Night

Chapter 03 - pt 01

No, it can't be... I refuse to let it end like this.

The Haradac festered like a wound unattended. Scavengers dug at the open flesh of the corpses that by present looked mutilated and disfigured. Surely these scavengers are more capable of disassembling the weak than his entire battalion which were now of use only to mere maggots and vermin. Bestowed their rightful position in life, thought Daren as he clenched his metallic right arm with malice, to be of no part in it.

Daren towered over the massacre, drinking in the view, not the horror in it make no mistake, being a witness to many onslaughts, he found little interest in the bloodiness of this entire ordeal but rather to find clues on how an entire battalion was overpowered to the extent where there were so survivors. His cool black hair flowed along with the winds that blew harshly across these desolate parts, while his green eyes ran amongst every corpse that remained limp and soaked in the blood of each other.  

He swept away the strands that blurred his vision, he had expected a quarter of his battalion to perish if he had to consider the most dire of outcomes which he had of course, but this is simply unprecedented, and yet he stood on the precipice of his failures without any revelation as to what brought such a catastrophe upon his vigilant schemes. And yet he grinned.

Well this just adds up more bodies for Saundra's experiments, at least she would be pleased of these events, thought Daren with much mischief in his eyes as he made his way to what appeared to be the center of the battle. He was well on his way towards his objective which was a large mound of bodies piled up under the flag of an armored antler, the court of arms of Lowen, did Daren notice something peculiar as a scavenger took off at his heels, setting a handful of its feathers free from its wings. Surely there was nothing odd about a malnourished bird losing its feathers and leaving a trail of decay, no, what caught Daren's inquisitive mind was something far more peculiar. He knelt down to where the feathers had settled only to see that his thesis had been proven correct. The feathers which now littered at the foot of Daren were all precisely severed, as if they had passed through a sharpened blade.

Puzzled by the occurrence, he stood up and began to travel down the trove of knowledge he had gathered in years of combat to produce an explanation. However it was all for naught. "Sometimes to walk first you need to run," Daren told himself as he got prepared for action that he hoped would shed some light on the mystery of this mound. Bearing caution at mind he slowly lifted his metallic arm and reached towards the pile of bodies inch by inch. For a while it appeared all was as it should be, but just as Daren felt relieved and came to the conclusion that the scavenger's feathers were a mere freak accident, he caught a stench. A stench of melting...

But too late, already three fingers of five on his metallic hand had been neatly severed at the stems and the fingers fell on the ground with a clatter, setting more scavengers flurrying to less occupied spaces in the battlefield to continue their meals. Daren hastily leaps towards the path from where he had emerged onto the battlefield believing it to be the safest position in this bizarre place. Daren brought his hand up for examination, this arm had endured many bloodsheds, it had been tested through many trials that demanded strength, and yet today it was cut down as if it was nothing more than a slab of butter.

He had not only been careless today with the predicament involving his battalion, but also naive to risk his own life to prove the presence of a very cunning trap. How it infuriated him. He could almost hear Saundra mocking his naiveness.

He allowed the fumes of melted metal to drift through his nostrils and to make his body and mind aware that now is not the time to complain but rather to remain calm and analyze the situation ,but most importantly, to produce results.