In a valley of rigid ice, a quiet settlement nestles on the carving of a rugged cliff. Lanterns that light up the desolate blue, candles make their circle around a tree, lights shine through windows of the inner warmth, casting a gold glow across the frozen lake, waiting to defrost. Houses wreathed with pine, furnaces lit, scent of harvested bread and fish swirled in the cold air. Laughter of children, cutting through crisp worries and silence in the winter day.
The Vrekat ravagers, cloaked in white fur, ridden on dark mountain goats, crest on the cliff that shelters the settlement from wind. The wind was harsher above, a perfect height to reach, a perfect spot for an invocation.
Dismounting her goat, Zoirat leads her primary mount. "Come forth, Ghorak." Grasping onto its horns onto the cliff-edge, where Ghorak engraves his hooves into the snow. Standing by its side, she slices a cut into her neck with the sigil blade, smudging her fingers onto the blood, she paints the reverse star into the hoof mark while chanting, "Khor thra'ka anzul drax, tehem vrat'ka, dor vashak haar'kor adras'h, marith'ka thul al'arha wraith'kan." As the chant echoes into the sky, the icy gale seemed to halt, for a moment, silence stood still, children stopped laughing, a pressure that began to build. As Zoirat looked into the distance to the silhouettes of two glaciers, in the mind of a shaman, they started to morph and gnarl, into the horns of a goat.
"Its watching from now on, no sound nor action will be made unless of my orders." Resonance of a chant still linger throughout her words.
Her and the militia descend towards the village path, leading inside as a guise of a peaceful band of travelers, her dark-amber eyes glinting at the sight of malice and the thrill of the hunt. She had come here for a source of blood. Yet, she had to remain composure and play her part.
Ghorak, playing a pair of twitching legs, seemed to stumble down in exhaustion, further influencing the sight of desperation. She stumbles off the collapsed goat, a long cloak with thick-fur lining hood, scarf-bands embellished with gems and patterned, a geometric pattern at the end of her cloak with scale-lining. She smiled a warm grin as the village elder stepped closer, face lined with age and wisdom, sipping a mug of cider.
"Welcome, travelers!" Her warm voice, despite weathered, "Are you perhaps in need of refuge in these cold weathers?"
Zoirat stepped closer, "Thank you kind ma'am. The storm is fierce, we are in need of shelter for the night." She nodded.
A welcoming smile on the elders face, although eyes glinting with curiosity, she gestured over to the village hall, windows glowing with warmth. "Please, you are welcome for as long as you need."
The cultists dismounted, the village felt almost warm rather in the grey of their own. The Vrekat settled into the surroundings of the village, monitoring escape routes and assigning ambushes. More locals felt right to exchange pleasantries, Zoirat standing over the hearth of the tree, allowing herself a small smile as the village lower their guard. The cultist were sewing webs of trust themselves over the hour, sharing forged stories as if they were nothing more than travelers.
But she could feel it, her pulse races as dark energy surges through her, it could not wait much longer.
Before another mere breath, the air fell, the atmosphere halt.
An eerie calm from the storm that was just a while ago, as if one had formed inside the village. Lanterns and char dimmed, the only thing bright were the glinting amber eyes of the once peaceful eyes, from welcoming faces to pale. They turned to the leader, Zoirat.
"Wraith'kan." Winds started to rush back in, pressures built up over the hour has now began to howl, the voice of the dark shaman echoed as her veil was lifted, revealing a pair of horns, bone fragments lined across the belt of a leather armor, etched with bone carvings and glowing glyphs, a necklace of a bloodstone amulet. She raised a ceremonial dagger high.
The face of the elder twisted, realizing the curses she had welcomed, "You're the... You're its----"
"Miss me?" A different voice emerged from the mouth of the shaman, a widening grin that even the vessel couldn't stretch, a goat's fixation that nearly pops the eye out of her sockets.
"Heavenl---" The elder could not mutter a word before the shaman grasps on greyed hair, to the point that her follicles surrenders, ripping through each strand like grass, the other arm lays on the face of the elder, thumbs presses on the elder's eyelids, crushing them with a nice squelch to it. A maniacal laugh echoes throughout the village, biting her tongue repeatedly from the recoil of a burst vocal chord.
"Don't you mutter that wretched line." She lifts her bloodstained hand pointing to the forehead of the elder, "Sanguis Revivus." Churned blood as her finger swirls in a anti-clockwise motion, each fiber returned, each cell revoked of its freedom of suffering, aligning like puzzle pieces of flesh.
"Braad!" A staggering, vibrating roar that rams through the blizzard of thought in everyone's mind. Dark goats reared with the militia that's left to defend, hammering swirling nails into throats. Axes made out of bone cling onto leaking stomachs, sickles that tear through brain and cling onto eyeballs. Screams that fill the air are replaced by gagging and coughs, The excruciating night has just began.