The whispers returned in force today, they continue to tap, tap, tap on my mind, banging against my skull like a starved man at the gates of the granary, greedily grumbling for the grey matter of my brain. They worm their way into my skin and pump their viscous sludge through my veins. They are an all-consuming cacophony of howled, hissed, and husbanded secrets… And demands for retribution.

The fifth stretches out before me, their shields painted with the contorted, stylised faces of suffering they lust to see reflected on their enemies. Twisted, viciously curved swords and pikes of rough-hewn wood bang against those Scutum of savage visage.

I walk hunched and contorted through our camp, bent and bowed beneath the heinous weight of profane knowledge, men cower and scrape before me, pressing the greasy, asymmetric and pox ridden faces of their befouled demonic kind to the scarred and cracked earth as I pass, whispering their repetitive and mumbled prayers to their tribal spirits.

In the distance, across a little river and ensconced upon the summit of a quaint hill of sedate angles and verdant, green sweet grasses lies the sea of snapping banners, tents, and camp smoke of the men of Io.

The stink of their traitor kings hangs heavy off them, the sickly-sweet perfume of his taint infecting their very beings.

A slave boy scurries toward me, in his shaking, white knuckled grip he holds a tray of potions and salves to alleviate the maddening itch and ache of my tainted, cracked and decaying flesh. I wave him away without a word and he flies down and away through the camp of jeering words and grasping hands to his cell, happy to be away from me.

I need the pain today; I need the encroaching rot and spiderwebbing rivulets of tar which leak from my skin. I need them to remind me of the crimes of Io, I need them to remind me of my mission. To throw down that city of false premises and cold stones, to see all who have dwelt within its walls put to the sword and its fields salted, to see that king among the wreckage of all he holds dear and to piss on his prostrate and quivering form.

The battle is close now, I hear the axes of the fifth hammering away in a staccato rhythm as they hew bridges and barges from the gnarled and tawny trees which reluctantly sprout from the dying earth of my demesne, a tumorous estate sprouting of the borderlands of the count’s council, chosen for its proximity to my nemesis. I will be the first councillor to taste the blood of Io and from their I will tear down their whole rotten and fetid civilisation.

And so I dedicate this prayer and the actions therein to any god listening, good or evil, light or dark who will help me in my goal. I care not what payment you may take, damn my soul, flay my skin for drums and play my hollowed bones as flutes, as long as first I can see the flames consume the city and lick the immolated corpse of the king.

I, Siam’Siak, dedicate this prayer.