All for Haluth'Maug

William Gindsor, eldest son and heir apparent to the Gindsor Margravate, sits in a luxurious tent being fanned on either side by his personal manservants. He is quite frustrated at the moment. If he were at home he would be fanned off by two lovely maids instead of these young men. Furthermore their fanning was ineffectual in this dire wasteland heat. Worse than that, the fanning was interrupting his drawing.

"How hard is it to avoid shuffling my papers?" he says, splashing the contents of his inkwell on the uglier of the two manservants.

"Forgive my clumsiness milord." the ink stained servant says, unflinching and unsurprised.

William grumbles in agitation as the other manservant ceases the fanning in order to quickly fetch another inkwell. The entire ordeal is over in a moment like the well practiced choreography of an acrobat troupe. These men are no stranger to their masters compunctions. Rather they were chosen especially for this position due to their outstanding patience and ability to mask any and all reactions. This is the wisdom of the Marquis Frederick Gindsor, a master of human habits and psyche. He knew well when he appointed all of his son's servants that William's rage will subside quickly if his victims don't show any kind of reaction.

William for his part, is fully unaware of these and other such intricacies that make up the work of running a noble household. He has only two true passions. One of them being swordplay and battle tactic, at which he is fairly proficient. The other is drawing the sort of picture he is working on now.

"Milord! One of the mages has found the beastmen!"

A youthful knight in chainmail rushes into the emerald velvet tent. William turns and stares daggers at the knight, who stops in his tracks in turn. The knight's eyes wander between the young master he's sworn to protect and the paper on the table. His face goes pale, and he tries his best not to react in any visible way. He heard that William Gindsor made a hobby of drawing perverse, lewd scenes, but he always assumed it was just a rumor made to tarnish his already less than stellar character.

"Well?" William spits, his eyes daring the knight to say anything out of line.

"What?" the knights says, turning his eyes back up.

"The beastmen! Where are they?"

"Ah yes! They were spotted half a day's journey to the North, milord. They were engaged in a battle with a stampede of grudgers."

William's hateful expression makes way for shock.

"A stampede of grudgers?"

"Yes sir." the knight said, holding his eyes in place lest they begin to wander back to the table.

"Damn.. I don't suppose there are any left then.." William says, scrunching his face into a mask of impotent rage.

"Ah.. they defeated the stampede milord." the knight says.

William's face flattens like a slab of stone. He stares coldly at the young knight, suspicion clouding the air around him. Sensing danger the young knight begins to stutter.

"O-On top of their druid they seem to have some sort of fell magician on their side. It's just as the captain suspected sir."

The heir apparent's emotions switch for the fourth time in the last minute. Once again he is angry, though not terribly so. There was a bit of a conflict between himself and the knight's captain after the incident with the rampaging horses. William had thought it impossible that a devil worshipper would assist those mongrels. More than that, he hadn't believed that the beastmen would accept help from such a person. He owns a few beastmen himself, and his experiences with them gave him the impression they're extremely faithful to the beast god Tra'lenne. In fact, they're almost always murmuring prayers when he sees them. To think such a pious bunch would so easily give up their faith. Such a thing would normally make him feel quite proud of himself, however it's more than a little inconvenient in this instance.