You awake amidst a pile of broken corpses.
Tangled limbs all over. A naked pile of discarded flesh.
Their weight presses down on you, each shallow breath a titanic effort.

A nearby bonfire crackles, audible beyond the ceaseless buzz of flies and skittering of insects.
The large fire roars, incinerating all that it is fed.
An all-consuming flame.

The smoke of which snakes its way through your pile, a hard stench of soot and burning muscle.

A pair of tall men in chainmail armour stoically waltz over to the pile of bodies that surrounds you.
One man takes the legs, the other the hands and with a grunt of effort they hoist a body from the pile, only for it to crack at the centre -- spine shattered and guts spilling.

"Doina!" says the first man with a heavy sigh, throwing the legs to the ground.

"Unark dalir," says the second, waving a dismissive hand, "Realor toinpaz."

Not a language you understand.

Your first instinct is to shout for help, but no sound exits your mouth.
Only a stub remains of what should've been your tongue.

A bloated corpse pops open, skin tearing, maggots pouring from its insides.
The pile of corpses shifts as the corpse tumbles from top to bottom.

Allowing new sights.

A priestess in resplendent, blue-grey robes stands beside the bonfire that's burning the dead.
Her eyes are closed, her focus on the prayer she intonates.
The prayer is in an old tongue, not one you understand, but one you vaguely recall hearing before.

A rite of purification.

A second look at the men in chainmail now shows various religious symbols.
Templars, perhaps. The iconography of their order now plain to see when you know what to look for.

As you narrow your eyes in an attempt to recognize the symbols, the sight in one eye wavers.
Your eyeball rolls from its socket, hitting the blood-drenched mud before you.

An experimental flex of shoulders and thighs finds most limbs absent.
There's no pain, but how are you alive?

The pair of templars return to their duties.
Another body is lifted from the pile and reduced to ash and bone.

That'll be you soon.

Cinders.

With great effort your limbless body writhes in place, only managing to dig itself deeper into the mud.

Another body lifted away.
Light from the bonfire now hits you directly.
You play dead and are probably very convincing.

Peeking with your remaining eye, you see a bloodied man in dark, tattered robes tossed into the back of a reinforced carriage.
A templar closes and then bolts the door shut.

"Bolir!" he cries, slapping the side of the carriage twice.