A young paladin did her best to quell the pride she felt as she marched behind the other paladins. Ahead of the company of paladins, the king's emissary, an elderly duke, accompanied the sacred relic of the order of paladins. Around them, a thousand armored knights marched as well, meant to be both protection and part of an honor guard for the king's emissary, who alone of the thousand knights and five hundred paladins, rode horseback. He kept his horse abreast of the sacred relic of the paladins. Trailing behind, a bevy of wagons held supplies and equipment needed for camping along the way.

A rendering of the god they served, the sacred relic would give the paladins an advantage, should they be called to fight. The paladin had been told privately that, though they were to accompany an emissary to a negotiation, their mission was hardly one of peace. Though they were being sent as an honor guard, their presence was also a show of strength by the king.

Though the paladin didn't understand why the king had chosen to send his oldest duke along with the relic instead of a younger, more intimidating negotiator, the fact that she'd been chosen as part of the honor guard still astounded her. Out of the three thousand members of her order, only five hundred had been chosen to accompany the sacred relic to the field of meeting that was said to have been chosen by their enemy for negotiations. Even her older brother- who was by her family's account the better warrior- had failed at least one of the tests by which the honor guard had been chosen.

Being part of an honor guard, however, had its disadvantages. For one thing, she had to march 'at attention', staring only at the head of the paladin ahead of her and trying not to squint at the sunlight reflected off of his helm. The march was, therefore, rather boring and tedious.

Unused to the unusual manner of travel, the young paladin's legs ached at the end of each day. Also, the slow march guaranteed that she and the others of her order baked under the hot sun overhead, encased in their armor as they were. The paladin did her best not to grumble in the evenings or to ask why they'd left their horses at home. The paladins, like the knights forced to march before them, were ordinarily mounted warriors.

To stave off boredom as she marched, the paladin mulled over the events of the previous few days. The announcement had been made to all those of the paladin order that the king had ordered five hundred of his best paladins to accompany a delegation that would meet on neutral territory to discuss relations between the two entities. A series of tests would be administered to all and only those with the highest scores would be allowed to join the delegation. The honor guard was to be a permanent assignment, and came with a large stipend, which the paladin's father promptly took charge of for his daughter.

As she marched, the paladin ignored the dust kicked up by over a thousand other people and lost herself in her thoughts. She took pleasure in remembering the fuss her mother had made over her when it had been announced that she'd been chosen as part of the honor guard. A celebration had taken place, over and above her older brother's disgust.

The youngest of the full paladins in the honor guard and the only female in her family to join the order, the young paladin had been shocked and delighted to be chosen. She had also been astounded to learn that her older brother had not. Her pleasure was only slightly dampened by the tension with her sibling, exacerbated by her father's and grandfather's censure of 'the boy' for not surpassing his younger sister in skill and ability.

The young paladin still marveled that her brother had failed at some portion of the test, having been a full paladin for several years longer than she and holding a higher rank. She, on the other hand, though battle-tested but yet to make a name for herself among the members of her order, had succeeded in passing so well that the grand master of the order had visited her at her parents' home in order to congratulate her. It was no wonder why her older brother was so angry. She wondered what her relationship with her family would be like upon her return home. It had been insinuated that the appointment to the honor guard was a permanent one. Would her brother ever be allowed to join?

Near the end of the march, the paladin nearly stumbled as the ground beneath her foot sank further than she'd expected it to. She dropped her gaze, hoping no one would notice her break in focus. Underneath the entire body of traveling warriors, the ground had turned from the firm, arable valley ground. Instead of the hard-packed roadbed they had started out on, the company traveled over a bog, the sod of which was all that kept them from sinking into the muck beneath.

The march of fifteen hundred warriors had weakened the sod supporting them, making it advisable for her to choose her path with care. The paladin realized that, as the youngest member, her place in the rear of the company had an advantage she hadn't noticed before. There was none behind her to censure her for her lack of focus and comportment.

No longer worried about 'being caught', the paladin watched the ground, keeping her feet on any tuft of unbroken sod that she could find. It was a difficult task to both maintain pace and prevent herself from falling into the muck Finally, the horn sounded the call to halt. Expecting orders to make camp, the paladin looked around for her tent-mates, then sheepishly brought herself 'to attention' when no one else moved, except the emissary. His horse pranced with boredom and restrained energy as he spoke with the officers chosen to lead each company before wheeling the horse and cantering off toward the side of the field with his personal attendants close behind. The paladin figured he simply didn't care to camp in the mud.

Overhead, birds of prey wheeled and swooped before taking to the heights again, clearly anticipating a meal. The paladin's mind reflected on the relic she'd been selected to represent. The idol of her order, the relic she'd worshipped for her entire life was a simplified representation of a sort of blend between man and bird, one she'd always assumed to be an eagle. Yet as the birds overhead swooped lower and lower, the young paladin began to think the idol more closely resembled a vulture for the blunted wings, sleek head and neck and elongated, sharp beak that was becoming more clearly vulture than eagle.

As she watched, the birds began to fly closer together until the shadows they cast merged into one figure that eerily took the shape of the idol at the head of the column of paladins, and their wings seemed to strike sparks off each other. The young paladin blinked, feeling foolish, but the sparks became lightning bolts that seemed to meet bolts rising from the boggy ground. She screamed in terror, desperately balancing on the dry tussocks she'd managed to set her feet on as the arching electricity struck every knight and paladin around her, leaving them steaming on the ground.

Though the lightning flashed overhead to meet the bolts of electricity rising from the ground, there was no bolt that came up through the young paladin maid, leaving her the only member of the company still standing. The air around her turned heavy and the malodor of charred flesh stung her nostrils. Overhead, the carrion birds had merged into a creature that heavily resembled the relic, come to life. It towered over the carnage, easily four times the size of any man.

"What have you done?" she accused it in a voice made up of equal parts rage and fear. "These men were loyal to you, Chivrom! We have worshipped you our whole lives; why would you do this?"

The being, to whom she'd been dedicated as an infant and worshipped as god, spoke not in audible words, but as a knowing in her mind. Its amusement flooded her, along with the understanding that the entire body of them, her included, had been intended as an offering to it from the very first. They were meant to lay in the field as carrion-fodder until the bones were absorbed by the bog, just as with every offering made to the name of Chivrom, once per generation, for the past fifty generations. Buried under that understanding was the mild curiosity over her having survived the lightning storm.

"You'll not have them!" she declared. "I will stop you, for these were good men, all of them!"

It laughed, wishing more than just her had survived to challenge it over the previous five centuries or so.

In wordless outrage, she summoned a fireball and threw it at the creature's heart, using a favorite attack of her order. To the paladin's dismay, the fireball she'd summoned didn't explode on impact, as it had on each of the countless other times that she'd used the spell. Instead, it gently absorbed itself within the creature's body, making the great, feathered breast seem to expand to accommodate the fireball.

Strengthened by the energy it had absorbed, Chivrom laughed again, then scoffed. The determined young paladin turned cold as the being revealed itself to be the very source of the magic she'd tried to use against it, that it would feed on the sacrifice and as a reward to its followers, strengthen them in turn. The paladin drew her sword and charged. It would kill her in the end, Chivrom assured her.

"Perhaps I will die, but what you have done is evil, and evil must be opposed, yet there is none else to stop you. Taste my blade!"

Laughter died as outrage grew. Furious, Chivrom assured her that it would consume her flesh, the same as the others; but unlike them, she would be alive when it did.

"Then I'll fight you from within! You'll have indigestion that will climb clear to your tongue, and your guts will twist away from my flesh," she told it grimly, opening a gash on the creature's knee with her sword. "And then, gas will double you in agony before you gain the worst set of hemorrhoids in the history of existence. Come at me!" She swung her sword again.

Its howl of rage drove rational thought from her mind, as it reached down for her. Long, birdlike claws that extended from manlike hands wrapped around the paladin's torso and squeezed her chest, compressing her armor until the struggling young paladin couldn't draw a proper breath. She was flung from side to side, sliding around inside armor that did little to protect her as the creature shook her. It picked at her helmet with its clawed hands but the straps held firm, protecting the paladin's head from the sharp claws. Disgusted, it gave up the attempt and shook her again before throwing her down to grind her underfoot.

The paladin felt her helm give way under the onslaught, torn edges of metal ripping a gash in her scalp. The last thing she was aware of beside the blinding pain was the rush of wings as the creature returned its form to the previous flock of carrion birds and flew upward.