Chapter Text
War. Wars were often fantasized in stories, tales or even history. The blood that was shed became grand paintings in museums or statistics for later scholars to study and debate over, death became a simple statement and the war's soldiers either heroes or villains to love or hate. No one talks about the despair, the cruelty or the madness of the “events”. They are only recorded as loss of morale among the troops. Yet, within the camps, rotten bodies write desperate letters to their family despite knowing that none would be delivered to them. Within the camps, foolish soldiers took themselves for Gods only to shed mortal blood seconds after defeating their enemy and soldiers, younger and younger, traded their hope filled eyes for a piece of cloth to cover up their wounded heart. The war is fought by these soldiers and the course of history is changed by their sacrifice. Yet, the wars only ended between the gold covered walls of some highly important bureau by people that never stepped foot in a battlefield, only the harmless plain that made such a carnage possible. It is not always the case, it’s true, and maybe this interminable Eight Years War was ended by some heroic conquest of land beyond one's imagination, or maybe by some scheming war tourn leaders having lost all faith in diplomatie but none in violent terror.
Among the mist of a useless battlefield, that wouldn't change anything in the grand scheme of things, stood a terrifying ghost of a child. The figure, almost blending with the red tinted moon in the sky, wore a thin cloak covered in blood and a small yet crazy smile. In one hand, he held the head of an enemy soldier, in the other a blood dripping sword. The monster, because that's what he was in that instant, laughed at the bodies scattered beneath his feet and on the battlefield. Around him, an army of bloodthirsty men followed his lead, killing, mutilating and disfiguring their enemies. The useless battle should have lasted fourteen days, it only lasted three.
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Deon Hart was tired. Last night, the Battle in the Valley of Irebai had finally concluded with an overwhelming victory and (for the Deon at least) one of the worst headaches he had ever experienced. He could barely move and whenever he did in fact move, he felt like his head might as well be exploding with how much it hurted. For some reason, he couldn’t recall how he had acquired such a headache as the past few days were like mist in his mind. To be honest, his mind had, to say the least, blurred out these past few years and he could only hope to survive his black out moments. Strangely enough, he would always wake up either in his tent, surrounded by “his” vanguards or among the enemy's corpses covered in blood and other bodily substances he would rather not know the origins of.
At least, his blackouts often took place during battles, as such, he never really remembered what happened in detail and wasn’t driven insane like most soldiers. Indeed, “his” vanguards (Deon still didn’t understand why they had chosen him as their leader) were absolutely mad. They had given up all forms of pretence toward their own humanity and would fight day and night laughing at their victims while dismembering them purely for “the fun of it” as they would say. Really, they would only drive even more fear in their enemy, and now at the simple mention of “his” vanguards, the enemy would (thankfully) lose all morale. Deon liked that. Whilst he didn’t like the constant madness that the vanguards had, he was incredibly thankful of their reputation. Nobody would try to mess with them and they wouldn’t be used as useless cannon fodder. Due to being a part of these deranged vanguards, Deon Hart was completely protected from mockery.
Like today. A new conscript, clearly from a noble house, had tried to comment on his sickly pale skin and his blood red eyes. Deon didn't even need to come up with an answer to the mockery as the man apologised shivering and in tears before he could even open his mouth. Clearly, the conscript must have noticed the other insane vanguard nearby and assume he was a part of them. And now, Deon, with his usual expression, simply waited as troops were slowly moving through the valley, while internally feeling like his head might explode. Stumbling a bit along the way, Deon slowly made his way to a more sparse part of the army. It was more at the back of the troops and was usually pretty safe from any ambush from the enemy. However, unbeknown to Deon, the enemy’s troops had used the eastern side of the mountains surrounding the valley to position archers and sneak some elite troops at the back of the Empire’s army. The plan was to suddenly attack from behind and surround the Empire’s troops and trap them within the valley whilst they could attack them from above by taking control of the mountains. They still hadn’t yet fully taken control of the western mountains surrounding the valley but it would most likely be useless anyway. This surprise offensive would surely turn into a bloodshed and one of the worst defeats of the Empire.
It first started with a rain of arrows. Nobody was prepared for such a bold offense so shortly after the enemy’s defeat in the same valley and so many were injured in the initial wave of attack. All around Deon, soldiers were rushing to the eastern side, leaving the back of the army completely unprotected. But, the man himself stayed behind. He was weak. He was well aware of that and knew that if he actually went to the eastern side, where the fighting would take place, he would instantly die. As such, he stayed behind as his headache only got worse.
Slowly, numbness started to spread to his body as he heard people all around him shooting and running as confusion started to take the battlefield. From what he could comprehend, the archers might be decoys to lure them further up east and farther from the safer western mountains covered in lush forests… but maybe not? Deon wasn’t sure as the pain in his head only exemplified as the numbness in the rest of his body spread and slowly he felt like was losing his consciousness.
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As confusion took the battlefield, a monster-like figure started to cut through the enemy's troops. The man, while laughing manically, was killing enemies left and right as they continued to charge in waves. Nobody had expected the surprise offensive, yet this monster of a man was ready to kill them all as bodies piled up in his wake.
The enemy had thought that their initial archery wave would be enough to diverge the entire army’s attention eastward and would leave the back unprotected as they would all scramble up east, but this monster had surely seen through their plan as he stayed back. As the only defence line, ready to take them down when they had attacked. The enemy’s commander’s, a man always composed with decades of experience, even he was surprised by the Empire’s monster. The monster was killing all of their best elite soldiers like they were flies and his psychotic smile only left the next wave less and less keen on even approaching him. As such, the enemy’s commander had no choice but to confront him head on. This battle had to succeed. The Empire’s troops must under no circumstance pass through the valley or they his kingdom would fall and thousands of his citizens would die. And so, the already fallen commander charged through his own troops to the Empire’s beast.
The unleashed monster hadn’t expected such a sudden and direct attack from the enemy’s commander and so had to take some steps back. The enemy was on a horse, something that was an advantage right now as the monster couldn’t chase him with as much ease as he would chase a human. But the horse was not immune to the fear and intimidation the monster seemed to exalt. And so the commander had to get down the horse to continue his attack. The two individuals started to exchange slashes as their fight became bolder and bolder. Both needed to kill the other as fast as possible to ensure that their side would win and both felt like the other might just kill them if they left the other thinking of a strategy even for a second. After a while their fight started to turn into chase as the enemy’s commander, too injured to properly slash anymore, tried to separate the beast from the battlefield. Despite the excruciating pain from his legs and arms, the man led the monster to the western forest. They were both incredibly injured and barely able to even continue fighting but one needed to give time to his army and the other needed to kill every last one of his enemies.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity for the both of them. The commander stopped running and the “proper” fighting continued in the forest. The monster stabbed, chopped and slashed the commander up, down and in between and finally killed him, the only remaining of his enemy, a pile of disfigured body parts. Then, as he himself was critically injured, the monster started to cough blood as he tried to leave the forest to come back to the battlefield, to the enemy he needed to kill. A trail of blood followed him as he slowly advanced, feeling number and number as black dots filled the beast vision. And finally, he stumbled and all became black.