“Take the nip off. No shame in it.” Tyr handed the bottle to a man, eyeing the gaping wound in his gut and sighing. He didn't know how to heal things like the priests did, not normally. It depended on who showed up. In his mind, that is, each of the eleven others was good at something. Now it was just him, for once. He thought it was him, but how could he know? Didn't matter, they were all the same ultimately, one part of a greater whole, the more time that passed the less he differentiated himself from the others.

The man took the bottle with a choking chortle. Lungs filling with blood, internal bleeding. Someone caught too deep in the circuit of honor and duty to run or surrender like his fellows had. The ones who ran usually died, Tyr tried to disable the rest. Tried. These men were so... So soft. Weak, he'd often go too far, and his magic could quicken the metabolism but it could not heal directly. It could take, though. Take practically anything, even memories. He didn't quite understand it, but it worked well enough. Tyr could make people forget anything as long as he was aware of its existence in their minds.

“It's good...” The man gasped in relief. Young enough in the face to be a boy, younger than Tyr by the looks of it. But as it would turn out, the man was nearing his 50's – a veteran, simply half something or other. Demi blood mixed in him, giving him the advantage of a youthful appearance in his middle age. “Vintage?”

“No fuckin' clue.” Tyr laughed. “Let's call in Harani '93, I got this bottle from a good friend of mine, Rorik of Riverwood. His parting gift to me last time we met, but I'm not much for the alcohols you humans drink, especially not wine, but it's got a good enough taste. Spruce wine, I guess they call it, kinda curious how you make wine out of a spruce tree, but whatever.”

“Aye.” The man nodded. “You Harani know how to brew your spirits, that's for sure. Good liquor, strong women, nice steel. What more can a man ask for, eh, White Wolf?” It was a simple thing to recognize a man like Tyr Faeron, it made some wonder why such a menace to society could wander about all free and lively without some reckoning with the churches. What with his incredible height and physique, unique features, snow white hair, that sword at his waist that glistened even in the night time burning like a torch through the gloom when drawn. At no point had the once heir primus of Haran attempted to hide himself, and yet they'd never come for him.

“True enough.” Tyr took a swig himself, slumping down next to the man, suddenly thinking of Alex. “Gonna be a long road out if I let you squirm like this. Just being honest. You know that, right, that you're going to die?”

“Ain't no way around it.” The man laughed. “Do me in, worse ways to go by my reckoning, just make it quick.”

“I'm... Well, I'm not sorry at all, but I'd help you if I could.” Tyr frowned, conflicted. He didn't want to kill. He had to. And sometimes others were caught in the process of him going about that urge. 'Him'. As if 'him' or 'he' explained all those voices in his head. His head wasn't 'his' anymore. It was theirs, and Tyr was merely first among equals. Tyr reined them in and made them submit, but he'd not been able to stop them from coming out when they really wanted to.

“Nothing to it.” The man smiled, his eyes looked so tired. His abdomen torn apart by shattered rock from an explosion, too much for a potion – it'd take a master healer to fix the man, and Tyr didn't walk around with one of those. “Do me, send me to the black. No shame in that.” He chuckled again. “Perished to the White Wolf. Some glory in it, maybe do me a lick of favor and tell folks I put a dagger in you before I went out. All gallant and heroic meself.”

“You know who I am?” Tyr asked. “Not just the wolf, that ridiculous nickname, but... Well, you know?” The man nodded, shaking at the limbs. Too much blood lost. But it'd be a while yet before he truly gave way, injuries to the stomach were long and grueling ends, one of the worst ways to go in Tyr's experience watching. “Would you swear yourself to me?”

“Already have, primus.” The man replied, still bearing his grin and gripping at his dog tags, paling yet further and starting to fall into the intermittent jerks of a man spinning into shock. “My pa loved you all, loved the gods, taught me to do the same. Never doubt that, house of Bloom will always love the gods and their children.”

“Children of the gods.” Tyr repeated with a wry chuckle. Man invented their own truths to explain the mysteries of the world, if only they knew what he really was. What all men were. As for this one, he wasn't fully human, the man was at least quarter telurian by the reddish tint of his skin, no horns though. No tail either. Good eyes, bright eyes. Quick enough fingers to put an arrow in Tyr's own left before he'd gotten blown away. Always the left eye, perhaps it was an omen. “What's your name?”

“Orlando.” The man replied, and Tyr offered him a bargain. Servitude for a second lease on life, servitude and an unsullied soul, Tyr would take Orlando's sins upon himself and wash the man clean. And Orlando accepted. He was the first of many. Those unliving that Tythas somewhat taught him how to bring back, but something was different. Before long, there were a great deal of them, making others where Tyr could not. Now, they were a silent legion, a black legion. Always waiting. Better to have more soldiers than none, he figured. No pain, no remorse, no fear. Only service. Duty. Slavery, really. But they'd be back, given flesh once again. Tyr knew this because he'd said it, and they were free to leave at any time, the only shackles were what they'd feel of his aspect. Not your typical undead, Tyr didn't know what they were.

“Are you really a god?” Orlando choked, blood leaking from his mouth. Half his torso impacted and scorched away, it was a sign of his incredible vitality that he was still alive to begin with. “Pa says you're all gods, given human flesh. To guide and protect us. Nurture us. Is that why you're doing this?”

“Do you love the gods, Orlando? With all your heart?”

“I do.”

“I loved them too, once. All of me for all of them. I was the cold one. The Omega. The eyes and hands in the dark that shaped their will. They made, but I... Orlando, I perfected. Protected it from the unclean things that life breeds. Cancer must be cut out, two sides of a coin. A god? I'm not so sure. By that logic, a hurricane is divine, a rock hurtling through space towards its terminus of turning a planet to dust is a god. I am simply Her instrument of annihilation, and there was never one greater than I at this solemn duty.”

Orlando's eyes flickered with light one, twice, before any flicker of life left them. Dead. Tyr held his soul, carefully and gently tucking it into its container. More forbidden magic. Hellish, a curse, but he only took those who offered their services to him consensually. Tyr spoke to this man more than any other, and he didn't know why. He wanted to tell him about the pain, the betrayal. Suffering under an oath so heavy it was no oath at all. A promise was something that could be broken. His was a compulsion, a need. Eternity. The gardener who planted and his partner, the one who pruned and picked and plucked. Ensuring that everything was just the way it was supposed to be. No imperfections. No cancers. No scratching in the walls.

Slayer of all things foul. The greatest of monsters.

Orlando would die, and rise again. Maintaining his personality, same as the others, just a bit more sanguine than before. Quiet, changed by their passage into purgatory and forced to gaze upon their mistakes. It was easy. He whispered to them and most obeyed, nine out of ten humans. Far rarer with the others, but not exactly uncommon. Not an army, never that, there was a clear limit and he could feel it in them. Just fifty by his own hand, burning the shape of it onto their skulls and giving them their second chance. That was enough, for now, his legion in waiting, and there'd be more as he developed. Orlando would do the rest beside his brothers, dragging them up and sharing the offer, and thus the web expanded.

They knew no hunger, no fear, no need for sleep. But they could speak to Tyr through the song. He could hear them. They had many conversations, and they would return to the dirt where he lay them each and every time. Waiting. Always waiting.

The rings on his fingers that he'd wear proudly, waiting himself for the right time to set them loose.

Soon.