This is going to pinch,” the woman had said when it came time to gain his mark. She worked their Lord himself, she had told him. He would only be working for her, but it was a start. The mark would let everyone see how faithful he was to their Lord. How proud he should be, being bound to such great wizards.
It didn’t pinch.
It burned.
Despite all of the praise he received, there wasn’t much use for him those first few weeks. When he wasn’t doing simple chores, he was told to keep himself busy and out of senior members’ hair. As eager as he was to be useful, he couldn’t have been too upset. Now that he was accepted as one of them, he could read books and tomes the likes of which he’d never seen before. It was thanks to them that he finally found his place among their ranks, and eventually, he was granted his first mission, and the opportunity to test his new abilities in the field.
It was after nightfall when they emerged from the trees. An army ambled together, led by wisps of smoke and light that faded in and out of existence, and him, covered by hood and mask. Before them laid dozens of tents, pitched low, covered in peat and moss, hidden in the shadows of gentle hills. The night was quiet, the sky clear of both clouds and moon. Everywhere the breeze went, it carried with it a new scent. The wet of mud and muck. Patches of heather after bloom. Smoldering bonfires and the faint remnants of supper. The cast of rot. Across the moor, a thousand stars shot into the sky, shining an emerald light down upon the encampment. They split and scattered, a miasma twisting into itself, keening for a form of its own. He stared, countless bodies without breath, without pulse, stopping around him, skin creaking tight against their bones. Hollow eyes stared back, screaming, a serpent retched from fleshless jaws. He wasn't the one to cast the spell, but he knew the mark. Figures emerged one after the other from clusters of tents to gaze upon the face of the heavens. Some looked toward small, flickering lights, and the man they illuminated.
When the first scream rang out, splintering the calm of it all, his horde charged, tearing through the brush and past their master. Slow, bloated corpses were trampled by their emaciated brethren. Foggy creatures solidified, hurling balls of fire down on the camp. All were heedless of their allies with the gift before them. Blood. Destruction. Terror.
Spellfire shot through the air, across the grounds, from every living person in sight. The darkness of night was no more. Flames raced through the grasses, the colors of war painting the moor. These witches and wizards were no strangers to battle, but the creatures attacking them now were horrors most never suffered to see. Nothing less than total destruction could stop them. His soldiers were perfection, stronger than any man, unfeeling of fear or pain or confusion. Their numbers fell to the fires, but a lift of his wand and they rose again, joined by those who had perished beneath that empty green gaze. No amount of light or warmth could keep the hunger at bay. More and more fled the camp, yet were stopped at every turn by his creatures, by his allies, by the very magic they had tried to save themselves with. He watched as sparks of spells huddled together, trapped between their burning refuge and his wall of defences.
He watched those sparks smother.
Panic mounted, bodies fell.
Corpses rose.
All was consumed.
Less than a week had passed when he was invited to the hall. It was the very same building in which he had been accepted, and one which he rarely had reason to return to. One of the men that had joined the mission met him as soon as he entered the hall, his own cloak and boots covered in long dried filth, hair greasy and bunched where his mask sat at the side of his head. "Morning, Kinlan."
"Evenin'." The man had a pleasant voice that didn't suit his heavy, pompous features. "Bloody hell, not one for good impressions, are you, Carnet?"
"Evening, Kinlan."
"Right. We've got some new dolls for you down below." The man pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. Offering only a nod, Claude strolled past him to a spiral staircase, leaving flecks of grime upon the floor with every movement. It didn't take long to hear footsteps following him. "We caught them trying to break the lines while you were doing your... Anyhow, thought they'd be just your type."
He almost asked what his type meant when he pushed open a stained wood and iron door. Inside was the dungeon, a dank and unpleasant room with three cells lined along the far wall. In the center was two men, immobilized by some spell or another, and hovering a few inches off of the ground. Both bore hair as black as any hair could be, with unshaven faces and pasty skin that spoke of more than just a few days kept out of the sun. Likewise, they both held peculiar expressions that he didn't quite understand, though it seemed that the older of the two was more horrified, while the other was merely sad. After a pause, he stepped closer, circling the pair before stopping in front of them. "Evening."
"Claude." It was the older that spoke. "What have they done to you?"
"Pa." The younger. "Please. Don't."
The older man's attention only turned to Kinlan, lingering just inside the doorway. "What have you made him do?"
"Pa. Please."
"I have a right to know, and so do you!"
"Do I know you?" Claude asked, tilting his head as he leaned closer to the pair. Amber eyes met his, and neither spoke, something odd twisting in the older man's features, as if a wound that Claude couldn't see was hurting him. Only the younger of the prisoners noticed Kinlan moving from the door, his sorrow ever growing. "Do you know me?"
"Yes. Yes, Claude, you have to-" He didn't hear the spell that sliced through the man's neck, splattering him and the remaining prisoner in the wet smell of tin and iron.
Standing straight, he looked towards Kinlan, who had his wand out, already pointed at the younger, and returned the look. Claude shook his head and turned his attention back to the other man. He looked distinctly ill, and though he was quiet, appeared to be crying. "Do I know you?"
It took a moment for any reply to come. "No. It's okay. It's alright now. I know you tried."
His death was as quick as the first.
For far too long, Kinlan watched him, just as he watched the bodies float in place. Then, he reached into his sleeve, pulling out his wand. "Do you mind?" The man looked satisfied as he pointed his wand, sending the pair crashing to the floor in an undignified heap. Claude glanced down at his freshly soaked boots, then shook his head. These ones he would take home with them. They were more interesting than the others.