Upheavel: Prologue

Prologue: First Blood

Balour was bored. He was 13, but mature. Centaurs, since they age faster than humans, usually live to about forty-five to fifty. He looked down the trench at his allies, also centaurs. There were five thousand or more, far outnumbering the opponents. Plus, centaurs were known as powerful warriors. The average centaur was six and a half feet tall with nine foot long bodies. These humans had been fools to attack the heart of the centaur center of power.
Their orders were to wait for the humans to advance, then gallop out of the trench and catch the enemy off guard. Balour wasn’t quite sure why the humans were attacking here, but he figured they just wanted more power. Humans were greedy.
But these humans were unlike the ones he had seen and read about in the history texts. They dressed in thick layers of armor, not steel, but hardened leather, with thick shoulder pads and intricate carvings on many of them. Some had huge bows on their backs. Most of them had two weapons, with curved swords and some with straight ones. During the briefing the chieftain had said they called themselves Samurai...or something like that. Balour really wasn’t paying attention.
Suddenly a horn sounded. The enemy was beginning to advance.


Shelem, the leader of the Samurai, was no fool. He knew an extra force of Centaurs was waiting in the “hidden” trench. He had stationed archers in the forests around the centaur city a day in advance. Their eight foot eastern bows could knock a centaur off his hooves from 260 yards. He was sitting in one of the several tents set up behind the field of battle. Unlike the rest of the Holy Legion, who were armored in mostly leather, Shelem had layers of steel plates. Any other human would have found it impossible to even move in this armor, let alone fight.
The first layer of his armor was normal casual clothes. Then he wore chain mail, then finally layers of steel. His armor was greased and kept in perfect condition so it made little noise.
He placed his dragon shaped blackened steel helm over his head, fastened it, and walked outside. He rode only one horse, his own, specially bred for generations for strength and size. This horse was the best yet, and very strange. It's coat was light blue, like the sky, and it's mane was white. And so it came that a rather short man wearing over 200 pounds of armor rode into battle on a blue horse.

The bamboo covering of the trench opened, and the centaurs charged out, Balour in the middle. Everything was a jumble of hooves and bodies. Heat was radiating from the mass of bodies. A roar came up from the army. A line of fast gallopers took the lead, eager to draw blood. The enemy army was in a state of confusion. The battle would surely prove the centaurs victorious, Balour thought. Their clubs and axes rose above there head as they neared... Then, suddenly, the enemy formed into tight ranks and the front line of centaurs went up in a spray of blood.
The centaurs around him slowed, and seconds later he was in an intense battle. A beige centaur beside him on his right was sliced off at the torso, and on his left, a centaur was struck by a large arrow, knocking him off his feet.
Balour raised his axe to cleave an opponent, when the small man dodged left, and stabbed his right side. He stumbled back, in shock. But now a battle fury had taken him. He reared up on his hind legs, and kicked the man in his armored mask, one, two, three times, then stomped on his unconscious body. Then the pain of the stab wound hit, and he let out a cry of pain. He suddenly felt another horrible burning feeling on his flank. He turned, but there was no enemy to be seen. Then he realized he had been struck by an arrow, and the archer would probably fire again. He heard a whoosh of air, and was knocked off his feet. He managed to glance at the battle around him before he died. The strange humans were massacreing the centaurs. Balour sighed one last exhalation, then fell into the sleep of the dead.