The Shardscape
Introductory Text
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 had descended upon them, all darkness, and wingbeats, and fire's fury.
The shadows had left only a city of seared flesh, blackened bone, and the harrowing moans of the dying.
Long after the battle was over, and the harrowing moans of the many burned alive in the city, the pale riders of death yet scoured the battlefield. They hunted mercilessly for any and all signs of life. No survivors, man, woman, or child, were allowed to live. Whatever flame of hope remained was extinguished.
Carrion birds circled high overhead, the black clouds of war sacred to the stoic and pale deity that the riders followed. Though a feast lay before them, neither raven, nor crow, nor vulture, wished to descend. They feared the ire of the strange warriors, with blades that glittered like starlight, from lands unknown.
The slow clop of passing hooves faded into the distance behind a soldier wounded mortally. He had spent the last agonizing half-hour lying as still as he could, breathing only shallowly the fetid aroma of death and decay. Even that he did only when necessary. He praised his gods that so far, his ruse had been successful. He'd deceived the rider into thinking he was already dead.
Aware that the lifeblood pulsing in his veins would soon cease, the soldier threw all caution to the wind. He crawled toward the outstretched arm and dead eyes of his brother. Between them lay a pool of fresh blood, its surface calm despite the incessant, mournful howling of the wind. Before he could reach out to grip the arm of his long-gone brother, the soldier heard a high-pitched whinny from behind him.
The soldier raised his head and looked upon the rider that was charging his way. He heard the horse nicker, and saw it rear up on its hind legs. He heard the screech of the rider's blade as it scraped against its scabbard, and saw the glittering of the weapon as it was raised. Pale rider and pale steed charged.
Within the soldier a dull rage sparked. Something inexplicable snapped. The soldier dipped his fingers into the pool of blood and watched as it turned silver. Before the rider could bring his star-like blade down on the soldier's neck, the pool of blood spun into a massive mirror underneath the soldier. It spanned as far as the eye could see.
The soldier looked into the mirror and saw that the rider's wicked blade was but hairsbreadths from his neck. He looked in the direction that it should have been and saw nothing but the yawning void. He looked back down and saw himself, the rider looming behind him, ready to end his pitiful existence.
As the soldier watched, the reflection, save for himself blew away like ashes in the wind, and on the tail of the world that dissolved came another—a fantastical landscape of towering, gleaming facades, garishly bright lights, and strange metal carriages that moved without horses.
The image seemed to become solid. The mirror underneath the soldier became less so. He fell through, and for the briefest of moments, as he plunged through the darkness and through clouds of thick white mist, he saw yet another strange world, this one vastly more incomprehensible than the last.
The landscape that the soldier saw was immense and wreathed in mist that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was only one break in the sea of bleak white—an island so lush and green it was almost paradisiacal, were it not for the mirrors arrayed in arcs around something at the island's heart. The soldier blinked, and the strange other world vanished, replaced only with a road paved in black stone.
With a sigh, the soldier let loose what he thought was his final breath.
