“State your purpose, outsider!” A masculine roar reverberates towards an approaching silhouette, veiled partially by misty mountain clouds. This enigmatic shrouded figure intrudes while striding with ease through deep snow, approaching an encampment where three barbaric warriors huddle cautiously around a bonfire. With a sudden fierce gust of the howling wind, the fog is forced to retreat to the sky above, revealing the snowy mountain peak and its now exposed invader. A young vigorous woman materializes from the white clouds, a woman with what could’ve been an alluring face, but which has grown unpleasant after past misfortunes; one side is burned, the scorched skin visible even through the evaporating mist. Her hairline is reduced, from the left side to the middle, by the burned scalp – the blonde hair remains wavy in a tight single knot. With multiple decorated sheathed knives pinned to her chest and waist and beastly skins hung around her neck, this heroic vision of an agile warrior, clad in chainmail and leather, encroaches on the encampment. Halting before the warriors, she boldly answers, “My purpose is to lay the voices that keep calling for blood to rest. Voices that I’ve neglected for many years. Yet, none stopped, they only grew more menacing as time passed. Those same voices, upon seeing you, have finally turned into calm whispers of how close we are.”
The three barbaric warriors rise, moving away from the large fire. All three, equipped with metal plates and swords, face the heroic woman. One of them, distinctly the commander by virtue of the two-handed blade and heavy armour, steps forward to shout his warning, “There is but one voice you should listen to right now, and it is this one telling you to stay away, for we offer you no shelter. Go back to where you came before night falls.”
The heroine throws her beastly skins into the deep snow. Both her hands embrace the hilts of the daggers at her chest, pulling them free from their sheaths. She proclaims gravely, “I can’t leave without spilling your blood. For it is you who butchered my father when I was but a shackled infant. You named me an orphan with nothing but a craving for retribution, thus you initiated my path to your demise. Draw your blade and riot against your fate.”
The heavily armoured commander standing across from the heroine begins to snicker; the laugh evolves into a loud roar, echoing through the soaring snowy peaks. The two warriors behind the laughing commander warily observe the situation. Vigilantly, they let their hands fall on the hilts of their blades. Unconcerned by the heroine’s presence, the commander exclaims, “You’re but a woman, an ugly one at that. I’m surprised that a lass even made it this far up. I’ve killed many men, some deserved it, others might not. But whatever I did to your father, I can and will do worse to you. When I draw my blade, it will be the last thing you’ll see as it slits the eyes from your face. Remove yourself from this mountain! Before you tempt me too much.”
The heroine smirks before delivering her fateful serene words, “You have a disdain for women, excellent – it will be your final mistake. Thus, the more delight I’ll find upon seeing your blood stain the snow. Now, draw!”
The suspense conceived by her stern words evaporates the commander’s grin. The earlier brassy laugh, demonstrating his authority, decays in the eyes of his men, his prowess tainted by a mere lass. Hard-nosed, imperiously, he responds, “I’ve had enough of your bravery without action!”
The commander looks over his shoulder, shouting an order at both men who eagerly await the skirmish, “Take her alive! Do with her as you please!”
Maliciously, the commander’s callous gaze returns to the female warrior as he continues, “For even with that hideous burned face, they’ll have a use for you.”
The two warriors respond swiftly to the order by drawing their blades and simultaneously dashing towards the heroine. A frontal assault is launched, passing the commander who indifferently turns away. Two rusty swords, guided by veteran hands intrude, warriors who endeavour to slice into the limbs of this mysterious woman. To chop the thorns from a rose, the sting of a scorpion, the fangs of a lion. An attempt to obstruct their adversary’s ability to strike, to take the heroine alive, precedes a predictable attack. The brave woman who opposes these barbarians attained her proficiency by enduring a ruthless life in this uncivilized world. Every swollen bruise, all her ghastly scars, each whip that sullied her naked back, the burning of her once pretty face – it all brought her closer to fate. They all tried to cage this fabled woman, yet none who tried understood that this one was fate-bound. She eludes the relentless charge of the warriors with a brisk agile sidestep, she escapes the advancing peril and dodges beneath the swing of swords to leap daringly behind both warriors, their flanks open for her onslaught. They’ve made their futile move, now it’s her turn to demonstrate what the life she lived created. With two swift whirlwinds of movement, she cuts between their metal plates, carving deep into their torsos. Blood freed by precise slices into arteries sprays into the fresh mountain air to splatter onto the heroine’s face. The red fluid arcs through the air, staining the white mountain top with a crimson smear. When the blood soaks into the snow, it sinks deeper, melting its way down. The warriors, dissected where they stood, fall apart in pieces. A merciless blood-besmirched face serenely exclaims once again, “Now, draw!”
The commander turns around, taking in the outcome of her ferocious brutal combativeness. With dread blooming in his eyes, he yells, “Who are you, girl?”
“I never got to learn my true name for you took that right from me when you killed my father. I became a nameless thrall, sold into slavery by your doing. The tribe that finally broke my shackles, gifted me the name Joan of Arc. A name restored from an ancient book. The name that will be sung as kindred to your death.”
“My death? You’ll die a nameless whore! No one from any tribe will find you here on this mountain. I will eradicate your existence into hollowness. Your corpse will forever be frozen in the place you die. That is your fate!”
The freshly forsaken warrior clasps the hilt of his weapon and hauls it above his shoulder. With all his strength and agility, he nimbly tries to pull the blade free from its scabbard on his back. Just before the tip is liberated from the sheath to protect him, his firm grasp loosens and the blade falls, sliding right back into the scabbard. When fully sheathed once again, the heavy weight of the sword and the cross-guard slamming against the scabbard pushes the man to his knees. Both hands swing powerless at his sides. An abundance of blood splashes in the snow between his legs. Blood drips down the heroine’s red-stained burned face, then trickles onto a blade, the sharp metal deeply penetrating the man’s neck. She holds the knife steady, piercing his throat and keeping him in place. The blood on her face, belonging to his men, drips down to mingle with the fluid spewing from the rupture, coalescing onto the horizontal surface of the blade. While trying to utter a word, the poor man only manages to gush more blood to flow like a wave over the blade. Her fateful, driven eyes look down upon him, she watches him suffer while she speaks for him, “Your final thoughts should be the everlasting question on your journey towards nowhere, did you ever even have a chance?”
Fearful dying eyes stare up at the heroine who still holds the man in place with the hilt of her dagger. His mouth moves, but nothing can be heard; only the menacing sound of flesh and blood twisted by metal chants a melody of death. Whatever comes after life, whatever death means, it is nigh for the commander. Thus, the heroine tenaciously reveals the antagonist’s destiny, “We are born to die, but you, you were bred to be killed. You had no choice nor chance. And you’ll have no final thoughts on your journey towards nowhere. All you’ll have is the image of my face, the blood-soaked face created by your doing. Your conduct seduced you down the path of inevitability. Your fate is enslaved by my hand.”
Her eyes widen ferociously as she slashes the knife to her right, freeing it from the enclosing flesh. Blood spatters and flows to spread out and consume all the white snow this summit has to offer. A final splatter of the fluid spits upwards and the corpse plunges, the blood from the cut throat taken by a gust of merciless wind, lifted away from the mountain top, falling further into the valleys below. Thus, her descent begins – through the snow tainted by blood.