Pain slammed Elias back into awareness. Not the sharp, contained agony of the explosion, but a full-body impact against something cold and yielding. Mud. Rain plastered his face, cold and gritty, mingling with something warm and sticky he dimly recognized as his own blood. The deafening roar of the van explosion was gone, replaced by a different kind of chaos – a hellish symphony of screams, guttural roars, the clash of metal on metal, and the heavy, relentless drumming of rain.
He gasped, lungs burning, pushing himself up onto trembling arms. His vision swam. Where...? This wasn't the slick city alley. Mud churned beneath him, thick and deep. Shapes moved violently in the darkness, illuminated by sporadic flashes of unnatural light and the distant orange glow of fires. Figures clad in crude armor hacked at each other with swords and axes. Arrows hissed through the night air.
Instinct screamed. Weapon. His hand scrabbled at his hip where his sidearm should be. Nothing. Panic, cold and sharp, tried to surface, but years of training slammed it down. Assess. He scanned the ground near him. No rifle. No pistol. Only a simple, straight sword lying half-buried in the mud nearby, its hilt slick with rain and something darker. His clothes felt wrong too – not his tactical gear, but rough leather and mail, heavy and unfamiliar. Like some kind of basic trooper armor.
Not my gear. Not my weapon. Not my war. The thought was stark, terrifying. But there was no time for confusion. A hulking shape detached itself from the melee nearby, spotting him. A man, bearded and wild-eyed, swinging a heavy war hammer, charged with a bellow, mud spraying from his heavy boots.
Elias reacted before thought. He lunged, grabbing the sword hilt. It felt foreign, unbalanced compared to his knife, but the principle was the same. As the hammer swung down in a brutal arc meant to crush his skull, Elias twisted, using the sword's length to deflect the blow outwards – jarring his arm but saving his head. He didn't try to match strength; he used the attacker's momentum, pivoting low, and drove the sword point up under the man's ribs with the brutal efficiency of a close-quarters knife thrust. A wet gasp, and the man collapsed into the mud. Elias pulled the blade free, breathing hard, the rain washing the blood away almost instantly. Adapt.
He scanned again, trying to make sense of the swirling chaos. Humans fought humans, yes, but there were other shapes too. A hulking figure with green skin and tusks – like something from a fantasy game – swung a massive cleaver nearby, roaring. A demi-human? Before Elias could fully process the impossibility, the creature turned, its small, brutish eyes fixing on him. Threat. Elias met its charge, the sword feeling slightly more familiar now. What would he do? Dodge the clumsy swing, use the blade's edge this time, aiming for the thick neck. It went down harder than the human, gurgling. Fear, cold and unfamiliar, touched Elias – not fear of dying, but fear of the unknown. What was this thing?
"Hey! Trooper!" A harsh voice yelled nearby. Elias spun, sword ready. A human soldier in similar, mud-splattered gear pointed accusingly at the dead demi-human. "What in the hells are you doing?! That brute was ours!"
Ours? Elias stared, utterly lost. Sides? There were sides in this madness? "Who...?"
The soldier took a step closer, face contorted in anger. "Are you blind or stupid? You just killed one of the Grak auxiliaries! You-" Thwack. An arrow materialized in the man's forehead with sickening finality. He crumpled without another sound.
Elias instinctively dropped lower, scanning the darkness for the archer. Chaos. No clear friend or foe. Just mud, rain, and death. Before he could move, a new threat appeared. A ripple in the air overhead, then lines of faint, purple light coalesced, forming a massive, intricate circle hanging in the night sky, directly above this section of the battlefield. Magic. It looked like nothing he'd ever conceived of, but every instinct screamed DANGER. It pulsed, emitting a low hum that vibrated in his teeth.
Move! His training shrieked. He scrambled backwards, trying to get out from under the ominous circle. As he pushed through the mud, the light intensified, and a heavy pressure slammed down. Gravity. Crushing, unnatural weight pressed him towards the earth. Men and creatures around him cried out, pinned flat or struggling futilely against the invisible force. Elias grunted, muscles straining, managing to stay on his feet through sheer force of will and reaction speed, but movement became like wading through invisible concrete. He felt the immense pressure trying to buckle his knees.
He had to get clear. He scanned the battlefield frantically through the driving rain and chaotic flashes of light. Visibility was terrible. But then, further out, on slightly higher ground at the edge of the main melee, he saw a figure silhouetted against a distant fire. Mounted on a huge white wolf, tall, slender, with pointed ears just visible even at this distance. An elf? The figure seemed calm amidst the chaos, observing the battle, a commander's posture.
Command. The thought cut through Elias's pain and confusion. But whose commander? Theirs? Ours? Was that figure the source of the crushing gravity, or just another player in this nightmare? He needed to move, needed intel, needed out from under this magical bombardment, but pinned by the weight, surrounded by incomprehensible violence, he could only watch the distant, enigmatic figure on the white wolf.
As if sensing his stare even through the distance and chaos, the elf commander's head tilted slightly in his direction. A subtle, almost imperceptible gesture was made to another figure standing near the commander's wolf – another elf, clad in dark, sleek armor, holding a curved blade. With fluid grace that seemed impossible in the thick mud, the second elf detached from the commander's side and began moving towards Elias's position, weaving through the struggling combatants like a predator.
Enemy, then. The confirmation was cold, absolute. Elias tried to brace himself, tried to raise his sword properly, but the crushing gravity held him fast, slowing his movements to a frustrating crawl. Is this afterlife? the thought flashed, absurd. Why a battlefield? If I'm dead, where's the peace? Or is this hell? The questions were pointless against the immediate threat.
The enemy elf reached him, its movements unnervingly fast despite the magical pressure affecting everyone else. It seemed less burdened, perhaps inherently resistant or protected. Cold, ancient eyes fixed on Elias, devoid of emotion. "You resist the inevitable, human," the elf's voice was like chilling music, sharp and clear even over the din. A thin, cruel smile touched its lips as it raised its curved blade.
Elias snarled, shoving against the invisible weight, trying to bring his sword up to parry. He was strong, disciplined, but the elf's sheer speed were too much. The curved blade flickered – faster than he could track. Searing pain exploded across the left side of his face as something hot and sharp sliced through flesh and bone. He screamed, stumbling back, clutching at his face. Blood poured through his fingers; his left eye was gone, replaced by blinding agony and darkness on that side.
Before he could recover, the elf struck again. Another blindingly fast arc. Elias felt a sickening thud against his sword arm, then a horrifying disconnect as his hand, still gripping the simple sword, flew away, landing somewhere in the mud. Shock momentarily numbed the new wave of agony. He stared dumbly at the severed stump of his wrist, blood pulsing out.
He collapsed to his knees, vision blurring from pain and blood loss. The elf stood over him, blade poised for the final strike. This was it, then. A meaningless death in an incomprehensible war. He had faced death before, but always with a purpose, a plan. This was just... absurd. He closed his remaining eye, waiting for the end.
It didn't come. Instead, a roar of pure fury cut through the battlefield noise. A massive figure in heavy, dented plate armor slammed into the elf from the side, moving with surprising speed for his bulk. The newcomer, clearly human, grabbed the lithe elf warrior with gauntleted hands that looked capable of crushing stone and, with a grunt of immense effort, threw the elf bodily through the air.
The elf flied and got hard several meters up, momentarily stunned. Before it could recover, another figure stepped forward beside the armored commander – a man in dark robes, hands already moving in complex gestures. The air crackled. The same crushing gravity Elias felt intensified tenfold, focused solely on the downed elf. The elf warrior visibly strained, then was slammed flat into the mud with bone-jarring force, unable to move. A final, sharp gesture from the mage, and the pressure increased further. A sickening crunch echoed faintly, and the elf lay still.
The robed mage turned, his eyes scanning the area, landing on Elias kneeling in the mud, clutching his bleeding wrist. The mage walked over, his movements calm amidst the chaos. He spotted the severed hand lying nearby, picked it up without flinching, and knelt beside Elias.
"What...?" Elias managed, the world tilting.
Green light, warm and gentle this time, enveloped the mage's hands as he pressed the severed limb back against Elias's stump. Elias gasped as warmth flooded the area, knitting sensations returning where there was only agony moments before. He could feel... something... reconnecting.
"What are you doing?" Elias rasped, barely audible.
"Not wasting mana on some useless trooper, if I had my way," the armored commander grunted nearby, his voice rough and dismissive as he surveyed the ongoing battle.
The mage ignored him, concentrating. The green light pulsed, and Elias felt the hand firmly reattach, though a deep ache remained. He could even wiggle his fingers slightly. "It is reconnected," the mage said, his voice weary. He looked at Elias's ruined eye socket. "The eye... is beyond simple mending in the field. Restoring it would drain too much. You will live without it, soldier."
The mage stood, turning back towards the commander and the larger battle, leaving Elias kneeling in the cold mud, hand miraculously reattached, one eye socket bleeding freely into the rain, utterly lost in a world that had just saved him as casually as it had tried to kill him.
His remaining eye, however, was drawn past the mage and the commander. The original elf commander, the one on wolfeback, was now on foot, facing the armored human commander who had saved Elias. The air crackled with tension far greater than the surrounding skirmishes. Rain slicked the elf's elegant armor and the human's heavy plate. It was like watching two forces of nature prepare to collide.
The duel, when it began, was nothing like the chaotic brawls happening elsewhere. It was terrifyingly focused. The elf moved like lightning, a blur of silver grace, longsword weaving intricate patterns, seeking openings with blinding speed. Each thrust was aimed with lethal precision. The human commander was the opposite – a bulwark of steel and fury. He wielded a massive greatsword that seemed impossibly heavy, yet he moved with surprising agility within his heavy armor. He didn't try to match the elf's speed; he met it with brute force, parrying strikes with earth-shattering clangor, weathering the storm of attacks, his own swings slower but carrying devastating power. Sparks flew as steel met steel, the sound sharp and piercing even above the din. Mud sprayed with every heavy footfall, every desperate dodge. Elias had seen intense firefights, brutal close-quarters combat, but this... this was different. This was primal, almost mythical – the relentless speed and precision of the elf against the immovable resilience and explosive power of the human. It was horrible, captivating, a dance of death on a scale he couldn't have imagined.
For long moments, neither gained a clear advantage. The elf landed shallow cuts, dancing away from the crushing counters. The commander absorbed blows on his thick plate, waiting, conserving energy, his face grim behind his visor. Then, the elf overextended slightly on a lunging thrust. The commander didn't hesitate. Ignoring the blade slicing a groove across his pauldron, he brought his greatsword down in a brutal, two-handed arc. The elf tried to leap back, but the sheer force and speed of the blow were too much. Steel sheared through armor, flesh, and bone.
The elf commander's head, eyes wide with shock, flew from its shoulders, landing with a soft thud in the mud several feet away.
The armored commander stood panting for a second, greatsword dripping. Then, he reached down, grabbed the elf's head by its long, silver hair, and raised it high above the battlefield. A guttural roar erupted from his throat, amplified by the sudden lull in the fighting around him.
The effect was instantaneous. Across the battlefield, the remaining enemy forces – a strange mix of humans in dark armor, tusked green-skinned brutes like the one Elias had killed, and other, stranger shadowed creatures – seemed to freeze. Their morale shattered. Weapons clattered into the mud. Some turned and fled into the darkness. Others dropped to their knees, hands raised in surrender. The battle, just moments before a chaotic stalemate, was decisively over. Victory.
Elias watched it all from the mud, the throbbing pain in his hand and eye a dull counterpoint to the scene. These people – this commander, this mage – they had saved his life, won the battle. But looking at the brutal efficiency, the strange mix of allies on their side (he killed one), the sheer alien nature of it all... a cold question formed in his mind: Whose victory is this? And whose side am I truly on?