wayfarers_lodge | {Tilda} What she doesn't remember

The cool, damp afternoon was fading to evening as the rage of battle started fizzing out into nothing. Commander Bloodymane looked about her, and saw that her men were still reasonably intact, where the Enemy were broken and falling back. It had been a standard campaign, mounted archers on both sides, no war machines (praise be!), like the hundreds of others that had been before it- the sort of combat she excelled at. She smiled grimly at the scent of blood and the lowering clamour all around her, and raised her hand to signal her men into a cleanup formation- and stopped.

There was a low rumble on the wind, like two sheets of ancient granite rubbing together, like an earthquake giving voice to the grievances of the earth beneath them, choking on blood. A mist picked up, swiftly cloaking the battlefield in grey.

I am Stone, I am Pain, I am he who sees you slain...

"No," muttered Tilda, blood draining from her face in horror, voice raising to a shriek, "Not again. WARRIORS! ALL TRUE WARRIORS OF THE WARLORD, TO ME! DEFENSIVE STANCE! TO ME!"

The older, wiser men fell in, even those of the Enemy, who knew that to invoke the name of all True Warriors unjustly was punishable by a long time in the Box. The oldest and the wisest came to their positions the fastest, only the slightest trembling betraying what they remembered to the younger soldiers.

The naive, the untrusting, and the foolish milled around, weapons wavering with uncertainty as the grinding, throbbing voice grew louder.

"I am he who you see not, 'til I strike! And then you rot..."

"Traitor to the Regiment!" Shouted one of the Enemy to her wiser compatriots, eyes flashing and scales darkening with anger, "This is some trick by the Bloodymane harlot, or the Blazeblade slattern! Come to your senses!"

"YOU COME TO YOURS, SOLDIER!" Replied one of their Commanders, a Levinquick known as Commander Eli Glimmerstrike, "BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! FALL IN OR DIE!"

Tilda had often fought against Commander Glimmerstrike, and gave him grudging respect, for all he was one of the filthy Enemy- he fought with quickness that not even Aliera could match, and dozens of her men had died by his sword as he laughed his crackling laugh.

"Listen to your Commander, Soldier! Help us stand!" She shouted.

The scaled woman threw back her head to howl her dissent, but the cry was cut short by a massive white fist that curled around her shoulders and throat. A pair of emerald eyes glittered like a cold fire as the stony figure lifted the mewling girl to his face.

"I will feed and you will cry," he crooned, voice hissing like pebbles sliding down a mountain, I shall feast!-"

With one sharp, sudden movement, the frighteningly wide mouth clamped down and ripped off the scaled woman's head.

"-and you shall die."

He- for surely, the huge white figure was at least man-shaped- took a step forward and smiled at the forces that opposed him. His teeth flashed with rainbows and all the shades of red known to Man or Fae.

The sweat on Tilda's brow trickled into her eyes, and the light reflected from the thing's diamond teeth hurt her, but she didn't flinch as she spoke, her voice low, but pitched to carry.

"That is Erich Bloodymaw, the Diamond Monolith, my fellow soldiers. The same fate awaits you if you do not follow my orders."

At the sound of her voice, the white stone man looked up, his eyes flashing with recognition, joyous bloodlust, and a hint of fear.

"The very last thing your best friend saw," he roared, "Was the Diamond teeth of Bloodymaw!"

He charged forward, as Tilda shouted "Attack! Sweep formation!"

The seething mass of the Warlord's Regiment surged forward to meet the implacable force of the stone mass that was the Diamond Monolith. In a moment, the great Ogre knocked five of them away with his great fist, as a handful of men inexpertly broke their spears on his hardened leg. With careful precision, what remained of the archer's squad peppered his rocky chest torso half a dozen arrows. In a rage, his foot came down on the chest of a prone soldier, crushing the life out of him.

So the battle raged, but each time he could wrap his hands around any one of the soldiers before him, he would lift them up so all could see and start taking mouthfuls from their flesh. His diamond teeth sheared through armour and bone alike as if it were nothing, and each bite seemed to be as much for the suffering of all who saw and experienced as for his sustenance and glee. More often than not, a new, frenzied resurgence would force Bloodymaw to throw his snack away, screaming and fountaining blood, but that only added to the passion of those that attacked him.

After a time that no clock could tell, Commander Bloodymane surveyed the battle and saw a shambles. Her men were dying, and while their brutal foe had been wounded, it was not enough to phase him. It was time for a new plan.

"MEN!" She cried, "FALL BACK! SHIELDS FRONT!"

For a painful moment, she saw both her folly and Commander Glimmerstrike's as one of her oldest Enemies looked up at her, with a second's fatal, civilian reaction. Bloodymaw crowed with delight and snatched up the lightning-fast warrior, breaking both of his arms as he did, and bit his legs off at the hip in one motion. The other Commander screamed in agony for a moment, and then his body evaporated into the lightning from which it came.

There was no new plan, there was only the fury as Tilda charged forward, a scream of rage on her lips, her shield held steady before her and her spear low and hungry.

The Monolith blinked at her for a second, almost unbelieving, as she jabbed forward with her spear and struck him in the hip. Then the roar like an avalanche came and he swung, catching her left arm, tearing the shield from it and popping it out of its socket.

They danced for a while, the lethal dance of two people who were made to kill, but he had saved the strength of the very stone his heart was made from for last. He grabbed her by her useless left arm and hauled her up into the air. He licked his lips, as if he had been waiting for this for a long time, and took a savouring, taunting bite out of her calf, cutting clean through the flesh with terrifying ease.

Biting back a cry of pain, Tilda summoned all her strength and all of her hate, and stabbed forward again with the spear she had held onto for grim life in her right hand. It struck the point where the shoulder met the neck, and sank in, and Bloodymaw howled with pain and fury. He threw her to the ground and pulled the spear out, casting it aside as he took a step forward to tower over her.

She knew she was done, for all that he was leaking profusely, sand and fluid pouring profusely from the holes she had punched in him. She knew he was going to feast on her legs before her men could stop him, and what use was a Commander with no legs? It would be her death, or worse, the Box-

And then it came, the sudden knowing that the battle must stop. The Ogre snarled in fury, and for a second strained against the compulsion, but he could not deny it. When the Warlord willed the campaign finished, it was finished.

~*~*~*~*~

In the Medic's tent, one of the younger men turned in his cot to speak with his Commander.

"Commander Bloodymane... who was that?"

Tilda could barely move, but she mumbled from between bruised lips.

"Erich Bloodymaw, the Diamond Monolith. He's not of the Warlord's make- he belongs to someone else."

"You've met him before, then?"

She nodded, ever so slightly, regretting it as she did.

"Oh yes. Twice before. I've been lucky- heh! lucky- to survive both times."

"Does he always do that? I mean... eat people?" The recruit's voice trembled as his stomach fought with his will.

"Yes. He does. He is feared by the wisest of us, underestimated- but not for long- by the dumbest of us, hated by all of us..."

Tilda's eyes traveled to the side of the tent. A shape, reminiscent of a lump of white stone, stained with red, was being tended by the medics.

"And one of these days, I'm going to kill that cunt for it."