Sorry about the sudden deletion guys! I made a mistake in Chapter 2 and meant to delete that but screwed up and deleted it. Now the timing is fixed.
Been sitting on this idea for a while, had a free moment this morning to finally get the first chapter done. It isn't very long, but I don't think it has to be.
Mala in Se
Chapter I: Manifest Functions
Like clockwork, once a year, he dreamed that dream again. It came on him deep in the night, swift as a thief, cold and clammy like the hand of the dead. That dream grabbed him by the throat and refused to let go, and it lingered even after the sun rose.
It had become a sort of ritual. The day before the dream was spent working—normal things. Like chores, woodcarving, hunt if it needed to be done. Then as night crawled across the sky he drank. He drank until he couldn't see straight and he would go to bed, whatever that may be, and greet the dream like some expected and unwanted guest.
And it would dig into his heart like a knife. A well-deserved, expected punishment. He was certain it drove him closer to the grave.
It began with the screams of horses and the shouting of men. The slide of steel against steel. Feet pounding against hard-packed earth like drums. Then it would all come into view.
He stood in the forest looking out at the road. The carriage appeared first, two of its six horses dead, the wheel caught in a deep rut. He'd ordered his men to dig into the road, to splatter the road with water from the nearby river. A natural looking trap. His men came into focus next, their bodies and armor painted to meld into the forest, their weapons at the ready.
The carriage had come to a messy stop, one of the horses cried out as its foot broke in one of the ugly holes he'd had dug. As Callier's men got to work removing the horse from the team and replacing it, the General watched on from the other side of the road. He was in the open, his men occupied with the injured horse. The time was perfect and he gave the signal.
Rainer did not expect the family to be there. His words came crashing down upon him, echoing so loud he was certain his men could hear it; "If I stop them, they'll know." And then the desperate cry of children broke through the din of battle. "Too many voices in the carriage—Maker they're young."
He wished it had driven him mad right then and there. He wished he'd stopped them. General Callier fell to the onslaught of Rainer's men. They outnumbered Callier's forces two to one. The herald fell, the servants too; the three Chevaliers went down in bloody streaks. The horses that didn't run were slaughtered too—he'd ordered that no one be allowed to escape, that meant eliminating all chances.
The family and their few remaining guards barricaded themselves in the carriage. Rainer stood motionless as his men began chopping away at the door with axes. With each great whack, screams emanated from the carriage. No one could be left alive, he'd ordered. He would not have said the words had he known about the children. And if he were a braver man, he would have stopped them.
But he didn't.
In the end that was what tormented him the most.
Technically, manifest functions are "intended, planned, or anticipated consequences of introduced changes or of existing social arrangements." But I think it works in this instance or at the very least provides an amusing (angsty) way for me to remember sociology/criminology theory.
By the way, Blackwall, according to Patrick Weekes is in his forties. I use Weekes' estimation of the character ages in all my DA stories.