@f3nix's beginning:
Black Star
And finally dawn came, mercilessly, to reveal the blasphemous massacre of that night. The sulphur smell of the Flaegreian fields was blending with that of blood and entrails, while clots of death, horribly coagulated one with the other, slowly melted inside the iridescent acid water pools. There was no honour of weapons for the vanquished, whose remains were hideously smeared on the battlefield.
Instead, something else was crawling in that silent scene: the unnatural profanity of a rape, far beyond the concept of victory of one army over the other. It was as if the ground, pierced by fumaroles and teeming with mutilated bodies, wanted to shout to the sky a silent cry of faltering horror.
From the piles of corrupt meat, a black pillar emerged in the middle of the plain. An invisible and incandescent flame was emanating from that dark mountain, making the landscape all around tremulous due to the intense heat.
"I brought you some wine, Xarag." The man in armour approached cautiously to the black and immobile human tower.
"I do not find it right that you have to stay still for all this time instead of celebrating."
"Tell me you did not come alone just with that nauseating spicy wine." Glaring through the black metal of the helmet, the paladin abruptly interrupted the officer.
"I also have the serum, Xarag. Our queen never forgets the needs of her most valiant servants"
"Oh yes, she's always so thoughtful". The sudden pain obliged the paladin to an added effort for emitting the last word, which barely came out through the bloody clenched teeth.
"Do not worry, I cannot figure out how much you suffer, Xarag, and I won’t even dare to, but I promise you that also this time, when it has cooled down, we will manage to get you out of the gift".
"The gift, of course, guard of the queen. I know you'll do a good job with that piece of meat that still sticks to my bones," the black tower murmured in a metal hiss. "Now pour the whey into the wine and then leave me. You, at least, go and celebrate."
Xarag, the Black Star, barely approached the chalice at the deformed hole of the helmet and drank avidly. His meats, slowly devoured by his own armour, produced sounds that he would never get used to. He wanted to look up from that vision of death, he wanted to look for a star in the sky, among the poisonous and sulphur fumes, but the steel colour of the abyss no longer allowed it by many battles. He wanted to think to her, if only he didn’t have to bleed for the effort of not being torn apart in his body, mind and soul at the same time. For him, the battle would have still continued in solitude for long hours.
The fires projected cheerful arabesques on the cobalt walls of the camp tents, where the unrestrained bacchanal of victory was taking place. A group of officers argued in the galley tent, away from the crowds.
"I told you they did not fight! The angel approached, and they just looked at each other for a very long time .. at least that's what I saw as long as I could," said the young man with shelled eyes to the rest of the group.
"If only I could fight one of those damned celestials simply by standing by.. Maybe even while scratching my balls.” The silly laugh of the inexperienced official interrupted in a strangled sob.
"Listen to me well, piece of dung. Just because you miraculously survived your first battle and you got good marks at the academy, do you think you gained the right to talk about the Black Star?" The veteran's arm had relentlessly triggered at the young man's throat with a ruthless grip.
"First of all, that was not just an angel, but it was one of the Powers, sent into battle directly from the third triad. Have you already forgotten the lessons on the enemy hierarchy, cutie?" The grip loosened just before the colour of the young officer passed from red to dark purple.
"Also," continued the veteran, "you can bet they were fighting, as the Power had managed to overtake the first two auras of Xarag's armour and was now attempting to force the third inner one.. "
"Disintegration of the essence." Like gnarled invisibile fingers, a murmur ran through the soldiers.
The senior officer would have continued but was interrupted by a loud disturbing roar. The immediate shock-wave overwhelmed those present and all the contents of the tent. Perhaps the battle was not completely over.
@raj808's ending:
Divine Intervention
Xarag darted from the tent. A black ash rain emptied clouds to earth, assuaging fires as a thick fog spewed from the bowls of Melan's trumpeting volcano. Lava flows crisscrossed the plain, red steaming veins of sickening acrid smoke. He scanned the plain for the source of the roar. In tumbled hills of guts and gore crimson welts of smeared soldiers patterned the field. Among the twitching mounds of the second light infantry, he saw her. She shone like translucent ethereal shades of summer flowers in moonlight, crouched to the earth, hands plunged deep in the soil head bowed. Pulses of divine electric thrums bled a heartbeat across the sepulture fields.
Xarag let out a low moan as he drew his sword and started down the rise into the acrid fields of the dead. He knew what was coming; he had seen it before in the campaign for the stair. There had been so many atrocities in that bloody pointless battle for the throne of the divine. Still, it was time for killing now, time for the dance.
Xarag raced the pathways between the mounds of the dead, quick and sure. The only chance was for him to reach the armour. Slow creeping light bled from the earth around his boots as he slid to a halt watching the path close before him with the tumbling bodies of his fellows. Dead glassy eyes glittered with divine light as rotten and dismembered corpses struggled to their feet, one after another.
Melan breathed in the stench of belching earth and rotting corpses, inhaling the pestilence bursting from dead limbs. She laughed. How these frail shells of human beings heeded the call of divine mana. Their greatest strength, their virulent mortality, curses them as tools to be willed into service. They spread like roaches across the planes but forever shall be playthings for us.
Her hands worked intricate incantations across the energy field as she breathed out an earth-shaking roar, breaching the armour’s field.
He spun in a whirling pirouette as limbs flew in a tonal flow of blood and ichor. He sang with all his heart of Alsatar the divine saviour and her avatar, the queen that he loved. It had been so long since he fought free of the armour’s construct and he basked in the joy of battle, bolstered by the divine flow of his conduit.
The sword glowed, lengthening as he drew his shoulders taught above his chin, tucking his head to his chest to shelter his face from the multitude of raking hands and stabbing swords. He let go, his body and mind free to the howling flow of the song. The force the divines snapped his shoulders forward and his body straight like a spring, rising into the air before diving back to rend the earth in a thunderclap.
Flailing corpses flew like leaves in a forest fire, thousands of dead and living dead patterned the sky among flecks of ash as he cast his gaze on her hated face. The path was now clear.
She turned and saw the paladin striding forward through the rain of dead men. His eyes flared with fire and she knew Alsatar had taken him. She pulled one hand from the sticky field of puissant mana to shower forth fire just as the paladin leaped.
The sword struck her outraised hand just as the crackle of power erupted. Blue fire mingled with a pearlescent burst, surging into the armour. White seared all, peeling the skin of the earth asunder, spewing metal and tectonic plate high into the atmosphere.
The end.
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