80th of Ymiden, Arc 717
The Horde washed over everything. All of the surrounding cities, towns -- they razed them, captured them, slaughtered the majority of their civilians and subjugated the rest. The Horde would move into these cities - Lothar would enter them as their overlords, a military class demanding tribute and credence. This was the cold sheerness of war -- and though the Lotharro had tolerance in their hearts, brutality and aggression was built into their blood and bones. They were born from brutality, and they so often died from it.
Among the vast corpses of the fallen citizens of Argos and her surrounding towns, the mage found nothing but a loathsome darkness. He had never imagined the Horde to be so ruthless in its devastation -- there were dead children laying about, for God's sake.
It occurred to him, then, that he'd never experienced a real war. He participated in the siege of Andaris, leading a large swathe of Venora's military. But - this was not comparable in the least to then, as that was a battle in which the defender won, and the enemy army wavered and dispersed. He did not witness, on that night, a mass rape... or the violence of the aggressors, who had been anticipating naught but the decimation of the city and its people.
He remembered something important. Those who did not surrender invited absolute destruction upon themselves, and -- quite obviously -- absolute meant absolute. The property of the fallen would be taken, and so too would they; rape, slavery, execution, these things did not escape the minds of an invading force. Perhaps the Clans of Gauthrel did not advocate for slavery, but that only meant more and more death. They would not tolerate a divided society, and in the effectiveness of their invasion had determined to wipe out the majority of the inhabitants of these lands.
Those who were not culled were used, whether in the moment or on a longer and more patient spectrum. There were wagons piling in through the city to ship off their children elsewhere, though he did not know their coming destination. The girls would likely be used as little more than objects of reproduction, and the boys hard laborers until their last breath. While the Horde did not advocate for slavery, it had no such hesitation in abusing workers and underpaying those who could not -- comparatively to the Lotharen elite -- pull their weight.
It was all such madness. He could see it from miles away, and even from along the cliffs - the people running the road with nothing but their shirts on their backs, being mowed down like nothing, arrows ripping through their bodies at the hands of Lotharen riders seated atop Scython and Drexion -- even Llewnos.
It really was the end of Argos. What did that mean, then, for an ambitious man seeking always to further his cause? Was this a moment to get lost in the madness, or to scamper away from its maw?
The Horde washed over everything. All of the surrounding cities, towns -- they razed them, captured them, slaughtered the majority of their civilians and subjugated the rest. The Horde would move into these cities - Lothar would enter them as their overlords, a military class demanding tribute and credence. This was the cold sheerness of war -- and though the Lotharro had tolerance in their hearts, brutality and aggression was built into their blood and bones. They were born from brutality, and they so often died from it.
Among the vast corpses of the fallen citizens of Argos and her surrounding towns, the mage found nothing but a loathsome darkness. He had never imagined the Horde to be so ruthless in its devastation -- there were dead children laying about, for God's sake.
It occurred to him, then, that he'd never experienced a real war. He participated in the siege of Andaris, leading a large swathe of Venora's military. But - this was not comparable in the least to then, as that was a battle in which the defender won, and the enemy army wavered and dispersed. He did not witness, on that night, a mass rape... or the violence of the aggressors, who had been anticipating naught but the decimation of the city and its people.
He remembered something important. Those who did not surrender invited absolute destruction upon themselves, and -- quite obviously -- absolute meant absolute. The property of the fallen would be taken, and so too would they; rape, slavery, execution, these things did not escape the minds of an invading force. Perhaps the Clans of Gauthrel did not advocate for slavery, but that only meant more and more death. They would not tolerate a divided society, and in the effectiveness of their invasion had determined to wipe out the majority of the inhabitants of these lands.
Those who were not culled were used, whether in the moment or on a longer and more patient spectrum. There were wagons piling in through the city to ship off their children elsewhere, though he did not know their coming destination. The girls would likely be used as little more than objects of reproduction, and the boys hard laborers until their last breath. While the Horde did not advocate for slavery, it had no such hesitation in abusing workers and underpaying those who could not -- comparatively to the Lotharen elite -- pull their weight.
It was all such madness. He could see it from miles away, and even from along the cliffs - the people running the road with nothing but their shirts on their backs, being mowed down like nothing, arrows ripping through their bodies at the hands of Lotharen riders seated atop Scython and Drexion -- even Llewnos.
It really was the end of Argos. What did that mean, then, for an ambitious man seeking always to further his cause? Was this a moment to get lost in the madness, or to scamper away from its maw?
