Reinforce Stone Quarry

[Allanon Creel]

"Our orders are clear, we are to meet up with the defences at the stone quarry to prepare for the incoming forces." Said Officer Thompson. "Sir yes sir!" I replied easily, I had repeated those words for the majority of my life and the words came to my mouth without a thought, for my thoughts were upon the could-be battle coming up. How many of them would there be? Would I live through this next battle? These were the real things traveling through my head at the time.
The next 2 hours of grueling travel were in full plate mail in the typical scorching weather of what felt like my skin could melt off and I was oh so very thankful when we passed by an oasis. After a well welcomed few hours of rest we headed out once more. As we traveled we saw eguanas sun bathing and the odd lone coyote too, but other than that a determined silence fell over our troop. When we crested the last hill before before the camp there was no noise of men grunting with the effort of mining, no sound of carts being pulled not even the smoke of the refinery at work.
"Captain do you think that we may be too la--" "No, they wouldn't kill everyone, they would probably hold them somewhere to preform a blood eagle to please their perverse urges." Captain Thomas replied. "Sir, What is that?" I asked, as anxiety slowely built up. The captain didnt speak for a while, simply made the sign of the Richeous cross, but at last he reluctantly replied, "Son, if you are going to be bloody eagled, then sqirm till' they simply cut your head off first. A Blood Eagle is where they hold down a man and hack at his rib cage till they are all broken, then they grab hold of your lungs and rip both out at once and allow you to drown in your own blood from the inside. That is not all, they then rip out your guts and shove it down your esophegus if you are still living that is..." I was horrified by this knoledge, I did not think that such brutality was performed, I thought that it was kill him and leave the corpse, but never something so disgusting as that! All this information did was strengthen my resolve to save those people, the Templar Order does not leave it's people or its resources and these people took both, it was time to act.
We waited until dark, during the waiting time we shoved cloth inbetween the joints of our armour to muffle the sound and entered we spotted the building the guard were held in, everyone was fine save for one man, he got the infamous eagle and 'he' was sprayed all over the wall at the far end of the rectangular room. They were gagged and bound and the Mortulis shawman seemed to be preparing to take the life of a young man about 19 with greasy brown hair and the bulid that showed he had been in the mines for quite some time; the broad shoulders, the dirt-smeared face, the whole works, and he looked as if he weren't there anymore, he had a gaunt look to him as if he was broken spiritually, I involuntarily shuddered at the sight of him.
We found 2 guards with their backs to us and capitalised. They didnt know we were there till' we pulled them into the darkness and slit their throats. "Looks like first blood is ours, hey cap?" I asked "Nay, they got our blood splashed upon those walls like the waves against our coast." Captain replied in a voice choked with suppressed rage. 5 of our men drew bows and fired at the 3 other night guards who fell to the floor with nothing more than grunts of surprise. With the captives safe and 7 sleeping guards our captain ordered us to slit their throats while they slept. The shawman, however, was not as fortunate, and the command he issued made me pause, so I asked again and he gave the same responce, "Let's one up him in the 'show and tell' and put him to the richeous cross -- alive, I'm sure he's going to love the experience."
The next morning everything returned to normal, except for the poor fellow with the greasy brown hair, he would not move a muscle, he simply breathed and that was all. We tried everything but in the end he did what we could not and quit breathing. We held a small funeral for him and then things really turned back into normal, men grunting in effort, smoke from the building, OH and the screaming! Wow man had some real STRONG lungs on him! His god would have loved him if he did the eagle to himself! We ended up killing him later on though, it was too distracting to the workers.