Critique my Cold Opening scene [Fantasy] [1035 words]
Horns blare.
Bells ring.
The air is thick with smoke.
The sound of screaming and clashing of steel merge into one endless, deafening roar.
The night is a furnace, lit in an orange glow, the taste of ash on the tongue.
Eisenhart steadies himself.
An orc lunges, seven feet of corded muscle and ramshackle iron plates.
Two massive tusks jut from its jaw, slick with blood.
Its ax comes down like a falling tree.
Eisenhart meets it with his Zweihänder.
The impact rattles his bones.
Steel screeches.
Sparks spit.
The force drives him back a step, but he holds.
He pivots, plants his heel, and with a practiced flourish, he cuts upward.
The blade bites deep.
The creature’s roar turns gargled.
It collapses in a heap of armour and meat.
But Eisenhart doesn’t celebrate.
He doesn’t breathe.
He doesn’t blink.
Because this is only one of many.
The bells continue, drowning muffled cries as the heat intensifies.
He takes a moment, just one, to catch his breath.
Sweat stings his eyes.
His chest heaves.
His arms tremble from the weight of the blade.
And somewhere beyond the inferno, he hears a scream.
The heat of the forge was nothing compared to the wall of fire devouring the eastern quarter. Eisenhart didn't look back at the dead orc. He ran. Every stride was a battle against his own exhaustion. The Zweihänder, heavy with the blood of three more raiders he cut down in the alleyways, felt less like a weapon and more like an anchor.
Yet, he kept it raised. He rounded the corner by the bakery. The roof had collapsed, spilling a heap of burning timber into the street.
Through the haze of choking black soot, he spotted them, two more of the beasts, their grey skin painted crimson by the firelight. They were battering down the reinforced oak door of a cellar. Inside that cellar, the high pitched weeping grew louder.
"Hey! Filth!" Eisenhart roared, his throat raw from smoke. The larger of the two orcs turned, dropping a heavy makeshift wrecking bar. It sneered, exposing a maw of viscous teeth, and drew a jagged blade. It muttered something in its guttural tongue to its companion, who ignored Eisenhart and kept kicking the cellar door.
Eisenhart didn't wait for a duel. He charged. He used the momentum of his heavy boots to swing the greatsword in a wide, horizontal arc. The first orc raised its weapon to block, but the sheer velocity of the Zweihänder shattered the brittle iron blade. The momentum carried Eisenhart’s steel straight through the creature's mail, opening its chest. Before the first beast could even hit the cobblestones, the second orc abandoned the door as It lunged with a heavy spiked club, aiming directly for Eisenhart’s unprotected helm.
The second orc’s club came down like a boulder.
Eisenhart barely got the flat of his blade up in time.
The impact jarred his shoulders, rattled his teeth, and sent a vibration of pain down his spine.
He staggered, boots skidding on cobblestones.
The beast pressed its advantage, roaring hot breath into his face.
it stepped over his comrade as it swung again, a brutal overhead smash meant to pulp his skull.
Eisenhart deftly sidestepped the downward swing.
The club scraped his pauldron, tearing leather, grazing skin.
He ignored the pain.
He drove his shoulder into the creature’s gut, forcing it back a step, then another.
The orc snarled, tusks flecked with spit and soot.
Eisenhart planted his heel, twisted his hips, and brought the Zweihänder up in a rising cut.
The blade caught the creature under the ribs, split mail rings, and carved a red line through grey flesh.
The orc dropped to its knees, clutching its wound, wheezing through shattered lungs.
Eisenhart didn’t wait for it to fall.
He stepped past it, boots crunching over burning debris, and slammed the cellar door with his shoulder.
The reinforced oak held, barely.
The hinges screamed.
Inside, the weeping turned to shrill, panicked cries.
“Hold on!” Eisenhart shouted, voice cracking. “I’m here!”
He braced himself to strike the door once more.
Armoured footsteps echoed behind him.
Slow.
Heavy.
Close.
Eisenhart turned.
Through the smoke, through the firelight, through the haze of ash and terror.
He saw another silhouette.
Taller.
Broader.
Armour stitched with bone.
Tusks like daggers.
Eyes burning with cruel purpose.
And behind that monster, more shapes moved.
More fire.
More destruction.
More carnage.
Brannok was dying.
And Eisenhart was running out of time.
The warlord shattered the reinforced oak before Eisenhart could even touch the latch.
The heavy iron axe tore through the timber like paper, followed by a sickening, structural crunch as the entire cellar entry collapsed inward under the force of the blow. The high pitched weeping from within was abruptly cut short, replaced by the terrifying, deafening roar of falling stone and cracking beams. The cellar was buried.
Eisenhart’s heart seized. He lunged forward, fingers clawing frantically at the blazing debris, but a massive, bone clad gauntlet clamped down on his pauldron and hurled him backward across the bloodstained cobblestones.
He crashed hard, the breath driven from his lungs in a sharp gasp. Through a blurred haze of pain and tears stung by smoke, he looked up.
The warlord towered over him, a monstrous silhouette framed by the roaring inferno of Brannok. Its eyes burned with cruel satisfaction. Eisenhart scrambled to his feet, his muscles screaming in protest, and raised his Zweihänder with trembling arms. He swung with every ounce of despair left in his body.
The warlord didn't even bother to parry with its weapon. It simply stepped into the swing, parrying the flat of the greatsword with a heavy iron forearm, and drove a massive, armored boot directly into Eisenhart’s chest.
Armor buckled, ribs cracked.
Eisenhart flew backward, his sword clattering away into the darkness. His head struck the stone step of the ruined bakery, and the world violently tilted. As the warlord closed the distance, lifting its ax to finish the job, the orange firelight began to bleed into an inescapable, cold darkness. The last sound he heard before slipping into unconsciousness was the triumphant, mocking blare of warhorns as Eisenhart’s vision fades to black.