Though the rain fell, the sun still burned—hot and spiteful—its heat mingling with the sharp patter of dry droplets drumming against the steel of his armet. His armor sagged on his shoulders, heavier than he remembered, as if the earth itself conspired to drag him down.
Through the narrow slit of his visor, he caught sight of the land before him: a wide, sloping field thick with wild grass and low shrubs, lush and indifferent to the war creeping across it.
The rain had begun three, maybe four hours ago. By now, his boots were buried in mud that clung to him like chains, sucking at the greaves of his legs, anchoring him to that cursed patch of earth.
Across the field, a few hundred feet away, a line of men stood in grim formation. Their banners cracked in the wind—high and defiant. They were broken into groups: two units of footmen at the center, and a cavalry wedge forming on the far right, their formation sharp and poised to strike.
He turned his head—slowly, the weight resisting him—and scanned his own line. Faces hidden beneath helms, but fear hung thick in the air. No words needed. Some were more nervous than he was; he could feel it.
To his right, three men down, the banner-bearer stood. He gripped the pole until his knuckles blanched, the standard lifted high—a golden lion writhing in the wind, roaring its mute defiance into the gray.
Three hundred of them. Three companies, near a hundred each; he belonged to the second—the middle.
From where he stood, it felt like a sentence already passed. A muddy field, iron on his back, weight in every joint—this was no ground for valor. Here a man was likelier to sink and smother than to meet a clean blade.
On the chessboard, the pawn falls first; by measure it is the least and the first to be spent. So, it is with him: a pawn in this cold game of conquest.
The horn blew—one brutal note that struck the clouds and sent the gray sky shivering. Its echo rolled over the ranks and came back thinner, as if the heavens spat it out.
He trembled. He had told himself a hundred times he was ready to die; such vows are easy in a warm room, with a full belly and no eyes upon you. But now death had a face—featureless yet near—and his oaths felt like lies a man tells himself to sleep. Bravery, hunger for glory—these slipped from him like sweat under steel, leaving only a bare, shivering will.
A blur broke the line of men: an officer on a lathered horse, iron shoes ripping clods from the earth. The beast's breath steamed; its eyes rolled white. The rider leaned forward, voice flaying his throat as he carved back and forth before the formation.
"Prepare—advance! … Prepare—advance!"
The words were simple, the meaning heavy as mail. He heard leather creak and plate murmur as men shifted; he smelled wet wool, old grease, the sour stench of fear as real as rain. The command passed through them like a current through iron, and even those who pretended not to hear heard it all the same.
Across the field, a second horn answered—longer, lower, like a door locking from the other side. The enemy was moving. He could not see their faces, but he felt their intent—cold and methodical—as if the land itself had decided to swallow men and horses whole. Their banners crawled against the sky; he couldn't read their emblems at this distance, but he imagined snarls, claws, the old symbols of hunger.
Their own horn replied again, a mimic's shout, and it struck him that all war is an echo: one side calls, the other answers, and somewhere between the calls men are crushed.
To his left and right, the line thickened with breath and fidgeting steel. A man coughed; another crossed himself with a clink of knuckles on breastplate. The banner three men down—golden lion on wet cloth—snapped and twisted, sometimes kingly, sometimes mangled by the gale. The bearer's grip was a prayer made with fingers.
He set his weight forward. The first step was small—no one wished to be first, and yet no one could afford to be last. Mud sucked at their boots with a greedy, kissing sound. Each stride tore loose with effort, and every inch of steel grew heavier, as if the ground resented the theft. Water ran in thin sheets over his visor slit, turning the world into a wavering painting that refused to hold still.
He told himself to keep breathing. In, out. Count if you must. Do not look at the officer's mouth; look at his hands, at the reins, at the way the horse obeys. Obedience is a kind of mercy. Valor is a word men use when the horn is far away.
"Advance!" The final bark came like a hammer on anvil. The ranks lurched. Shields edged forward; spearheads quivered; the clatter of a dropped blade rang out and died quickly, as if ashamed to be heard.
He felt the man beside him brush his pauldron—just a touch, unmeant, but it steadied him. They moved together; a single creature made of iron plates and quaking hearts. The rain softened their edges, erased their faces, turned them into shapes trudging toward other shapes.
Another step. The mud rose and tried to hold him, jealous as a lover. He wrenched free. Another step. The field narrowed; the world became a corridor of breath and noise—the hiss of rain, the groan of leather, the lion's wet snap above.