Shortstorys - Ideas and Fictions, seasoned with Prompts

What we become

"Come on, ask him", one of the soldiers said, trying to whisper.

"Na mate, you ask him" the other whispered back.

Eventually, one of them mustered up the curage to ask. "Hey, Mr. Inquisitor, Sir... I... I heard that you eat a piece of everything you kill... Is that true?"

I turned my head to look at the soldier who asked. He was young, far to young.
Judging by his face he had barely reached his adulthood, maybe not even that.
He shouldn't be here. But he had been chosen by his commander, and he had no authority to disobey.
Nor would anything I have said swayed him from his dreams of battle-won glory.

I simply gave them a curt nod and then turned my head back to look at the broken church, that slowly emerging infront of us.

The spires reached high into the heavens, and even from this far away I could feel the dark taint of black magic oozing trough the air. It was revolting.

The commander held his hand up and our troops came to a standstill.
Then, all eyes fixed on him, he spoke up:

"Listen up, ladies.... this former church to the Supreme God has been desecrated by the filthy members of the sect that calls itself "The Hand of Chaos". They have murdered the priests and slaughtered the villagers attending the sermon. They spilled blood on holy ground and have now turned it into their stronghold.
And, as far as our scouts report, the leader of their sect is in there as well."

He turned to face all of his men at once. "If we can manage to capture the leader, then we will irradicate this filth once and for all.
Today, we avenge all the loved ones taken from us!"
He nearly screamed his last words and drew his sword.
Many of the soldiers joined in.
Backed by roars of furious men, the commander continued his ride towards the church. And as we neared the grounds, you could feel it in the air. The rising tension.
The unease felt by the soldiers, gripping their swords even tighter.

Some of them, the more experienced knights, knew perfectly well that they could die in this fight.
The cultists in the Hand of Chaos were all quite decent fighters, and they even had some mages in between their ranks.
But that wasn't what worried me. What really let even me, who had wrestled with demons and hags before, break out in sweat was the possibility of facing the leader.
He was rumored to be a monster. A real, nightmarish monster.
He was faster and stronger than any man, and his magics could even rival the powers of the arch mages in the capitol.

As we reached the edge of the clearing, a rather peculiar sight presented itself to us. The cultists, all wearing black robes and holding swords or daggers or staffs, were already standing at the ready.... so much for our moment of surprise.

"Well then...", the commander uttered after a while, "... we shall give them the battle they are waiting for!"

The soldiers assumed their positions, forming rings around the mages that came with us from the capitol.
I drew my sword engraved with spells and turned it in my hand.
'The Reaper', as the witches of the bogs had dubbed it. As always, its cold metal gave me some security and clearity. I breathed in and out, in order to calm myself.

The commander let out a battlecry and charged our enemy. Thus the battle began.
We stormed against the black mass, many letting out screams of anger and hatred.
And the cultists responded alike.

But fighting them was horrific.
They just threw themselves at us with unrelenting fury. None of them seemed to care for their own lifes and they stood back up from injuries that would normally have put a man so deep in shock he woud've went insane.

The cultists behaved more like mindless puppets, rather than actual people.
It felt like fighting against the tides themselves. A force that didn't feel nor care.

In the end, by some miracle, we won the battle.
But it cost us dearly. Some of us had been killed, many were wounded and those who were still in any good shape were treating the few alive.

The commander was laying in the grass a few feet from me, a massive hole gaping in his chest, his eyes glazed over.

The young soldier, alive and sprawling only minutes ago, was now a pile of flesh and bones, crushed by earth magic. None of these men were in any shape to fight against the leader, who I presumed to hide in the church.
Which only left me. By some sick twist of fate, I had passed through this battle relatively unscathed.

I cleaned the handle of my sword and slowly walked up to the church.
The soldiers didn't even realize I had left them.

Before I entered, I closed my eyes and concentrated. I felt into the weave of magic around me, so dark and tainted.
And then, I drew on my own powers to stop the weave inside the church.

The numb cold that dark magic instills in you disappeared as the weave respomded to my will, slowly forming anew, excluding the church. Now, no magic could be used inside. And with that, I entered.

The air was cold in here, heavy dust clouds moving along the floor with my steps. Many of the once surely beautiful decorations had been ripped down and destroyed.
Dozens of the stone benches had been hammered into pieces, or just turned to dust. The massive windows had been covered in blood, tinting the room in a dim, unnatural light.

As I snuck through the shadows, I spotted the leader.
The hooded figure, wearing a red cloak with a massive hood, was standing at the lectern, looking a bit as if he were about to give a sermon.

As I got closer in painstaking little movements, trying not to make a sound, he suddenly raised his head and looked in my direction. The voice that then spoke was light, like wind rushing through fallen leaves.

"There is no need for you to walk in the shadows... I can smell your fear... Show yourself, assassin."

Fuck. I grasped my sword harder and stood up, the dim light illuminating my face.

"Ah, the mighty Inquisitor.... I have heard stories about you", the figure said, as I got closer.
"The man that can turn entire armies around, the man from whom all the monsters hide. The man even rumored to have slayn gods.
I take it you are here to kill me too?"

I pointed my sword at the figure, who was now only feet away from me.
Strangely, he didn't make any moves.

"I am... I will take revenge for all the pain and suffering you have caused. And for taking from me all I ever held dear", I replied, my voice shaking as almost forgotten memories made their way into my mind. I suppressed them, cleared my mind of them, so that I would see his face.

The figure just stood there for a long time, simply looking at me, before he moved.
"I had hoped I would get to see you once more..." He said, as he slowly moved his hands to lower the hood of his cloak.

I couldn't take my eyes from the picture forming before me.

As the leader lowered his hood, streaks of white hair rolled over his shoulders, and irises as red as blood were fixed onto me.
A sad smile ran across his face. A face I was far to familiar with. The face I had longed for to see again.
The very same face that I had thought lost all this time.

I stared at the man in shock, my hands trembling, as he smiled sadly at me and then said, in his light and calming voice:

"It has been far to long.... my love."