Betrayal in Bretonnia...

 

They were all gone. Every single one.

The streaming banners and pennants were still there, fluttering in the light breeze above the ramparts. The horses were there – you could hear the occasional whinny or the stamp of a hoof.

But the people had just… gone. It was unbelievable.

He partly unsheathed his blade and strode through the eastern gates. The wide boulevard should have been lined with market sellers and hawkers, and bustling with peasant workers heading to the fields outside the city walls.

The stalls were still there, produce left abandoned and spoiling on the wooden crates or stacked neatly alongside.

He shuddered. The rumours were true – something horrendous had befallen Bretonnia. But what?

It was as if everyone had just vanished.

He moved further into Parravon, hoping to see some kind of sign of what had befallen the city. There were no bodies, no evidence of any damage to the buildings. Nothing even out of place.

As he entered one of the squares, he dismounted and tied up his destrier.

Steps led up to a guard post on one side and he climbed, stiff from his time in the saddle, a growing sense of dread inside him.

At the top of the wall, he stared out across the peasant fields, the neatly tilled land stretching out before him, abandoned. It didn’t make any sense.

How could all the people just vanish?

And then he saw it.

Slowly revolving in the sky, looming over the distant coastline with a myriad of coloured ashen clouds swirling below it.

An entire… castle. In the sky.

He looked away, unable to believe what his eyes told him. But the edifice was still there, pulsing with ethereal power and malevolence.

He felt sure it was this – thing – that had something to do with the disappeared people. This castle.

There had been legends of a flying fortress, all over the Old World, but they were just simple tales told to entertain children. Weren’t they?

His thoughts shifted. This news had to be spread. Who knows, perhaps there was treasure to be found inside that fortress, if you could find a way inside.

And his lord would most definitely want a part of it. After all, it wasn’t every day that Fozzrik’s Flying Fortress appeared above the land. Before long, other armies and lord would hear of the potential spoils and there would be Betrayal in Bretonnia, that was certain…