In the beginning, it was just darkness and gloom.
Then distant sounds began to be heard. Metal against metal, metal against the flesh, bloodcurdling screams. Battle sounds.
The initial torpor gave way to a brutal scenario.
Everywhere, the carnage had reached its peak. Arms, legs, and heads were dismembered, and bodies disemboweled.
Three huge torrents of soldiers from the mountains converged on the valley, like a giant meat grinder being fed nonstop. That valley was as close to hell as there had ever been on earth.
There was no time to think, there was only time to swing the sword, parry, swing, strike, and repeat it all over again.
One could not distinguish enemies from allies, as the three armies converged on the valley, anyone coming in the opposite direction was considered an enemy, it was certainly not a normal battle.
She felt a tear in her flesh, a searing pain, she slashed as hard as she could in the direction from which the blow had come. There was a resounding clash of swords, both blades shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Then something strange happened: the blood that spilled from her wound onto the hilt of the broken sword seemed to come to life and like a magnet brought all the broken pieces of the two swords together, the result was a larger, misshapen, frightening sword.
Rather than losing strength, she felt an invigoration in her body, without thinking, she swung the new ugly sword in front of her.
The sword no longer cuts limbs or disembowels, instead, it cuts entire bodies in half, multiple bodies at once as if they were made of paper.
For a long time, the carnage continued. Gradually the battle gave way to a sea of bloodied bodies, the valley reeked of death.
The last battles were taking place in the center of the valley, she continued to fight her way through the endless mass of human flesh, her body was now covered in black lines, the lines were not the result of spilled blood, instead, they formed patterns all over her body, like a mesh of an exoskeleton.
No matter how much it struck, the misshapen sword showed no signs of giving way, the more it cut, the stronger it became, it seemed the work of the devil, suddenly the blade hit an immovable object, or rather two immovable objects.
The shock was overwhelming, the sound reverberated throughout the valley.
Ahead of her, she saw two other women, who, like her, wore misshapen swords covered in blood. The bodies also had the same mesh of black lines. The swords of the three were crossed like a spike from hell.
She looked into the others' eyes, intense, devilish, deadly eyes, then understood. In the reflection of their armor, hers were the same.
Marianne woke up from her terrible nightmare, she still seemed capable of feeling its bloody scent. At her feet, wrapped in a heavy blanket, the slave was sleeping.
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