After some minutes had dragged past, a stretch of time that somehow seemed to last for hours, a horn finally sliced through the air.
It was a war horn, yes, the kind Alpheo had heard perhaps a thousand times? And yet... this one was different.
Perhapse it was its meaning that made it so.
Against the endless, metallic clangor of battle, it should have been swallowed whole. Instead, it sounded small, almost delicate, and yet it cut through the chaos, reaching Alpheo's ears with an unnatural, chilling clarity.
He felt it resonate deep inside his chest, as though the horn's low, bronze note had been blown straight into the marrow of his bones. It mocked him; mocked his helplessness, his crushing uncertainty, his utter inability to seize the reins of the impending disaster.
The battle was no longer his to command.
