Post by Fang on Apr 8, 2016 8:37:00 GMT
The carriage, decorated from top to bottom with gold filigree, rattled down the cobblestone path in a tiresome racket that drove the man within mad in its cacophonous pattern. Men armored in matching red lacquer walked next to the carriage with heads held high, ruby banners with golden fists emblazoned upon them streaming from their spears as they passed. The horses that drew the carriage were short and stocky, bred for hills, mountains, and labor among those climes rather than speed or war. The shaggy beasts were covered in scarlet tapestries that matched the banners the men bore, and their manes and tails were braided elegantly with a twist of red colored into them.
The man within was dressed in resplendent robes of the deepest crimson, gold thread stitching glinting in the sunlight that filtered through the single window that gave him a view of the verdant forest he traveled through. The scowl upon his face told that he cared little for what he saw, though its permanence made it difficult to discern whether it was due to the forest itself or the fact that he was traveling to a foreign land on a report given by the most unsavory of sources.
He glared down at the parchment in his hand, crumpled in his clenched fist as if were the throat of an enemy, the veins on that fist throbbing with every heartbeat. The intelligence officers had stated that the sources were numerous enough to give credence to the claims, but earlier attempts at tracking down the fugitive had been less than successful, and those who had followed those rumours had often failed to return. Why he had been chosen, with such a high rank, to follow this particular missive was beyond his reckoning. Perhaps the fugitive was as dangerous as he was led to believe, but he found it difficult to buy into the notion that a man of his caliber would be required to bring him down.
"Are we nearing this... Ay-tear-athe yet?" he asked in an annoyed tone to his driver, a young boy only sixteen or seventeen summers. The boy nodded, daring not to speak to the man who so outranked him. To use his voice in the presence of one so close to divinity would be a swift death, and his parents had taught him well.
"Good. Deliver me straight to the patriarch's palace. We have much to discuss."
He looked down at the parchment again, considering its ugly color to the white paper his own country produced, and scoffed. "The Lost Master... Your justice comes swiftly. Xian Yuansu has been sent to bring you home."