Leave Cayla for now

The inner doors burst open loudly, and Ashur ran through them. Not caring enough to close them softly, he left them to slam shut behind him with a crack moments after he was past. Struggling into his uniform as he made his way down the corridor, he ran like his life depended on him not being late. Attempting to push his shirt down into his breeches with one hand, whilst trying to pull the laces fastening the shirt together with the other, he made for a comedic sight as he raced along. Thankfully the hallways were most empty at this time of day, the church bells above had already run their ninth gong of the twelve they would eventually sound to mark the arrival of mid day.

Most of the candles in the sconces had been snuffed out, recently by the looks of the faint wisps of smoke still rising from their wicks. A myriad of colours gathered on the floor, dust motes danced in the air as the daylight outside fell through large stained glass windows on the wall. Having swirled chaotically as he rushed passed, they soon resumed their quiet routine.

Nearly everyone had ventured outside to watch the proceedings by now, most no doubt having loaded themselves with rotten food, or worse, to throw at the procession when it eventually made its way past them on the busy city streets where they had gathered to watch.

He pitied them a little, sad in the fact they could garner amusement from another persons misery, but also able to understand why they did it. Entertainment had become harder to find by since the brothels had been to shut their doors, turning patrons and staff alike onto the streets. Fewer whores meant fewer sailors frequenting the port, and that meant less and less wine found its way into the city's taverns. He didn't care for the whores all that much, but he definitely did miss the wine. You could still get a hold of a bottle of something if you were really determined, or even one that was pleasant to drink if you had enough coin. But affording both was beyond the reach of most common folk now, so that left life's simple pleasures for life's simple people.

The tenth bell of the hour sounded above as he continued to run, and his pace quickened in response to it. He had come this way because he had known that the route would be empty, but also because he didn't want anyone to see him. His face was well known around here, with his dark brown eyes and easy smile he usually didn't have to try too hard to find a willing young lady to balance on his knee and keep him company though the nights. But today, especially today, attention was the last thing that he wanted to attract.

With the rest of his uniform fixed in place, he completed the ensemble by reaching up to pull a dark hood securely down to obscure his features. With the faceless mask that kept an executioners identity from being seen, he made his way outside to the sound of the eleventh gong, and was in his allotted place on the podium as the final one struck home. Waiting in place, Ashur steeled himself for what was to come.

The gathered crowd, which looked like it was fast approaching the size at which it would soon make the transition to a full blown mob, stretched to fill the streets. City guards, resplendent in their pure white uniforms, had been stationed throughout at regular intervals. Their presence had kept the crowd from erupting so far. A few officers were even in attendance, the dark crimson serpent adorning their shields and pauldrons marking them as being members of the elite Dragon Guard that oversaw the cities military with ruthless zeal. The civilians knew enough of them by reputation alone to give them a wide berth.

A young lad began to make his way forward, scarcely old enough to have been allowed to attend what was happening, but there all the same. Pushing his way through the throngs of tightly pressed bodies, each close enough to have put their hands in each others pockets, he made his was slowly towards the stand. He didn't look a day over ten, if he was that. Ashur would have been surprised if the boy had even seen that many name days come and go. Hauling a large headsman's axe behind him, the boy struggled to drag its weight along and then up the three small wooden steps to reach the podium above. It was far too heavy for the small child to carry properly on his own. He wasn't supposed to leave his post once he had assumed it, but Ashur took pity on the boy. Stepping down, he took the axe from him and hefted it up onto his shoulder with ease. The eyes of the crowd followed his movement, and he received a disapproving glance from some of the soldiers, but not one of them said anything. Now grasped in the hands of an adult, the axe that had looked enormous moments before looked tiny, barely fit for the task to come. Bending his head low, he whisper in the boys ear. "Go home lad. You don't want to see this."

"Not everyone does." The voice that came from the child lips in reply was far too gruff to have belonged to such a young form, and Ashur had almost convinced himself that he had overheard someone else in the crowd speaking, until the boy spoke up once again. "Listen to me, we won't have long. We have your sister, safe for now. In a moment, you are going to cleave ropes in two not flesh. Do that, and we let her go. If you don't, she dies. Nod once if you understand."

Ashur dipped his in acknowledgment, too stunned to speak. What was happening here? What had his poor sweet sister done to get herself tangled up in this?

That rough voice spoke to him once more. "We're being watched. Go, before you bring the guards down on both of us. Go!"

Taking his place once again on the stand, he pulled a large whet stone from his pocket, and set to sharpening the blade with long, slow methodical strokes. Having done this before, he knew that having the axe be anything but razor sharp wouldn't deliver a clean enough blow through anything when the time came. The blade was sharp anyway, but he honed the edge some more until he was perfectly satisfied with it. Its didn't need sharpening all that much, but thought it best to make things appear as if they were fine, and it gave him a moment to think. Running the ball of his thumb along the length of the blade, he drew blood with faintest of pressure. Sucking a bead of blood from the cut before slipping the whet stone back away, he nodded to himself, and whoever may have be watching him from the crowd.

Silence had begun to descend throughout the crowd, punctuated only by the occasional of distaste, a few cruel sounding jeers, and the sound of things that had been thrown finding a target. Before long, the silence was broken, punctuated the steady beat of a solitary drum starting up, rapping sharp against a stretched leather skin. Booted feet keeping pace to the beat soon joined the rhythm, heels striking cobbles with one perfect click after another. The crowd parted to allow the procession through, some of them waiting until the last possible moment to move, to give up the spots they had picked to watch things from. Those that didn't move of their own volition were unceremoniously beaten back with leather clubs by the men sent before the procession caught up.

In the midst of the March, flanked by 8 units of soldiers 24 a piece, was a cage. My God's, Ashur though, they've sent a full squad. There were a few faces he recognised from the days when he had served. Most had been dismissed from service for various reasons. The fact that they had not only been allowed to reenlist, but that they had been chosen for this duty didn't bode well. Cruel men, each and every one of them. He may have been good in a fight, but they were lethal.

The onlookers remained mostly silent as the procession, and the cage in its midst, approached even closer. A few tries their luck at heaving whatever spoiled produce the carried in there hands in it direction, jeered into by others to afraid to do it themselves. That was quickly brought to a halt the first time a stray splatter hit one of the guards uniforms. The offender was promptly dragged from the crowd and out into the street behind the main party of soldier. From where he stood Ashur couldn't hear the sounds of the bones break as the man's hand was smashed by a cudgel, but he heard him scream just fine. Cradling his smashed fingers in his good hand, the man slunk back into the crowd, given a wide berth by those who moments ago had pushed him to be a hero for them. There were no more incidents like that after. The onlookers simmered down, either too smart, or too cowardly to try anything more after the display that they had just witnessed.

Stomping to a stop within walking distance of where he stood, the squad halted their march. Peeling off into their separate teams , the rear two arms of soldiers broke away from their comrades and made there way to the front slowly. Unsheathing their swords, they began to unlock the cage they had brought with them. Apprehension was a rare thing to see on a City Guards face, but many of them struggled to conceal it as the door creaked open on heavy hinges. They were worried, and it was almost palpable in the air. The crowd waited patiently now, for their first look at the accused.

Ashur waited alongside them, and prepared himself to carry out the grim task for which he had been employed. A life did hang in the balance, but not his own.

Slowly, the occupant of the cage was brought outside. Their face was obscured, but the quick glimpse of dark red hair poking out from the bottom of the cloth sack covering the prisoners head, and the curve of their breasts beneath the rags clothing them, left no doubt in his mind that he was to execute a woman. He had known this before he had agreed to the job anyway, there were no men left who could still use magic. But saying he would do it, and actually being faced with the reality of doing it, felt far different. This wasn't his first execution, but it was first time with a woman as the accused. She still was still expected to die regardless, sentenced to by beheading for the crime of wielding magic. Intention behind the crime itself was irrelevant. When they were caught, and they always were, Witches always pleaded their innocence. Magic was dying out, hunted and shunned for so long, that anyone born with the spark hid it for as long as they could.

Each magic had its own way of making itself know eventually though, despite what people may have wanted. For some, it blossomed, and was a beautiful thing. For others, it erupted, raining destruction instead. But they all met the same fate. . They were all brought here eventually, to this very spot in fact. Killed in the most public way possible, to show the masses that magic was only good for getting you killed. If you wanted to live, you put your faith with the clergy, your trust with the army, and your loyalty with the King.

Iron manacles bound the wrists of the accused as she was brought forwards, the metal being the only thing known to be able to contain the power of this particular type of Witch and stop her from tapping into it. She didn't look all that dangerous to Ashur, but who was he to say. He'd never seen a Witch before, and didn't know anyone alive who had. The last know Witch had lived and lost her life before his had even begun. But her memory lived on, her legacy of destruction etched into the very bed rock and streets of the city where he now stood, in the fear on the faces of those who had gathered, and remembered on the lips of all who spoke her name as a curse on others. Morghan damn them all.

The prisoners was corralled up the steps to the podium, still flanked two a side by the guards, and brought to stand before the chopping block. Seeming not caring if he ripped hair away with it, one of them grasped the bag on the captives head with one hand, and his other tightly gripping the pommel of his sword, and yanked the bag away. The wind caught it as it was let go carrying it away into the crowd, likely to become a grim trophy of the days events for someone. With her face now uncovered, that same wind tickled the prisoners hair up around her head. Fixing her tired eyes on Ashur, she looked like she must have cried every tear she had ever had.

Her escort had backed away to re-join their colleagues, and they squad moved to surround the podium from below. Unsheathing their swords and the raising them into position, the squad formed a wall of spikes to dissuade the condemned from jumping. Moving her eyes to look down at them, it was obvious that she was considering if that would be a quicker way to end things than the axe that awaited her instead.

Making his way upwards toward where Ashur stood, came a veritable giant of a man, his helmet sporting a Dragon almost as large as he was. With the walk of a person more used to marching, he strode onto the podium. Not an Officer, but something far deadlier. Signatum. Witch Hunter. From within a dark leather pouch he wore strapped to his sword belt, he retrieved a tightly rolled scroll. Unfurling it slowly, for show no doubt, he cleared his throat. He began to read the crowd and the accused alike the list of crimes she had been charged with. There was no question of her guilt in this one's eyes, and it was evident in the way he whipped the crowd into a frenzy. They would only be satisfied when they had their pound of flesh now. Witches were not fit to be tried, only sentenced.

Those were the words that rung in the air as she was to kneel over the chopping block. They would have to take off her collar before they could do the same to head, but for the few seconds between those events, her power would be unchecked. She had a small window to act, and if she missed it she was dead. She wasn't ready to die despite what she may have claimed in her cell for many a night.

"Do you have any last words, Witch?" It was the first time the Signatum had addressed her directly, and he stretched the final word as he spoke it like it would leave a foul taste on his tongue. "There is no repentance for your kind, no forgiveness for abominations" he continued. "But if there are more heinous crimes you have no doubt committed, now is the time to lighten your black soul and confess."

"I am no more guilty of being born than you," she told him. "Or you." Her eyes went to the crowd. "Or you." Her eyes fell on Ashur. "Born to the old ways, the ways you want us to forget. To deny. But you can't." Her voice became more emboldened. "You fear what you cannot comprehend, kill what you cannot understand, destroy us because you cannot subvert us. Your fear is misplaced. You should fear them." She struggled to turn her head to motion at the soldiers surrounding her. "They've made themselves your shepherds, and made you like sheep. Free yourselves, that is your power. It's not magic, but it's is a final gift I can give you." Slowly lowering her neck onto the block, she looked at Ashur. "I'm ready."

He raised his axe into position, and signalled for her collar to be removed. The axe fell, and all hell broke loose.