Blood.
Gore.
Sinew.
Baron Titus Rivendare laughed to himself as another of the pitifully armed mercenaries fell to his blade, Rotfang growling to him as it tore a bloody canyon through the front of the mare's barrel, her lungs lacerated as she fell to the snowy earth before him.
A pinprick of pressure hit the unicorn's side, a sense of emptiness filling his chest. Titus' head turned swiftly to his injury, parrying another blade as he turned, a brutish-looking earth pony wielding a claymore as if it were nothing. With a crack of flint on steel, and a deafening bang, a jagged, misshapen hole was blown through the offending stallion's neck. The barbarian didn't even get the chance to react to the pain lancing through his throat before a mangled orc skeleton slammed into the stallion's side.
With a guttural growl, the construct ripped into the mercenary's ribcage, tearing and clawing with it's sharpened hands.
Rivendare smirked at the display, the thrill of battle rushing through his dormant veins. Nodding once at the construct's actions, Titus again turned to face his injury...
And a large arrow crushed the side of his jaw, the shaft splintering into his neck after the tip embedded itself.
Disoriented, but not defeated, the death knight growled rabidly, a coil of necrotic energy exploding from Rotfang's runed blade, aimed at the nearby archer.
Already in the process of retrieving another arrow, the archer, a scrawny-looking pegasus, turned just in time to receive the death coil, the greenish-black projectile billowing a cloud of devouring mist over his lower body.
Rivendare didn't witness the death, another blade deflected by a hair, but he confirmed it from the gurgling, half-formed screams of pain coming from the decaying stallion's throat...
.........
Silver Bolt grimaced as his newly acquired blade severed a foreleg from one of his former comrades with a spray of chilled blood, the dying stallion silenced as his throat was sliced by another slash.
All around him, the sounds of battle roared through the small camp, the white snows of the frozen north, pounded near flat to the ground from constant hooves crossing it, was stained with blood. The clashing of steel and the occasional 'boom' of his commander's odd weapon echoed over the howling winds blowing through the camp.
A warcry got his attention, snapping out of his thoughts just fast enough to dodge to the left, the blade of a longsword slicing a shallow cut through the thick cloth gambeson he wore under his mail, the links rattling and shaking as they separated. With another snarl, the gryphon swung the longsword once more, Silver deflecting the blade with his own. The longsword slid down the runeblade, embedding into the snow below them.
Taking advantage of the lowered weapon, Silver shoved his new sword into the gryphon's abdomen all the way to the hilt, a gurgling howl accompanying the attack. With a squelch of blood and flesh parting, the unicorn removed the sword to the left, the saronite blade cutting the gryphon apart easily, butchered intestines spilling from his belly.
With a clattering of bones, Silver Bolt darted his head to the left, watching a large unicorn smash one of the constructs that they had brought with them to pieces, the bones shattering and splintering under the iron warhammer the warrior wielded in his telekinetic hold.
With nary a second glance, the arbalest at his side was raised and fired, the cobalt bolt sailing across the small clearing before embedding itself up to the fletching into the unarmored temple of the unicorn, the equine's telekinetic hold fizzling out as his body fell to the snowy earth.
Satisfied that the stallion was no longer a threat, Silver Bolt turned to the slowly dying battle, determined to see this macabre task through to the end...
.........
Stern Staff growled rabidly as his saronite poleaxe’s blade cleaved its way through one of two mercenaries that scrambled out from behind a tent nearby, their fear quite apparent. One fell easily, his neck ripped open by the otherworldly weapon the novice death knight wielded. The other, a pegasus mare, jabbed several times with her spear, one attack connecting with his lower left foreleg, ripping through his thick cloth armor and into the skin of his limb with ease...
Stern Staff didn’t even feel it.
As his poleaxe found it’s mark, the stallion roared his bloodlust to the sky as he ripped his weapon the rest of the way through the unfortunate mare’s torso, her body falling in two jagged pieces to the bloody ground before him.
Movement caught his eye, and his weapon’s hilt was raised just in time to stop the descent of a large battleaxe. The blade of the weapon dug into the oak handle, the langets the only thing keeping the weapon from digging itself into the death knight's neck.
With a roar of rage, the unicorn shoved the gryphon's weapon off of his own, the stallion rearing up on his hind legs. The gryphon recoiled his axe, winding up a swing at Stern's exposed stomach.
With a whip of his own weapon, Stern Staff slashed upwards with the opposite end of his poleaxe, the saronite spike slicing the gryphon's own exposed stomach up to the sternum, hooking underneath it. With a growl, the stallion lifted the mercenary off the ground, throwing the bleeding gryphon to the ground before him, the spike of his poleaxe entering the soft flesh underneath the gryphon's beak.
Withdrawing the spike, the death knight whipped around to find his next opponent, the fluttering of a nearby tent flap catching his eye. With a smirk of bloodlust, the death knight marched into the large tent, expecting to dispatch another foolish mercenary.
In an instant, his bloodthirst ceased.
A unicorn mare, obviously heavily malnourished, turned to the light that the parted tent flaps let in, a look of fear decorating her small muzzle.
Stern Staff lowered his weapon, if only slightly, and took in her features more clearly, the sound of steel clashing on steel flushed out of his mind.
Her coat, while once a vibrant light teal, was caked with mud and grime, the substance matting down her fur. Her mane fared better, but was still obviously in tatters, the silvery-blue locks framing her dark purple eyes, which showed the absolute terror of a mare long abused. Around the base of her horn, which was splintered lightly at the tip, a arcane inhibitor ring was fastened, seemingly sewn into the scalp around it.
A quiet rasp shook the death knight from his observations, only to realize his target was speaking.
“P-please...” the mare begged, her entire form dropped to the cold dirt floor of the tent in a desperate plea to spare her life. “H-have mercy...”
Stern Staff stood stock-still for a few moments, the unicorn’s mind running through his options.
On one hoof, his commander had ORDERED him to slay every last living thing in this camp. Down to every possible prisoner, as well.
Failure to comply gave him the risk of exile within Frostmourne.
And from what Rivendare had told him of the blade... that was not an option.
On the other hoof, this mare was prostrated before him, begging for her life with every last breath she had in her tired, beaten body.
And while he would likely have taken advantage of this before his death... he found his mind... clearer. More focused...
Logical...
.........
With that, his poleaxe was lifted, the mare’s pleas becoming more desperate as she crawled through the mud towards his hooves, wrapping her forelegs around them in a desperate attempt at life.
Unfazed, with his blade lifted high above him, Stern Staff let the weapon fall, pushing on it as it did to speed the poleaxe’s descent. He closed his eyes, unwilling to look her in the face as he snuffed out her already dying candle.
He prepared himself for the sound.
The sound of flesh seperating from flesh.
Bones snapping. Blood spurting from veins and arteries as his blade sliced through them...
But it never came.
His eyes slowly opened, only to be blinded by the telekinetic grip the ripped his weapon from his own.
’I know this one...’
‘She will accompany you back to Icecrown, my knight...’
“But... my king...” Stern Staff said aloud, but was silenced as an overwhelming feeling of crushing darkness and fear encircled his mind, forcing the breath from his lungs as he kneeled, the blade of his own poleaxe poised to slice his head from his shoulders.
’That was NOT a REQUEST, Stern Staff...’
‘Remember whom you serve...’
Stern Staff nodded lightly, his breath returning to him as he stood, his weapon relinquished once more to his hold.
“O-of course, my king.” he shakily replied to his lord, the mare below him obviously confused at the antics she had just witnessed.
With a snort of renewed purpose, the stallion adjusted his helmet, and turned for the entrance to the tent.
“Stay here.” he spoke, his armor scraping together as he parted the flaps, the sounds of battle reigniting in his head as he did. With the fortitude only a death knight could wield, the stallion stood guard outside the tent, watching the battle die down in the camp.
Inside the tent, the mare watched the stallion leave, her whispering voice drowned out by the screams of the dying, and the roar of the tundra around them.
“T-thank y-you...”