167st of Gnielm, 336 EA
Peyr Myarsa
Anzaw sat high on the intricately carved bench, looking down on the procession below.
“I have done nothing with my life other than work, and even at that I’m not particularly good.” The man at the foot of the pulpit was base, kneeling and soaked through as though he had been left out in the rain. He had an unkempt lankiness to him, size without any real power to it. His name had been announced as Gavril Tumash, at the beginning of the trial. “I have no idea how I know these words, why the swamp listens to me. You call me warlock, and I do not know what that means, but what I do know is that I just want to live my life. I pose no threat to you. Don’t exile me, please, I beg you.”
Glancing around, Anzaw noted that few of the other devoted conservators were paying attention. Even fewer had brought ceremonial axes such as his, if they had even been granted them.
“It is a fateful thing, to have been touched by the swamp so.” Najdan presided, elder figure as they were, hunched and slow to speak. “Your existence here is profane in and of itself, a weapon for the enemy, but we cannot allow you to fall out into the muck and land in that same enemy’s hand. It is not ideal, but we have no choice but to allow you to stay.”
Anzaw shifted to standing, moving at a steady pace down the stairs to the centerline of the communion chambers. His shoulders were pulled back straight, his posture no more rigid than normal. To any others there, he must have seemed to have just been excusing himself.
Before anyone could realize what was happening, Anzaw was at the prisoner’s level. He could see the vertebra lined down the gaunt man’s back, poking out past skin and threadbare garment. He lifted his axe without breaking his stride, and sunk it straight through Gavril’s flesh down a perfect target of the man’s spine.
There was no lack of attention then, gasps going up as a warlock of the swamp fell to the ground gasping vacantly in wretched righteous pain.
“Make me your sacrifice, I give my honor for the honor of all Conservatorship.” Anzaw declared out to the adjudicator in iron confidence, throwing his axe to the ground and feeling the weight of the entire room on him, “Cast me out to penance. I will serve, for what I have done here, and do so willingly. This man was stained, his blood mired by filth. By killing him I have sullied myself, I do not deny it, but this was a necessary act for the maintenance of order here. No less.”
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