Tears of the Moon

Prologue- Curse of the Lycans

(Moldovia, 1465 A.D.) 

Crepuscular moonbeams quivered down through narrow cracks in the dark veil of wisping clouds, spreading silvery lunar light across the eerily silent field of slaughtered soldiers and discarded weaponry. Their mutilated bodies, clad in tarnished medieval armor, laid woven together in mangled bloodied heaps. Crimson rivulets flowed out from their tattered and lacerated flesh, slowly trickling down to the damp trampled ground below.

That was all that remained of the Moldavian army who had set forth to battle the Wallachians over the siege of Chilia. Under the orders of Stephen the Great, and led by the infamously fearsome and bloodthirsty warlord, Hadeon of Hades, the battle was predicted to be an easy victory. They had not anticipated that their enemy would have had such strong reinforcements. And so, the gruesome battle had been excruciatingly long and was lost on both sides.

Hadeon stood alone among the sea of carnage and butchery, panting heavily through his nostrils, with blood and sweat trickling down his distraught and weary face. The suffocating stench of death and iron surrounded him. His crimson smeared armor glistened in the dimly flickering lunar glow. A few loose strands of his thick dark umber hair had fallen out of his high ponytail and dangled across his handsome face. As his russet eyes glanced around, desperately searching for any remaining comrades, a very cruel veracity pierced him deeper than any sword ever could. 

None had survived but him. 

"My brothers..." His deep voice despondently whispered in his native tongue, the sound wasted on dead ears.

With his newly found grief came a surge of rage. It burned through his veins until his heart was scorched with fury. It wasn't fair that he should live to see his cherished comrades die. That he, and he alone, should suffer with the memory of their failure. With his emotions in utter turmoil, he dramatically lifted his sword high above his head, and screamed out in agony as he forcefully stabbed it into the laden blood-soaked soil. His armor clanked as he weakly fell to his knees, resting his forehead against the hilt of the blade. And there he began to weep. 

"My brothers." He sorrowfully whispered again through his tears, his voice far softer the second time.

While he continued to disconsolately mourn, the clouds began to slowly part above his large heaving frame. A single silvery moonbeam gently started to brightly glimmer down upon him from the celestial heavens. For up in the empyrean sky, a beautiful goddess, pale and pure, had been watching him with pity in her kindly heart. 

She empathized with his grief. For many of her own beloved and loyal followers had recently been slaughtered, and forced to convert to an oppressive foreign religion. With the violent destruction of ancient pagan practices and knowledge, very few honored the moon anymore. When they did, it had to be done in secret out of fear of being labeled a witch and murdered. And so, the goddess saw an opportunity for both of them.

Out from the soft lunar rays she appeared, elegantly floating before him. Moonflowers with silvery vines were threaded through her white luminescent hair, which cascaded down past her hips like a glowing ivory cloak. Her silken silvery raiment shimmered like the stars and slightly fluttered in the warm summer breeze. Lips of the palest pink were gently turned up into a smile, as she gazed down upon him with twinkling eyes of celestial light. 

His tears glistened and his sword gleamed in her brilliance, yet he remained unaware of the phenomena before him, too blinded by his grief to notice. She reached out with a dainty colorless hand, tipped with sharp white claws, and with a touch as light as lily petals, she gently lifted his filthy blood-soaked face up to meet hers.