Warel turned to his troops. “Ready yourselves!” He gripped his spear and watched as his men prepared to charge.
  “No!” The word came from behind Warel - loud, as if someone had shouted in his ear. He turned but the stranger still stood a dozen yards away. “No,” said the stranger more quietly this time. He raised a hand.
  At his bidding, a golden ball, half again the size of a man’s head, floated out from within the silver spheres and halted in front of the stranger. The ball resembled a large golden eye with a hand-sized blue iris that it faced toward the stranger. The orb hovered motionlessly and the stranger began to blink rapidly.
  The emergence of the golden ball hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Hasafs. Their tight ranks were again collapsing and the high priest was arguing with the general. Both gestured toward the silver spheres.
  The stranger ceased blinking and the golden ball floated between the two armies perched on their respective hilltops. Warel didn’t know why, but felt glad the eye wasn’t looking at his troops.
  Without a word or sound, a red beam of light flashed from the eye and scanned the Hasafs from left to right. It took a heartbeat for the movement to complete.
  It took another heartbeat for the screaming to begin.
  The first three Hasafs ranks collapsed in a gruesome manner. Their waists slid from their hips as their bodies were sliced in two. The screams of the dying were soon overshadowed by the screams of the panicked. The Hasaf battle line broke as men turned to flee. The eye flashed again and more slaughtered men fell in pieces.
  The eye moved forward in pursuit.
  Warrior, priest, slave, it mattered not to the all-seeing eye of destruction. It flashed left and right, a scythe of death, harvesting the fleeing Hasafs. Within a dozen heartbeats a third of the Hasaf army was down.
  The Hasafs were routed, but the killing continued.
  Warel could not comprehend the images flooding his mind. The hilltop was littered with pieces of men. Nothing moved in that mound of meat except the slow streams of blood that found their way down the hillside.
  His own men stared in shock. Never before had so many men died in battle so quickly. Warel turned to the stranger. He had committed the slaughter of thousands without moving a muscle or shedding a tear.
  Only a God could be so callous.