After some time, a tattered group of soldiers poured from the tree. I'd not seen these before. They looked like the usual Order rabble and elite rabble, save that they all had golden wreaths on their helms. The exhausted ranks formed as best they could and parted to make way for some pompous old knight.
I swore and warned my team. That simpering relic was still alive. When Marika had come to the North, not all the Northmen stood with the giants. We all had doubts we could best a living god, but some of us turned before the blood thorns fell upon the snow. Here he stood again, having abandoned the Lordless Erdtree for the next great "opportunity".
My uncle.
He recognized me from afar, though I had greyed much since the day he led our kin to be captured alive. My wife and I alone had escaped, but we hid and awaited the end of the war. Perhaps that was the reason she had hidden again. No matter. This time I would stand against a living god, even if it meant standing with Death. I would fear no blood-betrayer.
My uncle's attitude and calling me "boy" eased the soldiers but not the troll. That one remembered what the giants had been. I faked a smile as much as my uncle and called to him warmly, that we might discuss the ruined outside world and his new opportunity to find glory in warfare true and just.
I had spent the last several months politicking and being honored by knights. These fallen men, I could easily inflame with passion. In a world bereft of purpose, destroyed by Flame from beyond the cold void, I could offer a tangible enemy. The incindiary words came naturally to my tongue, and I hated it.
But this would be only the beginning.