Chapter Two
Inciting the Past
A heavy mist shrouded the swampy Ionian countryside with mystery, for it was so thick that it was difficult to see the man in front of you. The army marched slowly but surely, wading its way through bogs and swamps. Their march was now leading up a rather steep hill and as they got higher the mist became more sparse until at the very top there was none. A single woman sat atop a might steed, she was young and gorgeous with long snow white hair bound in a ponytail. Her red eyes were watchful and observant like a hawk. She held up her hand and the army stopped in its tracks, although a few men in the further ranks bumped into each other for they were still in the fog.
"There was a battle down there," she shouted "we are going down to check for wounded." she looked down and saw a huge field littered with corpses, both Noxian and Ionian. The down hill march was much quicker than the uphill march and Riven was the first to reach the field, she dismounted her horse and her huge sword clanked against the back of her breastplate. She walked to the first couple Noxians and checked their pulses, but they were all dead. She looked down and saw a rather fresh looking Ionian. She knelt down and put her hand in his short brown hair. "So young." she said to herself. She stood up and surveyed the battlefield, she estimated about a thousand dead for both sides. None of the Noxian's were alive. She was about to signal the army to move on when she head a yell from her right.
A few soldiers had shouted that they saw a survivor and Riven glanced over to see a young Ionian girl coming out of the forest with a blood stained white dress. She was somewhat pretty and she knew the army would be desperate to get a hold of her. "Do not touch the girl!" She ordered but the furthest corner of the army could not hear their commanding officer. A few of them hungrily separated from their ranks and approached her. Riven saw them and spurred her horse to run forward. A few of the men saw her galloping towards her and went back to their ranks, but a single man remained. He reached out for her but she took a step back. He reached for her again but in a single quick motion she had drawn a strange blade from her dress and slashed both of his arms off.
"No!" Riven shouted and she was yanked down from her horse by a blood stained Ionian soldier. He leaped down on her but she reacted quickly and brought a dagger into his chest and tossed him to the side. She stood and looked around her as once dead Ionian's rose from the carnage of the battlefield and ambushed her unit from right under their noses. A group of Ionians looked at her and saw her officers badge on her brassard and attacked her. She ducked down to dodge a sword stroke and feigned to the right to dodge another. She swung her wickedly large blade and cut the closest man in half. A man with a spear stabbed down on her chest but her adamantine breastplate deflected the blow, she whipped around and brought her sword against his jaw and spun around again to cut down another at the knees. Two more men approached her one swung a wickedly spiked ball and chain flail and the other carried a huge ax in both hands. The man with the ax struck down but was impaled by a javelin from behind. He collapsed and Riven ducked down to avoid the wide strike from the flail. The momentum of the massive steel ball sent him reeling back and Riven brought her blade into his chest and kicked him to the ground.
She looked back towards where the girl in white had been and saw a group of heavily armed Ionians forming a vanguard around her, her white dress was torn and laying in the mud and now she wore mail of silver and red, her swords danced around the air about her and stuck viciously at her foes. Riven charged at the vanguard and rammed into it with her spiked pauldron, digging it into the chest of one of the guards. She pushed herself up and swung her sword high, slashing the belly and chest of a man in steel plate. Another man grabbed her but she rammed her head against his face and took his sword from its sheath and stabbed him with it. She yanked it free and turned the momentum of the pull into a swing, nearly decapitating another man behind her. Both of the men collapsed.
She turned quickly in time to be stuck by a glancing blow from a bow, the arrow head barely penetrating her well forged breastplate. She felt it cut against her breast. The archer loosed another arrow but Riven slashed it down mid flight and dropped the Ionian sword and quickly grabbed the dagger at her belt from its sheath and threw it, impaling the archer through the bridge of his nose. Two men charged her from behind and she grabbed the hilt of her sword with both hands and swung in a huge arch at blinding speeds bisecting both of the men. A huge man with a massive coat of plate-mail charged at her with two large broadswords, one in each hand. Riven parried a strike from one blade with her own and the other with her massive adamantine gauntlet.
"I will dance atop your bones once I kill you." he grunted as the two pushed forward with all their strength, trying to overcome each other. Riven's foot slipped in a pool of blood of one of the guards she had slain. The large man acted and brought his blades down with strong force but she rolled quickly to the side. Both of the blades dug themselves hilt deep in the earth. Riven stood up quickly and kicked him back away from his blades. He staggered back a few feet and growled, he grabbed a huge two-headed great-ax from his back and screamed as he charged at her. She flipped backwards to avoid a strike and rolled to the side to dodge another. He brought his blade high with both hands and brought it down it slammed hard into the earth between her legs. He tried to yank it free but Riven jumped upon the wide oaken shaft of the ax and leaped up into the air and brought her blade down into his skull.
She jerked it free and he fell lifelessly to the ground. Riven now faced the young girl who stood fearlessly in front of her a few yards back. Her blades danced a beautiful dance of razor-sharp steel around her effortlessly. Suddenly she brought her arms together in front of her, a red orb floated in front of her and the blades assembled around it forming an X shape. She dashed forward at Riven at blinding speed and spun her blade at her but she sidestepped in the nick of time, she raised her foot and kicked the girl in the chest and spun around and sent another kick to the side of her face. The young girl flew back and landed hard against the turf, her animated blades fell to the ground too. Riven approached her and pulled a small dagger from her boot and put it against her throat.
"Yield." she demanded. The girl simply looked blankly into her eyes and brought her hand up and placed it against Riven's cheek.
"I cannot, what kind of leader would I be if I surrendered in a battle that we had won? I would rather die a martyr than to live as a coward." she gestured to the left and Riven looked upon the fields of battle in awe. Her men had been completely overrun and only a few of the most skilled men in her unit were still standing, completely surrounded by the Ionian force at ten to one odds. Riven stood and dropped both the dagger and her giant sword. The young girl tried to stand but fell down on her knee.
"You will have to kill me." Riven said flatly. She turned back to the young girl who now stood erect, holding down on a sword to keep her standing. Riven knelt down, exposing the back of her neck to her foe. "A warrior's death." Riven felt a tear well up in her eye, she waited patiently for the honor of death but it never came, instead she felt a hand under her chin and it pulled her up to look at the young girl.
"Stand up, please." Riven obeyed, clanking as she rose. "You are not destined to die today, nor am I." She held her hand out to Riven and she looked cautiously at it.
"Who are you?" she asked, still staring at the outstretched hand.
"My name is Irelia Lito, and I am the Captain of the Guard of Ionia." she lightly smiled. "Who are you?"
"My name is Bianca Rive. I am a mere lieutenant in the army of Noxus." She reached for Irelia's hand but an explosion echoed out from the battlefield. They both looked towards the carnage and saw bodies flying high into the air and another rocket falling from the sky into the men below. Noxians and Ionians alike were slain by the barrage, as far away where the hextech cannons sat the orders were to kill everything in the valley. Riven stood and watched the destruction.
"This is not the Noxian way!" she protested aloud "Where is the honor in this?" A rocket landed between the two women and sent both of them flying in opposite directions. Irelia got to her feet first and glanced towards Riven and then the battlefield. She saw a foul green smog coming forth from where the rockets had landed. She ran towards her man flagging them down and sending them off into the forest to safety. Riven just lied on the ground and watched as all of her men died a slow, painful death. She saw the smog coming towards her and stood and walked away from it, tears running down her eyes. She unbuckled all her armor as she walked tossing it to the side carelessly. She started running then, not looking back again, into the forest and disappeared amongst the shadows.