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<span style="font-size: 12px"><i>Tibet, Himalayas</i></span><br/>
<span style="font-size: 10px">Nicholas Roerich, 1933</span>​</div><br/>Large shadows tailed after screeching bodies in the smoke, lit red by the embers. Those who didn't lie dead in the streets or awaited a blade near their doors as they clutched their throats for breath were grabbed up by bandit soldiers. Eager to reap the benefits of war the men stormed homes and dragged women, men and children away and out of sight, the rest kicked and teased at poor, injured workers in the road and ground faces into the dirt and gravel under one's boot. All the misery of it and Banguai merely looked on with an astonishing indifference, fingers snuffing out the flame on his arrow and a nudge of his foot urging his beast of a steed through the village.<br/><br/>That could've been any town, any plot of land in which the poor folk called their home. A conglomerate of memories the monster mulled over as he rolled his drink in his cup. He lost track of which rural settlement fell under their raids, whose house he entered to find one of his men pinning down a young mother despite a flurry of kicking legs and sobbing. All the slurs drowned out by the wailing of a child. And each time his methods were the same, slaughter the infants, the fathers, the young boys so that they wouldn't take to their emperor's armies in search of revenge. Steal from the women their dignity but leave them a tongue and  feet to run on, so that they may spread the word.<br/><br/>Banguai put down his cup after a deep drink to grind his blade against the grit of a stone, little protecting him from the outside noise of the camp, the bellowing of stolen cattle and stamping of horses. He sat in his dark tent atop animal pelts and tended to the sharpening of his sword, readying himself in arms and in spirit for their next descent into the valley below. The inevitable evening ritual of fire, rape and pillage that attracted so many cruel hearts to service under his rule.<br/><br/>A commotion sounded outside the heavy flaps of his tent, a burly warrior gripping the bound arms of a fresh intruder and shouting out his lord's name. The lot that halfway slavered over the woman still as if not dreading to trespass. And draped in hides to defend from the mountain chill he emerged, tall as beasts of legend built from brawn and fear. His one eye focused itself on the girl with just enough attention whilst he sheathed his weapon, the other gleaming a dull white, blind and useless. He stepped aside after a long silence and the bandits dragged her inside, showing as little compassion whether she gave a struggle or not.<br/><br/>"What's a girl thinking to enter the crags of Siwangli... Here to avenge her husband? Her father?" He bit quiet slurs to his men so that they would leave, kneeling before the woman where she had been kicked in the back of the legs and forced to prostrate. Banguai gripped her by the chin and turned her head, close enough so that the grey in his beard bristled against her breath as he eyed her like a butcher. "You see no women among us, if that was your intent. I have but one eye to watch the dogs, even a petty maid is bound to get snatched up and you mustn't want that dear..." He released her chin, pulling a knife from his boot to cut the cloth from her chest, letting it rip to gather at her waist so that she sat bare breasted. A finger touched her scars, and he smiled and raised himself, sneering with large canines. "Hiding behind burns, knew you wouldn't be sold in such a sorry state. Not even worth a damn horse." He clicked at his teeth in appraisal, half humored while he stood deep in thought. "Shame too, used to be a pretty thing I bet."