Today was most assuredly not a good day. No, it was not a good day by even the slightest of margins. He and his fellow soldiers had been sent on a mission to hunt down and destroy the roving band of marauding barbarians that had plagued the Balkans for far too long, and while God was on their side, the Devil apparently was the one calling the shots right now. The savages had always been just one step ahead, scorching town after town, slaughtering the populace like animals and taking anything that they could take with them.
In their pursuit, the army of the Eastern Roman Empire had gone far too deep, and without any nearby towns for support, they were now very close to total collapse. He had already seen men simply run away, deserting their posts and duties and fleeing into the night. Many of them were found later on, dead and mutilated by the Huns. This proved what the pessimists among them had been saying for weeks now.
The Huns were always close by, ad they were always just out of sight. It was plain to see that they treated this like a game. They were toying with them, and that didn’t sit well with anyone. Things had seemed to turn around when scouts discovered what appeared to be a Hunnish encampment, and the army had snuck up on it as best as it could.
How foolish they had been. The camp was a trap, devoid of people and filled with men of straw and wood, and the faithful of the one true God barely managed to form this ad hoc formation once the rumble from the distance could be heard. So many were already utterly exhausted, so many were hungry or thirsty or just barely able to keep their heads together.
When the thunder from afar grew louder, the sight of a massive dust cloud added more fuel to the fire. The only thing keeping everyone together and in line was the fact that nobody else had run away yet. However, he was sure that once the first person did, it would start a mass rout, at which point the barbarians could and would hunt them down. Given the fate of those they had found up till now, he feared that even the Devil himself would be more merciful and less cruel than these monsters.
He gulped as the rumble increased and the cloud grew larger, but it seemed that God was still on their side. In a flash of light, a gathering of armored people appeared in front of the army. Their armor was beyond impressive, made not of segmented steel-plated like an old Lorica Segmentata or like fish-like plated of scale mail, but instead full metal armor plates that interlocked to form something far more defensive. He could only imagine how heavy that armor was, let alone how restrictive it was.
Still, the Almighty had sent these angels to help them, or at least that was how this seemed to be at first. The angels spoke in some odd language and their leader, the one clad in blood-red armor and wielding both a massive sword and an equally massive Dane Axe, lowered their posture and charged forward at a speed that no living beast could match. At this, the other angels charged as well, closing the distance between themselves and the mounted marauders at a rate he could scarcely believe.
Soon after they began their charge, they reached the Hunnish horde and from there the judgment of God was unleashed. The angels swung their weapons with both unmatched skill and unmatched savagery, splitting man and horse alike with more ease than a normal, mortal man would cleave the air around him with his own bare hands. Even from this distance the sight of blood and meat and bone and clothing and weapons flying through the air as the angels danced a dance of violent slaughter was more than visible. As the angels rampaged, the smell that soon assaulted the good, God-fearing men of the Eastern Roman Empire was enough to shake even some of the more veteran soldiers.
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The Huns tried their best to flee the field like the cowardly mongrel bastards that they were, but the angels were faster and more skilled than them. Whenever a group tried to flee from the melee, a few of the bloody angels would dash off and cut off their foe’s retreat and essentially herd them back to the massacre. And, if multiple groups tried to make a break for it, those that fled would not be forced back into the brawl, instead tasting a brutal punishment as their mounts had all four of their legs severed from their bodies and the riders suffering a similar fate soon after.
He watched them slaughter those godless heathens and found himself overcome with a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, he was beyond thrilled to see those barbarians be ravaged by such merciless beings. After all, they themselves had shown that they were beyond unmerciful, so why then should they be given mercy themselves? On the other hand, the amount of bloodshed and the ease at which the angels slaughtered the Huns was both sickening and terrifying. That even the fastest steed was no equal to their speed, that even the full form of both horse and rider could be cut cleanly in half with a single swing of a sword was something truly terrifying.
And yet, despite all these emotions welling up inside him, gathering and proliferating to the point where he felt that they would burst out of him, he was mesmerized by the display put on before him. These warrior angels were truly masters of their craft, able to display both precision and savagery at the same time, never missing a single strike and yet also simultaneously also making sure that their work was as efficient yet showy as possible. To watch them was to watch the greatest warriors that any man had ever seen fight with the grace of the noblest of beings.
As the massacre came to a close, the angels ceased their actions. They were drenched in the blood and bile of both man and beast, their pale, white skin stained red with the sanguine ichor of countless beings, their hair matted and dirtied with fluids and gore both wet and dried. The dust began to settle, and as it did he and the rest of the soldiers of God’s chosen nation watched as one last Hun remained alive. Why had they spared this last one? It made no sense! Did he repent his wicked ways and earn a reprieve? Was he to serve as a messenger to his people and tell them of their coming doom?
Soon enough it became clear as to why this last man was left intact and alive. The leader of the angels towered over him; their already scarlet red mane drenched in enough blood as to dye it an even deeper red. The last Hun was kneeling in defeat on the ground, his face directed towards the Earth with what was no doubt to be despair filling his eyes. The leader of the angels held her Dane Axe by the last length of its shaft and used the metal head to forcibly move the Hun’s gaze upwards. The two locked eyes and then, with one swift motion, the last Hun’s head was severed from his neck, the body staying where it sat as blood oozed from the wound.
The leader of the angels embedded their massive sword in the ground and used their now-free right hand to pick up the Hun’s severed head. The severed head and the angle locked eyes one last time before the angel set the head back down on the ground with what seemed to be some kind of respect. Immediately after that, there was a flash of light and the gathering of wingless, blood-drenched angels vanished.
And soon after, so did everything and everyone else in that reality; all of creation fading into a sea of endless and pure-white nothingness.