Battle of The Blood Woods

"Something's wrong"

Said a middle-aged man, crouched down on the first carriage's roof. He was an experienced hunter, having served for many years as a guardian for the supply line between the central region and the eastern border.

He had done countless time the travel between the Village and the Outpost, acquiring the ability to immediately tell when something wasn't normal. The problem was that he couldn't put his finger on what was wrong: was the rhythm of march too slow? No, it seemed fine enough. The other hunter was slacking a bit more on this journey, but they also were mostly youth.

Although they were less attentive, they also were more effective in combat being full of energy and vigor. The old hunter preferred them highly to the usual company of old people that the village usually gave him to defend the convoy.

No, it wasn't the hunter. It was something else. His wise eyes moved around, scanning the road ahead with his experienced gaze.

"Silence"

Murmured finally the man, his eyes narrowing. He finally understood what was the thing that seemed so wrong: the eerie silence around them. Concentrating, he could only hear the rumor of the various wagons cracking on the dusty road and the puffing and growling of the moon oxen that tiredly pulled them.

"Nothing else..."

This was incredibly abnormal! It was a forest after all. Even if the animals around the path would commonly try and not approach the caravan, they woudn't completely flee the zone. No, and moreover, there would also be some predator of fearless animal that showed up near the forest road.

Instead, this time the old man did not sense anything, no red wolf howling to signal to their pack the present of a large group of human, no great white owl screeching in the dark to warn them to stay out of its territory. This was very strange!

"Unless... oh fuck!" thought the man, feeling an itching sensation coming from the large scar that honorably decored his back.

His hand moved pointing to the sky and his fingers displayed multiple time two different gesture. Every hunter who saw him staggered back, looking around suspiciously before starting to take out the longbows they had behind their back.

"I hope it's not too la"

A shining silver shadow darted out from the foliage around the convoy, embedding itself right into his worried face. He didn't even have the time to see his death coming, and his head was already almost split in half. Blood and gore splashed the two young hunters near him, leaving them shaken.

At the same time, a huge tree suddenly fell down, blocking the road and causing the unprepared moon oxen to crash into it. The impact sent them ruinously on the ground, destabilizing even the carriage behind them.

This happened also to the other wagons, with the animals that pulled them crashing on the car in front of them and bringing down with them their own car.

The hunters standing on the roofs were all sent crashing down, someone was even crushed by the beast that pulled the wagons or by the wagon themselves. The metallic odor of blood started filling the air, together with screams of pain and animal moanings.

It was then that a deep and prideful voice made emerged from the dark.

"Implacable like Fire, Steady like Earth!" announced, surmounting the cries of the Forest Will people and announcing the incoming battle.

"FIRE AND EARTH!" echoed dozens of voices in response, screaming with untold fury.

Then, a numerous group of red-clothed warriors emerged from the foliage to the left side of the convoy. They were screaming with vigor, trembling under some kind of berserker rage.

"Coal! Coals are attacking!" screamed a hunter, before an enemy warrior headbutted him to the ground after climbing up to his position under a piece of wood from a broken carriage.

The Fire Earth warrior laughed in delight, eyes reddened with mad frenzy while he repeatedly buried his giant weapon on the flesh of the screaming hunter. Blood and entrails splashed on his face, that under the feeble and cold lunar light seemed more that of a devil than of a man.

"Where the Head Hunter?" cried someone, trying to understand why their leader wasn't making any move to rally around the Forest Will warriors before it was too late.

Nobody answered his plea, and the Fire Earth berserker only augmented their attacks, attacking in a violent style that left no way to their adversary to defend themselves.

However this was far from being a completely one-sided massacre: some hunters managed to keep their balance and stayed on the roofs of their carriages, remaining far from the reach of the Fire Earth Warriors.

They crouched down, moving like specters and carefully sniping the ax-wielding maniacs from far away. The latter could do nothing against the distant hunters, especially because they tended to attack warriors that were already engrossed in a fight with the Forest Will Tribe people that were on the ground.

While in the beginning, the battle was seemed almost to be a complete and overwhelming victory for the Fire Earth Warriors, the few hunters bombarding them from a completely safe distance were rapidly making up for their tribe's losses during the surprise attack.

"KILL THE CROCKED CHARCOALS!"

"DEATH TO THE FIRE EARTH TRIBE!"

The survivors rallied behind the hunters that kept attacking the red clothed warriors, trying to use the wagons as barricades.

The bersekers momentum was broken, and the battle begun to turn in favor of the defenders.

"Pathetic"

A deep voice seemed to tower over all the other sounds in the battlefield, be it the cries of the dying and wounded, the noises of battle or the screams of the exited defenders.

Everybody felt a sharp sensation of danger hidden in that voice. Almost as compelled under a spell, they all turned their heads towards the head of the convoy.

"A couple of coward rats are causing you so much trouble?"

Sitting on the fallen tree that blocked the road, there was a huge man in red scaled clothes. He held a giant ax on his knees, gently patting its surface while talking.

Obviously, he was Godermo, that after having slain the Head Hunter of the Forest Will Tribe convoy didn't join the attack, and simply sit on the large tree blocking the road, enjoying the massacre.

"Useless Trash" he exclaimed, with pity in his eyes.

"I see that you have a death wish, let me help you!!"

When one of Forest Tree hunters realized that he was the chieftain of the attacking raid group, he laughed and immediately sprung into action. He wanted to kill him, naturally. The reason? Killing him would mean dealing a great blow to the enemy moral!

He knocked an arrow and rapidly shot it towards the sitting man, chuckling. These stupid marauders were all missing some parts of their brain: daring standing still after having drawn the attention of a Forest Will Hunter?

"Deathwish granted" he said, watching as the fast arrow hit the man right in his heart.

The scales that protected his body were useless. The arrow went through like if they were tender butter under the strength generated by the Green Bow.

However, right when the archer was picturing the man falling down and his enemies moan in fear and confusion, Godermo simply stood up.

The arrow was embedded in his chest, but from the length of the visible shaft the archer immediately understood that only a little part of the projectile had managed to embed itself in the warrior's flesh.

"No wa"

Godermo smiled, his eyes shining with a very dangerous light while he extracted the arrow from his body without making a sound and threw it back towards the hunter.

The latter tried to evade, his face paling, but the arrow still managed to cut his left cheek, scarring him horribly.

"GO DER MO"

"GO DER MO"

"FIRE AND EARTH"

"GO DER MO"

The exchange didn't do anything if not make the Fire Earth warriors even more exicted and wild. They started to attack with renewed strength, their eyes filled with fanatics.

On one corner of the battlefield, a thin warrior was fighting against an entire group of Forest Will Tribe youths. One of them fell down right at that moment to a savage attack of his double ax weapon.

"GO DE RR MO" he screamed, his face covered in the youth's crimson blood, stamping on the skull of the dying youngling.

The group of young people started moving backward, terrorized by the ferocity of the man. Among them was a green-haired maiden in white clothes, now dirtied by stains of mud and blood. Two other youth were standing before her, as protectors.

Not far from them, there was another woman: she had long black hair and cold dark eyes. On her hand, a single ring of metal.