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!

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.