Spoiler
“Kill them all.”
“Slay the demons.”
“For our great city.”
“Find your glory.”
“Earn your fame.”
The voices searched for me through a dark haze of red.
“Fame” and “Glory”, for warding off a horde of demons, what more could a warrior ask for? Esteemed General Janus knew what I desired most when asking me to join his campaign. The words crept down to my heart and gripped it in cold steel - like the rest of my body.
I, Balthazar, was prepared.
I had come to this battlefield aside an army one-thousand strong. But in this moment, in the calm before the storm, I found myself standing in solitude in the haze, completely focused on myself and what was to come.
I took a deep breath in, inflating myself within my thick armour to stand tall and proud. Exhaling, I could see the steam leave my mouth and be swept away into the wind as I raised my helmet up through it, pulling it down snuggly onto my head by the metal horns that curved down on either side. My long, straight, white hair spilled out from below.
Loosening the leather strap that attached it to my back, I swung my greatsword around in front of me, catching the hilt and letting it’s sheath fall away from my wolf-fur clad shoulders. I would wield my weapon with the ferocity of such a beast.
—
The battleground was a coast. The setting sun dropped below a backdrop of mountains in the distance; the last of the day’s light shimmering hues of orange and red as it was carried to shore on the surface of the sea to the North. The shadows cast by surrounding huts grew longer until they consumed the ground.
With the last light extinguished, the endless night began.
From the shadows the demons rose. More and more summoned forth from behind doors and rocks and trees, until they swarmed surrounded me. Then they made their advance.
I took off to meet them, charging head-first into the jaws of darkness sword in tow, the tip dragging through the ground behind me.
The wall of twisted beings was fast approaching. Their claws outstretched, aiming to impale and slash.
I lept.
The swarm crumbled under the force from where I landed. With all my might I swung my heavy blade, the momentum cleaved three torsos from their lower bodies.
The sword crashed into the ground behind me at the end of my swing as blood splattered across my face. But I did not let up. I twisted my body around and launched the blade up over my shoulder, bringing it crashing down in front of me, rending a foe in half from head to toe. It’s orange eyes faded, like dying suns in the abyss, as they fell away.
The musky smell of blood and dust fuelled my fury. I continued to hack, slash and spin, cutting down my countless enemies the moment they hesitated.
I could tell that I was salivating at the mouth; I could taste their fear. I could see the weakness in their eyes. Now was not the time to be concerned with composure, they could not hide as I devoured all.
In the distance, the mountains began to crack, bleeding red such as the demons. The ocean began to boil as if heated by my own rage.
—
However, suddenly, mid-swing, my onslaught was halted by a pulse that shook me from my core. A ringing, like the striking of a mighty anvil, resonated through me from somewhere deep within.
But I shook it off.
Regaining my poise I beheaded yet another foul demon. Yet as I turned to strike once more I was one again stopped by another tremendous beat, and the ringing through my body brought me to a knee.
I looked up just in time to catch a demon galloping at me brandishing a long weapon. I shoved my blade, which I was using as a support, to the side to deflect the attack and then drew it upwards, skewering the on-coming foe through the chest. With an earth-shaking roar and all of my strength, I lifted the impaled demon up into the air on the tip of my mighty sword, over my head and down into the ground again.
As the sword passed through and buried into the dirt, I was hit with yet another ringing pulse, this time much more powerful than the last. It was as if a blacksmith’s hammer had struck my steely heart; the flames from the furnace spreading through my veins.
It hit me so hard that I was unable to remain standing, collapsing me to both knees. I struggled to stay upright, clasping the hilt of my sword - now stuck in the ground through the chest of my foe.
The haze began to lift.
—
All around lay piles of bloodied and mutilated villagers. Foot-soldiers from Janus’ army prodded around with their swords and spears to make sure that their were no survivors. Wooden huts of a fishing village either spat sparks as fires roared inside, or lay broken, charred and collapsed.
My attention fell to my front however. I stared in horror as I realised that pinned to the ground through the chest by my blade, bleeding and broken and barely breathing, lay no beast or demon or monster, but a little girl. The sight churned my stomach in a way that I had never felt on any battlefield before, despite all the horrors that I had seen. Just what had they set me upon?
My eyes, trembling and clouded by the welling up of tears, made their way along her stick thin arm to her hand, where she grasped not a weapon, but a broken stick to which had been tied a ragged white cloth. Against the muddy ground and the blood and the ash, I had never seen something look so pure white.
With the last remaining threads of her strength the little girl tried to lift the little white flag to me. She could barely raise her hand off of the ground, but I managed to catch it before it could drop again.
“Save us.” she muttered painfully and quietly, but her words found me through the last of the lingering darkness.
I could feel streams of tears cutting through the cake of blood and dirt on my cheeks. For a moment I held the flag in her hand with her, her tiny fist sheltered within mine.
—
But then it was pulled away. I quickly grabbed the flag to prevent it falling as one of Janus’ spearmen stepped on the girls arm and lifted his spear, ready to finish her off.
I didn’t hesitate. Before the man could drive down his spear, and with a terrifying roar I had him lifted off of his feet, dangling and twitching as my ironclad hand crushed his neck. Within moments, the body went limp and I tossed it aside.
Janus’ men exchanged whispers and worried looks with one another. Warily they began to encircle me, weapons at the ready. This was the real army of demons.
I snarled as I stared them all down. They meant to kill me? These snivelling runts? If they were the face of death, then I chose not to accept it’s form.
This night, I had known solitude. My mighty sword was to become an impenetrable shield. My armour was as thick as ever. I had been tested with full force. Now my fury-tempered heart had been fully forged, burning away the cold grip of vain desire that once took hold there.
I was more than ready to fight once more; to take them all on. But truly, there was only one man that I really wanted to answer for all of this… the only man I could not see. I looked down at the little girl, who had already left this battlefield. I laid the flag down with her once more and then stood taller than I had ever stood before.
I clenched my fists, as the ring of soldiers closed in and I began his charge, I roared from the deepest pits of my disgust, “JANUS!”
Spoiler
Parkway Drive’s “Pressures” opens with distant, echoey, wet-room styled vocals. From the lyrics I instantly imagined a person all alone, hearing voices in the dark. I knew from the idea I had about Balthazars overall story that he was going to be manipulated and set upon an innocent victim, and Parkway’s notions of “desire” and “corruption” within this song fit quite well with that. And when the song opens up, galloping into the verse about an army of demons, summoned forth on an endless night, I started to get these ideas about how what he thinks he is seeing and what is actually happening are actually two different things, and he is kind of blinded by this haze of desire for promises of glory and fame.
Obviously this let me be a bit more explicit with the fight scenes with use of fantasy violence, and the horde of demons is a pretty solid image in itself that I could lift straight from the lyrics. What is great about this style of Metalcore is that there is a very driving rhythmic backbone to songs that really partners well with battle writing! I had very little problem picturing the march of a swarm during the fast paced verse or the swings of a great-sword while listening to the mid verse break-downs.
One of my favourite parts of the song is “As the mountains crack and the oceans boil, a fury-tempered heart is forged.” I love these lyrics, just image-wise. I got this image of a heart being formed within lava to a backdrop of volcanoes spilling into the sea. But for Balthazar I wanted the forging to be him coming out from his haze; his fury gradually being directed inward in sub-conscious self-disgust as it melts away the corrupting and cold grip that Janus’ words have on his heart.
“Pressures” is a song that utilises a lot of repetition. Musically, many people dislike this, but I actually find it to be quite punctuating and also great for writing when you want something to come full cycle. Balthazar, now awake and aware of what he has done, is going to lash out in retaliation. There is this chanted part in the song which reads “My solitude, my shield, my armour. Tested with full force.” which repeats towards the end of the song, and over the course of this battle, this is true for Balthazar (with his sword now being used to defend the place from the army - the shield.) and I don’t feel I could have written things this way had these lyrics not repeated after the start of the song… so I guess I’m lucky that they allowed my idea to make sense!
Obviously, there are some lyrics that I feel I couldn’t do justice or fit in properly. “I have seen the face of death, and I choose not to accept it’s form” is an example of this where I feel I may have just tacked it on… but I really like the line so I had to find some way to put it in there!
Something I feel I didn’t quite get across well enough is the significance of the ‘demons’ eyes as part of my telling of this story. I always felt that “New suns’ shine through the abyss” was surprisingly positive sounding for such a song and didn’t really fit with the imagery with demons. But when the demons aren’t really demons… when they are good and innocent people with hope in their eyes that is being snuffed out by corruption… well that makes more sense! at least to me… I feel I could have perhaps portrayed this a little better in my writing, but it still turned out ok.
Topic: Balthazar the Fury (Read 4527 times)
