Hello folks! I posted this story years ago and am currently in the process of revising it and editing it for grammar. It's old, but I love it :) so I'm trying to update it to reflect my growth in writing ability. don't really want to change it too much, as I want to stay true to my original ideas, so I'm only fixing the major errors. This might result in a little choppiness in the first couple chapters (the worst ones, lol).

I'm also leaving some of my original author notes.

This chapter has been fixed :)

All fixed chapters will have author's notes proclaiming so :D just like this one.

Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne or any of its characters.

I was feeling particularly murderous when I wrote this... Enjoy! .

O0O0O0O

It was the eve of war.

The sounds of soldiers preparing for the morrow filled the still night air. There was no talk or laughter, just the sounds of metal upon metal as armour was polished and swords were strapped on. Fond memories resurfaced as the men looked towards the still darkened horizon and what could very well be the last day of their lives.

In a tent, on top of the small hill overlooking the camp, a silver-haired boy paced impatiently. Most would call him a boy, at the age of seventeen, but those who know him know that he is certainly a boy no longer; any childish thoughts forgotten long, long ago.

He pulled aside the tent flap and stared into the night, imagining the ensuing battle. The air around him seemed to tingle with anticipation, and he couldn't help but lick his lips at the visions of bloodshed that danced through his mind.

He closed the flap in disgust and walked back into the tent, pacing again. For him, the battle could never come quickly enough. As the rage of bloodlust took him over, he sat down at his small wooden table, slowly twirling his dagger.

He wanted so very much to kill.

He was startled as a petite girl walked into his tent. She approached him and touched his shoulder lightly. The young woman was Anne of Mencuria, the daughter of the duke of the small western county bearing her name. Her father had wanted to marry her off to a warlord and Folken, resident magician, scientist and leader of the Zaibach army, had agreed before the warlord in question had anything to say about it. She was to travel with them until they could be suitably wed. The warlord detested the whole idea, but Folken thought the western area would be easier to conquer once they had rule over part of it.

"Lord Dilandau." The girl tugged childishly at his sleeve, awakening great irritation in the lord.

"What is it?" he snarled, causing her to back away.

"Lord Dilandau, I want you to touch me." she pouted. "You hardly touch me anymore."

She cringed, not knowing what to expect. He threw back his head and laughed maniacally. Anne shrank back at the sight of his features, seemingly twisted in the lamplight. The he stoped, dead serious. He met her gaze.

"Tomorrow, we attack. You know that. Tomorrow hundreds of men will die. Not only soldiers, but innocents too. Their blood will stain the earth red. Their guts will lay on the ground, left for the vultures, because no one will be left to bury the dead." He sheathed his dagger as violent punctuation and paused for a moment to relished the scene. He continued on: "Not only the enemy's blood, but our own sons, brothers and fathers. And you come to me tonight, Anne of Mencuria," he spoke her title mockingly, "You come to me tonight asking to make love?"

"Well, I, maybe..." She began to back away, towards the tent flap. Finally Dilandau's thirst for blood could not wait any longer. He picked her up and threw her to his cot.

"Fine." His smile made him seem the devil incarnate. "If that's what you want."

He looked at her in the buttery light, shed from the oil lamp. She appeared much like a delicate china doll with a terrified look an its face.

"And I'm going to break you." he whispered to himself as he drew his dagger.

"What?" asked Anne, scarcely able to breath. She saw the expression upon his face and screamed.

The men preparing for battle shifted uneasily, though not one of them dared to approach the tent. They didn't have a death wish.

The bloodcurdling scream echoed down the valley and reached Folken's ears. He sighed, disappointed. This was the third one this month. He'd warned her to stay away the night before battle. Or was that the last one? He shrugged his shoulders. Either way, she'd brought it upon herself.

O0O0O0O

As the day dawned, Dilandau exited his tent in his full armour, all red. The red was nearly the same as the shade of the blood a handful of men saw him licking from his dagger with a look of pure ecstasy before he tucked it away in his boot.

"Chesta, Miguel!" he called out over the noise. Somehow, the two trusted Dragon Slayers heard their commander and made their way over to him. They lowered themselves onto one knee and bowed their heads.

"We live to serve you." they announced in unison. They had heard the screaming and pleas for help the night before, and didn't want to have their lord's wrath taken out upon them as well. He smiled, pleased by their show.

"Stand."

The two did so, quickly and efficiently.

"Your orders, Commander?" asked Miguel.

Miguel would appear to anyone a boy as well, with his thin face, mouse brown hair and blue-grey eyes, but if you examined him closely it was apparent from his build and the air around him that he was a hardened warrior.

"Tell Dallet and Gatti they will work their units of foot soldiers as a pair. Shesta, you, Viole, and your units of archers. Miguel, you and your cavalry are coming with me."

"Yes sir!" they cried, then ran off to deliver the message and gather their men.

Dilandau surveyed the organized chaos that took place around him. He was itching to enter battle. The city they were going to attack, Seldory, was four hours march away, and there they would find food and water for their men.

An hour later, Miguel returned to Dilandau and bowed before him.

"All is ready commander, you have but to give the word." A malicious gleam sparkled in his eyes; eyes the colour of the blood he loved to shed.

"Then let's MOVE OUT!" he called at the top of his lungs. The massive army slowly heaved into motion like a machine vast beyond reckoning.

Dilandau smiled. Four short hours and his thirst for blood would be quenched.

O0O0O0O

Taiahna, a seventeen year old girl with long red hair and chestnut eyes was sitting on the outer city walls singing. Her song stopped abruptly when she saw a streak in the distance spreading over the green hills. The black and scarlet stain grew steadily, until it covered the entire hill, making it appear drenched in blood. She realized what it was and called to the guards below. They simply laughed at her childish game. All the guards knew Taiahna, the boyish orphan. She loved swordplay, and the city guard had adopted her as their own, teaching her everything they knew. She called to the guards now with renewed urgency.

"Thomas! Daylan! Barlow! I see an army! It's coming!" Thomas, a young man himself, stopped laughing and climbed up to get a better look. The sight he saw frightened him so he made the sign of the Creator before calling to the others.

"It's no joke! They're really coming!" he yelled. The others climbed the wall to see for themselves. A silence begotten by fear settled like a pall upon the four friends.

Daylan sprang into action, ringing the warning bells to alert the city.

"Dear Creator," said Barlow, "they're confronting us in broad daylight." He swallowed nervously and glanced at Taiahna. "You know what that means."

"Yeah." she answered, trying to keep her voice from quavering. "They're doing it because they have the manpower and the sheer numbers to overwhelm us." The three friends sat upon the wall for the longest time, watching the taint of crimson and black spread. A look of determination came over Taihana's face.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm going to be ready when they get here."

She climbed down from the high wall and took off to retrieve her sword from it's hiding place in the darkened alleyway she called her home. As she ran, she called to the city's inhabitants:

"Get out of the city! The an army is coming!" She ran calling until a soldier stopped her from running and drew her near.

"Listen girl." he said gruffly, "We're trying to keep the people calm. They can't get out of the city now anyway, the gates are locked and barred."

She broke angrily from his grasp, glaring into his beady eyes.

"But what's going to happen when they break inside the walls? We'll all be trapped!"

He smiled confidently.

"They won't breach the walls. It's not possible. Not one can defeat our soldiers."

She backed away slowly, shaking her head, not wanting to hear another word of his propaganda.

"No! You're wrong! Have you even seen their numbers?!"

"I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle." He patted her on the head as one would a small child.

She flung her arms upward, brushing him off.

"I said, have you seen their numbers?!"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then it's true. You're all too ignorant to care!" She turned and ran on towards the alleyway.

'That's how my grandparents died,' she thought bitterly, 'the guard was ignorant and the town was slaughtered.'

She still remembered sitting among the ash and flames, her small seven year old body trembling violently, just waiting for one of the men to sweep down upon her with his sword...

Taiahna brushed the memory from her mind like cobwebs hanging across an old doorway as she entered the alleyway.

She removed her sword from the pile of rags in the corner and swung it in front of her, testing its familiar weight. Her face darkened at the thought of having to use it. After clipping its to her belt she decided to head back to the main gate and her three friends. As she neared it, she heard a jarring crash and panicked shouts.

At that moment she knew:

'The wall has been breached. They're going to come in here and slaughter us all like cattle in a pen.'

She ran faster, only to be overwhelmed by the soldiers pouring through the gate. She slashed at the living river of men streaming through. But as a river, water removed is water soon replaced.

They didn't even stop to help their own injured.

'What kind of monsters are they?'

She fled to the side of the main road and decided to wait it out in hiding until the army had passed. It was taking much longer then she thought.

'There're just so many...'

They continued to pour through the gate, foot soldiers followed by cavalry, backed up by archers. 'They're smart monsters, I'll give them that.'

Just as the last of the men poured through, she saw a silver-haired man in blood-red armour smiling and laughing, even cutting down his own men to get to the city square faster. She looked closer;

'But he's just a boy! He can't be any older then me!' There was a horribly disturbing lunacy bordering on ecstasy that floated about his features.

She headed for the gates, looking for her friends, and heard a voice call out her name.

"Taiahna! Over here!"

'Thomas.'

The sight that greeted her eyes was not the cheerful, optimistic man that had been her friend, but a broken man, lying under a pile of rubble, struggling to breath. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Tom?" she asked quietly, hoping childishly for some false reassurance.

"Save yourself. Get away. Don't wor-" He broke off into a bout of wracking coughs. Spittle flecked with blood landed on her cheek. She wiped it away, not caring.

"It's all going to be okay Tom, right?" she asked. Thomas smiled gently and closed his eyes.

"It's fine, right? Right?" She shook his body forcefully, "Tom? TOM!"

She burst into tears, clutching at her friend's body in vain. He, Barlow and Daylan were the only family she had now. The only family she'd had for seven years.

'The others! I have to find them!'

She searched the area carefully. A short while later she came upon Daylan's body. He had a gaping wound in the centre of his chest. She placed a kiss on his forehead and continued to search for Barlow, picking her way around several dismembered corpses that had been left in the wake of the boy in red.

She saw Barlow's hand reaching out from under a pile of rubble, recognizing it by his signature ring on the first finger of his right hand. She went to pull his body out from under the pile, but as she pulled she noticed how light he seemed. She glanced down to discover, to her horror, that it was only his arm. Dropping it, she choked back a gag.

'Those bastards.' she thought. 'They don't care what happens, as long as they win.'

She scanned the crowd of soldiers for the silver-haired boy. He wasn't that hard to spot, his red armour contrasting the black of his steed.

She gripped her sword. After this ordeal, she needed someone to blame.

'It's his fault. He did this. He killed my family.'

She ran towards the battle, which was blurred by the tears in her eyes. Her past was playing in her mind all over again, and she was there among the ash and flame.

This time she had a sword. This time she was going to stop it.

'You'll pay, boy.'

Dilandau ripped through the crowd of frightened villagers in a frenzy. How he had longed to see blood spilt on the cold stone. He hacked his way through the crowd, laughing as the people around him were cut down. Farmers, soldiers, he didn't care; they all bled the same.

All that mattered in that moment was that the cold steel of his sword struck human flesh at every blow. Suddenly, he heard a scream rip through the plaza, louder then any other noise. It was a girl with a long ribbon of red hair trailing behind her.

'Blood red,' he thought licking his lips. His eyes opened wide and his pupils contracted as he realized she was coming straight for him. Before he could change his stallion's direction she attacked, knocking him from his horse. She held him down with one foot as she shifted her grip on her sword, preparing to kill.

"This is for killing by family!" she cried in anger as she wound up to finish him.

'No.' he thought calmly. 'I will not be killed by a woman.'

He grabbed her calf and flung her to the ground, raising his sword to behead her as her own weapon skittered away, loosed from her hand at impact. He was about to complete the deadly arc when he noticed the absolute quiet of the plaza. All of the villagers were dead, and all of the soldiers were looking at him.

'Damn. I can't kill a woman this clearly. I'll lose their respect.'

He wiped his bloodied sword on the grass and, with huge amounts of self-restraint, turned his back on the girl. She lay there dazed as the commander walked over to administer new orders to his officers. After gesturing to the girl, one of his men walked over to help her up. He bound her wrists behind her and brought her to his lord. She stared up helplessly into his crimson eyes, defeated. He ran his fingers down the scar on the right side of his face unconsciously. He was obviously deciding what to do with her.

"What do you want me to do with her Lord Dilandau?"

"Bring her to my tent." He leered. "Tonight we raid the supplies. It is absolutely vital that we don't miss anything. Tomorrow we move on to Koriella." He waved his hand, dismissing them. It seemed the entire army jumped into motion the moment he spoke.

'Lord?' she thought, realizing she had indeed attacked someone important. 'His tent?' She swallowed nervously. She'd seen the look on his officer's face when he'd said that; an expression of extreme pity. As soon as they were out of his sight the officer introduced himself.

"My name is Chesta." She saw his face and gasped. He couldn't be older than fifteen. He was not much taller than her, and quite slight. He had wide blue eyes and straw blonde hair.

"I'm very sorry Milady." said the boy honestly.

"For what?" Taiahna asked suspiciously, "And why are you apologizing to me?"

A sad look came over the boy's face.

"I apologize to you because I am leading you to your death." he answered.

"Why are you so sure?" she asked.

"Because no one who goes in there ever comes out alive..." he opened the flap of his commander's newly set up tent and motioned for her to enter. She looked through the darkened entrance. There was only a single small oil lamp set up, for its normal occupant was still giving orders elsewhere. She glanced up for what could have been the last time at the evening sky before entering the Dragon Slayer's cave. As soon as the flap closed behind her, the clouds moved to cover the setting sun, darkening the city, as if presenting some sort of bad omen. Chesta shivered and secretly wished her good luck.

Taiahna immediately set about retrieving her boot-knife and untying her wrists. Shadows on the tent walls told her that she was being heavily guarded, so escape wasn't an option at the moment. She wandered the interior of the tent, Spartan in decor. There was only a wooden table and chair in the centre of the tent, and what she imagined was probably a standard issue army cot off to the side. She was also quick to notice the dark stains that marred the light grey of the fabric of the tent walls, especially near the bed. As if that hadn't been enough to unnerve her, when she averted her eyes from the stains on the walls by looking up at the ceiling, there were more. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

'Oh dear Creator,' she thought, examining the splotches of deep burgundy that covered the ceiling, 'I'm not going to make it out of this alive.'

"Enjoying my hospitality?"

Taiahna jumped, startled by the voice that had interrupted her private nightmare. It was Lord Dilandau. His arrival betokened the transformation of nightmare into horrible reality.

"My former guests." he said with a demonic smile as he motioned towards the walls and ceiling. She saw the shadows of the guards float away from the tent, presumably to give them privacy. Now was her chance.

"You MONSTER!" she cried, swinging for his face with her small knife. He merely laughed, easily blocking the attack and lifting her by her upper arms.

'She may be a sword fighter,' he thought, 'but she could never hope to overpower my brute strength.'

He kissed her roughly, and she bit hard into his tongue, drawing blood. The coppery tang that invaded his mouth only made his smile wider. He sighed, reminiscing.

'How long has it been since I have tasted my own blood?' He basked in the taste as thought it were an extreme luxury. 'Too long.' He wiped the blood from his mouth and moved to kiss her again. She kicked at his shins in a wild panic to escape.

"So you like it rough, do you wench?" He tripped her onto the cot, pinning her there with his body weight. He kissed her deeply while unlacing the tie of his pants with one hand and exploring up the front of her shirt with the other.

It was a horrible feeling; being pressed between the hard cot and his sweaty, warm body, without recourse, molested by his powerful hands. She had never been this close to a man before and was terrified. For a moment she thought of surrendering herself to him, just closing her eyes and leaving whatever happened to happen.

Then it all came back to her; the screams of the dying, the fire, the blood spattered onto her pale face as the people she loved were cut down around her.

She dug her nails deeply into the back of the man on top of her, raking them downward, and violently brought her knee up to connect with his groin. He curled in on himself in response to the intense pain that accosted him. She took this opportunity to grab his sword, and flee for her life.

"I will get you!" he managed utter, with a vicious gleam in his bloodthirsty eyes. "You've just made this much, much harder on yourself I'm afraid." Finally managing to stand up, he ran to the entrance, searching for her long streamer of hair among the soldiers, but to no avail. The camp was dark. He pulled his pants up and went to Gatti, who was standing nearby. He lifted the boy by the front of his uniform.

"Did you see her?" he asked with such malice, his officer could do nothing but stutter nonsense.

"Ah, buh, I..."

"I TIRE OF THIS GAME!" the Lord cried as he threw his officer to the ground.

"WHERE ARE YOU WHORE?!" he yelled, alerting the entire army. Taiahna heard him even as she was nearing the gates. It only gave her the incentive to run faster. She exited the city walls, saying a quick prayer for her three friends.

She looked around the open farmers' fields.

'Now what am I going to do?' Then she remembered his words : 'Tomorrow we move on to Koriella.' She glanced to the valley in the north and spotted the torches on the city walls in the distance. She knew it was about three hours walk to get there.

'I have to warn them. I have to save them from those monsters.'

She took off at a running pace, hoping to get over the first hill before any pursuing guards reached the gates. It wasn't far, and when she arrived she laid low for a few minutes to catch her breath. All she could hear was the sound of her own heart beating. Then came a noise that almost made her heart stop. It was a horse, coming straight towards her. She clutched Dilandau's sword tightly in her sweaty palms, ready for whoever came her way. As soon as the man crested the hill she knocked him from his horse and plunged her sword into his chest before he ever saw who hit him. She mounted his horse and rode towards the north, and Koriella.

End Part One

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Will Taiahna reach Koriella in time, or will Lord Dilandau find her? And if so, what will he do?

Part Two in revised format is coming soon.

Please review!

Many thanks,

Planeswalker