Warm mist arose from cooling bodies into the crisp, cold air of the darkening night. The roiling mists that arose from the dead illuminated in the light of a moon that was not quite full, as those who had survived victorious moved away from the dead with those few who had surrendered in chains, their heads down, their sorrow and loss evident, their failure to win the battle had destroyed their people.
The Warriors of Kylsora, men and women both, had died in the ultimate sacrifice of defending the name and honour of their former Crown Princess. Those that had given their lives for the Crown Princess, who had wed their Enemy’s King in the hopes of peace after generations of bloody war, lay beneath shattered shields that had offered no protection upon their breaking from the axes and maces wielded by their Enemy.
Bodies lay broken, heads caved in beneath dented helmets, leather armour split with sword strikes and arrows, covered in the blood of those who wore it. Flags and pennants of House and Regiment stained with platters of blood, fluttered in the slight breezes that caressed the hills around the area, carrying the bloody aroma of a feast to the eaters of the dead that lurked within the forest nearby.
Blood spilled upon the earth, mangled by boots and horses had turned the ground to a muddy quagmire, making it difficult for those who had fought the long battle to properly defend themselves from the onslaught, thus ultimately aiding in their defeat. The stench of blood and bodily fluids mixed in with the coolness of the air upon the battlefield. The clean damp smell of the crushed grass beneath the bodies was sullied and drowned in the tang of crimson lifeblood.
The young, pregnant Queen lay atop the hill with her commanders, an arrow of fortune, or misfortune, had struck her as she pointed out a weakness in the enemies lines and she had fallen mortally wounded to the ground. Upon her last breath, Her belly had been opened and the babe who was days away from being born was taken, screaming indignantly, and wrapped in her mother’s cloak and taken by her Aunt, in order to protect the Heir to the two thrones as her mother’s body had passed through the mists of mortality to join the her husband’s Shade, sent to the Afterworld by his own brother in order to take the crown for himself, and blaming it upon the young Queen.
Sounds of the arrival of the eaters of carrion drawn with the promise of flesh and blood, fresh from the kill, permeated the eerie silence. Wolves growled over the choice pieces of meat, while crows on the wing landed nearby and began to peck at the eyes of the corpses. Their claws, fangs and beaks ripped open bellies to gain the fresh and cooling entrails, sounds of bones cracking to get to the marrow within broke through the other sounds of feasting animals.
