The blade twisted in the wound. The tall figure garbed in pure shadows cocked its head in vague interest. The young man in armor at least two sizes too big gasped out a breath – his last one as it was. The figure drew back its hand and the unholy steel left the flesh with a wet, sucking sound. Blood spurted from the fatal wound, poisoning the earthy ground with crimson. The droplets hit the figure's robes and slid right off, leaving them black as a crow's plumage.
The figure had to strain its willpower to draw its gaze from the dead man, the dead boy. Silver metal glinted in the eerie light as the eyes behind the hideous mask surveyed the scene of carnage in disinterest. The last sight of most of these men had been a maniacally grinning face of silver. The face under the mask was impassive amongst this butchery. A score of men, or what was left of them, were sprawled around the field, faces twisted in various degrees of agony. These were the ones lucky enough to have something resembling a face remaining to them.
There was a whisper of cloth as the figure hefted the sword it held, the wicked edge catching the light in a peculiar manner. The steel was stained with the blood of countless men; it would never come clean. That was the blade's purpose, its essence. To be an instrument of destruction. To never be able to forget it. That was its duty in life. Its meaning.
The figure closed its eyes. This was killing in its perfection. Why wasn't it content? In its opinion there was no reason why it should be able to kill a man with a single touch, a single twist of the wrist. There's no use in achieving perfection. If the meaning of life is to achieve perfection, what happens once you achieve it? The meaning... It had no meaning in life anymore. Even the pleasure of living had left it. There had been a time when slicing the artery of a helpless victim had been what it lived for. A time when the screams of the doomed hushed under the swinging arch of its blade.
All that remained now was emptiness. A man behind a mask, the man being hollower than the mask it hid behind. Ironically, the features of the mask had been its own a few years back, face alight with joyful savagness in the heat of battle. It had forgotten how to smile, to laugh. Its face muscles wouldn't obey it, wouldn't twist into a grin when the blood grew wings.
A life without meaning is like a cause without rebels; nothing but talk, nothing to back the words up with. An empty shell... Yes, that's what it was, an empty shell. The beautiful butterfly had left the cocoon behind to rot. The cocoon had no meaning anymore; it had served its purpose already.
Its thoughts were interrupted by the shouting of men, raised voices in the dusk. The first rays of light crept over the rolling hills and shone off the silvery teeth, illuminating the blood lust in the grin. A new day, still no hope for redemption.
The dark figure wearily turned towards the commotion, a wolf in a hen house. Pregnant drops of blood dripped down the length of the blade. They gathered at the point, eventually dropping down onto the blades of grass. The figure had no heart that could dramatically beat in time with the steadily crashing drops. It had no heart to know it was unnatural for the blood to be outside its body.
The bushes rippled like disturbed water as men moved stealthily through them. It was useless of course. The cold eyes stared at the world with hatred and loathing through eyes of silver. They saw everything and took no joy in any of it.
The sword swayed upwards, just in time to relfect the image of the first man to clear the bushes. On his face was written nothing but the knowledge of his imminent death. The sound of the bloodied sword swooshing down cut through the stunned silence. The screams and cries of anguish were born. They died off. The face behind the mask never altered.
The field ran red with blood, creating rivers and lakes of crimson, staining everything with a sticky mass of gore. The heaps of inner organs steamed in the air that they should have never seen. Grounded spears grew out of the earth, caricatures of the thin trees all around. Shattered swords and axes were clutched in shattered fists on shattered bodies. All was quiet, not a breeze shifted the landscape. All but one spot was stained forever in blood.
A pool of sunken shadows in the middle of the corpses was untouched by the life of the other men. Not a stain was on it, not a cut from a weapon. It was untouched, unstained, pure. Still it lay there, quiet and still, eyes begging for the salvation of death. But it would not come. No rest for the weary, and no salvation for the damned. The muscles of the face twitched violently and finally a shaky ghost of a grin was brought to life. The grin never reached the eyes though, and was gone before the figure could register the happening completely.
This blows...
A sudden gust of wind snatched the nigh-humane thought and flew away with it, rustling the clothes of the dead in passing.
Oh and I really liked the sentence "Blood spurted from the fatel wound poisoning the earthy ground with crimson." It does give the scene more imagery and emotion.
