As dawn broke over the hills to the east I was left with an uneasy feeling in my chest. Today would be the day of the battle. My first battle. My sword gleamed in the early morning light but that seemed almost an ironic gesture. My sword, killing instrume nt, gleaming brightly almost purely, as if it were good. I hated killing but the Dark Queens army was an unnatural foe and one I would battle to my last with. Looking west I saw the black standards and tents of the Draconian forces. The thought of dying d idn’t frighten me, it was the dying part. Would it hurt very much to die? A foot of cold steel imbedded in your chest. I realised then that no training could prepare you for this.
The clear trumpet call sounded and broke me out of my thoughts. Battle was soon to be joined. We, the Knights of Solamnia assembled on the fields that were to be soon trampled and bloody. Corn blew calmly in the light breeze. The enemy swarmed out of thei r tents and soon were forming a rough formation of sorts. Black dots moved everywhere, the enemy. We were outnumbered four to one. It was to be the day that I almost certainly died. But, I vowed, I would go down taking them with me, screaming all the way to their Goddess.
There, the trumpet call, we charged forwards, and soon the enemy were in contact with us, the first wave of them fell before our initial charge and then I was in the melee. It was not the one on one honourable combat that I had expected. There was barely a chance to strike a blow before the opponent or yourself was torn away by the movement of bodies, the ebb of the battle. A draconian cut a lengthy gouge down my arms with its claws. I eviscerated another, jerking free my sword before it could entrap it i n the stony prison of its own body. Why? The question screamed at me but I had not the time to consider anything. Then as my latest opponent wheeled away from me a draconian came out of the melee towards me, slicing a Knight down as it came, almost absen t mindedly.
I charged at it, eager to avenge my comrades death, even though I knew not who he was. The Draconian muttered something in it’s own tongue, most probably an insult and then it attacked. Time slowed while I fought. Blade rung against blade as I struggled w ith it. And then, it was all over. I brought my blade up to parry its attack and then it recovered remarkably quickly. Cold steel sliced into me. I fell to my knees seeing no remorse in the eyes of my killer. It jerked free it’s blade and I fell down, fee bly watching as everything grew darker, seeing the body of the Knight who had fallen on the ground near me.
No Knight lived to tell the tale that day.
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