HEAR YE, HEAR YE [Assorted Medieval Fantasy Stories]

[06] Slaughter Under the Bloodied Sky pt.1

His regiment was fleeing from the demons of death. Many had abandoned their weapons and shields, running as fast as their legs could take them. The hounds of bloody murder chased them with savage barks and howls. Tristan Farlerign, a mere militia trooper shoved into brigandine and given a halberd, still held his weapon, and even dared to look behind him every here and there.

The creatures that chased them were mere abominations of what was commonly termed as man's best friend: their mouths were lined with a thousand razor-sharp barbed teeth; their eyes were many, sometimes five, sometimes fifty, and all glared with an insatiable bloodlust; the flesh that donned those four legs and body was mangled and burned and clotted a thousand times over, resembling more closely a freshly-butchered corpse than any truly living being.

Behind these feral hounds were their masters, who stood as seven-foot tall behemoths clad in inch-thick steel of black, twisted designs of corrupted runes and demonic iconography littering their armor, shields, and weaponry; despite the weight of a thousand tons of steel, these walking titans seemed to track fairly well behind their pets, not anywhere near revealing signs of fatigue, or even slowing.

Some drunkards whispered rumors that these warriors were once men, an emphasis on once; behind the black steel of their armor was said to be a twisted parody of humanity, marked a thousand times by their false gods' scriptures and cursed with a raw power unlike any mortal man.

A second had passed, and another regiment trooper behind him was pounced upon by three of the hounds. Farlerign watched blankly as the man's body was torn into a thousand pieces by the ferocious beasts, tearing apart sinew and steel all the same. 

The hounds continued on, leaving the body barely alive. The titans did not even give the poor corpse a proper death一one step of their heavy sabatons, and the man's skull was crushed underfoot. Karl didn't stop, knowing that a second of hesitation was all it took to become some creature's dinner and some grass' fertilizer.

The night sky itself seemed to grow hostile, with the clouds bloodied all the same like the grass fields of their slaughterfield. Farlerign knew their odds were unlikely at best, and so the annihilation of half their force in a matter of an hour was no surprise to him. 

He had seen these demons before, witnessing their true carnage firsthand as they slaughtered the people of his village. At that very moment, amidst the ruins of his old home, he swore vengeance, but he knew that such a plea would go unheard by the gods.

His regiment had been one of the last regiments to pull out of the battle. They, like a hundred other souls laid astrew across the battlefield, had been abandoned by the noble knights and officers, leaving mere sergeants and lowly regiment colonels to lead the remaining troops to a promise of safety.

But that was all that it was: a promise, one whose silver lining was that they would at least be the last to die. It gripped Farlerign with fury, how these men were such cowardly wretches! 

Had they not drunk only a month ago, cheering themselves on for their pre-ordained victory? Had the oracles not destined their triumph over the otherworldly foe in this very battle? Had they not been given the consent of the King to strike out at the unholy scourge, to execute his will and destroy all those who dare threaten the middle realm?

He was not a mere conscript, no. This life was his choice, and his choice alone. Would he waste five years of practice, a dozen battles against brigands and enemy kingdoms, and a vengeance only known by the most wronged, on a few more wasteful strides?

Farlerign, possessed by a rage that numbed all sense of self-preservation, turned with a bellow and swung his halberd swifter than he could ever have possibly done. 

The blade sunk deep into the neck of a hound that was in the process of pouncing him, and it squealed pathetically as he drove his halberd into the ground, the force of hammer and anvil splitting off the creature's neck at a horrible angle. Farlerign did not even place his foot upon the creature, pulling his halberd's blade out from the beast as the other hounds neared. 

Perhaps luck would have it that he would at least get one kill, but one kill did not seem enough for Farlerign; the demons must pay. Every. Last. One.