Captain of the Guard: Preternatural

His horse shied away as the hound paused next to him.

“Well, we found him.” Marious noted.

“His shell, anyway.” Emile stated. “Poor thing didn’t have a chance. Really wasn’t fair if you ask me.”

Pookie sneered, “Fair has nothing to do with anything.”

The rest of the men rode up about twenty yards away, their horses refusing to go any closer to the dog. Cedric looked down at the three of them (he went back and forth between calling them it, him, them). “Mind checking to see if any of Ro’s assailants are in the nearby hills.

“Oh,” Emile looked mortified.

“Certainly Captain, we will.” Marious nodded.

“What do we do if we find them?” Pookie asked coyly.

“You have my permission to use your imagination,” Cedric replied dryly, “If you’re sure.”

He added as an afterthought when he caught the sudden gleam in Pookie’s eye.

The beast bounded up the sides of the hill and disappeared rapidly from view.

Vul rode by with a hand holding a cloth over his mouth. Alstone and Whisper came up beside him.

Vul took in the surroundings, “Wow, only three missed.”

“Quite a bit more accurate than normal soldiers.” Alstone noted.

“By several orders of magnitude.” Cedric answered uneasily.

The charlatan glanced over at Whisper, “Almost inhuman.”

Alstone’s comment added to Cedric’s disquiet. He looked over at Whisper, and the sergeant was obviously thinking the same thing. There was a group of mercenaries known for their exceptional archery: The Preternatural Company.

The Preternaturals, as they like to be called, had a reputation for being, for lack of a better word, not human, or more precisely not completely human.

When it was founded, the Preternaturals were a group of soldiers from a variety of Others that banded together in order to survive. They were foremost fighters, and good at what the did, but the military in their homelands did not want their service, for a variety of reasons that were usually described by bards in lengthy tales involving, intrigue, danger, cunning, idealistic virtues and idealistic, but not nearly as virtuous, love.

While an entire ballad can be used to describe it poetically, it is really quite simple: They were an outlaw gang.

While it is common for humans to think of reasons why they aren’t really bad people, despite doing something bad, this wasn’t a trait peculiar to humans and the Preternatural Company was no different.

So, while they were outlaws, at least they weren’t human. Each of them believed they were superior to humans. The Alfar for their grace and taste, the Svar for their skill, the Quansae for their strength, are just some examples. They might be outlaws, but at least they weren’t human. Never mind that the differences could be used to describe their companions just as well.

Initially requiring its members to be fully nonhuman, like a lot of organizations, it had to compromise its ideals in order to survive. Eventually, it allowed smaller and smaller amounts of nonhuman blood quantum for someone to join. It was now only necessary to point to some ancestor that was not human.

Even that could be overlooked if you could demonstrate an ability or talent that was beyond the capacity of most people. They were still an elite group after all.