A Ballad of Blood and Bones

The Demon of War

            Then something changed in the battle. Suddenly everyone stopped. No yelling. No screaming. No noise, except a brutal and loud sound of ripping flesh, and bone meeting blade.

             The boy quickly turned toward the noise, feeling an inexplicable sudden chill up his spine born of terror. He then saw a thin mist of blood, flying into the air, coating those near in a thin crimson spray, and it was far too much to be from a single person.

             The boy found the disturbance, and quickly looked the being up and down. He was a tall man, skinny in stature, with a long black pony-tail reaching his waist. 

             He wore a black leather cloak, as dark as night, with baggy gray cloth pants, allowing free movement for the blades attached to his shoes. His hands held long spiked chains of black steel, with a thin coating of red on them, sullying his black leather gloves. His shoes were a dark red, as if died in blood. On his back, he held an assortment of weapons, of all shapes and sizes, all suspiciously covered in a brownish-red, the color of dried blood. He wore a white sash over his left eye, his skin as pale as bones, and his icy blue eye greatly contrasting with his attire. His eyes were dull and lifeless, like black pits that had no bottom. His eyes then flashed an orange resembling hellfire, as dark as hades itself. It lasted only a few seconds, and then his mouth stretched into a bone-chilling grin.

              He then whipped the chain, decapitating several warriors, and severely injuring more. Oddly enough, he started weeping, with tears streaming down his face, yet, it never broke the manic-like grin that split his mouth.

              The armies stood as still as deer caught in headlights, fear holding the soldiers in place. Then suddenly, the demon beckoned, and they all unleashed their war-cry, what once sounded terrifying, now sounded as a scream of fear. They all charged, soldiers once at each others throats, now united, under one common thing. Fear of death by the demon before them.

             The injured tried to flee, but it didn't matter in the end. Blood painted the plains, where the man stood, whirling, twisting, and hacking in a beautiful dance of morbid gore. He was a whirlwind, no, a Maelstrom, of steel and death. He didn't stop until every singly soldier was bisected from their bodies. Some were crushed, others shredded, and none recognizable. The only thing they all had in common was that NONE were alive. Blood splattered the battlefield, flesh left to rot, the sound of flies buzzing, and the smell of fresh blood hung heavily in the air. Then the Demon sang an eerily familiar tune. Without knowing, he started to hum it as well, as the word appeared in his mind

A ballad of blood and bones,

A dance of death and decay.

Wherever shall we go?

Wherever shall we play?

A sonnet of fire and ice,

a madrigal of madness and mourning,

I beg you to roll the dice~
I beg you to stop our burning~

          I then realized I was the only one humming, and looked up. I saw him, no IT this...this creature... of war. It looked at me, with an unreadable expression. It felt like his eye was not staring at me, but through me. I shuddered in fear under its gaze, and was paralysed completely out of terror. I couldn't step away. It then pointed toward its eye sash, and I watched as he carefully removed it. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, and i checked twice to see if what I was looking at was real. The eye on his left was a dark, hellfire-like orange, almost crimson in color. In  that one eye held a manic fire, as if smiling upon the thought of murder, or death, itself. I would dare say even Hades himself may have been wary. And yet, as if to contradict that, in that same eye held the peace and warmth of a flame, and the comforting, warm, embrace of family. It was a bizarre sight, and was made even more bizarre by its other eye.

That eye, was odd, because it wasn't orange, for one, and for two, it looked like an entirely different being. That eye, as if to counteract the other, was an ice blue, shifting in an odd effect of many different blue's at once. This eye, held many emotions, and most not positive. The eye seemed tired, and was filled with forlorn, as if it had seen too much death, it held sadness and melancholy in its gaze. Yet, this eye was like staring directly into the oceans depths. You could never see what was truly behind the gaze. While the right eye was corrupted with chaos, this one hid many things. One of which was a ruthlessness and cold of a glacier, and the rage of a tsunami, those this was far more subdued to what else the boy saw.

The teen saw the tranquility of the ocean in that eye. The peace and everlasting of the sea. The boy's attention was then forced to look away, as the thing had abruptly stood straight, and with one hand behind his back gave a mock painful looking bow, while his other hand was raised as if waiting for a hand shake. "Hello, Nile" its double-layered voice spoke, sounding as if he had a smile on his face, which was still looking down, sending chills down my spine. " Do you want to change?" It tilted its head up to look at me as it spoke, sounding like everything was just as they planned. I slowly forced myself to take a step back, and everything faded away to black. The last thing I saw was a man with two different eyes, one orange, another blue.