The wind cut across my face like a blade. Steam poured from my mouth, mixing with the stench of blood, steel, and sweat. The gates of the Northern Fortress hung shattered, the wooden beams jagged like broken teeth. And through them, they came.
The dark elves of the north. Men and women alike. They moved like predators — silent, precise. Their armor was black metal, never covering the whole body. The men left chests and arms bare, their skin scarred from countless battles. The women wore even less — metal plates guarding only vital areas, hips and thighs exposed, an unnerving mix of provocation and menace. Each one wielded their weapon with the certainty of someone who had buried it in a hundred enemies before.
We weren't much different. Our armor was heavier, but still left shoulders or thighs uncovered for movement. In this freezing air, it was punishment — in battle, it was worth it.
I tightened my grip on my sword. The steel was cold, my palm slick with sweat. Around me, our shield wall tightened, but I knew that once the first blow landed, it would dissolve into chaos.
"Stay with me," came a voice to my left. I turned. A soldier my age, maybe a year older, a fresh gouge in the brow of his helmet. "Jered," he said simply. I nodded.
The first two elves broke into a run. One — a tall man with a longsword — went for Jered. I stepped in, knocked the blade aside, and slammed my boot into his gut. He doubled over, and I cut into the thigh of the woman right behind him. Her plate split, blood spraying across the snow. Jered recovered and finished the man with a thrust to the chest.
"Thanks," he gasped.
"This is only the start," I replied.
Another — a woman with two curved daggers — darted past me toward Jered. I caught her wrist, shoved my blade into her stomach. Her breath froze in her throat before I tossed her aside.
A scream tore from the left. Our men were being dragged down, three elves pinning them to the ground. I charged. The first — a muscular man wearing a breastplate carved with a skull — I split through the spine. The second, a woman with her stomach bare, I stabbed between the ribs. The third tried to pull away, but I slammed my shoulder into him, pinning him against the wall.
"Aric, behind you!" Jered's shout cut through the noise. I turned — steel flashing toward my throat. I twisted, but another elf, bare-chested under his armor, was already behind me. I felt the cold edge scrape my neck.
My left hand burned from the inside. The runes flared — and before I thought, I slammed my palm against his chest. His armor shrieked as it split, and his body tore apart from within. Blood and viscera painted the wall and my armor.
Everything froze for a heartbeat. Then hell returned.
Jered was locked with another elven woman trying to carve out his throat. I cut her leg at the knee. She fell, and I split her skull with a downward stroke.
"Up!" I hauled Jered to his feet. We backed toward the wall, cutting anyone who came close. My sword took a head, then smashed through the arm and part of a shoulder.
The ground beneath us was no longer snow — it was bloody slush.
"Push them to the gate!" I roared. We pushed. Men and women fell back, not from fear, but because here, speed meant nothing.
I cut a man from hip to rib, his insides steaming in the cold. A female elf came at me with a shortsword, but Jered drove his blade through her eye.
From the far side, a tall elf charged with a black-tipped spear. I switched my sword to my left hand, braced my shield, and let him hit. The impact rattled my bones, but his weapon slipped free. I drove my blade under his ribs until it struck spine, then tore it free.
The last three — two men and a bare-bellied woman — tried to flee. We encircled them. "We don't need them alive," I said coldly. Seconds later, the snow beneath them was dark red.
When the final body fell, the fortress was ours.
–Snowbound Patrol
Snow crunched under my boots, every step loud in the still air. The wind carried the scent of burned wood and something worse — rot. There were fifteen of us, sent to find out why the patrol along the northern road hadn't returned.
Commander Trask led from the front. A big man with a voice that could cut through a storm. "Eyes open. Anything could be out here," he muttered.
A shadow flickered on the ridge ahead.
"Hold!" Trask barked, but it was too late.
The first arrow took the man beside me in the neck. The second buried itself in Trask's shoulder. Six dark elves poured from the treeline — fast, silent, weapons ready.
The first came at me with a shortsword. I turned aside, letting the blade skim my ribs, and drove mine into his side. Steel slid through meat like wet cloth. I ripped it free and split his face before he hit the ground.
The second, a bare-stomached woman with twin knives, tried to slit my throat. I caught her wrist, twisted, and shoved my blade between her ribs. She coughed blood into my face and bit my shoulder before I kicked her away.
Trask was wrestling with another, blood running from his shoulder and mouth. The elf was about to drive a dagger into his eye when I cut through his knee from behind. Trask finished him by smashing the hilt of his sword into his skull.
"You owe me your life, boy!" he barked, but there was no time to answer.
Two elves had a wounded man pinned to a tree. I cut the first one's arm clean off in mid-swing, grabbed the other by the hair, and slammed his head into the trunk until it burst like rotten fruit.
When the last fell, the snow was littered with steaming pools of dark blood. Every breath burned my lungs.
Trask looked at me, bloodied and panting. "If you hadn't been here… we'd all be fucked."
I only nodded. But I could feel the others' eyes on me. Not as just another soldier — but as someone who knew how to survive. And to kill.
Final Assault
Snow fell heavy, muting every sound, but we knew they would come. For three days, we'd held this crumbling stone temple far beyond the front. Supplies were dwindling. So was morale.
Men huddled by weak fires, gripping weapons only to keep their fingers from freezing. Commander Orwin paced like a caged wolf. "When they come, they'll come all at once," he said. "And we need to cut them down before they overwhelm us."
He was right. And what came wasn't a patrol.
A low, drawn-out horn echoed through the trees. Then they emerged from the mist — dark elves. Fifty, maybe more. Men and women, armed to the teeth. Men bare-shouldered, tattooed up to the neck, women in revealing black armor that was meant to distract as much as protect. All of them moved like shadows, quick and silent.
"Positions!" Orwin roared.
I raised my shield, sword ready. My heart pounded like a drum.
The first impact was like an avalanche. An elf with a longsword came from the left — I cut his arm, but behind him was a woman with twin curved blades. I blocked, drove my boot into her stomach, then tore her throat open, her hot breath spilling across my cheek.
From the temple's corner, a scream. Jered was locked with two at once. I cut through one's spine, shoved my sword under the other's jaw.
"Thought you'd leave me here," Jered gasped.
"You haven't earned hell yet," I said, already turning for the next.
Their tactic was clear — flank us, cut the rear. But I saw the flow. "Close the sides! Back to the walls, now!" I bellowed.
They obeyed, pulling in tight. The elves lost their speed advantage, forced to hit us head-on.
The fight turned to slaughter.
I cut a man open, ribs snapping under the steel. Grabbed a woman by the throat, yanked her close, and slit her neck so deep I felt bone. Orwin hacked off a man's arm, then drove his sword into the screaming hole in his chest.
Then I saw their leader — tall, black cloak, helmet crowned with bone. He carved a path toward me, rage in every step. His first blow nearly tore the sword from my hand.
I blocked, stepped back, let him strike again — then thrust. I caught his shoulder only. He roared, slammed me to the ground. His blade came down — and Jered crashed into him from behind, cutting his knee. I got up and rammed my sword through his heart.
When he fell, the others faltered. "Push!" I roared. And we pushed.
Those still standing died with steel in their guts or throats ripped apart.
When it was over, the snow was red, smoke rising from the corpses.
Orwin turned to me. "Without you, we'd all be corpses. The king will hear of this."
I knew then my path was changing. And for me, this war had just ended.