This will not be an easy tale to read. I know that because it was not an easy tale to write. It is the story of one man, and yet somehow more. But every story is best told from the beginning, and I would wager once you get to the end of mine, you will see why.

My family lived near the coast--as far away from the central structure of power--the Mildorian church as people could. Their house was a few miles away from the edge of the coastal cliff. The forest we lived in was sparse, and we didn't see people often, but the small town nearby - if you could call it that, appropriately named Cliff's Mouth - was a favorite place of mine to visit. There were not a lot of people there, but the people who were there are still as fresh in my mind as the smell of sweet pine on a hot summer's day, or the cold salt smell of the ocean breeze that kissed the cliffs of the town.

There was Arwale - a man who lived by himself and made his living off selling fish. He was a small man who didn't talk much but liked to stare. My father would buy fish from him, and the man was so odd that he never haggled, and he never even asked for a price.

Sometimes I wonder if he would just let people take his fish for free. But my father was a fair man, and he gave the strange fisherman a fair price of it all the same. Arwale was the sort of man you couldn't tell if he was stupid or just strange, and even though my father liked him well enough, he made me nervous.

Arwale lived by himself, but there were a few others who lived in the small town. Jerile was another fisherman but he was much different than Arwale. He liked my father, and his personality was even bigger than his size. You could hear the man coming from his laughter. My father and Jerile would drink ale and play dice, Arwale would stare at nothing, and I would watch Arwale.

We lived in a small cabin in the woods only a mile or so away from the town. My mother was content to stay behind. Sometimes I wondered if she was afraid of Arwale or didn't like anyone in the town. But when I asked my father why she never came, he just smiled and said she preferred the company of the forest.

Sometimes I wonder what my path would have looked like if the church didn’t come for me. Would I be a fisherman? Or would I be like my mother--a hermit content to live their life alone in the woods? Now I will never know, because even though I eventually came back to that home, it was never the same. It couldn’t be.

It was lunchtime when the churchmen came. Mother was close to finishing a stew. The salty sweet aroma of it was enough to make my stomach constantly growl. Perhaps they found us from the smell of the meal drifting through the trees into hungry noses. Or maybe they always knew where I was. I never thought to ask.

I still remember looking through the window, seeing my father's back stiffen as he dropped a piece of chopped wood on the ground instead of in the fireplace. Then, I saw them too. It was a line of armored men shining with gleaming breastplates atop huge horses. They came through the trees into the clearing before our house.

Before then, I never saw so much armor or so many men clad in it. My eyes were drawn to the metal despite the glare to my eye. There was no grit or grease or sweat-stained clothes. The swords that swung at their hips were adorned with jewels, and golden etchings in their armor seemed to glow as they caught the light of the midday sun.

They seemed at ease in their saddles. Their massive warhorses made our own stock of full-blood mares and stallions look nothing more than ponies. I stood there in the window, and I could do nothing but gape. There was no fear in my throat, only a tightening as my mind struggled to identify what it saw in front of me as reality. How can one fear that of which they do not know? It was as if a storybook legend suddenly appeared before my eyes.

My father looked at my mother and nodded. There seemed to be something that passed between them then. My father looked at me, and offered me a sad smile. Somehow, that gesture made my stomach curl into a knot and I felt fear begin to inch its way up my spine. Then he walked out, and my mother locked the door behind him.

The men in the line walked up to my father, and the few on their horses didn’t bother to dismount. Strangely enough, among the men, there was a boy at the end of the column. His hair was bright white, a color of hair I never saw before.. Like the other men, he also wore armor, but it seemed a strange type of white leather. I thought he mustn't be much older than me. The awkward age between a boy and a man. Somehow, he caught my gaze and smiled at me.

I rushed to the door - not being able to take the horrible feeling of hopeless fear any longer - but my mother caught my sleeve. She shook her head. "You stay inside now. Your pa can handle himself." She was stern as always, but I could see worry in her eyes then. But there was also confidence too, but at the time, I didn’t understand.

I rushed back to the window just in time to see my father backhanded across his face. One man stepped down from his horse. He wore a steel helmet with golden-tipped wings on the side. He yelled at my father, who fell to one knee.

"They're hurting him!" I stole past my mother, and she tried to grab at me, but I struggled out from her grip. Her nails cut into my arms, and I gasped in pain as I fell through the door. She screamed my name, but it was too late now.

I ran to my father. Blood welted on my arms from my mother’s nails and I felt like I needed to throw up. When he looked at me, his eyes were wide with anger. A red mark from the man's hand turned the right side of his face pink.

"Go back to your mother," he hissed. His eyes were wide open with anger, and a vein stood out in his forehead.

I knew my father was a proud man, but I never saw such fury in his blood. But I suppose I never saw my father's pride in tatters either.

The soldier who hit him watched us with an amused smile. He looked young, not quite old enough to grow a beard — but not for lack of trying. He grinned at me with a wicked smile that didn't reach his eyes.

His breastplate looked more ornate than the other men, inscribed with white silver and a golden rune in the center. His long, straight hair was noticeably flattened as he took off his helmet. “I said submi—" his words were cut off. It was a smooth deadly motion. Just a twist of the hips and the explosive power of my father’s fist knocked the man down. Now, my father was by no means the strongest or biggest man I've seen. And before then, I never saw him fight before. But that day, he fought like a man possessed by a devil.

The soldiers all stared at the man on the ground and then looked back to my father. It was as if none of them thought the punch was possible. I stood there dumbfounded. Despite my father's commands, I could do nothing but stare as the tense moment unfolded. Then, after several quiet seconds, the ring of steel echoed around us almost at once — all of the armored men drew their swords.

“Strike down churchman, and ye will burn. Strike down a church, and the cities will burn. ” The child at the back of the column looked at me as he said the words, and he smiled again.

For a moment, the soldiers and forest seemed to freeze into silence. None of the men moved, and none of the swords wavered. Then the man on the ground moaned and got up, rubbing his crooked jaw. His nose was bleeding too, and it ran down his mouth and neck.

"You're going to regret that," he growled out between bloody teeth.

Then, quick as a snake, he lunged at my father, trying to plant a sharp dagger in his stomach. I wasn’t sure when he pulled it out but my father leapt back and dodged the thrust easily, and before the man could respond, he moved forward and kicked the side of the man's knee.

There was a pop as the man’s knee bent the way it shouldn't. The man screamed and crumpled to the ground. Before the other men could react, my father moved to him, and then he kicked him in the back, forcing his face into the ground. Then, without even pausing, he pulled back his boot and stomped on his head. The man's head dug into the ground with a thick crunch, and he stilled.

It was the first time I saw a man die. And at my father’s hand nonetheless.

I looked up at my father and back down at the man with the crooked neck. Nausea boiled up in my stomach, and I spilled breakfast onto the ground.

Then my father looked back at me, and what I saw there scared me. It wasn't the red mask of fury that he wore before, but instead, his eyes were blank and hard — resigned to whatever he did and what he was about to do. “I’m sorry son”.

Somehow, I didn't recognize my father anymore; he was a different man. A killer. It didn't seem as if it was anger anymore that drove him. It was simply just a moment in time, a place, and the people who showed up, and he was going to give them what they deserved. I knew then that would be the last words I heard from my father.

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Then, he just turned around and moved his feet slightly apart. He stretched out his fingers, rotating his wrists slightly, and then he pulled out a small piece of cloth from his pouch. The fabric was bright red, and he tied it around his eyes.

All ten of the remaining horsemen got off their horses. Each one's face was no longer slightly amused or bored, as before — but now angry and somewhat confused. I heard one of the men in the back start talking. He was skinnier than the rest, with a voice that whined. "Some sort of crazy killer, is he?"

Another bigger man, with a deep voice, looked at him and shrugged. "Guess he’s scared to see us coming?" The rest of the men laughed.

The men advanced on my father, forming a circle around him, and a few of the men started whispering. All traces of humor vanished, and something took hold of the men.

I could feel it in the air, like a presence — or a thickening. It made my skin tingle, and then the whispering grew louder to a soft, deep singing. I couldn't make out the words, as the men were almost humming more than speaking, but it seemed as if the words calmed the men as they formed the circle. They almost seemed in sync somehow.

The lanky kid still sat on his horse at the back of the column. He was smiling now as if he were about to enjoy some sort of show. He had an apple in his hand and took a huge bite of it as he met my eyes.

Then, at the same time — without a word said — each man angled their sword towards my father, and all ten points gleamed in the bright sun. They still hummed and sang and began to move towards him.

Then chaos broke out. My father sprang forward and kicked up a blade. It was dangerous to do — something I never saw before.

The speed required to kick a held blade is nothing to scoff at, and my father did it blindfolded. The man holding the sword lost it, and in one smooth motion, my father snatched the blade from the air and put it in the man's neck.

Suddenly everything became a whirl of steel. A sword flashed down towards my father's head, but he managed to twist around and parry it with the stolen sword. The clang was piercingly loud, and I was surprised both men could even hold onto their metal.

Another blow poked towards his stomach, but he slapped that away too. Then he rolled forward and planted the sword straight into the man's neck before the man could parry him. It slid in cleanly, and the man barely made a noise, but my father already pulled it out with red blood coating it to block another blow.

His techniques weren't full of flourish or show. It was as if the men simply moved slower than him. Blade after blade came towards my father, but he spun and parried and blocked and gave back blow after blow.

He was moving fast — almost too quickly to see — but the ring and clang of steel on steel echoed loudly as the men grunted and pressed in on him, never letting him up. The sound of clashing metal almost sounded like a strange, horrific instrument.

But he kept them back, and slowly, blood began to flow in the circle as the strange chants and humming and grunting and slashes continued. Another man pulled back, gasping as a deep cut on his arm bled fiercely. "He fights like a devil!"

"How can he see?" asked another soldier. He looked just as surprised as he was angry. He looked down at his sword as if he thought it might be fake or not made of metal at all. Then he seemed to get a great idea, and he threw the sword at my father. My father seemed to sense it coming, and he ducked. The sword flew into the warrior behind him, right into his gut.

My father dodged and cut, and it was as if he was dancing. There wasn't a wasted motion that I could see — when I could see him, so fast was he moving, and so much steel was flashing.

The way he moved with a sword — it was as if it was a part of him. He swung left and right and around in circles at a moment's notice. Somehow, miraculously, he didn't need his eyes to see where to swing.

The sword itself seemed drawn to the other metal, but not only that, his arms didn't seem to tire. The sword in his arm seemed to weigh nothing — and it swung too fast to see every movement, and the men around him were suffering for it.

My father managed to evade multiple thrusts and turn away others to inflict multiple wounds while sustaining none of his own. Five of the men died in only a minute of the battle.

Most of the men in the circle were bleeding from some wound. One soldier held his hand to his face, and blood ran down his forearm. He dropped his sword and crawled away on the ground. "I can't see, I can't see!" he screamed.

The melee finally stopped. Only two men still stood. The rest were too wounded to stand, dying, or dead.

The kid on the horse only took a few bites of the apple. But the bloodshed didn't seem to impact his appetite, and he didn't seem concerned at all that my father just killed five of his men. He took another bite, and through his full mouth, he spoke.

"Best stop before you all get yourselves killed," he said. Then he threw the apple at the man screaming and crawling on the ground. The apple hit him in the back of the head, and the man yelped.

"He's a metal mage, you fool."

I looked at my father, confused at what they meant. I never heard of a metal mage before, and by the looks of most of them, they hadn't either. But my father didn't look at me.

He stood there and panted, surrounded by the bloodied men. He cleared his throat and spat blood onto the ground. Then he wiped a sweaty hand across his face, where one of the men's swords scored a small cut. His hand came away bloody.

"Roth, haven't we had enough fun?" The big man who scratched his crotch had gotten down a while before, but his sword still wasn’t drawn. He waved about lazily with his hand at the blood and the dead men they already lost.

Roth, despite his age, seemed to be the leader.

Besides the kid, there was only one man left on his horse. He was darker-skinned than I had ever seen, and his eyes were a dull red. His hair was cropped short but it was so dark it was almost ebony, like the color of a raven's feathers. When he saw me looking at him, he shook his head and looked at the house.

"What a goddamn waste."

Roth looked at the man and scowled. "Rebert is right. Father won’t be happy if I come back alone." In response, Rebert stiffened.

“Arthael!” Roth called out. For a moment I was confused. None of the men turned to him. But then someone--something, emerged from the trees. At first I didn’t recognize it as a man.

Because it was the largest man I had ever seen, and his body was covered in a strange bone-like armor. The armor itself went up to the man’s neck in strange ridges and there were jewels encrusted inside it that glowed bright even in the sunlight of the day. The man’s face was adorned with tattoos and his cold blue eyes appraised the situation. For a small moment the huge man’s eyes locked with my own.

“Take care of it.” Roth said.Something about the man made him nervous, I could tell. Roth began to tap his fingers at his side and he couldn’t seem to look at the man. Like the child, Arthael had white blond hair. It hung down to his shoulders. His face was chiseled and lean and his neck was thick with muscle. Arthael stared at the child for a long moment, and then looked at my father. His eyes hardened and then he nodded.

From a back sheath he pulled a long hammer. The haft was thick metal and the head of it was larger than any hammer I had ever seen. Like his armor, it was also adorned in jewels, but unlike the armor, it was steel. And yet the man held it like it weighed nothing. He advanced upon my father.

My father shifted his stance and his head tilted towards the direction of the man’s hammer. Arthael waited for a moment then he dashed forward. Before he got to my father he threw the hammer to the side. The hammer flew 20 feet away and skidded on the ground. My father hesitated and the man slammed into him. My father wrapped his legs around the man's waist, but he was on top of him. And then the blows began to rain down. My father tried to block the blows and guard his head but the man was armored, and his fists were plated with the strange bone armor gauntlets.

Roth began to laugh as my father was beaten to death. Then his high-pitched laughter turned into a cackle. He doubled over and beat at the neck of his horse as he pointed at my dying father. And still, the blows rained down. He was laughing so hard it seemed like he was having trouble breathing.

The rest of his men stared at him, and then at Arthael, who still beat my father. But I could tell he was dead. No man could survive that punishment. The warrior was coated in my father’s blood, but he did not stop. The man was mad, possessed of a terrifying rage that made him into something that was no longer human.

A few of the men began to rummage through their packs, wrapping cloth and bandages around their cuts. One man went to the man on the ground who was still screaming. My father had cut his eyes and the man was rolling around blood covering his face and fingers. “I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t--” and his throat was slit. "Bloody annoying, that is," the man grumbled. Then he began to sift through the dead man’s pockets.

The big man who scratched his crotch bent down and picked up Roth's discarded apple. He sniffed it, brushed it off with his other hand, and took a bite. "Hell of a fighter, that man. Never seen anything like it."

A few of the other men nodded. But by then, most of the men had moved on from my dead father and were tending to their wounds.

"The boy comes with us." Roth tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "Do what you want with his mother. Just don't make it loud. We’ve had enough screaming for one day.” Several of the men laughed.

The skinny man grinned with black rotted teeth. "Righto, boss."

The red-eyed man had stepped off his horse, and he put a calloused hand on my shoulder. For a small moment, he had a faraway look in his eye, as if he had been here before. He patted my shoulder, and pulled me up.

As I got onto the saddle, I finally looked away from my dead father. Arthael, had finally stopped beating the course and instead he stood, staring at my house. The men found the door locked and barred, so the big man with the apple simply barreled it down with the full weight of his charge.

My mother was there with a pan. She brought it down upon the man, but the big man was quicker than he looked, and he caught my mother's wrist.

Then the skinny man came up from behind and wrapped a cord around her neck. Then he whispered something to her, and my mother turned to me, and I could see fear and rage in her eyes.

They bulged from the strain of the cord around her neck, and then I saw something leave her. Perhaps it was her soul, departing her body early before it could feel all of the pain.

She reached a small hand up and waved at me, and then the red-eyed man wheeled his horse around, and we began to trot back into the forest. "No lad of your age ought to see that."

"No lad at all," he whispered so quietly I could barely hear him.