Exton

I'm out of arrows and Ky is out of darts. As one, we draw our swords and wait....

I'm not sure exactly what tips me off... a change in the air, a feeling of pressure, the hint of ozone - but I risk a quick look behind and there he is, big as life, caped and hooded, his blade belted by his side and yellow-green flame flaring from both hands. Silk stands by his side, dressed in fighting leather, with a scimitar held lightly in either hand. Her face is still, but there's the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. And now the sorcerer lets fly and three Drow burst into flames, flame that eats them down to blackened bone in less time than it takes to tell it. Mortuis laughs, a terrible echoing laugh that reverberates throughout the battlefield; a laugh that might have arisen only out of Hell. And now another fireball, and another. The sickly green flames cling to whatever they touch and men shriek and burn and die. Silk dances onto the field, her blades spinning in intricate, unpredictable deadly patterns, killing with unequaled precision and grace. New flames blossom on the battlefield every second, roaring conflagrations of blackening flesh and cracking bone and boiling blood. The Drow seem to hesitate in their headlong charge; their front line falters and then breaks, and then they turn tail and run; and from behind I can hear the sorcerer's voice, just one word: "Havoc!"

Take no prisoners.

It's the signal for a final assault and those of us who were holding the line now rush forward to begin a grim wholesale slaughter, killing with all the mercy the Drow have shown - none. We can smell blood, sweat, burning flesh - the stenches of War. There's no glory in this, just grim necessity. We have to hurt them so badly that they'll think twice, or three times, or twenty, before they meddle in the mortal world again. We kill without mercy, without finesse - mechanical, efficient killing, again and again and again and again....

And then - quite without warning - the field is empty and we stand alone, the victors of the day.

But at what a terrible cost....