The Battle of Argent Tears

The sergeant looked down the mountain we had spent the better part of an hour entrenching, digging a thin trench that allowed us to take some shelter but still see below. Most of our officers had died the previous day. Our regimental standard, planted in the ground behind my head was little more than scraps of yellow fabric after the last assault, shredded by bullets, and a mound of dead Elves lay at the foot of the hill, their white-red uniforms stark against the grass.

"Looks like we won't be getting any rest." The sergeant said aloud. Many of us were too tired to even respond. I pried myself from the ground to look where he was. A half dozen regiments of Elves were at the bottom already. I sighed.

"How are we looking sergeant?"

"Let's see. We're low an ammunition, as well as out of medical supplies. I don't think reinforcements are coming, and almost half of us are going to collapse from exhaustion." He took a drag off a rough-rolled cigarette. "I can't think of a way for it to be worse, honestly."

We stood there in silence. I felt rain begin to fall. There was no build up, just a sudden torrential downpour. Yet the rain felt... wrong. It was warm. Too warm, like it was going to singe my skin, and it was viscous. Where it trail across my hands felt tacky.

Then I noticed it was golden. The blood of a god. I hoped that it was one of the Elven gods that had been struck such a grievous injury. Perhaps even killed... I knew it was a vain hope though. All around me in the trench, soldiers felt their blessing wink out like a candle blown out by a storm. Their holy symbols became inert hunks of metal, rock, and leather.

The Elves below began to cheer, and with a casual pace set up the hill. It was clear they expected that we would be too busy cowering or mourning to stop them. Rage bloomed in my heart, and I could see that the sergeants expression read the same. I pulled my bayonet from it's sheath and fixed it in place, all around me, soldiers did the same, driven by the grief of being bathed in the blood of your goddess.

It was good that the sergeant cared not for formation and discipline anymore, for we could not have formed the men at all. The elves were half up the hill now. We could start to see the smug, cruel smiles on their faces.

The damn broke, and without a word we launched ourselves from the trench, intent on driving steel through the ribs of every elven bastard we could get our hands on. It barely registered through the haze at the time, but our sudden ferocity surprised them. Their front ranks stumbled and tried to step back, but the weight of their advance kept pushing them towards us. Towards our rage.

It didn't fill the hole left in our hearts.

The Battle of Argent Tears is the official final battle of the Ichormachy, and also is also the battle that claimed the life of the goddess of humanity.

There was little chance for humanity to win the war that was the Ichormachy, but their ingenuity and love for their goddess had driven them to great feats of strategy and valor. Their luck ran out, however, when their goddess was finally cornered at the battle of Golden Rain.

It is said that the elven goddess Sylrori, the Ruby Painter, was the one that stuck the final blow, killing the goddess of mankind high above the field of battle below, scattering the golden blood of a god like so much rain upon the soldiers heads.