DarkClaw’s Return

Prologue

The old man stood silent in the night mist, feeling the fresh winter wind rustling through his hair has he looked up high into the sky, gazing at the eternal light of the shining stars. People often forgot to look up and gaze upon the wondrous spectacle that stood over their heads uncaring about their petty lives and affairs… People often forget a lot of things. Often the important ones… Like looking up at the night sky and be amazed by the Universe and glimpse all its affair from high above… All was vanity… What was the point in the end? Hundreds of lives wasted in minutes… And for what?

The old veteran looked around, letting his senses once more be trapped with the worldly scents and sounds. His sword was still reflecting the pale night light below the crimson coat that covered all of it’s blade. Under his feet the corpses of fellow soldiers and enemies alike stood motionless in a grim display of impossible poses and dismembered limps…

“So young…” Petros, better known as the ‘DarkClaw’, muttered through his lips has he gazed upon the battlefield once more and could only see young men and women, slain and with cold eyes in the faces of those that still had them. For some reason he had more and more difficulties lately after a battle to distinguish friends and foes… All looked the same; no loyalty, no country, no flag or standard… Just… Motionless corpses of young people with yet so much to live and no more life to have… It all sounded to be a tremendous waste, and for what purpose? Kingdoms came and went, kings and ideals rose and fall and soon faded in to the oblivion of time and memory…

“What for?…” he asked aloud this time, though barely noticing he had done so, but loud enough to catch one of his captains attention.

“Sir! I thought it would be wise to gather the weapons dropped not to leave them for raiders and vagrants to…” DarkClaw interrupted him with a hand gesture. “As you were Lucian. Carry on.” he said to the veteran captain.

He still remembers the first day he had saw him stepping in to the war academy. Young, proud, arrogant and cocky. He changed too. He’d become a man now. A good loyal friend and a inspiring leader and warrior. Yet, some thoughts were still not to share with him. He was still young in a way, he still could not understand the weight, the burden he would be carrying over his shoulders after so many battles fought…

He took a turn and took another longing look at the massacre’s spoils around him. A grand victory, the historians would write and the bards would sing about the bravery and sacrifice those heroes made that day… But no one would remember the foul stench of the death and the eyes of all those that were slain that day. Their eyes would only curse him, with those last moments of life wasted gazing upon the bringer of their demise. DarkClaw could not remember how many they had been… But he could feel the burden getting heavier with each soul taken… And their eyes… Their eyes always haunting him on his dreams, with their screams, their last words, their last breath in a pulsating turmoil only those who have seen war could understand.

The day had declined. Another battle won. Once again he survived… But how much of him did died there too?