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The screams of the dying roared in his ears as he sliced through one enemy after another. The heavy metallic smell of blood and wet earth tainted the air. He wiped at the sweat that ran down his face, the dirt from his sleeve smearing mud across his forehead. His dark hair stuck to the inside of his black helmet. The obsidian helmet formed a beautiful yet terrifying design of a great black panther roaring. Its fanged teeth bared on either side of his face.

The fae warrior swung his broad sword, the black metal slamming into an enemy soldier. The human’s armor crushed under the weight of his blade. He swung again, the blade cracking against the soldier's head. The black mask that this human and all the other humans wore cracked. The body of the dead soldier thudded to the ground as the pieces of his mask fell along with him.

The male would have carried on fighting if it had not been for the sight below him on the ground. The dead soldier was an Etherie. The male stared down at the dead creature that lay beneath him. It should have been humans beneath those black stone masks. This person was not human. Or, at least, not purely human. Those were slightly pointed ears and scales on the edges of the soldier’s face. Why was a halfling fighting for the enemy? He breathed in the smell of the battlefield. Processing each scent around him as he did.

His eyes grew wide as his head spun. He stared at the Kilian soldiers swarming the battlefield. It had been an ambush from the start, and their numbers did not seem to have any end. What he had thought were simply human soldiers, were something else entirely. His stomach churned with the realization of just how Fates damned they were.

The human kingdom of Kilian, on the easternmost side of Dyron, was known for enslaving and killing his kind. No one with magic in their blood was safe in that country. Yet it seemed that they had an army of half-Etherie fighting for them. None seemed to use their magic, not as his warriors did. As he watched them move, it was like watching bees swarm. Their movements were too controlled, unnatural almost, they were moving as if they were of one mind.

Dust filled the air around him. He turned to his Second, a male he had known for centuries, and fought side by side with for just as long. He had been there when he lost his wife and again when he lost his daughter. Even before he had no family, Conaln was like a brother to him. He watched, unable to move as a spear pierced his Second's chest. The old male slumped forward. His eyes were wide with unsaid words.

Silver lined the fae male’s eyes as he yanked on the reins of his horse. The mighty beast reared up. Its hooves kicking in the air as it screamed its own battle cry. As the horse came down, its mighty hooves caught an enemy soldier, crushing him beneath the horse's weight.

Without so much as glancing beside him, the fae male turned in a swift movement. His sword slammed into the chest of a soldier who had come to attack from the side. Blood sprayed on his armor, the crimson liquid barely showing on the obsidian armor that covered his body. Blood that was not his own already soaked through to the clothes beneath his armor.

Movement, to the north and south, caught his attention. He tightened his horse's reins, the beast taking two small steps back in response. He watched as the enemy soldiers before them retreated, they wanted his warriors to advance, to fall into another trap. They were surrounded.

"To me!” His voice bellowed. Before him and all around him he heard his words repeated. Etherie soldiers turned to shadow and mist, only to reappear behind him. They understood his command. They were readying to retreat. Hawks and eagles landed at his side. In a flash of light, they shifted back to their fae forms.

The enemy stopped their own slow retreat and began to advance on them once more. The Kilian soldiers, hidden in the trees on either side of their forces, began to pour onto the battlefield.

He snarled as he held his ground. The ensuing chaos of enemy forces ahead clashed into their lines once more. Each downed enemy soldier seemed to be replaced by two more, the lines seemingly unending. Turning to the male at his right, he could only watch as the tall tree nymph fell under a Kilian soldier's blade. A hawk shifter just past him was pierced in the heart by an arrow. His warriors were losing — badly.

He lifted his eyes one last time to the east. His heart felt as if it were tearing in half as he pictured that far away place and all he was fighting for. A single tear traced down his cheek, he knew what must be done.

"To the trees," He roared, the command in his voice carrying far more than the words ever could. The shifters in his army would obey, whether they wanted to or not.

Tree roots pulling up from the ground shook the earth as earth fae covered their retreat the best they could. His horse's ears lay flat on its head as the beast's eyes went wide with terror at the moving tree roots.

Several Etherie soldiers shouted his name as he continued to charge forward. He turned and looked at them once more before turning back to that eastern border ahead. He could not stop, would not stop. The look on his warrior's faces told him they understood. Their magic would only hold the enemy off for so long. There would be no turning back from his decision. The potent smell of his magic filled the air around him as a flash of blinding light surrounded him. There was nothing more he could do now but save the warriors he had led to certain death.

His body changed before the light faded. His skin covered in his beautiful thick coat. Thicker than his armor had been. He leapt from his horse, his body three times its normal size. His claws dug into the muddy ground, his paws thundering as they hit the ground. He heard the yelps of surprise from those closest to him but ignored them as an earth-shaking roar ripped from his mouth. Even in this form, his massive head turned one last time to that eastern horizon, before he closed his eyes and gave into the beast inside of himself.

The beast was stronger, faster, and no one was safe from its wrath. He pointed his beast in the direction of the enemy and let it loose on their numbers. His teeth and claws tore into soldier after soldier.

The first arrow cut into his skin, the stinging pain radiated down his back. He snarled shaking it off as he pushed past the pain. His claws slicing into a man before him, his screams rang in his ears. A second arrow pierced his pelt. He ignored it, pushing past the pain once more.

He would not stop until his warriors were safe. He would not stop until he reached that horizon or died trying. He would not let all that he loved, be lost to these people. Line after line of soldiers fell before him and he kept moving. He crushed all that stood between him and that distant tree line.

More arrows hit his body. With each strike, he slowed a fraction more. He tilted back his mighty head and let out a bellowing cry of pain and anger and sorrow. The sound was so loud it shook the earth. He finally collapsed to the ground, his coat sticky with his own blood and the blood of others.

He had failed.