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Night sets. Thick, inauspicious clouds obscure the watchful moon. And no animal makes a sound. Neither the hounds, nor the horses, not even the cicadas who've been singing their song ever dutifully through the whole season. The air carries the stench of death, even though not one drop of blood has been shed yet. All bad omens.
It's been five days since the Deathknight came to the range town with his dark entourage and his most unreasonable demands. He claimed the land rightfully belongs to his master, The Mask of Winters, under some fabricated claims and gave an ultimatum to the elders of the clans. Submit to the Deathlord or perish. The elders wished to tell the Deathknight to go fuck himself, but they knew they needed to stall for time at least until they could call for aid from the rest of the Marukani Nation. Unfortunately one of their younger sons, who was still too young and brash to be called a man, failed to read the room and said the thing everyone was thinking but none said out loud. The Deathknight was told that the piece of land his master gets is the holey they are about to build a latrine over, and he can only move there in funeral wrappings. He did not appreciate that much.
The grim knight swiftly retracted his offer and proclaimed he'd return on the fifth night from now and that the Marukani will serve his purposes, alive or dead. Now he's back with a small army of fifty walking corpses behind him, rather than the finely dressed if pallid looking people he originally came with. The forty or so men and women armed themselves with whatever they could, from heirlooms left behind by their forefathers to farming tools. The rest stayed behind with the children and the horses. Not out of cowardice, mind you. All Marukani are born on horseback and know how to fight on one. But someone needs to burn everything to the ground in case the warriors fail, both to deny it to the enemy and so they could preserve the sanctity of their deaths. A few cursed the foolish boy. If they had a little more time they could've asked for help from their neighbors, the larger Marukani Nation, Lookshy, or anyone. Now the best thing they could do is warn others so they may prepare or run away from the forces of the Underworld.
