Shallyan Monastary, Wursterberg, early summer, IC2524
Once again he opened his eyes expecting to see the trees, hoping to see them, for that would mean the nightmares had ended. All night long the Graf Edric had watched as his men were butchered, some of them being killed over and over again, which made no sense to him but happened nevertheless. His brave knights, tossed to the ground by their wounded mounts, were set upon by knife-wielding devils in the guise of men, who found every gap between the steel plates in which to slide their razor sharp blades, until blood came gushing out, splattering and splashing and spraying until everything was made crimson.
His foot soldiers stumbled over the ragged ground, one by one slipping and tripping on the tangled roots to be overtaken by the black-garbed horsemen pursuing them, and to have spears thrust so deep through them that the points pierced the ground itself.
And worse, worst of all, he had watched as his battered corpses of his loyal men were dragged into heaps to be burned, but not before their heads had been hacked from their shoulders and stuck like grisly trophies upon sharpened stakes to decorate his own land as if it were a garden in hell.
But there were no trees when he opened his eyes. Instead he saw white washed walls of plaster, and a small, square window through which bright summer’s light poured into the room. He did not know this place. No chamber in his castle of Mortensholm took this form.
Confused he pushed himself up and sat there upon the edge of the bed in a nightshirt (not his nightshirt) and rubbed at his face with both his hands. Suddenly the door opened, startling him so that he flung himself backwards against the wall and scrabbled at his waist for a dagger that was not there.
It was not an assailant who stood at the door, however, but a woman. She was garbed as a sister of mercy, a Shallyan nun, with long flowing robes and a large hood lifted into shape by hoops.
“You are awake, my Lord!” she said, her voice kind and gentle as if she were talking to a child.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, almost warily. “Where am I?”
“You are in Shallya’s house, in the town of Wursterberg.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“To make you well. Do you not remember your fever? Your cries?”
He winced. “I do not care to remember.”
The sister lay down her burden, an earthenware drinking vessel, upon the small trestle table at the foot of the bed.
“I have brought you something to drink. You need to find your body’s strength as well as your spirit’s.”
The Graf looked confused for a moment, breathed deeply as if to steady himself.
“Wursterberg, north of the mountains?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
He realised that he must have been sick, that the dreams were not something that had come only last night, but that they must have assailed him for some considerable time, for he could not recall how he had come to be here. Enough of his old self was recovered, however, for a spark of purpose to be lighted within him. He knew that he must find his way back to Mortensholm. Whether to die there or live there, he knew not, nor whether to save it, avenge it or simply to see it’s ruins. But he must go.
“Clothes,” he ordered, “bring me my clothes.”