No one knows who they are or where they came from. They appear on fields of battle where there are wounded and dying. They are the Keepers of the Dead. Near dusk they will start to appear, along the edges the woods just out of sight. Men and women alike unlucky enough to fall wounded in battle would be wise to end their suffering themselves to avoid them.
For those that are unable to kill themselves, a fate worse than death awaits. They wait gathering in numbers until some unknown appointed time, before descending upon the battlefield. First they will attend to the dead, their bodies picked up and carried away to be made ready to become one of the Keepers. Those still living can only watch in horror as they are ignored and the bodies around them removed. They do not speak nor make any sound at all, until they attend to those still living. Upon daybreak the fields are free of corpses with only the living left cured of their wounds, cursed with an incurable madness unable to speak in a silent prison.