Above Ragusa 1350
The Chancellors priest sat on his horse looking through an eye glass at the carnage below.
Next to him was Hermann the Corrupt, and even though his title was the most inexplicable to ever grace a member of the Preferati, that in fact was what he was, one of the two current Preferati Cardinal's on earth.
Here at the behest of the Chancellor, one of the Pope's most favoured representatives looked on at the phenomenon Duke Arnold's priest had reported some time ago.
The outnumbered army of the Chancellor was destroying a force twice it's size with some ease. It was certainly chaotic but there was a method to its madness. What was even more startling to the two onlooking clergymen was that the garrison of Ragusa had not even made it to the fight before it was all over.
The reason for this...The Chancellor.
Where ever he rode the Venetian's ran screaming like banshee's who had seen the devil. If one flank was being threatened the Duke would wheel, realign his body guard and charge into the mass of men like the devil incarnate.
Blood, flying apendiges and death would ensue and within minutes the screams of men that had seen walking death would be heard. In fact after a point in the battle the Chancellor's body guard rarely had to trade blows with the enemy. The Venetian's would simply run at the first sight of the Chancellor's approaching regiment and the man they all feared riding at it's head.
“I see what you mean Priest.” The deep voice of the Preferati Cardinal made the Chancellor's priest look up from the gore below.
“Your report also mentioned unnatural physical acts...I don't see any. What has this got to do with his retinue?”
“Well your grace, I'm the only member of the Chancellor's seven strong retinue that I or anyone else for that matter have seen in the last few months...you remember what I said in the report?” The Priest tailed off not wanting to actually speak the words he had written down as a theoretical answer to the issue.
“Yes, yes, I remember your words, that is what worried the Pope so much, and that is why he decided to agree to your masters request and have me meet with Arnold regularly.”
There was a pause as the Chancellor's priest gazed at the Cardinal looking on the battle through his eye glass.
“Ah ha...I see what you mean.”
The priest look back through his eye glass just fast enough to see the Chancellor physically punch his obsidian plate covered hand through a man's shield, grab him by the top of his breast plate, pick him up bodily and impale him on a nearby lance that was broken and protruding from the ground.
“Exactly your grace, that, the aura he projects and the occasional glow from his eye's are the reasons I wrote what I did in the report to you.” The priest looked back at the Preferati Cardinal who had never ceased peering through his eye glass through the entire conversation.
Snapping the eye glass shut in one swift motion the Cardinal finally looked at the Priest and smiled.
“Well then, that's that, he's finished them off. Shall we go down there and meet this master of yours? Lets see if he's covered in blood and gore and sounds like the anti-Christ!!??”
The priest blanched white at the Cardinal's tone and attitude. When he meets the man in person he was sure the cardinal would leave for Jerusalem with a far more concerned look on his face.
Bookmarks