Valiant

Prolouge: Discovery

"A storm is coming soon."

The man speaking dusted his long, black cape, showing the hilt of his sword and a bit of his gleaming armor. His heavily browed eyes were trained on the dull, grey clouds massing in the distance over the lonely mountains.

The air was humid, and smelled of smoke and pollen. An electric feel of anxiety permeated through the warrior, who seemed to be talking to himself. He wasn't.
Another warrior quietly stepped into the open from the dense, brown arms of the trees. This man was an Oriental, with a serious, lined face and a thick, white scar that ran the length of his jaw. His armor was light and flexible- steel gauntlets, a wool jacket with a fiery crest, and a chain-mail hauberk that came to his knees. He spoke softly, with an thin accent.

"So it is. One I fear this kingdom shall not survive."

The first man turned around, so that he could better look at the answerer. Suddenly, his cold, stern face broke into a slight smirk.

"T'was a remark on the weather, Sir Titus," he chortled.

"'Tis no time to jest, my lord," Sir Titus replied.

Lord Richard turned away from Titus and looked now to the vastness of the river valley.
Bodies lay sprawled over the rocks, punctured with spears, axes, swords, arrows, and other weaponry. They were all dead. Rotting in their armor. The sickly-sweet odor of carrion was brought to the lord's nose by a sudden gust of wind, and he stiffened against it.

Even from up on his perch on the ledge over the valley, the flies could be heard swarming over their horrible feast. The men were pale, with deep, fatal gashes cut through their chain-mail, and puncture wounds oozing blood black as sin onto their breastplates. Horses lay among the men- great, noble beasts pin -cushioned with arrows and spears. Legs crushed by clubs and maces.

"My lord, should we search the wreckage for survivors?"

" No."

"My lord?" Titus gasped at the rejection of customary respect for the soldiers.

"I have a friend looking for survivors below," he explained. He drew his steel from its scabbard halfway with a metallic screech.

The woods parted once more, and another figure approached. A solemn-looking man with a simple, brown robe held with string pulled out of the forest leaving a trail of muttered curses as the branches clutched at the fabric of that cloak. He pulled his hood back to reveal a tan, leathery expanse of skin under thin, grey hair, smile-lines, and eyes that seemed to twinkle like stars through his pouched eyelids.

"Paulo," Lord Richard stated. "Have you found anyone?"

At this, Paulo seemed to sag with age, and said, "They were all taken by the time I got to them. They're all dead."

Lord Richard's eyes became hollow with grief, but otherwise he showed no signs of sorrow. " Are you sure, Paulo? I need to know."

"No warrior has a beating heart on that cursed stretch of land," spat the robed stranger.

Lord Richard sheathed his sword and turned to leave, sweeping his long, ebony cloak up with him. Sir Titus followed, hand on the pommel of his blade, into the dense, green maw of the forest.
Paulo sat on the ridge, and tears filled his eyes as he looked upon the wreckage and destruction of the two armies.

"This did not need to happen, Raphael," he whispered, and took a bundle of cloth out of his robes.

The cloth was just a shade darker than the brown of his robes, but sewn onto the surface of it was one word- "Raphael".
Suddenly, the bundle began to emit soft noises, and a face appeared among the folds. Squirming, wriggling, and crying in that bundle of cloth, soaked in blood from the carnage below, was a small baby. Male, with wisps of black down that rolled over its wrinkled, pink forehead.

"They were right. A storm is coming," Paulo choked out to Raphael. "Let us take shelter from the gales."