Who rides so late through night and wind? It´s me, clad in black clothing, holding the reigns tightly as my horse galloped over the plains. It was a beautiful night. It had a crystal clear sky, a warm west wind and most importantly, a few wolves howled in the distance. I wasn’t the only one who was out for a hunt today.
And my first target was a mere kilometre away talking loudly with his accompanist. Scouts were my target for now, not the main army of the enemy. If I would be noticed inside their camp, that would be game over for me. As such, I planned on slaughtering a few scouts near their supposed camp and end the night with that.
This was a pretty easy task because although the duo of scouts already spotted me, they made little progress in actually hitting me with their bows. The arrows hit the ground far away from me in the beginning and although their accuracy actually improved as I got closer, they failed to hit me or my horse even once. Truly, they were hastily recruited and probably served best as a meat shield.
As I was a few metres away from them, they switched to whatever else weapon they had. One of them had a dagger while the other basically grabbed onto a kitchen knife. I rode directly towards the one with the kitchen knife and threw the paperweight towards the other one as I was a few metres away.
It was a bad throw as it hit the chest of the man and didn’t kill him right away. As a few of his ribs were broken though, he stumbled backwards and collapsed in pain. Meanwhile, my horse stopped right in front of the man as I pulled the reigns backwards, stood on his back hooves for a second or so and then proceeded to crush the human with his hooves.
I could hear the gore beneath me. The crushing of ribs, the screaming of the man and his squishy organs made quite the beautiful symphony.
“I love war horses.” I concluded and jumped off the horse which was moving away from the scene, probably disgusted by all the blood in his legs. The man suffered a crushing defeat.
His chest was bent inwards and blood flowed out of the really large wound. I smiled happily and turned around to the other scout who fared a lot better. As he had just a few broken ribs and none of them seemed to have punctuated any necessary organs, he was still breathing, although he was in pain and could barely move.
“You are … the devil.” I pointed towards my smiling face and raised my eyebrow. What was wrong with a cute smile?
“Okay, okay. I explain it so that even the dumbest finally understands it. Devils are from hell. Hell is closed off. There is no way a devil is here. And I,” I pointed towards my chest. “I am not from hell. I´m from purgatory. Do you understand that?” I kicked the unresponsive man. He was already at death's door, so I hurried to pick up the paperweight and smash his head repeatedly. I had to murder a hundred people with this thing after all and I still had much to do.
“Look at my horse, my horse is amazing~. No seriously, you are great.” I said and caressed the mane of my pitch-black horse. It was strong, had great endurance and was a little wild. Most importantly though, it didn’t fear battle. All in all, it was my favourite horse so far. Grinning, I mounted my horse again and rode towards the next destination where I assumed a few scouts were.
My horse was sadly not without fault. If it lamed, it lamed hard. I must have pushed it a bit too far after murdering quite a few scouts. We rested for a few hours where he drank from a creek inside a forest and I held my distance while listening to any suspicious sounds. As we were pretty close to their main army at that point, I had to dispose of three scouts before we moved on.
After riding a few minutes, the sentries grew even more in number and forced me to bind my horse to a tree and sneak through their ranks by foot. I could only hope that my horse wouldn’t be found in the few minutes I ran through the forest, undetected by anyone else because humans were simply blind during the night.
I ran onwards a few more minutes, mapping out all the sentries I needed to take care of until I was at the edge of the forest. A kilometre further away, I could see the camp, with the parameters lightly lit to spot anyone like me. I pouted as it was becoming increasingly hard to convey a simple message, but carried on nonetheless.
I waited a few minutes after I noticed a few patrols, circling around the camp, and tried to figure out their rhythm. Sadly, I increased the risk of someone spotting my horse because of that and so, I couldn’t wait for too long and was unable to deal with these patrols in the end.
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A bit dejected, I turned around and started disposing of all the sentries who stood in between me and my horse. It was a damn easy task. They were always in a group of two and looked away from me. I could easily sneak up behind them, stab one of them through the throat with a dagger I looted and then smash the head of the other one with my paperweight. Honestly, it was time-consuming and more like a chore to kill these ones. It was boring to repeat the same actions over and over again, with tens of different sentry groups.
In the end, I was basically begging for someone to fight me, to put up resistance and most importantly, to show me their sweet struggle. Naturally, I expected a bit too much. Slightly bored, I murdered the last two scouts who found my horse.
“How bothersome.” I said and searched for a long branch I could use to showcase my flag. I secured one near a large tree, attached my flag to it and waved it around slightly. It was beautiful, exactly like I imagined it. I rummaged through my backpack, fished out a mask Tom prepared for us, pitch black one and wore it afterwards. I giggled quietly as Tom wouldn´t have the honour to show our organisation to the world, but rather I.
Shortly afterwards, I mounted my horse again and we trotted the same way towards the camp I took. As the sentries were all dead and only a few minutes went by since I left them there, I did hope that nobody noticed it so far which seemed to be the case. Undisturbed, we rode to the edge of the forest where my horse started to gallop. The patrols caught us nearly instantly after we left the forest. We were just too big of a target and too loud to miss.
They weren’t too fast though and merely ran after us while shouting warnings to the others. None of them could catch up to us as my horse sprinted away from them towards a nearby hill that promised to cover us from the camp, or rather elevated us above the camp. We were already shot at by a few archers as we rode up the hill towards a few sentries who were ringing an alarm bell.
They were armed with spears, so I simply rode around them and pulled the reigns backwards as we were on top of the hill. My horse stood on its hind legs again and neighed loudly, beautifully and most importantly, majestically.
It was the perfect stage for me. The sentries behind us ran up the hill, but were still a bit away. The camp down below was already awake and stared at me in shock and fear.
I swung my flag, pitch black, if not for the golden three-pronged crown right in the middle of it. I looked up, saw the gold reflecting the light from the torches down below and grinned. This was perfect.
“Death to those who keep slaves in their cellar! Death to those who extort their subjects for money! Down with the nobility! Down with the royal family! Long live the princess of darkness!” My crystal clear voice reached hundreds of humans down below, travelled even further because of the wind that blew in my back and reached the hearts of many. I was an imposing sight, I knew that. I didn’t look concerned at all as I never turned around at the sentries but rather captivated my audience with my words and unwavering determination.
One second, I waited for their reactions which were varying quite a bit. The officers and regular soldiers were obviously outraged because of their loyalty, but some peasants didn’t react the same. They knew how it was to live through a harsh winter, rationing strictly because their lord demanded payment. They knew how it was to be forced into service because they had no other choice. And they were the ones that I made this little show for. The peasantry was the main force of this army, lured into fighting by promising them money they earned in the first place. They were the backbone of this army, but also its biggest weakness.
Chuckling, I turned my horse around, galloped around the few spearmen again and rushed through the sloppy encirclement of the sentries. They were all coming for me, but they all came in small, evadable groups. They weren’t the force I was worried about in the first place. It was the riders that would try catch me.
But I already spotted the horses earlier in the middle of the camp, far away from all the action, secured against outside threats, but also unable to react in time. Just like I predicted, they couldn’t follow me during the night. They also didn’t find me during the next day, although I doubted they could waste many resources on finding me at that point.