This is an edit and re-posting of the fourth vignette. I wasn't happy with the original so I completely altered it to a completely different vignette.

Blood.

He was twenty-one the first time he killed another man. He remembered it vividly.

"Attack!" Araman's baritone voice yelled out across the courtyard of Knights. "We're under attack!"

Elmont, who was sitting in the shade nearby the stables, conversing happily with Crawe, snapped his head to his captain's direction. "I repeat, we are under attack!" Not needing to be told twice what to do and with adrenaline coursing through his veins, he surged to his feet, Crawe hot on his heels.

Elmont didn't need to look behind him to know his friend was right with him. The two had always fought beside one another, and that was how it would remain.

"Captain!" Elmont gasped as he jogged to a halt before Araman. The older man shared an alarmed look with him for a long moment. Elmont couldn't help but notice the wire thin lines at the corner of his eyes and wondered if they had always been there or if they had just appeared now. The haunted expression his eyes projected towards the young man sent a chilling shiver down his spine.

"It's the Magyars, Elmont. You and Crawe take your posts by the entrance!" With that Araman flew off into the other direction, bursting under the archway and up the stairs that led him to the top of the tower where the archers were assembling.

Magyars. The name struck Elmont in reminiscence. He had been told about them a few years ago by his instructors. They were descendants from the Hungarians, and warriors too, but some relocated to other parts of the world such as England.

"Elmont! Come on!" Crawe called as he ran up to the gate. Elmont grabbed his sword steady in its sheath and dashed towards the iron gates that were closing at the entrance.

The silence was deafening as they stood in a block formation, swords and crossbows at the ready. The archers, along with Araman, were poised and ready up top with their arrows.

Soon there was a monstrous roar and the battle began as the Magyars charged towards the iron gates with the body of an Oak tree. Elmont and the men stood their ground, waiting for their signal to engage the enemy once they were through. All too soon they had compromised the gate and were flooding into the courtyard like the plague.

Heat licked at and soot settled on the skin of his face as the archers released their fire-tipped arrows and the flames ignited upon the grassland, the attacking men, trees and the oil covered water.

The sky was painted orange as the sparks from the flames drifted lazily into the sky, the smoke smudging over it like chalk as the flames devoured anything in its path hungrily like a pack of wolves. The clash of the swords and the cries of pain echoed around him relentlessly as he and his men fought and died side by side.

He never forgot the moment he faced his own adversary, blonde, blue-eyed and young like him, perhaps younger. The man charged at him, axe raised high above his head, and Elmont ducked and threw him over his body and onto his back. He spun around and began to make the final blow towards the downed man's abdomen, who rolled swiftly to his left and back onto his feet as the tip of Elmont's blade crashed into the cobblestone ground.

He turned to the other man once more, circling him and waiting for the moment to pounce. Elmont realised that the man was a calculative combatant also. If his first aggressive attack failed then he would go on the defensive. He understood what he would have to do.

For the first time in battle, Elmont leapt into the offensive. He bounded forwards and took a swing for the man's left side, which he jumped out of the way of, before swinging for his right, which he blocked. Moving in again, Elmont swung for his right side again, but at the last moment, averted his swords path towards his leg. The man failed to see this feign and soon hissed and leapt back in pain as Elmont's blade sliced through his exposed leg, tearing tendons and ligaments.

The man fell to one knee, his weapon falling to the ground beside him as the wound spurted with blood. The blood trailed along the cobblestone ground, filling in each gap like a liquid puzzle. The man's complexion paled incredibly until he was as white as a sheet and could not even hold onto his weapon anymore.

The blade sliced through air, flesh and bone a second later. Elmont watched, eyes cold as the beheaded figure fell on its side before him. Spurts of blood, before it fell, splattered onto his armour and face, a drop touching his parted lips.

The first real battle that he had ever been in was singed into his memory like a hot iron poker, the images black and grey except the blood. All except the blood. Scarlet, rich and coppery as it touched his bottom lip and trailed further fowards touching his tongue. His stomach churned. It was sickening.

It felt as though time had frozen around him, despite the battle being theirs, as the men carried the dead, dropping them carelessly into a mountainous pile, and marching away those who had been captured. He felt an enormous wave of pride wash over him in the first few seconds after his victory before the reality of his actions came crashing down on him with trepidation, along with the guilt that would forever rest on his shoulders. Killing was a horrific thing. Taking the life of a man was so much more ominous than that from the stuff of legend. It was more personal.

As he forced his now weak yet impossibly heavy legs to move him away from the body, he barely registered the clap on his shoulder from Crawe with a mute nod as he passed him with a captive. However he registered the look in Araman's eyes as he passed him on the way down from the archers' tower. It was the exact same look he had given him just before they had gone to take their posts.

Now he understood the haunted look in Araman's eyes as he gazed at him for a long time. His eyes had briefly flashed with sorrow. Elmont realised, just as much as he, though he wished he didn't have to dwell on that, that he too would have to take a life one day. Only now did Elmont realise that it was the look of pity he was offering him. The wires next to his mahogany eyes formed as a result of stress from the crushing and eternal guilt. He swallowed the large lump lodged in his throat with difficulty.

He had stolen a life, just like these men around him, and he could not give it back.

God forgive me...

Elmont stared down at his now empty hands, sword forgotten on the ground.

Blood.

So much blood.

He remembered later on that same evening when he had rushed back into the bathroom of his chambers, hastily drowning his hands in the pale of water, scrubbing them with soap, and raising them to his line of sight again. Whilst the blood was no longer there in reality, in his eyes it still remained, seeping into his roughened skin. He had learnt that day that the blood of a man refused to wash off. No matter how much soap he used, it would never go away.

This chapter is a reference to Elmont's question of 'Have you ever killed a man?' to Jack. I wanted to explore how this came about as well as how it affected him.