This land was peaceful once, before the Gates opened. Before the Year of Night. Before the orcs and the trolls, before the shapeshifters and the undead. Before the demons.

The moon was high and clear, bright enough to cast the armies of man in sharp contrast. Great bonfires, ringed by soldiers, filled the clearing with heat and noise. The most distant rocked with drink and dance, men and women arm in arm.

They stole children, burned farms, hunted men. The old cities, open places that covered the continent, were bathed in darkness and blood. The champions of old were unprepared-they met giants on the field of battle and were crushed underfoot. What magicks we had were  parlor tricks before liches centuries into their craft. The hunters, the few who knew the old secrets of the dark, were swept aside by a wave of terrors only known from ancient myths. Humanity was culled, herded–mere cattle for monsters.

The soldiers laughed and argued. Most relaxed by the light of the fire, uniforms askew or halfway off. Others seemed to prefer the cool night air, drifting along the outermost reach of the flame’s illumination.

But humanity fought. We fought. And we learned. From every small victory and terrible defeat, our ancestors clawed our enemies’ secrets. They found weaknesses. They forged the iron bones of dragons and giants into weapons. They partook of drugs made from the blood of trolls and werewolves to push human bodies to the limit.

The jubilation of these young troops was not shared among the whole of the army. Solemn faces and nervous hands circled other bonfires.

It was not enough. Every new technique only served to demonstrate the difference between man and monster. The remaining magi took things a step further. What knowledge humanity had gleaned from the struggle was used to implant the blood and flesh of the enemy into human beings. Those that survived the procedure acquired terrible power, rivaling any beast or demon. These new soldiers were hurled against the enemy, and for the first time humanity pushed the  darkness back. 

Wearied men glared at the whooping and dancing soldiers. Some mumbled curses.

But the strain was too much. Humans were not meant for such powers, and the changed soldiers quickly grew mad. Their fury became indiscriminate, only ending when their bodies could endure no more and ruptured. But even from that calamity, humanity’s darkest scholars learned. They applied the arts carved from the sundered corpses of the first warriors into new hybrids. They took the blood and flesh that remained of their old creations, and bound it to the bodies of new subjects so that the taint might be diluted. Madness still lingered the minds of the survivors, but these new hybrids could withstand it.

If they noticed their comrades’ scowling, the young soldiers ignored it. Though not all were merry-many complained of hunger and thirst even as they reclined. Rations were slim and tasteless.

However, the second generation was weak. They pushed their bodies to the breaking point to handle a fraction of the same power as their predecessors. The advance of reconquest slowed with every passing year, and humanity despaired of ever reclaiming the whole of the land.

The others chastised the whining soldiers. Battle was on the horizon; it was a time to appreciate the lives they had been given.

Women, bodies twisted by the change and feared by ordinary men, grew heavy with the children of their male fellows. An impossibility, their creators had thought; a twisted miracle from malicious gods. One by one the infants came to term, brought into this world marked by shadow. Hardened flesh, claws or glowing eyes: each and every child was born distinct from base humankind. They were raised carefully, every inch of their bodies studied, even as fear gripped the hearts of the land’s researchers. From childhood, they wielded the powers of their monstrous lineage with ease. It was not hard to imagine by how far they might surpass their parents, perhaps even the first generation of hybrids. But with the first signs of adulthood, the children fell ill. They withered as though starving no matter how much they ate, and the researchers could find no solution.

One went still. He was handsome, dark hair and hale skin, but beyond the firelight his eyes narrowed to slits. Fingers, blacker than tar, slid from the sleeves of his uniform as his nostrils flared. A smile crept across his lips, wider and wider. Others grew quiet one after the other, heads inclined. Joy and frustration disappeared into silence, as even the army of men beyond quieted, watching. The only sound that reached over the crackle of the bonfires was that of sharp, rapid breathing, like hounds scenting prey.

Their last hope was doomed, yet humans could not help but sigh in relief. It was the most determined of researchers who continued their experiments, who left the samples of monsters exposed. It was they who found the children in the labs left unlocked by haste, covered in stale blood. And cured. It was by accident that the secret of the new generation of hunters was unlocked.

Rows of pearly teeth and fangs reflected the light of the fire. “Do you smell that on the wind, boys and girls?” the dark one cried, breaking from the crowd. “The hunt begins!” Shouting and screaming, howling and barking, they plunged into the forest like a wave. Their fire was trampled to ash by the time the army of mortal men rallied to a march.

The children did  not need medicine, nor any kind of treatment.

Beyond where the forest became hills, another army was on the move. Beasts in the shape of men more than ten thousand strong, skin sickly green and ridged like stone: orcs. The worst, those who could lead such monsters, rode on towering mammoths with too many gnarled tusks. Three hundred soldiers, young men and women not quite human, broke over the hills in three columns. The first became a wedge to drive into the flank of the marching horrors, but it was the soldiers who howled like beasts. Claws flashed, parting green skin and filling the air with blood.

Their bodies were imbalanced; their humanity rejected the dark, but could not survive without it.

The other two pulled along the flanks of the enemy, as if they could enclose such a force with just their numbers. A particular soldier ran out to the front of the left brigade, and cast the coat of his uniform aside. Angry cracks, red like magma, crossed his arms and reached to his chin from underneath his shirt. A sudden stop, just before the enemy’s ranks, and his chest expanded from a great breath. His mouth split open in a burning grin, like the hatch of a furnace. In an instant, a wall of flame engulfed hundreds of orcs. Tough, monstrous flesh burned to ash in seconds, and the surrounding orcs broke ranks as the dying screams of their fellows filled the air. Far away, streaks of lightning cut through the other end of the army.

What the children needed was more.

Dark fingers narrowed into claws like short swords, the first of the soldiers deflected the crude axe swung by an orc head and shoulders above its peers. The creature was a chieftain, marked by flowing robes of a monstrous hide tougher than steel and the giant mount that lay split from gut to shoulder on the ground. The soldier’s comrades spread the wedge, forming a shield around this duel, but it would not last long. The dark soldier ducked beneath a wild swing and grabbed an arm twice as thick as human’s, black claws digging in like hooks. He twisted, pulling the arm around to slide behind the chieftain’s back. He turned aside a stone-shattering back swing and bound the other limb with his free hand. The orc snarled and shook, but he forced the monster to its knees. Straining to hold the titan of an orc, he reared his head back and struck, teeth burying into his enemy’s throat. Past skin and flesh, blood flowing down his throat, and down into the bone. A small, human jaw worked and closed with impossible force.

The blood and flesh of monsters. This was the cure and the chains of this new generation. Humanity unleashed their weapons without fear, because the enemy of human and hybrid would always be the same.

He held the the chieftain’s head before him, and all around the orcs turned and ran in waves. Exposed backs made easy prey for his brothers and sisters, even at these numbers. Idly, he licked the thick blood from his lips as the human forces emerged to cut off the enemy’s retreat.