Once upon a Battlefield

As a kid, Grandma used to tell us stories about the wizards of old, humans with amazing power that could obliterate entire cities by just reading incantations from an ordinary sheet of paper. Those evil mages would often roam through the night, kidnap Beastfolk like us and do terrible things to them. Those were Granny’s scary stories and we believed them, so none of us Caninefolks pups in the village would dare stay outside after sunset.

By the time I became a teenager, I realised no one in our village, Beastfolk or humans, has ever actually seen a mage during their lifetime, even though everyone knew the scary stories. So one day, when Grandma brought it up as she usually did, I laughed and told her I’ll no longer be scared by her wizard-boogieman stories. I expected her to simply get annoyed and admonish me or something. But she didn’t. Instead, to my surprise, she just stood there in her armchair, her knitting hand frozen, her ears pricked. Her pupils tightened, shrinking away from something only she could see.

“Swear to me, Irele, my dear puppy, that if you ever come across a mage, you will run for your life! This old, frail woman has seen with her own eyes how ruthless and deadly mages can be…”

Knowing her as a strong-spirited Caninefolk, it was the only time in my entire life that I’ve seen fear in her eyes. So I nodded, promising I would follow her words. Years passed, and I became a forest ranger. I met many people and knew the lands around the village by heart. And even after Grandma sadly passed away, I still kept my promise to her.

Until today.

Earlier in the morning, the rangers from the village saw a strange tall man venturing alone into the thick snow. He left the inn, where he stayed for the night, and went north, deep into the forest. Yet the wind kept raging and he apparently took no supplies, not even a coat.

“Was he drunk?” I asked Boss. feeling a knot in my throat, as my mind raced to imagine the poor fellow freezing in the snow, lost and afraid. As a ranger it is my duty to ensure everyone in the forest is safe. “We must save him!”

“Can you track him?” my superior, a strong human ranger in his late 40s, asked hesitantly. “No, never mind, with this blizzard, it’s too dangerous. We should just wait until…”

“No worries, Boss!” I interjected, full of determination. “I, Irele, your trustful junior ranger, will follow the poor fellow and bring him back before sunset,”

“Hmm… fine, but don’t do anything reckless,” Boss agreed, twitching his moustache nervously. “Your granny up in heavens will never forgive me if something were to happen to you. So if you find yourself in any danger, just come back right away!”

“I will!”, I answered promptly.

I took some emergency supplies and immediately left for the forest. A wineskin of mead works wonders on the chilled, so I made sure to bring one along.

The wind kept going strong, but my nose could still sniff the traveller’s scent. Eventually, I came closer to the edge of a clearing, a place I used to know well, yet haven’t visited in a while. And for good reason. A horrible battle raged in this very spot last summer, leaving numerous dead in its wake. Everyone in the village now avoided this place. The rangers claimed the terrible stench of the bodies could be felt from miles away.

Perhaps coming here was a mistake.

“Again and again…” a wailing voice came, echoing into the distance.

I froze on the spot. The echo of these words felt truly unnatural and mystical. The very second they came out of this person’s mouth, the blizzard stopped. Snow ceased falling from above, and the long needles of the evergreen no longer shivered in the wind. Pure, dead silence lay over the entire forest. And then I saw him!

I hid behind the closest pine tree and prayed I wasn’t noticed.

There, in the clearing, I saw a tall, thin man walking through the endless snow. His white robe, barely suitable for this weather, fluttered as he walked. His head, uncovered by anything but his short dark hair, revealed a young looking face, somewhere in his late 20s. Distant eyes, like a person who is in deep thought, and blueish cheeks, the color of skin that gets dangerously close to frostbite. He looked frail, but despite the cold he seemed calm and composed nonetheless. With a gloved hand, he brushed the frost off his eyelashes, as he stared into the distance, beyond the desolate trees of the forest.

“Closer…” the eerie voice continued.

The young mage stopped for a second, pulling his breath. I followed his gaze and saw a flicker into the distance, deeper into the meadow. My heart raced faster and my instincts told me to use this chance to run for my life, but my body refused to make a move. In that moment, I was able to connect the dots and realise the dangerous situation I was in…

His fingers went for his pocket only to unravel a scroll made of tattered yellow paper.

“I should run!” I thought. “I must run! I can’t die here!”

But my body knew there was no place to run. Not from him. Not from what he was.

Without making a sound, and praying he wouldn’t notice me, I watched further from the distance, from behind the pine trees. His gloved hand went on to brush the thin ice from around his eyes. His mouth made a weird grimace. Was he… weeping?

I looked harder at the source of the flickers, where his gaze was fixed. As the blizzard was over, now the clouds slowly pulled away from the sky, allowing the bright late afternoon winter sun to pierce into the clearing. More and more flickers could be seen further down. It was light reflecting against metal. Breastplates, helmets, swords, and… As he walked, his left foot bounced against something hard. Round, but not a helmet. Eyes facing still forward, he stopped for a second, took a deep breath… but simply went on. A shiver went down my spine as I realised what that round object was.

“So many of them…” he whispered, yet I could still pick up his voice with my long dog ears. Steam slipped out between his clenched teeth. “And all of you were just left here to…”

A single stroke of wind brushed against the entire opening, shaking metal all over the place and moving snow all around. From below helmets, and through cracks in the rusky chainmails, a terrible sight of darkened, decomposed skin emerged.

The traveler pulled a few more scrolls from his pockets and held them up in the air, at eye level. To my disbelief, he did not use his hands. It was like an unknown breeze was simply moving the papers around him in a circular motion, placing them right before his eyes one after another. His fingers made barely visible moves, like hunters giving silent signals. I braced myself, expecting for the worst.

Right behind him, a sudden dash of wind split the snow in two columns, like scissors cutting through a sheet of paper. Brutal, yet following the silent rhythm of the young traveler’s fingers, the invisible force made more and more cuts over the entire field, until the entire place looked like some sort of checkers table. It was surreal. Snow was being pulled apart, and cracks started showing up in the frozen ground beneath it.

I watched in terror, my legs feeling weak, my danger sense over the roof. No! I won’t run! Whatever Grandma saw, whatever made her so afraid… I don’t care! I must be a fool, but I’ll do it. I’ll see this through.

The mage was focused on his spellcasting, so I slipped from my hiding spot and went around the clearing, trying to get closer, hiding behind the evergreens to avoid being seen.

The mage made another gesture and I could see in terror how bodies and armor alike were dragged by unseen hands towards the margin of opening, as the invisible claws kept cutting deeper into the ground in coordinated moves. Eventually, more and more holes of incredible precision were being made, rectangular, merely a few meters deep, and barely 2 meters long. The size of a person. A faint stench of rot and decay reached my nose as the frozen decomposed bodies were pulled from beneath the snow. What was the purpose of this?

“Would your frail body have had the same fate, Esmeralda? Would your fair skin have decomposed into such darkened dust…”

He spoke, but merely the wind replied, following the heavy clinking of metal. He kept walking in a straight line towards the other end of the clearing. Behind him, his spells kept digging and pulling, but he didn’t even glance. As I watched, I was realizing more and more that this man’s intentions might be very far from my ability to understand.

“On that cursed day, I couldn’t even bear to see your face. I couldn’t bear to see anyone’s faces, friend or foe. I just turned my back and pulled the curtains.”

Curtains? Is this what he’s doing now? His fingers never stopped casting spells, as his composed, but somewhat shaky voice continued this eerie monologue. Holes behind him were getting deeper, and more numerous with every passing moment. Hundreds of bodies, going into thousands, were being lined up at the edges. I kept following round the clearing, from behind the trees, witnessing this incredible spectacle. My fear was slowly replaced by awe and curiosity. But I kept my guard up nonetheless.

“All I could do at the end was to dig holes, until every trace of tragedy was gone.”

The spells were getting more intense by the second, swooshes all over the place confusing my senses. Thousands of bodies had been pulled from the snow and now lay around the clearing, and thousands of holes were dug into a perfect rectangular shape. The smell of decay was starting to put a great toll on my nose.

“My war…” he added, eyes closed in a deep trance. “My one and only war… created one million fifty-three thousand seven hundred thirty-one holes just like this. I looked them in the eye… eyes stricken by terror in their last moment, before I’d deal the final blow.”

“No way!” My eyes widened, as fear crept its way back under my skin.

He lowered his head with a sigh. A crow, perhaps scared by the sudden movements caused by the spells, flew and landed on his shoulder, remaining there for a brief moment, despite the circling scrolls around. The bird let out a sharp caw, but the strange traveler couldn’t be bothered to notice. Instead, he went on, by now almost reaching the other end of the clearing. Behind the wizard, unseen hands started picking up each body, laying them one by one into their new homes.

“Is war something worth remembering? A glorious moment when someone you love was saved? A tragic moment when someone you loved was killed?”

The invisible hands proceeded to pick up dirt and pile it back into the holes. Snow followed until the entire clearing was flat, like a white bedding sheet. The mage stared ahead where one lone sword remained, stuck in the ground, standing straight like a flag, perhaps a final clue on the tragedy that has plagued this place. The noisy crow left the mage’s shoulder, and landed on the hilt of the standing sword, remaining silent.

“Can you win a war without killing? Can you stop a war without killing?” The mage followed with a final sigh, as the spell scrolls went back into his pocket. Then he just stood there, like a statue. The magic ceased and everything went back to normal. No blizzard. No scroll spells, No death and no bodies. Just trees, snow and a lost traveller with frosted fingers.

“I don’t care about such insanities!” I yelled, almost to my own surprise, as I left my hiding spot and stepped firmly towards the mage. He looked at me with wide eyes of surprise, as I pulled out a flask of wineskin. “Drink some mead and let’s make a fire to warm you up, then I’ll get you back to the village. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve been through. No one, I repeat, no one, gets frostbite on my watch, as I am Irele, junior ranger of this forest!”

I stood there. My body trembling with fear, knowing my situation, knowing the risk I put myself in. My hand holding the wineskin high, towards the mage. My stomach still deeply troubled by the smell of the dead that was now slowly dissipating. And aside from all that, pure indignation.

“What’s the point of being the strongest mage in the universe, if you can’t take care of your own body.”

He chuckled awkwardly, and for the first time this all-so-serious high wizard looked at me and showed a faint smile. He took my wineskin, drew a steady swallow, then passed it back.

“Thank you! I’m sorry for causing trouble,” he replied, almost remorsefully.

A scroll popped out of his pocket and as it flew before his eyes, I could see his frostbit face and fingers coming back to normal, like nothing happened. Then he held out his hand and touched my shoulder as another scroll flashed before his eyes.

I blinked. The very next moment, I was teleported back at the edge of the forest, near the village, alone, wineskin still in my hand. The wizard was nowhere to be found.