The wind, like a mournful beast, howled its dirge across the hollowed expanse of the battlefield.
It was a landscape ravaged, scarred by powers that had torn the land asunder, leaving behind a graveyard of ambition and might.
The air, cloying, dragged the scent of ash, burnt ozone, and the metallic tang of spilled blood like a trailing funeral hymn, a constant reminder of the devastation.
Where once proud fortifications might have stood, now only the skeletal fingers of shattered siege engines and the jagged teeth of broken ramparts clawed at the bruised sky.
The dead, scattered like fallen leaves after an autumn storm, were mercifully silent, their struggles over.
And at the very heart of this maelstrom of carnage, amidst the lingering echoes of destruction, two figures stood unmoving.
They were as still as statues, graven images of impending doom, while the wounded world around them seemed to hold its collective breath, waiting.
