Blood painted the trees, running in long streams down the rough bark. The immediate area was littered with torn flesh, and fragmented body parts. Bodies of men, most of them no older than their twenties, were split and shredded, tossed along the ground for hungry wolfen scavengers to find. The air was humid, mass amounts of natural body heat held static in the shell of a damp fog that permeated the forest.
Merradian stood there, shaking. His breath panting with terror. His eyes wide, reflecting the soft green glow that crawled through the woods. The strong broadsword clutched tightly in his shaking grip, freckles of blood dotted the left side of his body. Not his own blood. No. The men that had just fallen around him.
It had been quick and violent. Killed.....carved....in so many minutes.
Merradian had been trained from birth to protect his village. Raised by a blind blacksmith, he had learned the ways of steel while those his age were learning to tend to the fields. He had fought in countless battles for his people, defending them time and again from the clans of Archers, or natural predators that hungered for mortal flesh. He had a beautiful wife, and was raising three children....
...two, having fallen at his side this very day.
And, in this moment, as a dark figure rounded the massive tree in front of him, Merradian knew that he had a choice.
He could run. Or, he could die.
The shadow fell over him, the softness of the green glow beginning to intensify. And, Merradian's eyes widened with horror.
But, instead of running, he simply turned his sword down, ramming it into the ground before him. The proud warrior stood there, defiantly staring down his own death. And he opened his mouth, yelling with a fierce passion....
"GOOD WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER---"
The blade of a silver axe split him across his torso, cutting short his final words. The pieces of the body fell to the ground with the rest, as enormous black boots stepped through the carnage at a slow, steady pace.
"One....true.....order...." Grimm replied, never looking back.
