GuNNhead

Night falls across the battlefield. Hundreds of soldiers stand poised. The moonlight floods the scene as the sunlight dies out, billowing out their individual shadows into a conglomeration of continual darkness. Once the sun has gone, they begin forward, their armor, swords and shields gently clanging; lit in pieces by the moonshine. In the distance ahead of them, there is a beacon of light, of death.

On the other side of the field, the Lava-Steel of the FlameSword glows and burns the night air. The flames that lick the hands of its owner do not burn him, for he is Tarnaal. His muscles bulge as he lifts the sword, arms glinting with slight perspiration. His bare chest shines with the light of the FlameSword as a drop of sweat beads down in between his pecs and down his abs, down to his animal skin loin cloth. He breathes in deeply, heavily, taking in all of his surroundings.

The army is approaching. Tarnaal lifts the FlameSword over his head, and unleashes a horrifically fierce war cry. While only a yell of valor, it exudes manliness, injects the essence of man forcefully into the air. He runs toward them. A few of the soldiers run in the opposite way at the sight of this one man, screaming and brandishing a sword above his head. Some have heard the legends, some realize the source of their fright in their own imaginations. The rest regain their confidence in numbers, and pick up speed towards this sole warrior, this one man.

The opposing forces meet with screams of burning pain as the FlameSword scorches the flesh of any who it touches, in addition to cutting through the limbs. Arms and blood fly past Tarnaal. He makes his way deeper into the crowd, never stopping his assault. The battle lasts throughout the night.

As the morning sun begins to rise, the chill of the night remains. Tarnaal is the only figure that remains standing. He breathes out the cool night air into the morning, the moisture-laden air from his lungs chills into a mist. Blood is dripping off every inch of his body; his messy hair, caked and dirty. The FlameSword in his hands throbs and pulsates with energy, fed into the lava-steel. He, in his warrior mind remains confident. He did not always have the FlameSword, and used to engage in battles of this nature. Nothing has changed, only the amount of pain he inflicts towards those he cuts in twain. At the first sign of the sun appearing over the hills, it strikes his eyes, he spits upon the bodies of the dead soldiers.

He is loved, he is a friend, just not here.

In the world of Wealdland, there exists much more than those who battle only for the power spoken of in the Legends of the Primal Energy. There are people who have magicks outside of that, kingdoms and wars, untouched by the hero Firedrake, or his vengeful brother Icemarrow. The battles between the Goddess and Ahriman are still but distant and budding tales here, in the warring kingdoms of Darpol and Raugai.

This battle is not over land, but over a woman; a Princess to be exact. Though, this princess was soon to be Queen, and was to unite these two Kingdoms, but her husband to be, the great warrior Thuramen was murdered in his sleep the night before the wedding. None knows by whom, the only witness being the Princess’s cat. With no suitor able to bring a united decision to fruition, be determined as an acceptable alternative to the deceased Thuramen, a battle was to be waged.

Days have now past. Dust and sand fills the battlefield in gusts of winds. The approaching armies come nearer to their mutual demise at each others swords. Each side believes they are in the right, and will fight to their death to prove such a thing. None are more patriotic than these men, who believe in their Kingdom’s power and entitlement over all others.

Suddenly, a beam of light lands in the center of the battleground, the armies stop fighting. The Princess steps out of the bean glowing in a radiant light as a simultaneously occurring downpour soaks the opposing armies. The Princess is weeping.
“I’ve lost my cat. He’s nowhere to be found,” she chokes on her teary words, “he was the only one to comfort me in the time of Thuramen’s passing, instead of bickering over who would take his place. I loved him! And now Malek is lost! You will all find him or I will surely die of heart loss!”

The cat really did mean a lot to the girl, he was the sign of her and Thuramen’s bond between each other. The armies stunned by the Princess’ outburst of magicks beyond her age, took to looking for Malek. The Princess’ cat, which they had reason to worry, that may have been a reincarnation of the prince, or some fort of evil familiar, a bad omen.

When they found the cat, it was in the closing act of killing the castle church’s priest. They ran to stop it, but it was far too late. It had escaped into the night.

A note was left, from Thuramen, saying that his spirit was taken from his body and placed into the cat by an evil sorcerer, the priest, who would seek to claim the kingdom as his own after the battle sorted out the strongest warriors among them for his own armies. Also lost with the sorcerer’s life, however, was Thuramen’s body: the priest had intended to it make his own; both it and the old man’s bodies burned to ash in a magical fire.
And so, Thuramen, forever cursed to be trapped in that, chubby, rolly cat’s body, could no longer bear to be around the life he once knew. He resigned himself to wander to lands for eternity, knowing it would be for the betterment of all Kingdoms to believe that he had died.