but then reports began to arrive from various places across the farmlands and the minelands , brought to the castle by terrified peddlers who often begged to be allowed to take shelter with their families behind the fortified walls , even if they were to have no home and live outside as dogs ; and these reports spoke of a growing army of scavengers , led by a colossal warlord carried around on the shoulders of his men as if astride a horse , who attacked at will , pillaging homes , annihilating households and eating the corpses ( even those of babes ) , a practice which , according to those lucky few who had witnessed such assaults and stayed alive , gave them a strength no other meat provided ever since the shy death had rendered dead animal flesh near useless .