The Hand of Ruin (Intro)

This is the beginning of a story I've been working on for a while now. I feel that only now that parts of it are ready to show to others, so i figured I'd put the opening scene up to see what kind of reaction I'd get. I hope you enjoy.
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“HYAGH!” Xavier grunted as he threw all of his strength behind the punch. The gauntlet covering his right fist burst with power on contact and sent the savage mountain elf flying back a good distance. Not even waiting to see his opponent hit the ground, Xavier spun on his heel when he heard a blood curdling yell from behind him as another one of the fierce, gray skinned marauders charged with jagged blade overhead. The veteran templar did not falter. He quickly took a defensive stance and the gems embedded in his twin gauntlets glowed with anticipation. The arctic winds of the Vinteren Northlands bit at Xavier’s battle scarred face, but his heart beat with excitement as he quickly threw an armored forearm up. He felt the Elf’s blade bounce and quickly threw his other fist forward and upward, slamming it hard in to his enemy’s ribcage. A sickening crack sounded. Xavier watched the elf cough dark red blood before he brought a plated fist around with enough force to break the elf’s jaw and neck all in one powerful swing. The body collapsed to the snow covered ground in a pathetic heap, darkened blood spilling from the mouth. The stark contrast of red against white pulled Xavier’s thoughts away for only a moment.

“Our unending duties call us to the frozen North this day, brothers!! The blood of our Northman allies has been spilled by a seemingly unending tide of Mountain Elf savages. They attack with an unshakable ferocity and unquenchable thirst for blood. We can not let this aggression stand!”

Her voice was both passionate and commanding, Xavier thought. It was like a guiding light in the violent storm surrounding the veteran warrior as all around him, battle cries, death knells and the sounds of metal crashing against metal and rending flesh erupted. Xavier turned his head when he heard a cry from a few paces away.

“I will not be taken so easily!!” Templar Jander proclaimed as he furiously swung his sword with his left hand to keep his attackers at bay. Blood gushed freely from the wound where his right arm was mere moments ago and the trio of gray skins accosting him seemed to be toying with the fatally wounded warrior. His breath ragged and his stance faltering, Jander spun on his heel and swung his weapon in a clumsy arc, failing to make contact the two behind him. The third elf removed a pair of knives from his belt and leapt forward, easily pinning the armored warrior to the ground beneath his imposing from and sinking the weapons through the armor and in to either of Jander’s kidneys. The other two mountain elves hollered in bloody triumph when the man cried out in agony and used their respective blades to skewer Jander’s corpse out of sheer malice.

Snikt. A blade popped out of the top of one of Xavier’s gauntlets with an identical blade protruding from the other a moment later. He clenched his teeth and immediately broke in to a run, charging the trio of bloodthirsty savages.

“The enemy will be unrelenting in his attack. As his foe, it is your obligation to spare none in your fury. There is no doubt that our enemies seek our blood, but they will choke on their own!”

Those words urged the veteran warrior on and fueled his charge. He didn’t think about his actions. He simply did. The battle litanies repeated themselves in his head while he skillfully and mercilessly cut in to the elves who had slain his comrade. He could smell the warm, sticky blood as it splashed against his face following a swift and precise slash across the jugular of one of the three remaining opponents. The carnage unfolded so quickly. Before Xavier even realized it, the second of the three elves fell to the ground in a bloody, convulsing heap, having been split from nose to naval with uncompromising savagery. Gauntlet blade then met the sternum of the third elf before any sort of defense could be mounted. The elf suddenly dropped his own weapon and fell to his knees while still impaled. Xavier looked down at the savage creature with contempt in his dark eyes as he put an armored sole to his enemy’s chest and pushed him off of his weapon moments later. He watched the pathetic creature writhe in his last moments of existence while cursing Xavier in his native tongue. The templar ignored his dying foe and looked to Jander’s bloodied corpse one last time with a feeling of vindication in his heart. Only the continuous symphony of violence echoing across the colorless northern skies caused him to realize that his thoughts were wandering. He quickly redirected his attention to a sight a few yards away from where he stood.

“You will not stand alone against the coming conflict. The warriors of the Vinteren Northlands are all too eager to lend us their might and steel. They look to prove themselves in the eyes of their Battle-Mother and test their own mettle alongside you in battle.”

And prove themselves the hardy Northlanders did. Xavier watched with restrained amazement that bordered on a rare feeling of admiration as the finely crafted crescent blade of a two-handed war axe was swung single handedly by the thick, muscled arm of a giant of a human known as Ragnar. Blood flew and terror swept across the thinning mountain elf ranks as the auburn haired barbarian swung a hammer of equal size to his axe in his other hand, taking down swaths of the enemy in a torrent of steel and enthusiastic fury. Splotches of gore and ichor masked his bearded face but his steely eyes were wrought only with single minded slaughter. It was nothing short of astonishing, in Xavier’s eyes, that Ragnar devastated those who stood before him with such apparent ease, even with a trio of high elf crossbow bolts sticking out of his back. The Beast of Mt. Vinteren, a title that Ragnar’s fierce battle prowess and resilience afforded him, was an unstoppable whirlwind of destruction.

Xavier readied his blood soaked right gauntlet blade to assist Ragnar when he noted an elf scream and charge the man from behind. The templar abruptly paused his advance, however, when he realized the giant was well aware of the impending attack and a quick flash of steel heralded the separation of the elf’s head from his shoulders as Ragnar spun in a semi circle with his axe fully extended to perform its duty.

The severed head spiraled through the air above the fierce battle that raged on between the small contingent of Templars and their Northman allies against the common mountain elf enemy before landing with a thud on the hardened ground and leaving a trail of blood behind it as it rolled. It came to a stop when it bumped in to the still attached head of a gray elf whom had a side of his face smashed in. Blood caked spikes on the weighted end of a flail were ripped crudely from gray skin as the weapon’s wielder, a Northlander woman named Skuld, turned to find her next victim. Her long, light brown braid trailed majestically behind her as she spun, blocking an incoming sword swing with her round iron shield. The cleric’s momentum and the shield’s weight carried her through, allowing her to slam the metal protector she carried hard in to the torso of the elf that dared attack her. When she saw the elf lose his footing and fall to his back, Skuld wasted no time in raising crownsmasher over head before the spiked weight came crashing down on the elf’s cranium, effectively crushing it with one brutal, unflinching blow.

Still hunched over from her killing blow, Skuld scanned the battle being fought around her until she found Ragnar towering above the other combatants. She then yelled something to him at the top of her lungs.

Xavier redirected his attention to Ragnar, who yelled something in reply, though he couldn’t hear what either Northlander was saying over the chaos of the battle. He then watched Ragnar mercilessly finish of a dying elf that was laying at his feet before the giant of a man turned back to Skuld and yelled something to her with a hearty laugh while raising the massive hand that clenched the war hammer and lifting two fingers off of the shaft. Xavier then noted Skuld, an annoyed look on her face, grip crownsmasher and charge forward to attack another target.

“Take heart in these allies, my brothers. For, to them, being on the field of battle and matching weapons with their enemy is the greatest sensation one can experience.”

Xavier simply smirked when those replayed in his mind. A small chuckle escaped him and he charged forward to assist in a battle the humans had already won. Indeed, his time spent in the Vinteren Northlands was going to be interesting, to say the least.