Memories and Battles
Prologue
The clashing of shields and the singing of sword was all he had heard for the last day or more. Days seemed to blend, and time seemed to stop. Now the yells and shouts of the warriors joined the noises of battle. As well as the cries of the injured and the death wails of the newly slain. Now sight filled what once was horrid, pressing blackness. Flashes of sight still images. A tree, a sword, a body, men running, the horrible, white, still face of a Cauldron Born, and finally red blood splashing on the rocks near him…His blood.
The pain seared his side, and a hot wetness trickled down his thigh and leg. Almost as if in slow motion his hands felt the wound and came up slick with his blood. He was falling now, the warriors all around him. It seemed, as the world was moving so slowly, so very slowly. He watched one of his warriors brought up his sword, another swung at one of the Huntsmen that seemed to accompany the Cauldron Born.
Finally he landed on the ground, it was surprising what one noticed before death. A beetle moving under a leaf near his head, a rock pressed into his back. Thoughts of his life flashed in his mind. Memories of friends, family, and the one he loved. Such sweet memories where all he had left, and soon they too would be gone. Above him appeared the face he so longed to see once more before death claimed him. The girl he had loved for years, the one who had always stood with him, in battle, or just in a tavern when he had too much to drink. He could she was speaking but her words he could not hear.
He wished he could smile at the memories of their lives together, at the site of her one last time. How had he come to such a fate, how had he come to die here? He remembered now. He remembered the happy days that lead up to the call, the answer, the rising forces, and the march to their death.