Entering the town.

The fighting dies down, and it's quickly relayed to you, and everyone else in the camp, that the town has been taken with few casualties. Chances are, the Deanian morale never quite recovered from the sudden and unexpected destruction of the town gate.

Flanked on all sides by your men, you risk venturing inside. As ever, when Deanians occupy a Beathan settlement, the results are not pretty. Everywhere you look you see butchered villagers, distinguishable from the fallen in today's skirmish by the rot that's set in.

The raiders have saved their most macabre display for the shrine in the town centre. The stone monument to the Spirits has been pushed over and shattered. The attendents, humble people in simple robes, have been brutalised, their throats cut and left to bleed out in view of their guardians, albeit not before suffering... indignities.

Bodies, stripped naked, have been hung from the tiled roof of the shrine, suspended by their ankles from thick, sturdy ropes, the very same kind, you recall from experience, the Deanians use on their longships.

You stand there, grimly taking in the carnage, glad of the **** in your bloodstream, softening the horror of it all. A few minutes later, you hear a bustle of activity. Kara approaches from the fortress, Solla and Sritti at her heels, shoving a balding, older man ahead of her.

“Look at what you did.” Kara says indignantly, pointing at the shrine. “Look at what you did tae your own people.”

The middle-aged man wears Deanian furs, runic jewelry, but the red in his beard, his accent when he speaks, mark him out as Beathan.

“The raiders did this! I never wanted fae this to happen, Your Grace, please-” the man says, looking on in horror at the desecration before him.

“You opened the gates. D'ye deny that?” Kara asks plainly.

“No! But... the raiders were so many in number, and you were in the east, weeks away. If I had held out, they would've slaughtered the lot of us. Better that some lived, instead of none, aye?”

“Not only did you live, it seems you prospered. Grew fat, wealthy.” Solla interjects. The Southern woman's contempt for this man is clear.

“Who is this man?” you ask.

“The headman of Blahem.” Kara says icily. “When Hjordis' forces approached, he capitulated.”

“I had ****, Grace!” he exclaims. “I beg you, show mercy!”

“You'll receive as much mercy as the people in your charge did.” Kara says, reaching for her axe, the beard still drenched in blood.

“No!” the headman says, panicking. He makes to flee, but Kara personally wrests him down. Overpowering him, she has two of her men hold his arms back.

“May the Spirits forgive you.” Kara says, with a certain venom you've not heard in her voice before. “Few so callously waste the life they bestow upon us.”

Lifting the blubbering traitor's head up, Kara readies her axe, and opens his throat with one quick, practiced movement. The headman thrashes on his knees, spurting his lifeblood out at the princess' feet, before slumping down.

Kara looks from the dead man to her axe with a certain weary disdain, before collecting herself.

“Get those bodies down. I want every last one buried with respect.” the Beathan orders. “Him, you can dump outside the walls, let the wolverines feast.

“Fookin' traitor.” Sritti says coldly, pausing only to spit on the headman, before beginning to co-ordinate the cleansing of the shrine.

“Donald wants tae see us.” Kara notes, avoiding your gaze. She makes north, towards the harbor. You struggle to keep up.

“Kara, are you okay?” you ask, feeling imbecilic even as the words escape your lips.

“No, Edward. I'm no' okay.” the princess begins. “Only thing that's worse than what happened here is knowin' a similar fookin' travesty is transpirin' in half the villages in Beatha, and there's nothin' I can do to stop it.”

“You stopped this one.” you say, moving closer, doing your best to reassure her.

“Come.” Kara says, moving on. It's not much, but you do notice a note of gratitude in your wife's blue eyes. Though it does little to assuage her tortured mind, she appreciates your words.