Jace was bowing with the others, but unlike the others who were squeezing their eyes shut as if expecting the sun to fall from the sky and their world to end, he was watching these strange people (?).  He knew the woman who demanded they bow saw him looking, however she didn’t seem to be upset by it, so he kept watching.  

They were a strange people.  The way these humans were acting they didn’t know who they were any more than he did.  However, Eldridge certainly did seem to know.  He was acting as if these 7 people could destroy the caravan.  Jace carefully studied them.  Unlike the humans of this world, these people were clean, clean shaven their hair color wasn’t some variation on grey or blonde, and their armor looked like something out of a high fantasy story.  It looked like what he imagined scales of a dragon might look like, though clearly they were liquored metal of some sort.  These people were taller then the humans too.  Combined with the strange eyes these people should be Kindred.

The kindred were not a large topic in his studies.  It mentioned they were nearly impossible to talk to, and were the result of men and dragon copulation.  Not much information about the mysterious people. 

He was jerked out of his memories when this Terani finished the word “sinned” as the woman who was standing at his shoulder dematerialized in front of his eyes.  He struggled to make sense of what he saw.  She simply vanished into a black cloud of smoke, living smoke, because that smoke then moved at an impossible speed next to Eldridge, and rematerialize as the woman, a blade in her hand as it cut Eldridge’s head in half.  Straight through his brain, his body collapsing to the ground twitching as blood shot out of what was left of the head. 

Several of the wizards leapt up followed by most of the guardsmen and started to attack the woman, Jace himself jerked out of his kneeling position and seized Sam’s hand dragging her behind him.  The other kindred then moved and started slaughtering anyone who opposed.  It was brutal and efficient.  All of them could move around almost as if teleporting.  Blink and they were there, blink and they were somewhere else.  You could sort of track them if you watched the clouds of black smoke, however they moved from one place to another so fast as to make even that telltale impossible to use reliably. 

That ability was already a cheat like skill.  What really terrified him was how inhuman their battle skill was.  He saw Teral actually land a blow on one of the Kindred, not because he caught the kindred by surprise, but because the kindred obviously felt no danger from that poorly maintained sword Teral carried around. He actually caught that blade in one hand, before ripping the blade out of the Teral’s hand.  Then jammed it down Teral’s throat.  Simply monstrous.  So monstrous he felt the overwhelming desire to flee.  Fighting these things was not possible.  He didn’t even have a sword.  The sword he had been using to train was a practice blade, and he didn’t take it with him. 

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He was about to run, when he noticed the sly young man looking straight at him.  His snake like face his eagerness, was screaming a warning in Jace’s mind.  So instead of running he stood still watching as the slaughter came to an end.  Most of the guardsmen were dead.  It was hard to see, frankly he felt rocked emotionally as he had gotten to know all of them fairly well over the past few months.  Seeing them torn apart without really able to fight back was horrifying.  Far more then he thought it would be.  Of the wizards only one was left.  He was the oldest one apart from Eldridge, his hair silver and face careworn.  He never left his knees, nor raised a hand.  Of the once 22 people just 5 were left including himself and Sam. 

Through it all Terani never moved an inch.  He wasn’t touched with any of the blood or carnage, nor was he injured in the brief exchange of spells that occurred right before the resisting wizards were butchered. 

The woman looked at the five remaining humans then shouted out in a loud voice.  “What are you doing on your feet vermin?  The herald of Elis is still speaking.”

Dropping to his knees, the ground was now covered in pools of blood, he was kneeling in one caused by the still bleeding, bisected corpse of the carriage driver who had knelt next to him and tried to run when the violence started.  Then he pressed his forehead into the ground, feeling more powerless then at any point since his abduction to this world.  He didn’t even think he could put up token resistance if these kindred decided to kill him.  He would probably just die in that preverbal ditch that he imagined would be his fate if he couldn’t defend himself all those months ago.  The numbing horror of all those people dead was being overwhelmed by the growing obsession with his own life ending arbitrarily here in some forgotten place for reasons he didn’t understand.  It was a type of unbridled terror he simply wasn’t ready to face so it started to affect his thinking… or stop it to be more exact.

Terani started to speak again in that commanding otherworldly tone “ELDRIDGE DIED FOR PRESUMPTION.”  Then stopped speaking. 

The woman smirked, looking at the still bleeding and in some cases, twitching corpses.  Then spoke up.  “The augury is at an end.”