They had been gathered here in a plaza all of them, the banner of the Sarkovian nation snapping high in the grey sky as the wind whipped and lashed in the air. Storm clouds swirled far above, turning the early morning into a dark twilight hour as the prisoners sat on their knees, their faces looking down only at the cobblestones of the plaza. Hiran could count them all by now it seemed, not much else you could do when you were shackled to the other prisoners with the mute and resolute guards of the Grey Dawn standing with their massive spears standing tall and proud in the air. Two had tried to escape before; they had been caught, hung upside down from the scaffold, and had spears shoved into their stomach and sliced downwards to their throat slowly. Then they had stitched them back up and done it again. And again. And again. Bringing them back awake if they passed out due to the pain. And that was just the men of Toras-North that had been captured... Apulians would get relatively good treatment, less painful death alternatives. But for the Samnites and the Ligurians, their would be no respite.
Hiran himself had been a high member of the Faith before he had been captured. He had served as a preacher for the Nova Samnite troops, leading the few Faithful in prayers and whatnot before their unit had been smashed to bits as the battles in the South raged on. The warriors, they had been given a choice. They could lose their left arm and their right leg as well as tongue, or they could lose their left leg and their right arm and be blinded. Fatality rates had been rather high, as the Sarkovian devil doctors that were a part of the Faith cut them open without caring for the pain and suffering... but that was really being generous given the fact that just three days before, a mob of people had beaten a group of Samnite prisoners to death in the streets, smashing their skulls in with cobblestones and cutting them down. The Sarkovians and the loyalist Sarkovian-Samnites seethed with fury and anger, and they felt that they had a right to be.
A Toras-North merchant that had been hauled here on charges of swindling coughed a little bit and abruptly shut up. That still attracted the attention of a Faith guard though. He moved towards him slowly, decked out in bronze armor, the bottom of the spear hitting the ground with audible force. "Who coughed."
It was not a question. It was a statement." Everyone tried to look placid and bored, and the people nearest to the Toras-North merchant scooted away a little bit. The guard, pureblood Sarkovian by his looks, narrowed his eyes. "So it was you?"
"Begging your pardon my lord, I didn't mean to-" The Sarkovian Faith guard grabbed the other man by the throat and squeezed till the other man gagged, a horrid, wretched sound.
"I'm no lord. And you don't cough. Hear?"
He released the Toras-North merchant who wheezed and gasped. He coughed slightly.
Spear went up.
Spear went down.
Spear drew out of the dead body.
Blood soaked into the dirt around the cobblestones. No guards moved to stop the one that had just killed the merchant. All were grizzled veterans that had survived the onslaught on the southern front, and they felt no pity for the dead merchant. Some clapped.
The guard went back to stand at his position, as Hiran moved to make himself less conspicuous. His Samnite lineage was clear, and it was not something to be proud of right now... many people had lost their brothers and sisters at Kora-Torr and at the penal colonies when Liguria swept in and sent them away... then the Grey Faith had come into power with Sarklov III committing suicide soon after the battle reports about Vikersmount and Kora-Torr came in. The Grey Faith ruled until the new king, King Markrov II, came of age.
Horns blared off in the distance, not the fine and regal horns of royalty. These were the horns of the Grey Faith, or as they were calling their ruling and military wing right now, the Black Dawn. Faith guards came ahead first, the elite of the elite, dressed in black tinted armor and wielding spears similar to the ones used by the Sarkovian Royal Guard. The Faelinkriser, dressed in chain and leather armor, came next followed closely by the other high ranking members of the Faith and the Faith military.
Marching into the square, they took their seats in the giant raised platform in front of the prisoners and the scaffold platform. The Faelinkriser and his top adjutant, Siran, remained standing with the guards though. Siran whisked a scroll out of his darkly colored robes and began to read aloud.
"Men of Toras-North. Men of Samnia. Men of Liguria and Apulia. You know why you are here. You know why your punishment must come. You realize the very essence of what you have done to unravel the fabric of peace that we have tried to create here on the Valyrian Peninsula. You had the audacity and the conniving goals of women and cheaters to stab us in the back when we were vulnerable. You have sinned against the Faith in both the eyes of men and the eyes of the gods. How does that make you feel?"
Some particularly brave Zirilists booed and hissed from the front. Siran motioned to the guards. One by one, a spear was driven into their bodies and out through their lower waistline. "I ask you again now. How does that make you feel?"
Not a sound.
"We can respect Apulia's decision to attack us... they were never strong with us and whatnot. We worked hard with them and decided to fairly attack us. Fair enough."
"Toras-North though... you lot should be hung upside down and stabbed to death by the children who lost parents, fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, brothers, cousins, and sisters. We were nice... we did not bother you and had no plans to. You attacked us first, and soon we shall sweep southward and burn your capital to the ground, and destroy your religion. In this world, you should not be here."
"More troubling is Liguria... even though we move to halt the bandits in the penal colonies, you sweep south and take them from us and then have the audacity to strike at our homeland. Ligurians here, rejoice. For today you will get a kinder fate then if you were still in Liguria when we move north."
"And finally the Samnites. Oh the blessed Samnites. We worked hard with them, conquered them fairly, freed their slaves, stopped the slave trade, were fair and cordial, and worked hard to integrate them into the Dual Duchy. Then you stabbed us in the back and wrested Kora-Torr from our hands. You are all unforgiven and unclean before the eyes of the gods. Because of your actions, you shall take the worst punishment of them all... and not only that, we will cleanse your lands as per the Faelinkriser's orders. What we will do will be kinder than what the mob would have us do."
Sarin cleared his throat and continued. "The men of Apulia... are to have their eyes torn out and their backs broken so that they can not walk again. This is to show that those who march against us shall pay the ultimate price."
"The men of Toras-North, who stabbed us in the back, are to have their heretical mouths sewn shut with thorn-rope. They are then to try and pull it out of their lips before we release the rabid dogs into their pens to tear off their manhoods. These dogs have been specially trained to do such a thing. The men of Toras-North may also choose to renounce their religion in return for having six nails driven through one hand, and the fingers lopped off of the other hand."
"The men of Liguria... are to be lashed to the prow of our ships and sailed into battle, or put into a barrel filled with glass and sharp objects and rolled down a hill. The men can choose their own fate there."
"For the Samnites, who lied and betrayed us... they are to have their tongues torn out of their head as well as their eyes, to have their nails broken off of their fingers and toes and forced down their throat, their manhoods to be smashed with hammers and their kneecaps removed. One prisoner will be lucky and shall be spared this punishment for a lesser one. Death by hanging." Sarin stopped talking and turned to the Faelinkriser, nodding.
One gloved hand, flashing with metal, rose up into the sky.
It descended down to point at Hiran.
"You are the lucky one prisoner, because you are a man of the Faith and do not deserve to die like the rest of these dogs."
Before Hiran even had a chance to say anything, they started the punishments. The screams of the Apulians filled the air for a quarter of a day, the men of Toras-North who were fewer filled the air for a quarter of the day.
The Ligurians selected their punishments, and when half of them chose the ship, the others were forced into barrels. The long, hilly street that led up sharply at one point in Sarkov was where they choose to do this. You could see the blood leaking out of the slats of the barrel, the horrid blood as it trickled out onto the ground right there in the street...
The Samnites, who were many, filled the air with their cries and pleas for a half day. Hiran watched them all go, all of them dieing horribly as they repented, some standing strong in the face of their punishment. Some chose to curse the Faith, others the Faelinkriser, and others still chose to curse the late king Sarklov III and the Duke of Samnia... yet many more begged to be put out of their misery quickly, yet they were not. Hiran could only watch as the scenes from the Articles of Redemption for the Faithful played out before him now, horrible indeed.
He was the last one, the last one still alive in this square as they fastened the noose around his neck. The Faith guards looked him in the eyes and nodded. They respected him as a member of the Faith, a member of a common religion that they shared. Hiran felt a pang of sadness; this war that was going on claimed more than just the lives of people. It claimed a sense of bondship and friendliness that might have been possible if this bloody war was not going on.
"You are the last man, Samnite." The Faelinkriser held a torch now, illuminating his tired features. "The last man, loyal to the end. I respect that in a man." The Faelinkriser nodded to the hangman. "Make it quick," he said.
Hiran panicked now as the hangman drew the noose tight. Everything seemed to slow down as he watched the man go to the little primitive lever that would cause the door to swing out and kill him. Opening his mouth, Hiran screamed out four final words.
"Long live sacred Samnia!"
The noose tightened as he fell.
Don't like the sound of 'would return every generation' bit with the plague though 
