Dead cold night
The twin moons hung low on the horizon, their pale white radiance cutting through the inky blanket of night. The larger of the two celestial bodies dominated the sky, its pockmarked surface reflecting the fading rays of the setting sun like a solar mirror. The smaller moon trailed behind, a humble companion to its brilliant sibling, dutifully taking its place among the twinkling tapestry of distant stars.
In the lands below, winter's icy tendrils crept through the forest. Despite the lingering autumnal hues that clung to the towering deciduous trees, a pervasive chill hung in the air, warning of the coming frostbite.
The winding trail that threaded between the mighty oak and elm trunks was blanketed in a layer of crisp, newly-fallen leaves that crackled underfoot.
Along this secluded path rumbled a convoy of carriages and supply wagons, their wooden wheels straining under the weight of their burdens.
At the head rode a gilded carriage of polished redwood and ornate latticework, drawn by a team of four ebony-coated draft horses whose frosty breaths puffed in vaporous plumes with each step. The convoy moved steadily forward, the rhythmic clatter of hooves and creaking of wheels echoing through the forest.
Inside the luxurious cabin sat Lord Aldren Tydell, a duke, and his wife, Lady Elysia. Their travelling cloaks of finest Castamere wool were pulled tightly around them in a feeble defence against the deepening chill.
The coachman reined in the carriage horses as he scanned the forest edge for a suitable campsite. His eyes settled on a small clearing just off the trail, where the hint of a modest fire flickered in the gloom. Bringing the convoy to a halt, he halted and moved to open the carriage door.
"My Lord, my Lady, I fear the night has grown too cold to safely press on," he explained with a deferential bow of his head. "We must make camp, at least until first light. There is an area just ahead where we could take shelter."
Lord Aldren cast a withering glance at his wife, who gave a demure nod of agreement. "Very well then," the lord grumbled, waving a dismissive hand. "Find us secure quarters, and see to it that we do not linger here overlong."
No sooner had the words left his lips than the cadre of armoured knights who had been trailing the carriages spurred their mighty warhorses into motion. Over a dozen men bore the gleaming jade green cloaks and glossy emerald armour of House Tydell, their reputation as fearsome knights known far and wide.
Several more wagons were guided by leather-faced merchants and caravan hands.
As the knights rapidly secured the perimeter, their captains took notice of the small, solitary fire burning several yards away. A slight, cloaked figure sat hunched before the modest flames, unmoving. Swords hissing free from their scabbards, two knights instantly moved to flank the potential threat.
"You there, identify yourself!" bellowed Ser Martyn Glover, his oak-hewn features twisted into a sneer of distrust. When the diminutive stranger made no reply, the knight's grip tightened on his longsword. "I said speak up, before I--"
"Peace, Ser Martyn," interrupted an aged sergeant, resting a gauntleted hand on the younger man's shoulder. He cast a critical eye towards the cloaked figure and said, "Just an old man, maybe, by the look of it. Some travellers seek the same warmth as we."
Ser Martyn released a frustrated grunt but followed his superior's lead, re-sheathing his blade as the convoy began unpacking for the night's rest. Within minutes, a fortified encampment took shape, with large royal pavilions encircling a roaring central firepit where the soldiers could take respite in between their assigned watches.
Throughout the organised discord, several knights couldn't help but steal sidelong glances at the mysterious cloaked figure, seemingly unbothered by the commotion playing out mere yards away.
For now, the caravan has decided to extend cautious hospitality. But they would keep their swords close until the dawn's light revealed the truth behind this solitary stranger.
The twin moons hung low on the inky black canvas of the night sky, casting an ethereal white glow over the frost-covered forest. The larger of the two celestial bodies outshone its smaller counterpart, bathing the winding dirt path in brilliant moonbeams that pierced through the bare canopy of skeletal trees.
***
The knights had set up a sturdy perimeter around the camp, and their movements were precise and practiced. Some knights stood vigilant, their eyes scanning the dense, dark forest surrounding them, while others took the opportunity to rest, leaning against tree trunks or sitting on the ground with their weapons close at hand.
Lord Aldren and Lady Elysia sat near the largest fire, seeking warmth from the biting chill of the night. The flames crackled and danced, casting a warm, flickering glow that provided a semblance of comfort and security. Wrapped in their thick travelling cloaks, the noble couple exchanged quiet words, their faces illuminated by the firelight. The air was thick with the scent of burning wood, and the crackling sound of the fire was a soothing counterpoint to the oppressive silence of the surrounding forest.
Suddenly, a strange, unsettling sound began to reverberate through the clearing. It was a low, almost inaudible hum, like the distant thrumming of a beehive, growing steadily louder and more insistent. The knights stiffened, their muscles tensing. Something was amiss.
The sound seemed to permeate the very air, vibrating through the trees and the ground beneath their feet.
A piercing screech split the air, its unnatural cadence raising the hairs on the back of every man's neck. The knight froze, his hand tightening around his sword hilt as more eerie cries answered the first.
Suddenly, shadowy shapes detached from the treeline, lithe bodies emerging from the gloom to encircle the camp.
"Ambush!" bellowed one of the captains, his emerald cloak billowing as he rushed to stand before Lord Aldren and Lady Elysia. Over a dozen figures now ringed them, clad in black leather and bearing wicked blades that glinted hellishly in the firelight.
The knights fanned out in a defensive half-circle, but their armoured ranks shuddered as the first volley of throwing knives streaked in. Two men fell with anguished cries, openings immediately exploited as the assailants closed ranks.
Ser Martyn was the first to meet their charge, his longsword batting aside a wicked black dagger only to find himself locked in a whirlwind of blows. He grunted, parrying strike after strike, but his heavily- armoured frame could not match the fluidity and speed of his lithe opponent.
All around the campsite, similar duels played out in staccato roars of clashing steel. Despite the highly-trained knights' prowess, the black-clad figures danced around their guardians with almost supernatural agility.
The eerie silence that befell the clearing was shattered only by the crackle of the campfire and the harsh breathing of the combatants. The knights remained in defensive stances, swords at their ready, sweat beading on their brows despite the night's chill.
The once orderly convoy had descended into a slaughterground, the knights of House Tydell falling one by one to the black-clad assassins' poisoned blades. Lord Aldren fought with desperate valour to shield his wife, Elysia, but his armoured bulk was ill-suited to counter the dizzying flurry of attacks from his preternaturally quick foes.
As another knight crumpled with a gargled cry, a ruby-hilted dagger protruding from his throat, the assassins pressed inward. Ser Martyn and a handful of surviving men were fighting really hard to hold back the assassins, but their numbers were dwindling rapidly.
It was then that an imposing figure emerged from the shadows—an aged man garbed in flowing robes with a severe countenance framed by a neatly trimmed beard.
The old man raised his hand, and those men stopped attacking.
The old man strode directly towards Lord Aldren.
The old man's piercing gaze found Lord Aldren cradling the weeping Lady Elysia. The remaining assassins parted before him like wheat before the scythe.
"Well, well," that gravel-toned voice rasped from beneath the shadowed cowl. "If it isn't the illustrious Lord Aldren Tydell himself, you've led your noble entourage quite astray this night, my lord."
Aldren felt his wife's trembling increase against his chest. He struggled to keep his voice from wavering as he met the old man's eyes. "Explain yourself, you mongrels; who are you?"
"Kekeke!" the old man chuckled, his eyes gleaming with malice. "I am the one you should fear."
As if to punctuate his words, a tremulous sense of dread convulsed through the clearing. The scudding clouds roiled and churned, as if some vast, unseen entity had taken notice of the carnage. Tendrils of acrid fog slid between the twisted trunks, congealing into grotesque, half-formed shapes that seemed to beckon from the forest's depths.
Even the stalwart Ser Martyn and his men paled, grips whitening on their sword hilts.
Amidst the chaos and carnage unfolding in the clearing, one of the black-clad assassins spotted the unassuming, cloaked figure tending the solitary campfire. Whether through greed, bloodlust, or simple instinct, the lithe killer broke off from the fray, obsidian blades flashing as he closed the distance in a series of eerily silent strides.
The diminutive, shrouded form seemed oblivious to the looming threat, back turned as tremors of eldritch power caused the night air to shiver and undulate all around them. Only when the assassin's footfalls were mere paces away did the cowled figure slowly rise, his movement languid and unhurried.
Too late, the killer sensed something was amiss. Even as his blades cleared their sheaths in a cross-body strike aimed at severing the stranger's spine, an invisible force seized him, slamming him against the ground hard enough to crater the earth beneath.
The assassin's eyes bulged as every tendon locked taut, an excruciating psychic grip constricting his very essence like an unforgiving garrote. He bucked and thrashed, obsidian daggers scattering from numbed fingers. Yet that ruthless, intangible force refused to abate, its punishing psychic lash growing ever tighter.
When the first rivulets of blood began seeping from the killer's nostrils and ears, the cloaked figure finally deigned to turn and acknowledge him.
In one sinuous motion, the tattered concealing robe slid off its slender shoulders and fluttered to the forest loam.
What emerged into the flickering firelight defied all mortal conceptions of grace and lethality, given flawless form.
A youth of no more than eighteen years stood poised there, his tall, slim frame radiating an almost palpable aura of preternatural power and presence. Yet despite his tender age, every line and sinuous curve of sculpted musculature bespoke a lifetime of rigorous discipline and utter mastery over one's physical form.
From the tips of his bare toes to the crown of his noble brow, the stranger's body seemed crafted from flawless, sun-kissed alabaster. Not a single blemish or imperfection marred that pristine, luminescent skin, which appeared to softly radiate its own ethereal glow in the darkness.
A waterfall of lustrous silver-white hair spilled in a silken cascade down his back, the top portion bound in a ponytail, that swayed with his every seamless movement. Those thick, gleaming tresses framed a face that could only be described as Adonic—sharp, elegant planes and hard angles that somehow harmonised into breathtaking, almost inhuman beauty.
That ageless, chiselled perfection found its most striking aspect in the stranger's mesmerising eyes. Twin wells of eldritch, molten crimson seemed to blaze from beneath heavy though sculpted brows—their bottomless maroon depths simultaneously alluring and horrific in their primal, hypnotic intensity. One blink and the merest swirl of transcendent power could be perceived shimmering within those smouldering rubicund pools like gaseous lightning across a hellish sky.
As that fearsome crimson gaze fell upon the stricken assassin writhing at his feet, the stranger arched one elegant brow in a gesture of supreme indifference.
A voice with a low pitch and deep bass poured forth from between full, sculpted lips, dripping with casual disdain.
"Now why in the waking world would you fools disturb me from my slumber, vermin?" The slightest tightening of his defined jaw and the tormented killer's frame contorted further as the crushing psychic bonds intensified once more.
It was then that the being's delicately upswept ears finally registered—tapered points flushed against that shimmering pearl corona of moon-spun tresses. No mere man stood here, dispensing torment with such effortless ease.
The young man regarded the dying assassin with naked apathy, utterly unfazed by the eldritch holocaust erupting on the cusp of the woodland glade around them. Another minute flex of will and the human killer's frame imploded in a welter of bone shards and viscous ruin. Only a swiftly dissolving splash of black ichor remained to mark his oblivion.
Straightening to his full, regal height, the young man arched his back in a long, languid stretch, causing his entire body to seem fluid and boneless in its sublime perfection.
He smirked mockingly at the frozen tableau around him, his carmine eyes sparking with predatory amusement as he took in the sheer insignificance of these scrabbling insects before him.
"I was having the most delightful dream of bloodletting before you wretches encroached on my rest. Who wants to slake my appetite for violence next?"