The tall, old man with the long mustache loudly whispered, “He is not safe here,”
The taller, older man with an even longer mustache solemnly replied, “He is not safe out there.”
The tallest, oldest man with the longest mustache thoughtfully responded, “We are not safe with him here.”
A younger, clean-shaven man of average height fought back, “We are not safe with him out there!”
A short man of indeterminable age and one sideburn longer than the other screamed, “We must do something!”
A remarkably average man countered, “Or we could do nothing.”
One should never shy away from doing the things one does well and doing nothing was what the Council of Eaton did best.
The “he” that was the subject of debate was Kyne Halstead. Kyne Halstead was the subject of many prophecies, two of which greatly concerned the Council of Eaton.
The gist of the first prophecy was that he would be the one to lead the Kingdom of Eaton through an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity lasting a millennium. Of course, it was worded more eloquently than that. There were passages with something about him being the last in the line of the Old Stone King, and having unicorn blood or some such preternatural bodily fluids. It was written about a hundred years after the death of the Old Stone King by some very wise men who were assured that the Old Stone King was most likely an effective ruler. It had been translated no fewer than four times to approximate the ever changing parlance during the four thousand years since its inception, but such alterations did little to affect the truthfulness of the passage.
The second prophecy was less cheery. In it, the blood of the unicorn (read as: Kyne Halstead) could be used to open a gateway into the Murky Realm where peace and prosperity were notably less abundant. He who would sacrifice the New Stone King would rule with an iron fist and be granted countless shadowy powers and the finest black vestments. This prophecy was written as parody a mere sixty years prior to the birth of the potential New Stone King. It affected an ancient tongue, and fooled many into believing it whole heartedly. Though, a good number of those believers hadn’t bothered to track down primary sources. Most were not very fluent in their abilities to do research.
Ogun the Appalling wasn’t much of a reader, but who has time for such things when leading a force of two thousand blood-thirsty ruffians? He found the former prophecy distasteful, and the latter one quite favorable. This is provided, of course, that he be the one to spill the unicorn blood. And it was he whose army marched fewer than thirty miles west of the walls of Eaton.