Massacre

The landscape unfurls before them as the Centuria progresses. Sunlight glints off polished armour and the sheen of sweat-soaked horses. The rumble of hooves and the clink of metal resounds across the otherwise tranquil scenery. The knights lead the way at the forefront of this imposing force, commanding respect and instilling a sense of dread in any who might dare to oppose them.

Suddenly, Garrick raises his arm, signalling the entire Centuria to halt. "There," he declares, pointing at a hill cresting the horizon. "Behind that hill lies the peasant camp, next to Willowbrook."

With a sharp gesture to his aide, he orders, "Form up the foot soldiers. Keep them in tight ranks and let them march steadily. We want to look as formidable as possible. No need to rush; let the peasants quake in their boots a little longer." His harsh command reverberates through the morning air, setting the course for the impending battle.

Garrick turns to the other knights, his gaze stern and imposing. "All of you, with me," he commands, his voice as sharp as a drawn sword.

Argon, nodding at Garrick's order, turns to Brolan, his trusted companion. "Brolan, you're with our Contubernium," he instructs, his tone clear and unyielding. "Make sure they don't get any dumb ideas. And leave your horse with the baggage train."

Brolan, understanding the gravity of the situation, merely nods and strides away to join their men. Meanwhile, Argon reaches over his shoulder, unsheathing his spear with a fluid movement. His grip tightens around the shaft, the familiar roughness of the weapon offering a strange reassurance amidst the impending chaos. The harsh reality of the upcoming battle begins to sink in.

With a sense of urgency in his movement, Garrick leads the knights away from the path, skirting around the base of the hill. They maintain a fair distance, careful not to crest the top and inadvertently reveal their position. The air around them is electric, filled with imminent combat tension. Each man's focus is sharp, their gazes steady on the path ahead, each prepared for what awaits on the other side of the hill.

In due course, they spot their target. The makeshift camp of the peasant revolt is set up haphazardly just outside Willowbrook, a picturesque village in the kingdom's heart. The village is a quaint cluster of thatched-roof cottages and cobblestone paths, surrounded by lush green fields and groves of trees. An old stone well sits at the centre of the village, its weathered bricks a silent testament to years of history and changing seasons.

In stark contrast, the peasant encampment is a chaotic sprawl of makeshift tents and fires. Men, women, and even children move about, their faces etched with determination, fear, and something akin to hope. Scattered weaponry and crudely constructed barricades dot the landscape as the untrained peasant force readies itself for the inevitable confrontation.

Garrick breaks the silence, his voice slicing through the tension. "There they are, those damned peasants, thinking they can rebel against their betters," he scoffs, his tone laced with derision and anger. "They'll regret the day they decided to bite the hand that feeds them."

"Or doesn't feed them," Argon remarks, a cold grin splitting his face, his eyes glinting dangerously. His laughter echoes in the quiet, a chilling promise of the violence to follow. There's a cruel kind of humour in the truth of his words. Those peasants, in their ignorance and rebellion, have sealed their fate. Whether they die with full bellies or empty ones, it matters little now.

The knights swiftly and silently gallop around, positioning themselves for a flank attack on the unsuspecting camp. The sound of horse hooves pounding on the soft ground is drowned by the adrenaline rushing in their veins. Argon can't help but let a wild grin spread across his face. He lives for this - the thrill of the hunt, the dance of death, the glory of victory. As they inch closer, the peasants' unsuspecting faces come into clear view. He grips his spear tighter, preparing for the imminent charge.

With practised ease, each knight reaches down to draw a short, sharp blade from their belt. They cut their palms one by one, smearing the blood on gleaming, intricately carved artefacts attached to their armour. As if recognising the blood of its master, each artefact hums softly, its dormant power stirring to life. The artefacts transform these already formidable warriors into virtually unstoppable forces on the battlefield.

Following suit, Argon slices his palm and presses it against the back of his helmet, activating attributes and health.

Argon looks up to see the rest of the knights, their armour displaying a similar dim white glow. With their artefacts activated and their attributes enhanced, they're ready to continue their onslaught on the disorganised peasant forces. The entire process, while appearing complex, takes only seconds, a testament to the knights' training and preparation.

The Knights descended upon the unsuspecting peasants like a tempest of steel and fury. Their thunderous charge was a blur of flashing blades, bloodied dirt, and primal screams. Men caught unawares were ruthlessly mowed down before they could raise their crude weapons or even comprehend the impending doom.

Argon's spear struck true, its cruel point easily tearing through cloth and flesh. The hapless peasant, skewered like an animal, gave a guttural cry as life swiftly abandoned him. Argon wrenched his spear free, its length slick with fresh blood. Discarding the weapon as it was encumbered with flesh, he unsheathed his longsword, its lethal blade catching the cruel gleam of the sun.

Garrick, the brutish leader of the knights, was a tempest of violence. His sword swung in vicious arcs, cleaving men apart as easily as a scythe would cut through wheat. Each deadly swing was a spray of crimson, a symphony of bone-chilling screams and tearing flesh.

To their left, Sir Reynald, an experienced knight, lunged forward on his charger, impaling two peasants on his spear, the force of his charge lifting them off their feet before he discarded them like rag dolls.

Sir Kael, known for his cold brutality, showed no mercy. His flail spun like a meteor, its iron spikes crushing skulls and shattering bones, the air filled with a rain of crimson and fragments of shattered bodies.

The encampment was a butcher's playground within minutes. Tents, torn asunder by the stampede, flew in the air, mixing with gruesome blood and body parts confetti. The churned earth drank greedily from the river of life that flowed on it. The once tranquil space was now a nightmarish landscape of butchery and bloodshed. The knights stood tall amidst the gruesome scene, their armour spattered with gore, their faces hardened and impassive. Their charge had been a hurricane of death, a horrific testament to the lethality of nobility's armoured fist.

The knights' relentless charge had completely shattered the peasant line, upending their futile formation like a child overturning a game board in frustration. Around twenty of the peasant force already lay motionless on the bloody earth. Their lifeless forms were grotesque parodies of the men they once were, twisted and torn by the brutal onslaught.

Blood-soaked soil gave testament to their untimely end, with discarded tools of rebellion - pitchforks, axes, and makeshift spears - littered haphazardly around. Faces, once filled with defiant hope, were now masks of terror and pain, their eyes glassy in death. The survivors scrambled in desperate disarray, their cries echoing around the grim battlefield.

The knights' shock tactics had turned the camp into utter pandemonium. The scent of blood and fear hung heavily in the air, mingling with the metallic tang of freshly shed blood. The cries of the wounded, the mourning wails of those untouched but broken in spirit, and the rising smoke from the trampled campfires created an eerie soundtrack to the chaos.

The knights stood resolute amid the havoc, their armoured forms spattered with the blood and grime of the battlefield. Their initial charge had shattered the peasant force like a striking hammer glass, leaving the shattered remnants in disarray, ripe for the slaughter. Their demonstration of raw, brutal power had indeed left an indelible mark.

A palpable wave of terror ripples through the ranks of the peasants as the knights, resplendent in their blood-activated armour, continue to wreak havoc among them. The disarray in the peasant ranks is apparent; their initial shock turns into outright fear. They begin to back away, stumbling and tripping over each other in their haste to retreat from the unstoppable force the knights represent.

They scramble towards the foot of the hill, a misplaced belief in safety drawing them closer together. But their panic-driven retreat is leading them into an even graver danger. With their backs turned to the hill, they're blind to the approaching danger.

Then, from over the crest of the hill, the resounding echo of a battle cry fills the air. It's the Horntide footsoldiers emerging in disciplined rows, their spears gleaming menacingly in the morning light.

The footsoldiers charge forward in a wall of steel and determination, picking up speed as they descend the slope towards the huddled mass of peasants. With the knights at their front and the footsoldiers at their back, the peasants find themselves trapped in a deadly pincer.

The realisation hits them too late, and terror paints their faces as they see the footsoldiers bearing down on them, their spears aimed at the unprotected backs of the peasants. The grim reality settles among the peasants: they're cornered, outnumbered, and outmatched. They're doomed. The battlefield becomes a grisly tableau of desperate struggle and imminent defeat for the peasants.

As the footsoldiers close in on the trapped peasants, the tension is nearly unbearable. The soldiers, driven by a combination of duty and adrenaline, thrust their spears forward ferociously. Each thrust finds a mark; each marks a human body. The screams of the peasants as the spears impale them are quickly drowned out by the soldiers' battle cries and weapons clashing.

The peasants, outnumbered and ill-equipped, offer little resistance. Some manage to raise their rudimentary weapons in a futile attempt to deflect the incoming spears, but the metal pierces through wood and flesh equally easily. Those who are speared crumple to the ground, their bodies convulsing in the throes of a gruesome death.

Blood, a striking crimson against the verdant grass, sprays in gory arcs as more and more peasants fall. Some attempt to crawl away from the onslaught, their hands clawing at the earth, only to be run through by another merciless spear thrust.

The footsoldiers move in an eerily synchronised dance of death, stepping over the fallen bodies, their spears finding new targets with grim precision. Their faces are devoid of emotion, and the necessity of the battle drives their actions. The scene is a macabre ballet of bloodshed and death, the footsoldiers, the merciless performers, and the peasants, their unwilling partners.

Argon, fueled by an insatiable thirst for violence, leaps from his steed, his long sword gleaming in the harsh light of the midday sun. His boots hit the ground with a heavy thud, his eyes scanning the chaos of the battlefield with a predatory gleam. With an unearthly roar, he charges at the nearest group of peasants.

The first man barely has time to react before Argon's blade slices cleanly through his arm. The limb is severed instantly, falling to the ground with a sickening thud as a fountain of blood erupts from the wound. The man's scream of agony is abruptly cut short as Argon's sword arcs back around, severing his head from his shoulders in a swift, brutal motion.

His next victim is a burly peasant trying to defend himself with a crude axe. Argon easily parries the desperate swing before retaliating with a brutal horizontal slash. The peasant's torso splits open, blood and entrails spilling onto the dirt.

One after another, Argon carves through the peasants like a demon-possessed. His sword moves with lethal precision, each stroke bringing another gruesome death. He cuts down a young boy no older than sixteen; his body is cleaved in two. A woman wielding a pitchfork lunges at him, only to have her head cleanly severed from her body.

Argon's rampage is a whirlwind of blood and death, a spectacle of gore that sends a chill down the spines of his allies and enemies. He moves through the battlefield as if in a trance, his actions driven by an innate, primal urge to kill. His sword, now stained a deep, dark red, is a testament to his brutal prowess, a symbol of the carnage he leaves in his wake.