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Lambari brushed aside long grasses and unchecked foliage as they stepped through Anuras toxic mushroom forests. These vile things could grow beyond even the size of the very bishops that ruled these lands, if they were fed with enough life prey that is.
They suppressed their pounding headache.
The last clearing they encountered held nothing but pestilence, famine and war themselves. Every single time the old gods speak to Lambari, they dare wrap their magic around their throat and lift them by their spirit. Choking, while having no need for air, their blood oozing from their eye sockets, their limbs stretched and muscles burning with frightened anger.
The red crown remained unable to help them in these moments where the bishops grabbed them by their very essence. Its eye forced shut by the presence of its own kin.
Rigorous anger pumped in their resurrected heart, but Lambari knew better than to let it cloud their mind. Emotions may fuel them, but to let them direct their senses would be nothing but a hindrance. Instead, they sought to focus their fury on the heretics that scattered through the underbrush.
Little settlements dotted Anuras landscape. Tents sheltering criminals, murderers and true believers, while they cook around small fire pits, singing songs and laughing.
An existence Lambari knew from their childhood, taken from them by the very beasts that live their lives in servitude to cruel gods and old heresies.
From the thickness of the forest sounded that very merriment and the Lamb knew their haunt would soon continue.
Cutting away some of the tall grass, which the crown collected in its storage without hesitation, Lambari made their way past fungus, trees and critters. Once a column of smoke came into sight, the crown bearer decided on a silent ambush.
Striking fear into the hearts of their enemies was very fun for Lambari, though sometimes, surprising them and watching them scramble was even better.
Sneaking past bushes, Lambari soundlessly approached the edge of a clearing. Through the green they could see four hooded heretics, sitting by a pit of smoldering embers, two tents erected behind their backs.
The crown bearer circled around them in the cover of the treeline, slowly making their way behind them.
Stealth had once been Lambari's favored hunting method. Their twin and them used to clear little settlements like these in similar fashion before the crown was passed to them.
Lambert would crawl up a tree, their bow and quiver strapped to their back. Once they had taken aim on the unsuspecting prey they would wait for their twin to position themselves behind the heretics and would shoot the first shot upon Lambari's signal.
A practiced dance and a proficient and fast way to secure the clearing.
Now, with curses crackling in the palm of their hand and the red crown giving them power almost unmatched, they could clear any heretics without the help of their twin or stealth to give them an advantage.
As they hid behind the large stem of a mushroom they picked up some of the heretics' conversation.
“No, no! I tell you, I was there when they culled the last villages! I killed these vermin with my own hands!” Called out a gruff and proud voice. An old anger pumped Lambari’s blood like fire under their skin.
Another voice gave a scuff. “As if. That was over 50 years ago! You'd be a shriveled up old man if that was true!”
"Ha! I am an old man, alright!" the first voice shouted with amusement. "But I also earned a little boon from Bishop Kallamar for the hunt!"
The shifting of fabric was audible. A couple of synchronized gasps sounded from the heretics.
Lambari used their distraction to advance another couple of trees.
"You've been given a skull?!" A younger voice exclaimed.
Huh, so the Bishops give out necklaces as well.
"Damn right! But that's not the only trinket I've got from that fight!" The gruff voice boasted confidently.
The crown bearing lamb had made their way behind the heretics, their view on the camp mostly clear from between the tents. A shame these idiots never thought to have even one person standing guard. It would post a little bit more of a challenge for the Lamb.
"Themer!" one of the heretics shouted. Their voices laced with disgust, the wonder all gone. "Owning these is forbidden!"
The scorn in the heretics' voice pulled on Lambari's curiosity. Something so terrible that even the Old Faith would outlaw it? How peculiar.
Their eyes were drawn on the hooded figure sitting closest to the tent. The heretic held the attention of their companions with great joy, swinging their arm in front of their body. A metallic clink clink clink sounded every time their arm swung back and forth.
“Pha! Lord Shamura may preach not to find joy in necessary killing, but they are war for a reason! What better way to celebrate your victory, then by having the trophy!” The heretic laughed. An ugly sound if you were to ask Lambari. “One of these vermin even cut off my leg! If anything, I deserve to have these as compensation!”
A small golden glimmer got tossed up into the air by the boasting heretic. Lambari's eyes tracked every second of its arching flight until it landed back in the waiting hand that threw it.
The world around the crown bearing lamb grew mute in the short moment.
The golden glimmer, so painfully familiar to them. Their hand reaches for the golden pendant dangling from their own neck. The small locket their mother gave them on the day their parents died. A piece of their own wool placed within. A tradition only practiced by sheep folk and the people they invited into their families.
Every parent crafted one for each child and when the parent passed from this life into the beyond, the pendants would be buried with their mortal bodies. A piece of their children, forever with them.
Until the culling started.
Intense hatred blinded Lambari's vision. The need to paint the clearing in gore arose and their approach on stealth was abandoned without a thought. A rapid fire of hell blaze scorched away the tents and the first heretic on the left. The others scrambled to get away, scared by the sudden violence.
Not giving them the chance to arm themselves, Lambari used the crown, now morphed into a sword again, to cut the nearest head from its body.
The hooded figure crumbled to the floor, its head flying to the edge of the clearing where it smacked against a tree with an audible thunk sound.
The remaining two heretics pulled concealed weapons from their cloaked figures. One brandishing a dagger the other a smaller sword.
Lambari's frantic gaze landed on the crumbled form of the heretic on the floor. Around seven or eight golden lockets laid within the grasp of the corpse's hand.
A guttural growl reverberated from the bearer's throat.
Disgusting .
The dagger wielding heretic used their moment of distraction to try and strike them. An unsuccessful attempt, as Lambari merely sidestepped the blade and swung their own sword through with all their might. It collided with the heretics side and rendered its lower body from its torso.
Barbaric.
The last hooded figure held its sword as defense, thinking it could deflect divine retribution. How wrong it was. Lambari rushed at the heretic and thrust their sword upwards through its stomach, the end of the blade exiting form between its shoulders.
Worthless.
A pained gasp, mixed with a spray of blood left its mouth. The crown bearer watched with satisfaction as its life waned from the heretic.
With a kick against its torso and a violent yank their sword dislodge from the corpse.
Lambari took a moment to flick the gore from the sword before it left their hand and morphed back into the crown. It settled back on their head, nestled in soft wool.
With a deep breath they turned back towards the corps holding the lockets. Quick steps closed the distance before they kneeled down to pick the golden trinkets from the ever growing puddle of blood seeping from the heretics neck.
Eight pendants by the number. They opened the first, tears brimming in their eyes. The pristine, white wool inside is perfectly preserved. A name was engraved on the inside, as was tradition. Laubos. An old name. Only sheep well past their prime had this name in times that Lambari could still remember.
They placed the pendants in the satchel wound around their left leg, between fungus spores and pumpkin seeds.
So war does not permit the celebration of sheep folks death. How curious.
With every day, the reasoning behind the bishop's actions made less and less sense.
The trip home was paved with vicious violence and the collection of Gusion as newest recruit.
They could not wait for their siblings' comforting embrace.