Five days later, the deed was done. The wind howled with a jagged edge, and the cold air rendered Alpheo's face a numb mask as he watched, impassive and still, the bitter fruits of his victory.
The chill seeping into his bones reminded him of a time he would have preferred to forget. But it came nontheless, how slick and freezing beneath his plate the mud had felt, and how his body had burned with heat while he lay suspended between the world of the living and the realm of the silent.
He fought down a shiver born of the memory of his own mortality. Had that lance found its mark a mere inch to the left, it would have been his brains splattered against the interior of his helm. Instead, he had escaped with nothing more than a shallow scratch. A miracle of the Five? Or perhaps they simply weren't finished with him?
He decided he would have a lifetime to ponder the whims of the gods; for now, he would not waste another moment musing on what might have been.
