OOC: This is my very first fanfiction. I apologize if there is any major spelling or grammar issues in it. I would love some feedback though.
Prologue
Small gray ash, like tiny white snowflakes, sprinkled down from the sky covering the ground. It almost made the ground look like it was covered by a thin sheet layer of snow.
The sound of horse hooves seemed to echo loudly as the knights, mounted on them, rode through the village in dead silence.
Gazing around them the only things they saw were mountains of dead bodies stacked on top of one another in a tall pile making the air around them reek with the putrid smell of roating and decaying flesh.
Every house in the small village was either all broken into with smashed windows covering the ground in glass and doors knocked off their hinges lying flat in the doorways of homes or completely burned down to the ground.
An overwhelming sense of anger, dread, helplessness, and despair began to fill the hearts of knights as they continued to witness the death and destruction around them.
At the front of the group leading the knights was a man with short blonde hair, fair colored skin, and blue eyes. He wore a thick layer of chain mail armor, brown pants, long dark brown boots and a long red cape with the symbol of a dragon on it.
He wore the expression of a frown on his face as he did well to keep his cool composure in front of his men so not to look weak in their eyes.
Sharply pulling the reins of his horse to a halting stop he turned about to face his fellow knights. "Split up and looks for any survivors." He commanded before taking off in another direction to do the same.
"Yes Sire!" They all replied in usion before following through with their order and begin the search clinging onto the small bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, some fo the villagers had managed to survive the masacure.
Searching amongst the rubble and the few houses that still remain standing seemed to take hours. The more they looked the more the feeling of hope to find some survivors began to diminish. Still they kept on looking. But for all their efforts they could not manage to find even one remaining survivor.
"We must move on. There's nothing more we can do to help these people now." One of the knights grimly spoke as he and the others began to regroup together.
He had dark brown hair that went all the way down to the bottom of his neck, brown eyes, and wore the same uniform as the rest of the knights with the exception of the small crescent necklace he wore around his neck.
"He's right Sire. We need to keep moving." Another knight spoke. He had short, dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and had a light goatee on his face.
The knights' leader looked around the village for a moment in silence before turning back to face his knights nodding. "Very well. We'll ride on 'til sundown and make camp for the night."
"Wait!" Another knight disagreed. He had short dark hair, dark brown eyes, and his skin bore a light tan to it making his fair colored skin just a little bit darker than the rest of the knights.
He took off his cape and ripped off a large piece of it tying it to a long wooden pole that he stuck into the ground.
"It'll serve as a memorial for those whose lives were tragically lost here." He added with a tone of anger and remorse in his voice. He hung his head a moment as the cape piece, bearing the emblem of the golden dragon on it, attached to the pole began to swing in the wind.
The leader of the knights walked over him and gently placed his hand on the knight's shoulder in a form of silent comfort. "I know how you feel.." He told him softly and sympathetically.
The knight looked up and turned to face his friend. "Thanks Arthur.." He replied in a voice barely above a whisper. Being in the destroyed village reminded him of his childhood when he had lost everything and everyone he had cared about due to raiders coming to his village and killing everyone but him who had managed to escape. It was the very reason he had become a knight in the first place, to prevent something like that from ever happening again.
"If you two love birds don't get moving we're gonna leave you behind." The knight with the crescent necklace teased with a wide grin on his face.
"Very funny Gwaine but you know we would never leave Lancelot, or even Arthur for that matter, behind." A dark skinned and brown eyed knight replied back to him with a stern tone in his voice.
"Awww you're no fun, Elyan." Gwaine replied with a fake pout crossing his arms over his chest.
Arthur and Lancelot walked back over to the knights shaking their heads at Gwaine trying to keep from smiling a little.
"Let's get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover before sunset." Arthur told them as he and the other knights mounted their horses and rode off leaving the village ruins far behind them.