The sound of a canon being fired resounded throughout the valley, littered with corpses. The noise echoed throughout the valley and there was a moment of grim silence before both sides charged at each other, swinging their swords and axes, shouting war cries. Some praying as they charged, some cursing. Both sides met in a bright clash of flesh and metal. In that very instant, many lives had been taken. Since deaths in the first charge were inevitable, the archers kept firing, kept firing…those were the orders; keep firing. And so they did…

  The sound of the canon being shot sounded the end of the battle, the end of another day. The valley was littered with corpses and blood. The air was stale and tainted with sorrow; it seemed the earth was mourning for those lost. Men picked themselves up from the dirt and dragged away the wounded or dead.

* * *

   Úlfr dragged was dragged into the sick ward, a deep slash carving down the left side of his face, starting from his forehead and ending just behind his ear. “Nasty. Any closer and it wud’ve cut yur ear off! Lucky,” commented the doctor as he wound a cloth around his head. Úlfr was dismissed quickly as “able-to-fight”, another wounded soldier taking his place in the ward. Úlfr staggered out, holding his wound tenderly. “So this is war. The reality of it,” he thought miserably to himself. His friend and comrade, Wrel Dymtri, otherwise known as Wrench, on account of the wrench he kept in his belt, in case he lost his weapon, came by him, sporting an impressive cut on his arm, all bandaged up. Úlfr showed his own injury, hair matted with blood. “That’ll leave a scar, all right,” remarked Wrench, envious. A loud call came from the captain, “All right, men. Time for bed! Another battle comes tomorrow.” There was groaning all round, then dousing of the lights and the sounds of sleep.

   Wrench turned in his sleep, mumbling incoherently, his tossing and turning intensified. His eyes flew open and he sat straight up, trembling and in a cold sweat. He rubbed the goosebumps on his arms and shook his head roughly to rid it of the nightmares of the war. A shadow in the shape of a man passed over the tent. Wrench grabbed his weapon warily and stood up. He undid the tent flaps and stepped out. “Unth-!” Wrench gasped in pain and shock as he looked down at and saw longsword wedged between his ribs. He looked into the eyes of his killer and jerked the blade into his ribs further, so his killer was in reach, and then Wrench drew his own sword and slashed downwards, cutting his killer neatly from the base of his neck to his torso. They both fell, the blood-red flower of death blossoming at Wrench’s chest.