No more than a mile off shore, five, massive ships weighed anchor. Within each ship's hull, mechanisms were manipulated to release hundreds of cage doors. From these doors issued men of all shapes and colors, some from Ettan, some from beyond its borders. They walked the narrow space between cages to the stairs leading to their ship's deck. They walked without speech or quibble, they walked with order and purpose, though their faces lacked all emotion.
Once up the stairs and on deck, each were handed a weapon by men wrapped in black cloth who chanted strange words just above a whisper. Swords, axes, maces, all in varying states of misuse were given to the marching men and without so much as a nod to the tool of war forced into their hands, each warrior continued their steady pace to the bow of their ship where, one by one, they leaped overboard and sank until they met earth.
The ocean filled their lungs and stomachs, but this did not stop them. Hundreds plunged, weapons in hand, beneath the ocean and once they could sink no more, they began a slow walk over sand and stone, through tide and sea weed, to Thront's many docks.
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