A Dark Night for Axel

Axel runs into and old freind in Altamira, a freind he had thought dead. It reminds him of a night a year ago.

As you know you saw an old friend, one that you hadn't seen for a very long time. You had to catch up with him as you thought him dead. It all dates back to a night a year or so ago. A night just after the War of the Cross, a few months before you met Roberto.

Your mercenary group had been working in Eisen. You were the sergeant having worked with the unit for quite some time. The men respected you for your skill and experience; they were your friends as well as your soldiers. But times had gradually changed. The Captain, an Eisen called Hanz Skattermir had recruited new men, men you didn't know to fill out the unit. It was good to replace fallen comrades, but no one likes a stranger protecting his back. The process had been gradual, but eventually noticeable. Out of a unit of twenty men, all of whom had been your drinking partners in Freiburg, only eight were still alive.

But you were ready to give the new blood a chance. They seemed good men, and you had known the Captain for years. He would only pick men he could trust.

However this was not the only thing that began to worry you. Maybe the War of the Cross changed him, but the Captain became less of the man you had known. He started taking jobs that you thought beneath you. Often they involved fighting ex-vaticine troops and rummaging broken churches for artifacts. He told you less and less about what was going on. He trusted you less with the details of jobs and who was paying the wages. You began to feel less of a soldier and more of a bandit. But these were dark and bleak times. Everyone had to make a living.

That was until he ordered you all to attack a church. It had no value, either strategic or financial. All it contained were a few knights ready to protect an old church. It was pointless butchery, for both sides. You were ready to join the fight, loyal to your Captain, until one man refused. He was called Thomas, and he was your friend. He dropped his sword and refused to fight. The Captain shot him in the head.

That was the last straw. You and the other seven men you had served with all refused to join battle, daring your Captain to try similar discipline - and wishing he would try. As you went up to him to challenge him he turned, and he wasn't human. Neither were the men he had recruited. You couldn't understand how you could have failed to see this before. He was an insect in the shape of a man. But the recruits were worse. Each man was a walking corpse, with metal and wires rammed into their skulls.

Some of your friends fled in terror. Others fell quickly to the swift blades of the dead men. You smashed aside many in an attempt to reach the Captain. But the insect beast he had become was too strong. He slammed a bladed claw into your chest and threw you across the wood into the undergrowth. But it was not the end of the night’s strangeness. The knights from the church had joined the battle, seemingly unaware of the horror they faced - or perhaps they did not find it strange. From out of the shadows around the monsters rose other knights with knives of shadow in their hands. They cut down every last corpse and the Captain with brutal efficiency. One of your men lay injured after the fight was over. The men from the shadows came over to him. You thought they would help him so you lay still. But instead they said "I'm sorry, but you have seen what no man may see," and they ran him through. Their blades left no mark, and they fell back into the shadows. The other thing you notice about the shadow men and the knights is that they all wore a Black Cross.

Somehow you made it to the safety of a convent where your wounds were healed. You met up later with other men who had survived, four in all, but never spoke of the horrors you had seen. You picked up new recruits - like Roberto - but nothing was the same anymore. Gradually you all drifted apart. Just seeing each other each day was too much of a reminder.

The man you saw in the street is Kurt Elflingstat. He tells you he must speak with you, but in private. So you find a small corner of a bar. He is terrified; he hasn't shaved or slept in days. It is luck he ran into you, so he can warn you. He thinks the shadow men, or the creatures are after him. Weiner Klaus is dead, and he has heard nothing from Miguel Lantis. That leaves only you and him alive from that awful night. But he has a little news. There was an order of knights that wore black crosses. They were the knights that served the Heirophant, called Die Kreuzritter. However, they were betrayed in 1411, and in the town of Tannen they were all killed, every last one of them.

You spend time catching up with Kurt about a few old times. The drink eases the tension you both feel. Eventually you are too drunk to carry on and stumble to bed. But in the morning you go to wake Kurt. He is lying in bed with a look of fear on his face, and he is dead. But there is not a mark on his body.

You have spent the last couple of days seeing to his funeral - it is the least you owe him. In between you have remained drunk to deaden the worry that you may be next. Only now, a few days later do you hear your friends have gone up the hill to a peasant’s ranch to investigate something. You get yourself together and set off after them, hoping that you can be ready for the creatures or the shadow men, when they come for you.