# Soldier's journal (Artemisia - Prologue part 1)

Author: Onissarle
Tags: Journal, Zion, artemisia

 

     I was a Sergeant then, and not long into my stripes, when we were pushed to the front lines.  My lieutenant had died some weeks earlier, the healers had been too few and far between to save him from the festering of his wound.  The men's spirits had faltered without him and I was barely holding the squad together in the dismal days and chilling nights we held those worthless ruins.

 

     We hunkered in our trenches, crowding around torches that flickered in the freezing drizzle.  Thankful for what little warmth they offered.  In our complacency, we thought the enemy a day's march to the east and we didn't know we were under attack until it was too late.  Soldiers poured into our outer trenches and we were forced to fall back towards what remained of the town's walls.

 

     There we regrouped and pushed back.  After the initial confusion, it had become clear we outnumbered our attackers and without the element of surprise, they quickly lost the advantage.  Ankle deep in mud I stood, shouting orders and directing archer fire when the world seemed to turn on its head.  My own men came charging back towards me from the murky night, stumbling and crying out in their panic.

 

     I managed to grab the arm of a soldier as he tried to half run, half crawl past me.  Pulling him to his feet, I shook him to his senses and demanded a report.  His eyes half crazed, he stared at me for a moment and said just one thing through his chattering teeth.

 

     "It's the demon!  The demon has come for our souls!"

 

     I didn't feel the man pull from my grip, nor see which way he fled.  My body felt suddenly numb and the sounds of battle muted as I became transfixed on a vast sword, draped in gore, that was slowly sliding down the muddy bank towards me.  In its wake stood a monster.  The faltering torch-light danced off red armour, highlighting the flash of blades and the horns of the beast as it stood atop the rise.  With every step it took forward, men died.  I swear by the Goddess herself that I saw a man run it through with a spear, only to be batted away like a bothersome insect.  Without so much as missing a step, it pulled the spear from its own body and drove it through the prone soldier's chest, staking him to the ground.

 

     The Demon of Ashlai, she had truly come for us all.  I stood, unable to move as I watched the brave and foolish charging her monstrous form.  They fell, some screaming and some in silence, into the mud.  She fought as if possessed but in her eyes I did not see the madness I expected, what dwelt there was only death and in that heartbeat I believed it all.  Every story and frightened whisper, The souls of the fallen seem to writhe in her bloody armour and in my mind, I heard their screams.

 

     She came ever closer, walking, running and even seeming to dance through the carnage she scattered all around her passage.  As she drew near I heard her voice drifting to me over the crying of the wounded.  Reciting the same chant over and over to herself as she cut down those too slow to flee her path.

 

"Goddess, who shines your light upon us,

Set free those who fall before your gaze.

Grant to me your blessings,

and let their strength become my own.

Through their death, I am reborn."

 

     She prayed.  That thing prayed to the Goddess to bless what she did.  I had no words for it and no thoughts beyond the cold fear that had consumed me.  A fear so deep it felt as if the world was crushing my soul.  My report said I sounded the retreat and withdrew what was left of my men from the battlefield, but in truth, I ran.  I ran in blind fear, giving no heed or thought to my men.  We all ran together, like frightened animals, into the night.

 

_- From the journal of Captain Aelos Ferriere_

Source: https://sofurry.com/s/YnLZrV3e