"RUN! THEY HAVE CO-" Screamed a man who was silenced with a blow that completely crushed his skull. A hulking behemoth with white skin, pale as a freshly fallen snow, was standing on top of him. Seemingly oblivious to the chaos it was creating. Black veins were pulsing throughout its body and its jaw was wide open, revealing a series of razor-sharp teeth and pitch black as it went deeper. A mother was holding a hand of its child, trying to get away into the forest, or what was left of it. Screaming and crying, they both ran. After a while, they hide behind a tree. The mother breathed heavily as she held her child in her embrace.
"It's going to be alright-" she said between breaths. "I will keep you save, Miranda." She said as she kissed her daughter.
"What happened to daddy?" asked the child with a broken voice. Its eyes were wide open, but held very little life in them.
The mother didn't answer, she just tightened her embrace. "It's going to be alright, it's going to be alright…" she repeated over and over again. Either to calm the child, or herself.
The snow on the mountains was fresh, revealing a trail of a set of footprints. The behemoth growled and sniffed, almost like a predator chasing its prey. It looked behind itself, the village was ruined and other behemoths of similar form were already feasting on the unfortunate souls.
Behemoth wasn't quiet. It growled, sniffed and broke down many trees in its way. But the mother was so tired, she couldn't even get up.
"It won't find us here." Whispered the mother. The monster closing in. It's eyes, black as the shadow, looked around. The trail was nowhere to be seen. It grasped the tree behind which the mother was hiding. Its claws, massive in size, tore into the bark of this fir. As it looked and sniffed, it could not find the family, which by sheer luck still held their breath. The beast lowered its head, almost as if to try to hear any breaths. Mother quickly covered her and the child's mouth. The drool which leaked from the behemoth's mouth dripped on the snow. Pitch black, as its eyes and mouth. It began to leave.
Almost as if the universe has smiled upon them, the mother sighed in relieve. Quite as a mouse, she got up and stealthily began to walk away from the monster that was returning to the village. But fate is a cruel mistress. One tiny leaf. In a moment of dump coincidence, the mother stepped on the leaf. The behemoth raised its head as it sniffed one more time. It quickly turned around and growled loudly. The mother ran with her daughter in her arms. Until she felt a sharp pain across her back. A large sharp black tentacle emerged from the monster, striking the desperate woman. The beast prowled and began to run towards the family.
The woman tightened her embrace and as she was kneeling down, unable to move, she screamed at the top of her lungs. A sound so desperate, so gut-wrenching, it penetrated the air. The beast was getting closer. There was no escape. All struggle was in vain. The beast leaped.
A loud squishy sound resonated throughout the air. The monster gurgled as its head fell into the mother's lap. Headless, its corpse fell to the ground, stirring up the snow. As its body laid down, a man with a scythe the size of his own body, wings that spanned a good couple of meters, black as coal, stood there. The woman opened her eyes to meet the sight of this man. Dark blood dripped from the blade of the scythe. He turned around and looked before him. Seemingly oblivious to the body of this monstrous creature that slew the guards of the village with sheer easy, he stared at the mother and then the child.
"Are you alright?" he asked as he offered his hand.
The daughter yelped. A tiny spark returned to her eyes as she noticed the head in her mother's lap. Head of a monster who killed her own father.
The man sighed. He sat down and looked the child dead in the eyes.
"Tell me, what's your name?" he said as a crow landed on his scythe.
"M-Miranda." The girl was tiny, her eyes filled with tears look at this man. His voice was very calm and sweet. Almost to a ridiculous degree.
"Well Miranda, what is your mother's name than?" he asked with a warm and calming look in his face.
"My name is Fayreth. Thank you…" The mother finally spoke. Still processing what just happened.
"W-Who are you?" she asked.
"Oh me? I'm just a traveler. I go and do my work. Would you mind telling me what that thing was, little girl?" he again asked the little girl. It seemed to calm her down.
"T-They attacked our village. There was this hole in the ground and they came out and they- and they…" her eyes began to fill with tears. The man brushed her face with his wing. It was very nice to touch. Silky smooth and light.
"We don't know what they are. They just appeared." Said the mother. Still thankful for the rescue she started to sound a bit more resolute, this man asked way too much of her daughter after all.
"I see. Well, thank you either way." He started to get up. The girl tugged on his black robe.
"What if they come again?" she asked with puppy eyes.
The man was silent for a moment. He than picked one of his feathers and handed it to her. It was about the size of his forearm, so it was incredibly huge in the tiny hands of this girl.
"If they come. Just clutch this real hard, alright? And then you say: 'Protect me.' If you do that, help will come." And with that he turned around. The girl hugged the feather as she started crying.
"What about the village?" asked the mother.
"These creatures feast on souls of those that they kill. Something I consider to be a crime of indescribable punishment." And with that, his wings opened. With one flap, with little to no sound, he flew away, heading towards the village.
About ten or nine behemoths were still feasting on the souls. Raven landed on top of one of the houses. All ten of them began to look at him as he stared down, dead face, little to no emotion.
"My king, what shall we do?" asked one of the crows that began to swirl around him.
"You shall guide the souls of those that I release."
He jumped down. One of the behemoths quickly ran up to him. Raising its claws in an attempt to crush this puny man. Raven raised his head and sliced down the behemoth with his scythe. Cutting his torso in half with ease, its corpse released what appeared to be globules of white light. The crows started to catch these lights in their tiny claws, as ordered. Two other behemoths emerged, noticing their kin being sliced down, they tried to slash him with the tendrils, similar to the one that sliced down the mother.
Raven look at them. He stuck his scythe into the ground and raised his hand towards them.
"Shade of darkened sky,
hidden from the suns,
make the impure cry,
and crush, the immortal ones."
Raven uttered a short poem. Almost like an incantation. The shadows that were behind the two behemoths suddenly started to shift. From them, black spikes penetrated their bodies, puncturing them and silencing them for eternity. As with the previous one, souls were released.
The last few behemoths saw all of this unfold. Almost like they were afraid, they started to rush towards the hole in the ground. It wasn't there however. It seemed that they could only enter this plane of existence, but not leave.
"Hear the call of your king,
After winter, always comes spring,
make these fools, scream their final breath,
for there never can be life, without Death."
As he finished this incantation, a murder of crows enveloped all the behemoths. It wasn't a small number of crows. It was more than hundred, for each of them. All of the crows were pitch black, leaving behind themselves a feint black trail, as their red eyes were the only thing you could see from a cloud that teared down each of the behemoths. All that was left of them, were their skeletons.
Raven looked at the corpses. They blood was black and its texture was definitely not blood. As Raven poked at it, it seemed to lash out in defense. Almost as if it was protecting itself.
"Curious."