[I'm going to keep posting things here. Don't expect anything even close to continuity.]

Crows ripped into the carrion that covered what had been, a week before, open ground that stretched perhaps a mile between the foothills of the World's Teeth mountain range and the forests that, by general aggreement, marked the border of Maridale. Now, the low hills and green fields were covered in shattered bits of armor, dropped weapons, and stinking corpses. The armies had withdrawn, and their champions were going to be sent out to settle the fight.

Baron Falketh eyed his champion. The baron had been plotting his encursion from the mountains for years, but had underestimated the Maridale forces' recent recruitment efforts. Now he was sending a man he barely knew to finish the fight. He didn't like it, but Shinn, regardless of his lack of a past, was as brutal and heartless a creature as he could find, and would willingly kill whoever he told him to.

Shinn himself didn't look like much. Tall, too thin, pale skin that was oddly weathered, as though he had spent years in the desert without seeing the sun. Lank black hair was currently lashed back with a piece of cord. A grinning, gleeful face like a hatchet hinted at the depths of his depravity while doing nothing to forewarn the world of what he was capable of. A cuirass protected his torso. It did not shine. It was too heavily dented and scratched to ever shine again. It was not the armor of a leader or hero, or even a soldier who took pride in his nation. It was the armor of someone who killed people. His round shield matched it, a 3-foot wide disk of battered steel. His sword, though...

The sword was beautiful and horrible. Too straight to be a scimitar, it curved forwards slightly at the base and swept back to centerline as it reached the point. The double edges, unusual on a curved blade, glittered in the dying light. Lustrous black leather wound around the hilt and teeth rumored to have been ripped from the jaws of a dragon Shinn had slew adorned the crossguard. A long chain hooked to the pommel wrapped around his arm all the way to his shoulder, where it was forged directly to his armor. His shield was attached in a similar fashion.

The Baron set his jaw. "Finish this, Shinn."

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Govenor Teseth stood where his disheartened troops could see him. They had fought for him and their homes, and many had died for the same. He wanted them to be here to see what happened. "Men, we are resurrecting a tradition that died before any of you were born. Our strongest against theirs. We know who our strongest is."

The man beside the Govenor wore his red and black uniform proudly, despite the mud and blood that stained it. The Sergeant Major stripes on his shoulder stood out. He'd cleaned them so that people would remember that he wasn't a stuffed shirt, but a fighting man. His iron-grey beard bristled as he listened to the Govenor. He didn't want glory. He wanted to go home, and if smashing the mountainers' skulls open would get him home to his wife, then that's what he'd do. But the men needed the speech. They needed something, anything, to rally them.

The Govenor was finishing. "Sergeant Major Silas Bennet, may the gods walk with you."

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Two men walked onto the field of the dead. Silas gripped his shield tightly and kept his mace loose in hand. It was more of a cudgel than a mace, lacking the spikes and flanges, but the oak haft was aged to the point of being nearly indestructable and the round iron ball atop it crumpled helments and heads easily enough. Shinn paused to gouge a corpse idly.

That was just too much. "Leave the dead be, Stonehead."

Shinn looked up, and called across the fifty feet or so that still seperated them. "Didn't grow up on the mountains, friend."

The sergeant mentality took over. "I'm not your friend. Are you here to fight or discuss lineage? 'Cause if you are, I can tell you some interesting things about your mother."

It didn't work. It would have drawn sparks from the bit hammered into a soldier's soul, the bit that remembers his first drill sergeant. That told Silas something. "Friend, if you met my mother, you'd run the other way. The cranky old bat is a bit of a monster."

The chains wrapped around Shinn's arms began to unwind themselves, pooling on the ground. More slowly spilled from the lower edge of his breastplate. "So an I, I supposed." The mass of chains lifted him, like a set of freakish legs. He released the sword and shield, letting the chains hold them.

Silas went pale. Where did the damn mountainers get a kyton? He thought beack, fast. He'd been an adventurer once, smashing through unspeakable horrors in search of gold and power.

Kytons. He remembered Larwick lecturing the group on esoteric monsters during long marches. He must have said something about kytons. Think! That was it, mind tricks. They could make themselves look like loved ones, in addition to controlling any chain that came near them. Forewarned is prepared.

He murmered a bit. The enchantments laid into his shield woke for the first time in nearly twenty years. The Maridale seal painted onto it cracked and flaked off, the sigul beneath it blazing.

The smug look on Shinn's face disappeared. "Paladin! No! We killed your kind! The Phoenix is DEAD!" He surged forward on his clinking, rattling chain limbs as yet more chains surged from beneath the armor. Silas stood his ground, prayers not spoken aloud since his order was disbanded ringing out in a voice like a trumpet. The Bird of Flame emblazoned on his shield shone like a tiny sun.

The demon's sword came screaming at Silas like the sting of some hellish scorpion. He whipped his shield around to meet it. They clashed, and the sword recoiled as though in pain, letting out a metalic squeal. A nest of chains lashed at Silas' face. He smashed them aside with his mace, shattered links flying.

Silas brought his shield around so it was facing his adversary. With a shout, he sent nearly-forgotten power through it. The light from the holy sigul surged even brighter. Shinn screamed as flesh peeled off his face and arms. A pair of heavy chains knocked the shield aside, though their melted as they did. His own shield whipped around on the end of twenty feet of chain and smashed the paladin, throwing him to the ground nearly fifteen feet from where he was standing.

"IDIOT! YOUR GOD IS DEAD! WE GORGED ON HIS FLESH! YOU ARE NOTHING!" Half a dozen barbed chains snaked out. He smashed two, but more followed, wrapping around his legs. The sword darted out again and sank into Silas' belly, drawing a hoarse scream. A swing of his mace snapped the chain that held the sword, and a few more freed him of the chains on his legs.

The demon's shield, festooned in blades that it hadn't had moments ago, hammered back in. The mace shattered it, jagged pieces carving open the paladin's face. Advancing with shield raised, Silas' faith hammered at the fiend. Flailing chains failed to hold his weight, and Shinn fell to the ground, trying to crawl away.

Silas stood over his writhing enemy. "Don't bother trying to change your face to look like my wife or mother. I'm know that one already." He splattered Shinn's brains across the ground. Thick black ichor oozed across the soil as the demon's body dissolved.

He turned back towards his own lines, his shield a beacon of victory. He could hear the cheers, and could see the men he had served alongside rushing out to him. He knew in a distant sort of way that the Baron was a man of his word, and would withdraw. Maridale was safe for a little while longer.

"Bloody hell." He fell over backwards and let his men carry him on their shoulders to the healer. "Sarah's going to kill me. Promised her I wouldn't get hurt."

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"There are three kinds of plan. The fast plan, the good plan, and the sneaky plan. The fast plan works because by the time anyone knows you're there, you're already stabbing them in the face. The good plan works because they know you're going to stab them in the face, but they can't do anything about it. The sneaky plan works because while you were listening to me explain all this, I stole your sandwich."