Fire ruled the night.
The Taliver bandits waged all-out war against the nomadic Lorca tribe, the brutes burying their axes into men, women and children alike. Two bandits held a man down while a third grabbed his head and twisted. The man's neck snapped, killing him, but the bandit continued to twist, tearing the man's head from his shoulders. Another lifted a child into the air and brought him down hard, snapping the boy's spine over his knee. The bandits pillaged, raped, plundered and burned all their vile hands touched.
Fire ruled the night.
The chieftain of the Lorca emerged from his ger wielding a sacaen blade and brandished it at the nearest four bandits. The first came at him with a bold swing, foolhardy swing. The chieftain ducked to the side, beat down his axe, and ran the fool through. He readied his blade and weaved through the other three, carving death behind him. Ten bandits saw their comrades' fall and jumped on the man. He fought bravely, but he was piled under some fifteen bandits and lost his blade. The bandits laid into him with their axes and their hands and tore him to pieces, flinging meat and limbs every which way. His wife screamed in agony, alerting the murderers to her presence, and she ran into her home with her daughter and bolted the door. The bandits smashed the door into splinters, and the first bandits went in. The mother was set upon by two men and dragged outside, and the third bandit cornered the daughter and advanced on her with an animal grin. The girl tried to run past him, but he grabbed a fistful of her emerald hair and threw her to the ground. Her head hit the floor and she lost consciousness. The bandit reached to undo his belt, but found his hand was impaled on the cold steel now protruding from his gut.
The man in black pulled his blade from the bandit's back and watched him fall. He looked to the girl and checked her for a pulse and, finding one, slung her limp form over his shoulder and left the ravaged home. Outside, he met some twenty bandits starting to leave the scene of their crime. He gently set the girl against the wall of her home and unslung his sword from his back. The bandits rushed him in a group, and he felled several with a sweeping slash as he leapt into the air over their heads. The bandits turned and watched in shock and awe as he wove a pattern of steely death into their ranks; twisting, ducking, weaving, slashing, stabbing, tearing. Soon all of the bandits near him lay dead, and the others took the opportunity to leave. The man in black sheathed his sword and carried the girl into the night, away from the burning wreckage of her home.
"Lyn… I'm so sorry."