“Gillion! Take your horsemen down the left flank! Carry the banner and make haste!” Lord Haldon cried out, pointing down the line with his glistening silver blade. Gillion obeyed his father.

  A sea of red and yellow banners stretched from coast to coast, seemingly endless as he galloped down the rows and rows of men that stood at attention. Waves of metal helmets bobbed up and down to the beat of the marching horns, and in the sky spying-hawks cried out to the men below them, signaling in bird-speech the movements of their advancing enemies. Today, on the fields of Galadon, the final great war of the realm threatened to place the Immortal King on the throne of the world, and the last armies in the east gathered to defend their homeland one final time.

  The red cloth flapping above Gillion as he rode bore the crest of House Haldon, a great eagle crushing a serpent beneath its talons, the symbol for the rulers of the eastern kingdoms. The yellow cloth in their midst bore the lion’s mane sigil of the Hornet’s Hide, a group of mercenaries to the far west who usually took to the seas, plundering and pillaging their way across the high seas. Desperate times called Lord Haldon to employ the cutthroats, and much to Gillion’s surprise, the sea-dogs showed up. They stood at attention with the rest of the men, slightly dirtier, but just as disciplined. Gillion could respect that.

  The young prince knew in his chest that this was a losing battle. He could feel Blackened Death clawing at his throat, causing him to swallow hard as the pounding in his chest grew heavier and heavier. Under his glistening silver armor Gillion trembled, shaking more now than when he had first been knighted. At the time, Gillion thought that he could never be more frightened. Now, looking across the yellowish-green fields of Galadon, he realized just how wrong he had been. He pulled the reins of his horse, Saltruin, and brought the animal skidding to a halt. He looked to the eyes of his men, fear carved into their sweat-streaked faces. Their armor rattled as they stared ahead. Did his own armor betray his fear as well?

  “Stand steady, men!” Gillion called out. “Never have the houses of Haldon been conquered. Today will be no different!”

  His words were unconvincing. Ahead of them, standing motionless against the darkened morning sky, gathered the hundred-thousand. King Ziusudra’s conquered forces turned to his cause once he had taken their lands and slaughtered their families, much to the surprise and dismay of all the other kings in the realm. Usually when a king conquered, the army would be imprisoned or killed, fought down to the last man, but not the armies Ziusudra conquered. They joined his banner as soon as he set foot in their land. Gillion’s father, Lord Haldon, claimed that its cause came from the darkest of arts, the Old Song. His suspicions were confirmed when Ziusudra himself stepped onto the battlefield and had found himself invulnerable.

  The hundred-thousand were strangely silent. Gillion had been around armies his entire life, and they were not meant to be a place of silence. The screeching of spy-hawks, the screaming of commanders, the pounding of boots against rock or dirt or mud, armies were as much noise as they were men. But across the field, a mere six-hundred feet in front of them, The Immortal King’s armies stood silently. No words were shared, no horses stamped their feet, nothing. They didn’t even carry banners. That’s what unnerved Gillion the most.

  The sound of his uncle’s horse clopping toward him drew his attention away from the motionless, gray army ahead of him.

  “You wear the red sash well, Gillion. You look like a prince today more than ever before.” His uncle, Lord Govrin, said in his gruff, shaky voice. The man in dull, reddish-gray armor rode up next to his nephew and clasped him on the shoulder. “When we get out of this, your father will have to make you regent. It’s time you started practicing.”

  “If we get out of this, uncle.” Gillion said, trying to keep his voice from trembling. A look from his uncle told him that he had failed.

  “When, Gillion. I can feel it in the wind. This is not our day to die.” Govrin turned to the opposing army and chuckled, looking down the line which stretched off beyond the end of the horizon. “They have almost double our men. This should be a proper smashing, wouldn’t you say?”

  Gillion swallows hard. “You don’t seem nervous, uncle.”

  “I’m about to shit myself, boy. A man would have to be mad to not fear that.” Govrin said, pointing to the armies gathered ahead of them. “But I think we have a chance. The old bastard didn’t bother showing up for this battle, so if every one of ours kills three of theirs, we’ll live to fight another day.”

  “Ziusudra isn’t here?”

  His uncle shook his head. “A spy-hawk told me that he didn’t spot the red sword anywhere amongst their ranks. No red sword, no Ziusudra.”

  A wave of relief washed over Gillion, and he immediately sat taller in his saddle. The Immortal King was a scourge on the battlefield, a nightmare to fight against. A hundred men couldn’t hold the man down, and any blade raised against him shattered upon his armor. Ziusudra was an earthquake, a hurricane, a tidal wave that crashed through the ranks and spat out corpses. At least, that’s what the stories said. They didn’t believe it until Ziusudra was on their doorstep.

  “He’s down in Jhiulias waiting to be crowned. If the battle goes well for him today, the Singers have agreed to crown him One-King. The impatient lad probably didn’t want to bother himself with battle.” Govrin pulled the reins to the right, turning and facing the army fighting alongside them. “These are good men, Gillion. Fine citizens, fine fathers and brothers and sons. It’s a shame to know war with them.”

  Gillion nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving his uncle’s. The old man was just as scared as he was, with tears beginning to well up in his eyes and hands that trembled while holding the reins. He had never seen his uncle scared, and he had certainly never seen the man cry. It brought a whole new series of nervous pains shooting through his body, all culminating in Gillion’s chest. Blackened Death’s hands squeezed Gillion’s heart, screaming at him to turn tail and flee.

  “Anyway.” Govrin started again, collecting himself. “Your father has made you commander of the banners in the left flank for a reason. They will follow your charge into battle, as you follow Lord Haldon’s charge. To whatever end, Gillion, we do our duty. Luck upon us, nephew.”

  With his parting words, Gillion watched his uncle gallop back down the line. He was commander at last. A position he had sought since his youth, given to him ironically during his final days. Despite the looming dread, he still felt pride. He would lead his men well, to whatever bitter end awaited them.

  ~~~

  Awaken, Gillion, Son of Haldon.

  Gillion couldn’t breathe. He found himself startled awake by a voice digging into his skull, and felt the chill of night wash over his bones as the weight on his chest grew heavier and heavier. Saltruin lay just on top of him, dead from the battle that occurred that morning. An arrow to his horse’s eye ended Gillion’s time in the fight before he had even reached the front lines, and he had remained unconscious until long after the battle was over. Now, he was gasping for air. His armor had given way to the weight of the dead horse on top of him, and as the metal crushed his ribcage he found it a struggle to pry himself free from beneath Saltruin’s massive form.

  It was taking him longer than it should have to break free, but something in him had broken. Whether from the fall or being trampled afterward, a sharp pain shot down from his shoulder to his hip, and every time he moved he could feel his insides become more and more twisted. He had to twist back and forth, back and forth, grunting all the while the pain inside him grew fiercer. Finally, the horse rolled off of his mangled form, and he slowly pushed himself up to his feet, wincing with every labored breath that escaped his lips. He grunted through the pain as he tore his armor off, throwing the once silver armor down into the bloody mud beneath him. His hands went to his face, wiping off the filth that had accumulated there from hours of laying beneath a battlefield, and he gritted his teeth to stifle the pain as he ran his fingers through his shoulder-length black hair.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The stars were out bright over the fields of Galadon, the moon shining down like a spotlight upon the battlefield. A slight breeze crossed the horizon, heading to that infinite line where the Heavens meet the Earth, and Gillion shivered amongst the dead around him. Exactly how long had it been since the battle?

  Gillion, Son of Haldon, last of the eastern peoples. Turn and face the land of your forefathers.

  Once again that sharp voice carved its way into his skull, causing him to squeeze the sides of his head as hard as he could in an attempt to stop it. It was a searing thing, a crawling, biting, burning thing that entered at the base of his skull and wriggled its way through the bone, until all that was left within his head was a throbbing headache. He turned to the east, as the voice had commanded, and felt the pain subside.

  Walk.

  He walked. One foot in front of the other, Gillion walked in what was left of his heavy, shattered armor, dragging an empty scabbard behind him. He wove through the piles of corpses built up around him, looking to the faces of each man he passed to see if he knew any of them. He recognized a few, a man called Bradlin, a baker from southern Cappot, a stable boy that had once worked at his Lord’s palace. Very few of the dead were Ziusudra’s.

  The more he walked, the more numb he became. The biting cold of night in the northeastern lands had settled fully over the battlefield, and a crack of thunder sounded out in the sky. The first snowfall of the year had begun. On this night the kingdoms of the east would have been celebrating, the children playing in the snow, their cheeks red with excitement. He remembered his own youthful years stuck inside the palace, learning from his tutors the history of the nations he would one day rule. The warmth of the fireplace, the frost slowly creeping up the windows, the gentle breathing sound of his father looking over the young man’s work. All of it was lost now. Buried in a pile of bodies and blood.

  There was no warmth on this battlefield. He shivered, causing his teeth to rattle louder and louder as he continued his trek forward. Had they really killed none of the immortal king’s army?

  Walk faster.

  He sped up. Whatever voice commanded him kept him moving. If he were to stop in this dreaded frost, he knew he would join those who had fallen here. Better to obey the voice than to heed Blackened Death’s call.

  After what seemed to him to be an eternity, he finally came to a stop. In front of Gillion was a pile of corpses taller than he was, and wider than a wagon. Their blood seeped out into the piling snow around them, the red crimson reflecting moonlight into Gillion’s eyes. He breathed heavily, heaving as the smell of iron mingled with the needling cold, jabbing the smell of death into his nostrils and making him want to faint.

  Climb.

  He started climbing. He stepped only on body parts still covered in armor, not daring to tread upon the exposed portions of his former comrades. He slipped a few times during his ascent, skidding off of blood and viscera as he slowly, slowly climbed his way to the top. Faces stared at him from the pile. Helmeted heads, eyes rolling back as they laid there, deceased. He knew some of these men as well, he had seen them in the line, though he had never gotten to learn their names. Gillion told himself that if he could do it all over again, if he could go back to before the battle, he would memorize the names of each of these men, though he knew the thought was useless. No amount of regret would bring them back.

  Finally he reached the top. He fell to his knees, taking a moment to catch his breath before finally looking up. The pile of corpses he stood upon had to have been over twelve feet tall, piled up by the enemy after the battle was over. Why they did such a thing, he had no idea.

  Look eastward.

  Gillion turned to the east, and his breath caught in his throat. At the center of the pile was a sight new to Gillion’s eyes. A tight swirl of flesh and what seemed like melted metal had all gathered around a single point like a whirlpool above an abyss. A tall, thin, silvery blade with a dimly glowing red handle jutted out from the center of the pile, as if it had called in and mutilated the bodies in that swirl to keep itself stuck. Gillion knew this to be his father’s blade. And he knew the corpse beneath it to be his father.

  Gillion rushed forward, cupping his hands around his father’s lifeless face as he tried to pry him from the pile of melted bodies and armor, to little success. He sobbed, his tears falling wet onto his father’s cold skin, and though he wanted to hug the man tightly his position within the pile had made the action almost impossible. Lord Haldon’s lower half had fallen victim to the same candle-like melting that the rest of the bodies had succumbed to, except for his hands, which grasped the blade of the sword tightly, even to their own destruction. Through the tears Gillion could make no sense of the sights before his eyes. He knew, at least in his mind, that this was the workings of dark magics, of promises made and kept by the Old Song, but he knew no fear at this moment. Despite the bodies beneath him and the sword in front of his eyes, Gillion thought only of his father, of his uncle probably buried somewhere out there in the snow, of his life, now gone. Crushed under the heavy heel of an unkillable king. There was nothing left for him.

  Your father did not die for you to cower in the cold.

  Gillion looked up. The sword’s handle shimmered as it spoke to him, sending those same searing words into his mind. This time the heat did not burn, however, it was simply there. The voice spoke in hushed tones, in a voice that was feminine and soft, not hard and commanding as it had once been.

  “Was it you that did this?” Gillion said between choked sobs. “Was it you that mangled these bodies?”

  No. The sword said, shimmering brighter. It was your father.

  What? Gillion knew his father was no sorcerer. Lord Haldon believed in his time that the Old Song was profane, that it was something to be left untouched, lest he wished to bring about destruction for himself and his people. The sword spoke nonsense.

  In his final act he ensured that the enemy would never seize me.

  Gillion looked up.

  You are correct in your thought, Son of Haldon. Your father was no sorcerer. But in his final moments he called out to the Old Song and made a promise, and the Old Song answered.

  “What promise?” Gillion asked, starting to move forward.

  I don’t rightfully know. The words he spoke were private, hidden from me, despite our connection.

  “I… see.” Gillion said. Nothing made sense to him. This battle, this sword, the emergence of an unkillable king. More and more as the days went by, sorceries and dark magics became as numerous as the stars, and everywhere he turned there was another threat created by the Old Song or something darker. He felt at that moment his chest tighten. These were no longer the times of great men on steeds, the times of spears and shields, no. These were the times of dark days and unknowable magic. And he no longer had a part in it.

  “Why call out to me?” Gillion asked, his voice shaky. “You should have let me die beneath Saltruin. At least then I could say I died in the battle.”

  Because I loved your father. The sword said, sadly. And he loved you.

  Gillion huffed and closed his eyes. His father’s final words to him were commands, desperate, pleading commands. In life he was a hard man, one that loved his children and wanted the best for them, but also one that didn’t speak of it often. Gillion wondered if his father knew that he loved him. He had to have known, right?

  Draw me from my place in this pile, Gillion, son of Lord Haldon. Put me in your empty scabbard and run far, far away from this place. For the more you run, the greater the distance between you and Blackened Death. Flee, heir to the east. And never return.

  Gillion looked ahead of him, toward his home, toward the kingdoms that he was promised would be his some day. If Ziusudra’s armies hadn’t ransacked them, then the people would be sleeping now, dreaming of better days when the sun shined more and the cold didn’t bite so bitterly. The children would be wearing red and yellow this time of year, to commemorate House Haldon’s unifying of the east. The trees in the central gardens would be bright green against the stark white contrast of the snow, and the smell of firewood burning would seep from the houses and into the streets.

  Gillion stood firm on the pile of bodies now, looking down at the glowing red hilt of the sword. The night air around him seemed less cold than it really was, and for the first time since he had risen from his place beneath Saltruin, he stood tall. No shivering, no chattering of the teeth, no pain from a broken body. Gillion resolved himself and took a deep breath. Then he wrapped his fingers around the sword’s handle and pulled.