Walking across the field of blades and bodies; amidst the thousands of years of wars. The Knight came and he went, black fur, eyes which gazed into the others of soldiers—footmen, cavalry, the famous, the infamous. It did not matter.
His armor clanked. The wooden right leg boomed against the ground like a stag’s hoof. There was no hobble though, he walked like he meant it—he moved by his command and when he moved, he spat at the Gods for moving with such dexterity and agility, fluid like the wave and yet imposing like a star’s imposition. Twas the insignia of the star—hope, faith, prayer; but there were no Gods when he emerged. He was offered the chance to fight alongside the radiant, the compassionate, the forgiving. He chose to go alone.
They damned him, he was abandoned by every man and every God.
With thin and sturdy of arrows along his back, like wings of trial, he embraced his place as the incarnation of the aphelion; farthest from the sun, farthest from hope, untouched by hearth and light. And hardened by the things which kill the child; and birth the man.
He took the freshly bleeding head in his hand—blood drooling and spurring from where a neck once connected it to a body, the plated phalanges gripping its hair as he kneeled to retrieve its helmet, fitting it on the severed head before placing his dominant hand where the head was severed, he pounded the helmet into place so it wouldn’t be lopsided when he showed them—a metallic ring and boom resounding throughout the field like a crackle of thunder; manmade.
He held the head up. It was not an offering, it was a warning.
Blood dripped down to his forearm, coating the bloodied crust of the steel once more before it dripped down to his snout, sliding down to the maw. He faintly tasted the coppery tang.
And watch me surpass them.
Suffer the thought. And drown in it.