Dread Elves

At dawn of the fourth day the fog was as thick as milk as we cautiously advanced upon the reported landing site of the elven raiders. The damp air and the stink of marshlands to our left doused our spirits but what made us uneasy was a constant distant tremor. Someone behind me said “giant?”, another voice replied “no, battle formations!”, yet both were wrong. The trot of cavalry beyond the horizon was unmistakable to an experienced soldier. I ordered the battalion to halt and form ranks as the rumble became deeper and faster indicating our foe moved to canter. Pickets rushed ahead to try and discern enemy location while the priest of Sunna led the prayer to steel our nerves.

The sun rising in the east silhouetted a titanic shape drifting in the clouds above, an indescribable mass of pure horror which seemed to weave the mist like some ancient leviathan of legend. Men gasped and cursed along the line. Neither my commands nor the cold light of day had the chance to break the spell before a dark shape flew above us on batlike wings and a shrill whistle pierced the air. Whatever was coming at us picked up its pace breaking into a gallop. The soil began to dance beneath my feet and too late did I realise it was no cavalry coming our way.

Panicked cries of pickets fixed my gaze to the edge of gloom and a bewildering wall of horn and hoof burst before us. The sound rolled ahead of them like a beat of an apoplectic drum and sickening thumps cut the screams of men short. On the sides of the beasts holding onto harnesses clung sable clad elves like oxpeckers, prodding and goading their charges into a maddening stampede. A heartbeat later they hit our lines with the force of a rolling earthquake, soldiers tossed aside like rag dolls died by the score. Then darkness took me and all I remember is viscous snorting, rending of flesh and thunder, endless thunder ringing in my head.