Difference between revisions of "The Shardscape"

Revision as of 03:59, 17 June 2015

Corruption has been taken to the heart of the Crucible

The wind howled grievous through the silence of carnage, its lonely lament joined only by the snapping of torn and shredded pennant flags in its vicious, relentless grip. Plumes of smoke spilled from the city, their dark wisps covering the sky in a veil of mourning. Clouds of dust billowed across the ground, spilling haphazardly over the bodies of men that lay piled high upon the earth.

Fields that only hours ago had been green and lush, only moments ago filled with the sounds of clashing swords and men, were now barren. Naked. The soil itself was not sowed with salt so that none would ever grow there again—it was watered with the blood of many thousands so that the grasses might grow again, only stained crimson by the slaughter that had met the now-dead, so that none would ever forget.

The once-pristine golden spires that had glittered in the morning sun were strewn across the pavements, their history ignored, their grandeur shattered upon the streets. The great marble ramparts that had gleamed with the colours of sunset at the previous evening's beckon, and had glimmered bitter white in defiance at the army that appeared come dawn, had been reduced to smouldering rubble.

A bastion of the glory of the Races of Man, raised from the bare earth with hundreds of years of toil, had been taken, stamped down, and reduced to little more than an ashen ruin in but the passing of hours.

They had come rising from the mist like spectres of death itself, pale like the dawn, and silent like the night but for the eerie drumbeat that seemed to come from all around. Death had ridden before them with his Crown of Ivory, his Blade of Starlight, and his Eyes of Fire. Behind him had come his riders—the many thousands of them that had sent even the bravest men fleeing from their posts.

The city had raised what meagre defenses it could, but like a candle flame to a tempest, it was little more than a distraction to the onslaught that followed. They had charged across the battlefield at the line of disorganized men as the forest itself stirred and appeared to spit rocks, bringing down in moments walls that had survived a thousand sieges past.

They had come crashing down upon the lines of men, no longer silent like they had been, rising from the mist. They had screamed and screamed well, striking fear into the heart of many a man. The spear or the lance had come mere moments later. The defenders' lines had broken. They had run in the only direction they could: the city. And though the battle had been lost, the shadows descended upon them, all darkness, and wingbeats, and fire's fury.

The shadows left only a city of seared flesh, blackened bone, and the harrowing moans of the dying.

It had been six hours since the grand city of IldCarr had fallen to invaders, and still, the deathriders yet scoured the battlefield. They hunted for any and all signs of life. Any survivors, young or old, man or woman, or child. They snuffed out whatever they found with little regard.

Carrion birds circled high overhead. Even the clouds of war were afraid to descend upon the carnage down below. They did not want to face the ire of the strange warriors from the strange lands.

The slow clop of hooves of a passing deathrider faded into the distance behind a heavily wounded soldier. He had spent the last agonizing half hour lying as still as he could, breathing only shallowly, and even then, only when absolutely necessary. Thankfully, his ruse had so far been successful. He had deceived the deathrider into thinking he was already dead.

Knowing that he would soon die either way, the soldier threw all caution to the wind and crawled toward the outstretched arm and dead eyes of his brother. Between them was a pool of fresh blood. Its surface was calm despite the incessant howling of the wind. Before he could grip the arm of his long-gone brother, he heard a high-pitched neigh behind him.

Within the man, a dull rage sparked and something inexplicable snapped. As he heard the horse whinny and rear up on its hind legs; as he heard the unearthly steel of the deathrider's blade scrape against its scabbard, and the whine that followed the weapon on its downstroke, the world dissolved into darkness.

Below the soldier, the pool of blood turned silver and it expanded as it spun into a massive mirror spanning as far as the eye could see.

The mirror before the soldier showed him on the ground, with the deathrider towering behind him, ready to end his pitiful existence. As he watched, the reflection save for himself blew away like ashes in the wind. On the tail of the disintegrating world, a fantastical landscape of towering facades and bright lights and strange metal carriages that moved without horses followed.

The image solidified and the soldier felt himself fall through the mirror. For the briefest of moments, he saw a stranger world, one vast and covered with mist, containing mirrors arrayed in arcs around something. When he blinked, that strange other world vanished, and he saw only a road paved with black stone.

The soldier let go of consciousness, and the world turned black.