Edgar looked at him. "The trail, would we be able to bring the horses?"

Galus thought for a second, remembering quite a few drops that were about 10 ft drops if not more and shook his head. "Not unless you're confident you can get them to jump off small cliffs without getting thrown off or the horses getting their legs broken."

Edgar sighed looking at the foreboding castle, they could see the storm hawks circling the castle.

Galus looked at the castle walls, looking at the deep scores on the castle with giant thorny vines coming out of these holes. "What caused those holes? That's something I never figured out."

Edgar sighed. "Well, Godrick found out the forces of Leyndell attempted an invasion of Caelid and helped Radahn repel the forces, but attempted to kill Radahn and fled from the general all the way here, Radahn left not having enough time for cowards, when Godrick accused him of running away, Radahn made a rain of meteors fell on the Castle. As for the vines, Grafting is an accursed process, because the people who have been cut apart aren't dead due to the erd trees blessing, so they're forever trapped in that body forever in agony, and more so cursing the people who did nothing while they suffer, this much suffering in one place has an effect on the land this is why it's been outlawed despite it's medical capabilities."

Galus nodded. "Makes sense to me, no wonder people here invested so much time and runes into prosthetic development."

Edgar nodded as they lead their horses through the tunnel, only Irina remaining on the back of Galus' horse.

He watched as they rounded a corner and approached a cluster of roots, he wondered what would happen if he destroyed it.it might just hinder that crazy red head should she return here, if it does he might just start destroying all of them as he came across them.

he walked over to it and took out his Kukri and struck it with the blade about three times before digging it in and removing a good chunk from it.

Edgar looked at him like he was crazy. "Why are you attacking a bundle of roots?"

Galus put the clump into his bag after wrapping it in some cloth and started walking his horse again. "Research, it's a site of grace, also while doing Selen's Errand I came across someone who could see grace and they wanted me dead, no figure. So I'm hoping killing these sites of grace will hinder them in the long run."

Edgar looked confused but let it go.

Eventually they reached the landbridge and Galus looked up at the ramparts of the castle walls, thankfully he didn't see Margit looming above them like a gargoyle.

He wasn't surprised, perhaps Diallos or Ensha fought him, or maybe he didn't come this way, he could be in farum azula for all Galus knew.

The main gate was opened, though there was a couple of dead men laying on the road inside several sharp metal rods sticking out of their bodies.

He handed his reins to Edgar and hurriedly crept forward through the gate hugging the left most wall.

He unsheathed his sword and waves it in the entry way, when nothing shot at it he peaked his nose out to see if there was anyone manning the ballista. There was nobody there but the corpses of the soldiers are n their red capes. He walked out into the open and waved the others forward. Edgar walked forward, Tempest trying to chew on his long shaggy hair. Edgar's own horse Gale looked like it was trying to decide on if it wanted to join tempest or eat a bit of Rowa that was growing nearby.

Galus grabbed tempests reins and walked her away from the slightly annoyed Edgar.

They walked through the courtyard and Galus saw the corpse ridden palisade blockades, some of which had bodies of banished soldiers impaled on them.

He knelt next to two of the bodies on the ground and took the Bodies distinct red capes, he wanted to get into tailoring maybe, he'd love to get a kick ass red cape and hood, uncle Gael style. He continued onward, putting the cloth in his horse saddles bag, maybe he should have picked up Boc, though he didn't hear anything when he passed his location.

He remembered he'd always given the banished knights and soldiers a nickname but didn't know it, he'd come to call them the banished legion. He didn't know much of their lore, but he'd mostly assumed they were mercenaries or something though that was probably wrong for a plethora of reasons.

They traveled through the courtyard both Galus and Edgar keeping an eye out for anyone who was lying in ambush or anything useful.

Ironically it was Irina who spoke up. "I hear something shuffling around over there." She said pointing toward a couple of corpses, Galus could make out a figure digging through the corpses pockets, muttering curses. Galus waved them on to continue, Gostoc was a royal piece of shit but he was mostly harmless, kind of a dollar store patches.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

They wandered up to a small bottleneck of with rough rocky walls and Galus once again handed the reins to Edgar, and started carefully scouting ahead, he climbed up a couple of rocks and looked at the Balista, he carefully and silently took out his crossbow and loaded a bolt before looking toward the balista, he saw a corpse slumped against the Balista. He looked to the other one, seeing much of the same though this one seemed to have been dragged toward the rampart, he sighed and snuck to the edge of the top of the small cliff, he looked around the castle wall, seeing a group of survivors pulling wounded into a line and the dead in a pile. He did notice someone was manning the flamethrower that looked like an invention of Archimedes.

Galus gestured to Edgar to move up. But mouthed the words. "Leave the horses." He saw, and tied reins to a fence nearby, and Galus was sure Irina would make sure to scream if anyone wanted to steal our shit.

Edgar unsheathed his own sword and he spotted the man, and kept well out of the flame throwers range. "Hello? I'm the former lord commander of Castle Morne, do you have a moment to speak?"

Galus aimed his crossbow, lining up a shot.

The banished legionnaire looked down at him, seeing his Banished knight armor, waves him over. "Lord Commander Edgar? I'm assuming you're here because of Godricks fall?"

Edgar shook his head. "I'm passing through the castle with some companions, I'm hoping we might pass through the castle without trouble."

The soldier scratched his head. "Of course sir... but..."

Edgar sighed. "I cannot lead you men, I'm sorry but I am escorting my daughter on an important trip."

Just then Irina screamed and Galus turned seeing Gostoc trying to grab his horses saddle bags though was having trouble with his missing a hamd. She grabbed his kukri from his saddles sheath and swung wildly at the would be thief, it hit him in the side of the head causing a large gash in his head.

He backed up holding his bleeding wound and the horse kicked him in the ribs. Galus shook his head, he should have seen this coming. He shot the wretch with his crossbow hitting him in the chest.

He rushed down the rocky incline and approached the wannabe patches' body. When he got close enough he pressed his knee into his back and unsheathed a buck knife he'd found in the saddle bag, he was lucky the Kaiden warrior hadn't made him give the bags to him. He pressed the knife beneath the nose, he saw the surprisingly shiny blade fog up from their breath. He grabbed him by his head and brought it up and went to slit his throat. He was pretty sure their lung was already punctured because of the placement of the bolt, and his odd one-sided breathing.

Edgar came running up with the soldier behind him, he saw the soldiers face go from surprised to an almost satisfied smile. "Caught the rat stealing eh? Godrick loved to fuck with him, but we've caught him stealing before and cut off his hand, clearly we started at the wrong appendage. Go ahead and fix that mistake if you want." The soldier said.

Edgar looked at the pitiful being and looked like he felt bad, then looked at his daughter hugging the horse in feat and a blazing rage filled his eyes, he nodded to Galus. "Do it, if you don't he'll wish you did."

Galus nodded and opened his throats contents all over the cobblestones. He actually felt the knife scrape against his spinal cord, damn that knife was sharp as fuck, it probably had something to do with the whetstone he found in the bag as well, though he kept in mind that there wasn't much to cut through in the first place, the guy looked like the adult poster child for starving orphans.

He got up and cut a cloth off of Gostoc's shirt and wiped the blood from his hands and the knife, before tossing the bloodied rag aside. "I hate men like him." He said simply as he walked over to his horse and grabbing it by the reins and started untying it from the fence.

He started walking the horse through the narrow canyon. He saw Edgar leading his own horse, and 'accidentally' lead it over Gostoc's body and 'definitely not' so his head would be smashed like a watermelon at a hummer beach party.

Irina looked pale at the sound, and Galus' slight smile vanished. "Irina are you alright?"

She shook her head. "You can be terrifying sometimes you know that?"

Galus nodded. "Yeah, I know, it's mostly a product of my childhood, kids can be mean, so I had to be meaner."

She looked confused but nodded. "I never had that experience, most of the kids I met when I was little were nice."

Galus looked confused for a second then laughed. "Edgar, did you threaten to execute them if they bullied your daughter?"

Edgar shook his head a smile on his face. "You got me."

Irina looked rather sad at that statement. "So, I never had actual friends?"

Galus shook his head, then remembered she couldn't see it. "I'm pretty sure your father didn't threaten them into playing with you, he just threatened them into not being mean to you." Galus said, shooting a look at Edgar that said 'right?'

Edgar nodded. "Of course sweetheart, any friends you had were true friends."

Galus looked to the soldier as they entered the larger courtyard with what looked like atleast thirty dead and twenty wounded. "I know who did all of this but how did they manage to get through all of your defenses Head on?"

The guard shuddered. "Now that's a story a knight of silver and red came in through our defenses, shredding our soldiers, he moved like a tornado of blood and silver, I swear, if you come into our courtyard the entire ground is soaked in the stuff."

When they walked in the courtyard he wasn't wrong, it seemed that there was neither pebble nor blade of grass that wasn't stained crimson. He did feel something was wrong here, some of the corpses that were being dragged into the pile was all but left abandoned half way there. Hell, he even noticed their footsteps had vanished half way through the trail, unless they went native the tracks would loop around or continue on, sure you could mask a trail but you can't completely make a trail vanish. He listened carefully tuning out the grunts of the laboring soldiers, the clopping of the horses hooves as he walked and eventually he heard it, the panicked muffled cries of someone. He looked to the wounded and saw a hand had reached up and grabbed the man by the mouth and was lowering him into the blood as if the ground had disappeared and replaced it with a bloody pond. He unsheathed his sword and ran over to the spot where he'd been pulled down, he tapped his sword on the ground, nothing but stone. Galus saw something moving along the bloody ground, like the water tension when a huge fish is beneath water. he followed it, and must have looked like a complete madman walking around looking at the ground like he was, that was until it tried to pull one of the soldiers under by grabbing their legs, though his sword took good care of one of their hands. It rose from the blood like somekind of grim reaper, and was atleast seven ft tall, it was a hooded figure wearing black robes with a distinct blood red scarf on it's shoulders and around it's hooded neck. Galus went in for an attack while the opportunity was open, and his attack landed a good deep cut along their chest, though when he attempted to go for another one, it blocked his attack with it's rapier, maybe blocked is the wrong word, it was more elegant than that as it parried his attack to the side. His sword was knocked aside though still in his grip, though instead of standing still waiting to be stabbed he used the added force and momentum to spin himself into a third strike, it hit it's side and he summoned a discus of light and it spun toward it, he saw it raise a dagger and it sheered through the dagger and severed it's fingers. Galus went to attack again and just when it dodged Galus' attack Edgar came in and cut it deeply in the shoulder with his dismounter sword. He saw it back up, holding it's shoulder with it's fingerless hand. It backed up and started submerging in the blood again. Galus rushed forward just as his head submerged and he tried to slash at it with his sword leaving nothing but a deep score along the earth.

Galus waited nearly five minutes for it to reappear. when he realized it wasn't coming back he felt a pang of terror, that sanguine noble was going to report him to Mohg and he'd likely have the full might of the bloody finger organization coming down on his head.

Galus stood up, and Edgar looked at him. "Who the fuck was that?!"

Galus shook his head. "An enemy, and there's many many more where that came from..."

Edgar blinked. "Come again?"

Galus sighed. "I'll tell you around a nice cozy fire, what better place to tell a story."

Edgar looked at him and shook his head. "You're a strange fellow, you know that?"