As in the moments that precede battle

  a great stillness, first, lay upon the

  city of refugees and scoundrels,

  streets empty of all things living

  and all motion with exception to

  the silent fall of the brumal sleet

  filled with ashen bone and grief, the

  landscape of snowy stone unrelenting

  in its grisly portrait of the fate that then

  awaited all men, women, and children:

  slaughter. The utter silence the

  tolling bell so induced that to simply call it

  silence, would be as to compare a hill to

  mountain or a sling to a great engine of war.

  The silence, then, was no ordinary silence,

  only comprehensible across time and word

  as if it were the result of a receding tide,

  evacuated from air to fuel the cresting

  of an immense and hungry wave

  whose devouring arc dwarfed even the tallest

  redwood to where it appeared but a twig.

  That, then, was this silence that engulfed

  the sleet-filled streets through which our

  hero made haste. And just as tide recedes and

  wave delivers its destruction when it breaks upon

  sandy grounds, the receded sounds of the

  bastion erupted in a tsunami of human terror.

  The emaciated and exhausted flooded the streets

  in throng as hundreds of running cross currents

  collided within the undulating sea of limbs and flash,

  their crash a cacophony of clogged feet and horrid

  howls of a fear deep beyond horror only quelled

  by a succeeding toll of the brassy signal. So

  violent this swell was that our hero nearly was

  swept into the passing currents of the disordered

  and desperate, and certainly would have

  drowned had the second tolling not forced

  the tide of man recede to silence in anticipation

  of torturous butchering.

  Kalon’s legs alight with

  fear and use ran at such a clip through the receding

  tide of man that tripping night impossible as more

  time airborne than grounded he was, racing

  for distance from his foe, shame, and grief,

  and of one singular mind: abscond the streets

  of death before the signal bell’s third fatal tolling;

  run far from the collapsing city and let the wounded

  remain lest they bring him to further grief and further

  shame; escape before third’s bell tolling and the tide

  of cruelty drowned the city in a wake of woe.

  Yet, even Kalon not of swiftness to escape sound,

  and so the third bell began to cry out, but not as

  typical, for no decay. Rather, the bell seemingly

  a voice, sustained with no decay, atop a rising sea of dread.

  In this fear Kalon obtained the bell not sustained,

  but struck hundredfold by an unseen force,

  and then with violent capitulation the bell’s

  profound resonance seeming shattered upon

  earth and stone as the cresting wave of panic

  engulfed the streets with a deluge of chaos.

  Those fortunate were crushed by roiling

  horde of the desperate. Children wailed for parents,

  lovers for lovers, friends for friends, and Kalon

  dragged by grasping currents found himself unable

  to retain his swift escape. It appeared no pleas,

  no command, could conquer the crashing wave

  of noise and despair and its unrelenting assault

  on what remained of order within the city. Despite,

  chaos, as if cresting whitecaps in the wake of a

  great wave a unicorn march of soldiers flooded

  opposite the flowing torrent bearing shields,

  each broad circumference of the phalanx

  a board of a massive galleon that plunged

  through the churning waters, parting the

  turbid flow of bodies, blood, snow, and ash.

  Even Kalon thrown to the side of the crowded street

  and behind the iron fortress of men as the vessel

  pressed onward towards the foul demon,

  not yet seen by those on the cobbled road through

  which our hero, still low, had taken flight.

  Kalon, in vain, bid the phalanx dire warning:

  “Fools! Foolhardy! Misled men! Drop your

  weapons and flee! No glory and no honor to

  be found in conflict with the bladed demon!

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  No wooden spear, no crafted alloy strong

  enough to repel Kerensi’s onslaught!”

  The phalanx did not hear the legend’s plea,

  for the hero’s voice drowned by the stygian tempest,

  and so once more our hero tried

  to sway the men of the mighty vessel, and grabbing

  ahold of a young soldier back begged desperately as

  if to pry a plank from the hull of immense barque:

  “Many virtuous people, these demons have felled, and

  many stronger and more experienced in war and combat.

  Many people, with many goods to pursue, and now

  pursue none for they now are deceased. Do not think

  yourself fated, destined, or capable, for all men

  are equally low in the wake of these three harbingers

  of cataclysm. No shield unbreakable! Kerensi’s cruelty

  will splinter your phalanx as if but a twig. Your flesh

  quenched as if a flame to a wick, doused by alloyal

  rain to bone. Quit this advance, and take this flooding

  chaos to refuge and prolonged life! There is only

  doom to be had in these waters!”

  The massy phalanx, however, steadfast, and paid

  Kalon no heed as they raised their shields as intended

  interception the bladed foe. Distant, the horrid flayer’s gait

  reverberated throughout the city, even above pelagic

  screams for mercy and the crumbling of stone.

  Each step of the butcher of metal more faint; naughtt

  for distance, for each pace shooking more the earth, but

  rather as the fatal tide began to collect into a wave of

  violence a storm of iron colliding with stone and wood,

  a wall of metal, came near and visible, whirling in

  torch and starlight.

  The might phalanx braced in anticipation of the crashing

  iron wave as quicker than sound the thunderous roil

  attacked the phalangeal wall and despite violent

  fall of hungry blades and the deafening crash of metal

  upon sheeted metal many times louder than thunder,

  the phalanx withstood the stabbing volumnity, pushing further

  upstream through sharpness. Kalon, who had taken

  refuge close behind the phalanx, peered outwards his

  asylum and fear transfigured wonder and hope that

  Kerensi’s strength fallible as the flow of blades slowed

  to a trick; the demon seeming dissuaded of assault as

  noice once more receded from the atmosphere leaving

  only the subtle sounds of snow, sleet, and sanguine soldiers.

  The wielder of tides, while in wonder, still wary, for the demon

  yet to show itself and he felt no rumbling march or heard

  none of the titan’s destruction. A being so large seemingly

  could not disappear, and so upwards one building covered

  in ice he climbed to look outwards for Kerensi. The demon,

  however, seemingly vanished, and the phalanx guard now

  lowered as the shieldbearers congratulated a temporary

  reprise.

  O, how so unlike those four demons, one slain, of

  a year and ten days prior our hero had engaged in

  mortal warfare. Newly encouraged, our hero looked content

  upon those men who had withstood the storming blades, that

  at least for one day they were spared the demon’s maw. And

  it was in that moment of respite that Kerensi made his presence

  known to all present as the wave of silence crested to a force

  so immense, so powerful, so destructive as to fell mountains

  the metal demon appeared at such a speed (thus seeming

  from thin air) within the middle of the phalanx, showering the

  streets and snow sanguine, a revenge for man’s arrogance

  in warfare. Kalon, quickly hid upon the rooftop as the demon

  flooded the city with the sound of blades and his disgusting maw

  in a dissonant chorus with the other.

  “Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!”

  the metal demon, hungry, smote the stone

  road with a rage only familiar once to our hero, now paralyzed

  with shame and guilt as the demon repeated threefold his name.

  “Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!

  Guilty, shameful man!

  Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!

  Bear witness, coward, what you have wrought!

  Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!

  I thirst most of all for you! Your shameful blood.

  Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!

  Those hundred men only not enough to drink!

  Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!

  It is for you, I have come, and only you!

  O, liar gods’ fallen! Present the self and let me quench

  my thirst and I will spare this refuge for the next day.

  Kalon! Kalon! Kalon!”

  So the chorus of scraping blades and demons maw

  painted red stabbed at the festering wound of Kalon’s

  shame in failure to goad the hero. But, Kalon not

  vain to reveal himself, for a small shred of hope

  now within him kept his anger and guilt held

  at a distance so that he might live to another day.

  The demon, impatient, moved elsewhere in

  ravenous search, leaving Kalon to drink of

  catastrophe he considered self-wrought.

  Knowledgeable the demon’s power, our hero

  left northwards the decimated bastion, passing by

  a wake of abominable destruction. No bodies he could

  recognize, for not enough remained in-tact as he trod

  the wounded streets and each tavern and inn he passed by

  he found looted or totally destroyed, his self-destructive solace

  unavailable. He left northward through what remained

  of the city’s gate, amongst a group of refugees. None complained,

  none cried. Instead all opted for silence for words of rebellious

  denial only holds power when one meets great misfortune. Kerensi’s wrath,

  however, no luck involved, but rather a part of the fabric of life. No

  less common than chores and family. So ubiquitous as to meet

  silent acceptance, rather than uproar, for uproar pointless.

  Kalon, however, could not help to express amazement before

  departure aimless northward: The skald and children seeming

  unharmed had found themselves among those who survived.

  This stirred hope within our hero, and being hopeful did

  subvert to his natural role of leadership he once obtained.

  He spoke to those fallen and downtrodden bodies, and bid

  them that he could lead and protect them from the dangers

  that faced them in the northerly wilds:

  “I was a captain of a kind. Elect me to lead,

  and I will ensure our safety in the northerly wilds and

  repel and avoid the terrible creatures large and small within.”

  The crowd did not seem agreeable with the proposal, so much

  that the crowd objected to the proposal.

  “I object to this proposal. You do not look like a hero! No man

  can protect us from those three terrible demons. There is no hope

  to be had. All men, then, should fend for themselves.”

  Kalon, smart, understood the Skald spoke false, with intention

  to aid our hero in gaining the downtrodden’s trust, and spoke

  more impassioned and to the truth of his own soul.

  “I do not promise protection from demons, Skald. As you

  know, none can.I have failed to protect far too many from

  their ire through combat and weapons. Yet, you can trust

  for I was trained and am still potent within those wilds against

  lesser evils. So long as can run, we will avoid those demons,

  never fighting directly, and possibly creating or discovering

  new refuge which to inhabit. There are evils below the greatest

  three, and certain I am that they will fall before me.”

  A old woman, wise by years, wary by woe,

  spoke in susicion to our hero: “Liar! No man living strong

  enough to defeat all creatures within.

  Our four anointed heros are lost to us,

  their names only bring grief and no victory!”

  The wielder of tides dismissed rising guilt, and

  embracing his part among the crowd uttered

  resolute and truthful from his soul, deeper than

  the skald indulged:

  “Three names, lost, yes, yet a fourth remains: Kalon.

  Aye, I be’est he. Failed hero, but still strong. Give me

  the privilege protect you in those northerly wilds,

  so I might find peace instead of grief.”

  And with the collection of battered bodies in agreement

  our hero looked upon the dark wilds, obscured of all light

  by the night’s starless sky, then only containing

  sepulchral clouds of ash, and led the wary group

  into the dark chaos of the weald, long before his home.